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        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 2023

        Sleep and its spaces in Middle English literature

        Emotions, ethics, dreams

        by Megan Leitch

        Middle English literature is intimately concerned with sleep and the spaces in which it takes place. In the medieval English imagination, sleep is an embodied and culturally determined act. It is both performed and interpreted by characters and contemporaries, subject to a particular habitus and understood through particular hermeneutic lenses. While illuminating the intersecting medical and moral discourses by which it is shaped, sleep also sheds light on subjects in favour of which it has hitherto been overlooked: what sleep can enable (dreams and dream poetry) or what it can stand in for or supersede (desire and sex). This book argues that sleep mediates thematic concerns and questions in ways that have ethical, affective and oneiric implications. At the same time, it offers important contributions to understanding different Middle English genres: romance, dream vision, drama and fabliau.

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        2019

        Good Evening, Good Night

        The cultural history of sleep

        by Karoline Walter

        What we associate with sleep is shaped by the culture we live in. Whereas the God of the Bible never sleeps, the sinful human falls asleep every night and is thus marked as an inferior being. In the Age of Enlightenment, (too much) sleep was considered a waste of strength, which could otherwise be used to change the world. These days, sleep seems to be subject to the same tenets of usefulness as everything else and is seen to assist with the optimization of one’s self. However, culture and technology also influence how we sleep: for example, the constant availability of light, the modern conditions of work and all sorts of distractions have meant that we no longer follow our natural rhythm – a first sleep before midnight and a second sleep after a longer period of wakefulness, during which we may be active. In “Good Evening, Good Night”, Karoline Walter uses numerous examples from history, literature and research to illustrate how sleep and sleeping have changed across cultures and eras – an entertaining read, certainly nothing to put you to sleep.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2023

        Negotiating relief and freedom

        Responses to disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812-1907

        by Oscar Webber

        Negotiating relief and freedom is an investigation of short- and long-term responses to disaster in the British Caribbean colonies during the 'long' nineteenth century. It explores how colonial environmental degradation made their inhabitants both more vulnerable to and expanded the impact of natural phenomena such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. It shows that British approaches to disaster 'relief' prioritised colonial control and 'fiscal prudence' ahead of the relief of the relief of suffering. In turn, that this pattern played out continuously in the long nineteenth century is a reminder that in the Caribbean the transition from slavery to waged labour was not a clean one. Times of crisis brought racial and social tensions to the fore and freedoms once granted, were often quickly curtailed.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2023

        Love and revolution

        A politics for the deep commons

        by Matt York

        Based on award-winning research, Love and revolution brings classical and contemporary anarchist thought into a mutually beneficial dialogue with a global cross-section of ecological, anti-capitalist, feminist and anti-racist activists - discussing real-life examples of the loving-caring relations that underpin many contemporary struggles. Such a (r)evolutionary love is discovered to be a common embodied experience among the activists contributing to this collective vision, manifested as a radical solidarity, as political direct action, as long-term processes of struggle, and as a deeply relational more-than-human ethics. This book provides an essential resource for all those interested in building a free society grounded in solidarity and care, and offers a timely contribution to contemporary movement discourse.

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        September 2020

        It was always love

        by Hotel, Nikola

        She’s had enough of men, but he can’t get enough of her...   Away. Just get out of here. That's all Aubree thinks about when she gets kicked out of college after a party. She buys an incredibly old car, throws the few things she owns into the trunk and flees to her best friend Ivy in New Hampshire.    There, all she wants is to pull the blanket over her head and think of nothing else. Not about that night. Not about the party. And most of all, not that picture that's been circulating on the Internet ever since. But it doesn't work. Because instead of her friend, she meets Noah, Ivy's stepbrother. With his impulsive but surprisingly sensitive nature, Noah evokes feelings in her that she doesn't need right now. And which, nevertheless, sweep her away like a storm...     Second volume of a romantic and exciting dilogy with 20 lavishly illustrated hand-lettered pages by Carolin Magunia. Including a playlist that can be found on Spotify and contains songs which match perfectly with the story! It was always you (Vol. 1) entered the Spiegel bestseller list immediately after its publication. Both titles can be read separately. For all fans of Mona Kasten, Laura Kneidl and Kelly Moran! 30.000 copies of vol. 1 + 2 were sold since June 2020!

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2024

        Home front heroism

        Civilians and conflict in Second World War London

        by Ellena Matthews

        Home front heroism investigates how civilians were recognised and celebrated as heroic during the Second World War. Through a focus on London, this book explores how heroism was manufactured as civilians adopted roles in production, protection and defence, through the use of uniforms and medals, and through the way that civilians were injured and killed. This book makes a novel contribution to the study of heroism by exploring the spatial, material, corporeal and ritualistic dimensions of heroic representations. By tracing the different ways that Home Front heroism was cultivated on a national, local and personal level, this study promotes new ways of thinking about the meaning and value of heroism during periods of conflict. It will appeal to anyone interested in the social and cultural history of Second World War as well as the sociology and psychology of heroism.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2024

        ‘Survival Capitalism’ and the Big Bang

        Culture, contingency and capital in the making of the 1980s financial revolution

        by Emma Barrett

        This book about the Thatcher government and the City of London tells the compelling human story of the people and processes that made Britain's 1980s financial revolution. Fusing insider testimony with new archival discoveries, it examines high stakes and networked solutions, and uncovers new objectives that drove reforms. In so doing it demystifies a major shift in capitalism. This has implications for our understandings of government and capitalism, from the way we think about the origins of subsequent financial crises to today's growing inequalities. Survival Capitalism offers new insights into the last major restructuring of the City, disrupts myths surrounding the logics of the market, and pays attention to people and processes at a time when the City of London again faces major change as Britain seeks to find its place outside the European Union in the wake of Brexit.

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        Children's & YA
        August 2020

        Cryptos

        by Poznanski, Ursula

        Where do we go when Nowhere is the only destination left?   Kerrybrook is Jana‘s favourite virtual escape. An idyllic fishing village with beautiful nature and, every now and then, a breeze of fresh air from the nearby sea. Jana, is this world‘s designer and person in power, she’s satisfied with her masterpiece. Best job so far. Until one day, a dead body is found, in both, ’Virtual Reality‘ and the real world. In times of climate change, VR is the only safe place for humankind. That‘s why Jana needs to solve the crime, she’s responsible for stopping the destruction.   • CliFi Thriller (Climate Fiction): Climate change & virtual reality • For fans of Black Mirror (Netflix) • All age readers • Strong, female protagonist • Highly relevant topic   WHITE RAVENS recommendation (2021):   "In the not too distant future, the world is an inhospitable place: droughts, storms, floods. That’s why world designers construct »alternative realities«, such as landscapes populated by dinosaurs, life at court in the Middle Ages, and surfing and chilling out on a beach. People can switch between these worlds at will and, when they die there, they are not truly dead; instead, they merely return to the »real world« – same as at night when they sleep. Then they are reunited with their body, which is lying inside a capsule.   In »Cryptos«, Ursula Poznanski pulls out all the stops of storytelling: She embeds numerous references to human and intellectual history in an action-packed and extremely suspenseful thriller plot. In the process, she raises central existential and ontological questions that result from the interplay between the real and the virtual worlds. This complex dystopian novel is narrated in such an enjoyable way that readers will hardly notice their brains going into overdrive as they devour it."

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