This contribution gives in its first part an overview on factors of the decay and death of whole languages, focusing on dependency relations between these factors. They are organised along the following dimensions: socio-political, socio-economic, sociocultural, socio-psychological, and linguistic dimensions. The order of these dimensions partially represents a causal chain from left to right, but with many feedback relations. The second part of this article deals with early (socio-)linguistic indicators of language decay and discusses in this respect massive and asymmetric borrowing from the dominant into the recessive language, the loss of productivity of word formation patterns in the latter (illustrated from Breton), changes in name-giving (doubtful), shift of ‘foreign accent’ from the dominant to the recessive language, borrowing of morphological and syntactic patterns (inconclusive).

Strong evidence in the field of neuroscience now makes it possible to claim, with minimal reservation, that E. T. A. Hoffmann’s literary imagination was enriched by synaesthesia. E. T. A. Hoffmann is recognised as a remarkable polymath. A writer of fiction, bibliophile, composer and music critic, he not only understood Romantic sensibility but also involved himself in contemporary scientific debates on the nature of sound and perception, and was familiar with the acoustic theories of Ritter and Schubert’s work on magnetism and electrical energy. Hoffmann’s distinctive creativity was formed and informed by his diverse abilities and interests, and by his auditory sensibility and kinaesthetic appreciation of music. We postulate that the multi-sensory nature of Hoffmann’s work is evidence of creative synaesthesia, a phenomenon that occurs when a neurophysiological sensation perceived in the brain stimulates a different sense or senses and, as a result, produces a creative outcome. Taking as our example his intensely musical story Ritter Gluck, published in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of February 1809, we examine Hoffmann’s complex and idiosyncratic use of metaphor and structure in the scientific context of his own time and continent, and in the context of 21st century scientific understandings of brain science.

We are a sensorium commune, sensuous beings who perceive through many diverse senses at once.1

The beginning of the Anthropocene has been inconclusively debated. Usually, its starting point is linked to the moment in which some measurable human physical impact, such as global carbon dioxide emissions, increased in an unprecedented manner. However, to grasp the fact that mankind became at some point the major change agent of the earth system it is important to identify how and when humans began to perceive their role as that of an active creator, capable of dominating and changing nature. Although no monocausal explanation exists, I argue that the invention of linear perspective in fifteenth-century Renaissance Italy was a major trigger. Linear perspective changed the way humans saw and interpreted the world around them. It fostered an anthropocentric worldview that placed humans in control of their physical environment, allowed the advancement of scientific methods and the ultimate disenchantment of the physical world. Linear perspective marks the beginning of the ‘Anthroposeen’ without which the Anthropocene would not have manifested itself in the accelerated way it has. This holds important lessons. It reminds us that to understand the nature of the Anthropocene, we have to understand the parameters that made us think, see and ultimately act the way we do.

The reforms of the Polish system of science emphasise the importance of research and the international activity of Polish scientists. Optimal allocation of funds, taking into account the needs of researchers, is one of the current key objectives of research policy in Poland. The aim of this article is to discover values that Polish researchers identify with as well as defining their approach to the current system of research financing in Poland. The results presented here come from a nationwide study implemented at the turn of 2016. In total, we surveyed 800 randomly selected researchers. The interviewees had at least a PhD degree and were employed in Polish research institutions. The results of the study confirm that the researchers who identify with different ethoses of science have varied approaches to the Polish system of research financing. The scientists who take the least favourable view of the system are those who identify with the academic tradition. Compared with the scientists with deeply-rooted academic values, those in favour of a post-academic ethos more appreciate the available funding opportunities as well as the features of competition-based research funding. They also more often claim that the rules of financing research institutions in Poland have a positive impact on the development of science.

Beginning with a discussion of current debate in France about its own ‘social model’, this articles analyses French interpretations of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ model in both a contemporary and historical context. It argues specifically that present-day criticisms of what is taken to be Britain's liberal, free-market model are nothing new and find distinct echoes in a literature that dates back to the late 17th century. Even for its French admirers, England was seen as a country of inequality, whilst for its critics inequality was a reflection of a broader system of poverty and misery inflicted upon the mass of the population. In brief, the parameters of the debate – inequality compared with the virtues of equality, commerce against the claims of justice, individual liberty contrasted with solidarity, the market versus the State – have not changed significantly for over two centuries. The article concludes by referring to current misconceptions in France of policies pursued by the current Labour government.

