Social Work in Republic of Buryatia/Russia

The Republic of Buryatia is situated in Eastern Sibiria, the eastern coast of Baikal Lake. The total area of the republic is 351 thousand square kilometers. The capital of Republic is Ulan-Ude. The modern social-economic situation in Russia is extremely paradoxical and multiaspectual - negative processes take place almost in all spheres of the society. The introduction of market economy principles, the process of privatisation, and the last economic crises in the Federation of Russia have brought many social phenomena - among them increasing poverty, homelessness and still high rate of unemployment are the worst one. It makes the changes in the state social welfare programmes and functioning patterns be implemented. Social problems are especially very important in the so-called "depressive" regions of Russia (Buryatia Republic is among those regions). The most important is the staff supplement of social services and the level of professionalism of people who work there. This problem consists of two aspects: first, the number of specialists with professional education of social workers is not enough; second, the level of professionalism of the workers is very low.

The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter: Essays in Honour of David Thomas

The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter is a Festschrift in honour of David Thomas, Professor of Christianity and Islam, and Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Inter Religious Relations, at the University of Birmingham, UK. The Editors have put together a collection of over 30 contributions from colleagues of Professor Thomas that commences with a biographical sketch and representative tribute provided by a former doctoral student, and comprises a series of wide-ranging academic papers arranged to broadly reflect three dimensions of David Thomas’ academic and professional work – studies in and of Islam; Christian-Muslim relations; the Church and interreligious engagement. These are set in the context of a focussed theme – the character of Christian-Muslim encounters – and cast within a broad chronological framework.

Ein Symposium der Forschung [Rezension] : Occident and Orient. Being Studies in Semitic Philology and Literature, Jewish History, Philosophy and Folklore in the widest sense. In Honour of Haham Dr. Gasters 80. Birthday ed. by Bruno Schindler and A. Marmorstein. Taylors Foreign Press, London 1937

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How Peripheral Is the Periphery? Translating Portugal Back and Forth. Essays in Honour of João Ferreira Duarte

This volume is a result of the need to reflect upon Portugal’s position from the viewpoint of the literary assets imported and exported through translation. It brings together a number of scholars working in the field of Translation Studies directly concerned with the Portuguese cultural system in order to analyse this question from various theoretical perspectives and from case studies of translation flows and movements in Portuguese culture. By Translating Portugal Back and Forth, the articles discuss issues such as: how can one draw the borderline between a peripheral and a semi-peripheral system? Is this borderline useful or necessary? How peripheral is the Portuguese cultural system as far as translation transfers are concerned? How stable or pacific has this positioning been? Does the economic and historical perception of Portugal as peripheral entail that, from the viewpoint of translation, it would behave similarly? By addressing some of these questions, and as shown by the (second) subtitle – Essays in Honour of João Ferreira Duarte –, the volume pays homage to one of the most prominent Translation Studies scholars in Portugal, who has extensively reflected on the binary discourse on translation, its metaphors and images.