Katy Highet takes the page 99 test
I wasn’t expecting my p. 99 – right in the middle of my methodology – to be particularly revealing. But as luck (or indeed Ford Madox Ford) would…
Tag: English
Leya Mathew discusses her book, English Linguistic Imperialism from Below
https://www.multilingual-matters.com/page/detail/English-Linguistic-Imperialism-from-Below/?k=9781788929134 Interview by Shivani Nag Shivani Nag: It would be helpful if you could first intr…
Phenomena of the Irrational. On wonder doctors, witches and conspiracy theories
From 1945 until the late 1950s, a wave of accusations of witchcraft swept through Germany, and tens of thousands of people flocked to wonder healers. But why? And…
Contested Memory. The ‘Comfort Women’ Statue in Berlin and Dealing with Sexual Violence in War
The unveiling of a statue in memory of the victims of sexual violence committed by the Japanese Army in World War II has led to diplomatic tension between…
Comparing Comparisons: From the “Historikerstreit” to the Mbembe Affair
In the late 1980s, mostly German intellectuals discussed the question of the “uniqueness” or “comparability” of the Holocaust. In the Cause Mbembe, the fronts, the participants and the…
Michelle LaFrance on her book, Institutional Ethnography
Interview by Sarah Fischer https://upcolorado.com/utah-state-university-press/item/3649-institutional-ethnography Sarah Fischer: You are an English professor, and your book deals with various subfiel…
Inadequate, yet Indispensable: The WHO and the History of Global Health
The USA sharply criticizes the WHO: President Trump accuses it of lacking distance from China. But this attitude is nothing new. On the contrary, since the founding of…
Unmasked: Covid-19 and the Cultural Dimensions of the Debate on Mandatory Face Masks
In the context of the covid-19 pandemic, Germany witnesses debates on whether masks could help contain the spread of the virus. This article argues the controversy may be…
Was ist los in Erfurt? The East German Past and the Democratic Crisis of the Present
Are the “East Germans” just bad democrats who mourn the GDR? And is the “West” completely blameless in the Erfurt debacle? Not at all — while Thüringen’s politics…
Teaching Literature on the Arabian Peninsula
Even after 15 years of teaching literature on the Arabian Peninsula, I still worry about finding the right texts for my students. They are majoring in English language,…
Science for a Plastic Cube. Polypore Academia redefining the Rules of Science
Hungary is currently witnessing the emergence of a state-sponsored scientific pseudo-world in which the criteria of academic quality control no longer apply, but rather political loyalty. This raises…
The Colour of Coffee: Racism, Gender and Coffee Consumption in 19th Century Algeria
Today, coffee is consumed everywhere in the world. Despite its neo-colonial forms of production, it is a drink which brings people together, but the consumption of coffee in…
The ‚Afterlives‘ of Development Interventions: ‚Failure‘ as an Opportunity
Ambitious and well planned development projects fail for various reasons. The afterlife of such “interventions” receives little attention. But local communities try to make sense of the remains…
Greeting the New Era in Japan
Japan has a new emperor and a new era. But what does it mean, in 2019, to live in a different time from the rest of the world?…
A joke
Three Mexicans and an Englishwoman walk out of a bar. A guy walks past and asks for a cigarette. He doubles back: ‘No son de aquí ¿verdad?’ ‘De…