In memory of Andre Prochasson

The Israeli theatre has frequently employed the Hebrew Bible as a source for theatrical performances. Analysing three such performances, this article shows that the Bible, with its charged ideological implications for the establishment of the state of Israel, has perhaps somewhat unexpectedly inspired avant-garde productions that have frequently criticized the accepted ideological and aesthetic norms. The first of the three performances analysed is Hanoch Levin's play based on the book of Job called ‘The Torments of Job’ (Yisorei Iov), which Levin directed at the Cameri theatre in 1981. The second is the play ‘Jehu’ by Gilead Evron, directed by Hanan Snir at the Habima National Theatre in 1992, and the third is the ‘Bible Project’ directed by Rina Yerushalmi, which consists of two independent, but interrelated productions: ‘And He Said And He Was Walking’ (Va Yomer Va Yelech), which premiered in 1996, and ‘And They Bowed. And He Feared’ (Va Yishtachu. Va Yerra) which premiered in 1998.

This article aims at showing that extreme situations, such as wars, can reveal a common human vulnerability, which thus leads to a lack of sovereignty affecting all the agents implied in the traumatic episode. In Zina Rohan’s 2010 novel, The Small Book, this shared vulnerability crosses time and space boundaries by connecting coetaneous characters and their subsequent generations through inherited traumatic memories. These connections lead Rohan to blur the boundaries between what we may understand as victims and perpetrators of trauma. Thus, drawing on significant theories within the fields of trauma and memory studies as well as on conceptions about human vulnerability and interconnectedness, the main aim of this study is to analyse the key narrative mechanisms used by this British–Jewish author in order to represent the shared vulnerability and exposure to trauma that reigns during war and post-war times.

This article aims at considering the story of the Belgrade Staro Sajmište Second World War concentration camp, as it unfolded since October 2007. At that point, it captured national and international headlines, as a range of actors rallied to ban the private use of this memory place for a concert by a British pop group. The article concentrates on patterns of construction of memory(ies), space and transfers of knowledge as well as power as the Staro Sajmište story is ‘uncovered’ to the public in mainstream mass media. The focus of inquiry extends beyond the official realm of memory to media representations as central aspects of contemporary manifestations of collective memory. The article intends to explore the construction of narratives, public discourse and identities that directly impact democratic practice and citizenship in the wake of the radical social and political change that Serbia has experienced in the recent past and during the Western Balkans European Union accession process. It demonstrates that the multiple (hi)stories and fractured mnemonic genealogies of Staro Sajmište produce, and are themselves produced by, the narrative of European participation and integration, in an interplay between different discursive layers, such as the national narrative, the international and European narrative and the local Jewish narrative, as well as practices of spatial reconstruction and consumerism. The article is informed by understandings of the Balkans as a space that is inside and outside Europe in many senses, traversed by flows of people, funding and ideas/imaginaries of Europe and European-ness, concretised in specific projects and the relations that constitute them.

The Big Bang created primordial material from which the first stars formed. These stars exploded as supernovae and polluted the material from which subsequent generations of stars were made. Astronomers have had difficulty in finding stars made of the pure Big Bang material, but they have found stars with very little polluting material. The age of these cosmological relics of the first eras sets a lower limit for the age of the Universe we live in. European astronomers and their colleagues worldwide have joined in the effort to discover and date these, the oldest stars, and cast a glance into the obscure phases between the very first seconds of the existence of the Universe and the epoch at which galaxies and clusters of stars matured. Many independent techniques have been devised to date the oldest stars and stellar systems in the Universe. Some of them are briefly reviewed. The age of the oldest stars is now converging on a value in the range from 12 to 15 thousand million years. However, a large uncertainty still exists and a value as a large as 17 to18 thousand million years cannot be totally ruled out. Such a large value would be difficult to reconcile with the age of the Universe based on cosmological data. Significant improvements in the uncertainties of this situation are expected from the 8–1 m telescopes and space missions of the next decade.

An integrated science and technology policy is both complex and urgent. We have gradually come to understand that the relationship between science and technology is not neat and linear: it is not a case of first some basic science; thereafter some design and development; and then products, profits and the end to unemployment! A comprehensive science and technology policy is not a matter which is internal to science and technology, it also lies within the domain of several of the social sciences. This article reflects, in some generality, upon the relationship between the social and natural sciences, and examines some of the differences and similarities in methods and models as used by the social and natural sciences.

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were created, probably in the second half of the 9th century BC, in the framework of the Greek epic tradition of oral formulaic poetry, which started in the Peloponnese in proto-Mycenaean times (c. 1600 BC). The epic verse, the dactylic hexameter, must have been taken over from the Minoan Cretans. Whereas most 19th century scholars were analysts, considering Homer's epics' conflations of older and more recent epic poems, most modern scholars are unitarians, recognizing the unity of both epics, thanks to modern insights in the nature of oral traditional poetry and to modern narratology. Although many modern scholars ascribe the Odyssey to a later poet than that of the Iliad, there are no convincing arguments against the Ancients' opinion that both epics are the work of one single poet called Homer. Both Iliad and Odyssey are characterized by the principle of ‘unity of action’, a principle not found in other ancient epic poetry. There are reasons to suppose that Homer learnt the art of epic versification in Smyrna, his native city, by listening to performances of Aeolic singers. Driven by Ionic self-consciousness he transposed the epic Aeolic Kunstsprache into Ionic, thus creating the so-called Homeric dialect. He could perform his monumental epics at great religious festivals and at the courts of princes. There is evidence that he gave performances in the island of Euboea, the only prosperous region of the contemporary Greek world, and that there his epics were eventually written down. Thus, Homer's epics are the end-point of the oral epic tradition and the starting point of written Greek and European literature.

Atmospheric ozone plays a critical role in controlling ultraviolet radiation levels at the surface of the Earth. The absorption of ultraviolet radiation from the sun and the warm infrared from the earth influence temperatures in the lower stratosphere. The concentration of ozone is affected by NO, NO2, Cl, and Clo in a complex manner.

There is generally a negative image of the Turk – as arch-enemy – in Balkan countries. Yet this image refers less to real Turks than to different ethno-linguistic and religious neighbour groups, who are seen as more ‘Asiatic’ and less ‘European’ than oneself. Real Turks and the Turkish tradition – especially among Muslims – are rather admired. These images are constructions of high culture, albeit with sometimes dire consequences for all and sundry in times of conflict.

The article restates the theory of Nationalism, which it links to the transition from agrarian to industrial or industrializing society. In an agrarian society, culture is used to underscore a complex and fairly stable system of statuses. Political units themselves are complicated and overlapping and ill-defined, and culture does not demarcate their boundaries. In an industrial society, work ceases to be physical and becomes semantic, and society itself is highly mobile. Under these circumstances, a shared and standardized, codified culture, inculcated by formal education, becomes a precondition of social participation and employability. When shared, literacy-linked culture is very important, people identify with it and thus become ‘nationalists’. The article also traces the five stages which Europe has passed in the course of this transition: the perpetuation of the old dynastic/religious political system in 1815, the century of nationalist irredentism, the setting up of a political system in 1918 based on nationalities which was weak and self-defeating, the most intensive period of ‘ ethnic cleansing’ in the 1940s under the cover of war-time secrecy and post-war retaliation, and finally a certain demolition of the intensity of ethnic feeling during advanced industrialism, thanks to the partial convergence of industrial cultures and the softening impact of affluence.

During the final decade of the 15th century and the first half of the 16th century, there were moves to harmonize pharmaceutical therapy in a number of areas of the Mediterranean and Central Europe. The most evident consequence was the appearance of books of compilations of simple and compound remedies specially selected from a wide range of earlier pharmacological literature. These compilations were set up as ‘standards’ by the authorities concerned with public health in many states. In theory, apothecaries were obliged to follow these ‘official’ instructions for preparing and dispensing drugs in order to ensure that the medicines prescribed by physicians were correctly made up and safe. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the persistence of Arabic drugs and recipes through the content of three of these handbooks between 1499 and 1618.

Scientific fraud has increased dramatically in recent times. The main reason has been the exponential increase of the number of researchers, that has greatly exceeded the increase in available resources. This has generated a situation of extreme competition that has dramatically increased the tendency to commit FFP acts. In comparison with the situation in the (distant) past, described in the accompanying contribution (Part I), in which scientific misconduct as a rule concerned research on themes of great significance, today the misconduct generally concerns petty fraudulent acts meant to give the fraudster personal advantages that are frequently illusory. Other factors, more technical in nature, are also having roles in today’s great increase of misconduct cases. Important among them are the ease with which they are now discovered thanks to impressive technological advances in their detection, and the appearance and rapid proliferation of open access predatory journals which do not follow the established peer review publication rules. Cases that deal with themes of great general significance do still occur, and some are examined in this article. At variance with those analysed in Part I they are now rapidly solved by the technical resources available today.

Mind–Brain dualism is still a hotly debated issue.1,2 I am neither qualified nor inclined to outline the intricacies of these philosophical controversies. However, one aspect deserves attention by a pharmacologist: some forms of very strict dualism have problems in dealing with the fact that drugs can alter cognitive states. It also seems to me that the challenge would become even stronger if one could demonstrate not only that a drug can alter a mental state, but also provide a clear cellular mechanism of how this is brought about. This is what I will try to do in this brief essay. I will not, however, even try to consider how the effect on specific brain cells is translated into something that we perceive as mental.

In the 1930s, as the power of the Nazis grew, many leading German academics and scholars sought refuge in other countries, including. the UK, the USA and many countries in Europe. Some of the refugees were already well known for their achievements, such as Einstein, Fermi, Schoenberg, Bartok, Brecht and Weill. The more established figures had easier access to those countries offering them refuge, whereas others at that time had fewer choices. The Academic Assistance Council in London and the Royal Society played a significant role in helping academic refugees find places in universities and other institutions where they could continue their research. The USA favoured distinguished academics, whereas the UK and other European countries were more open to younger academic refugees, who would subsequently make their name. There was, however, also opposition from various quarters, including State Department officials in the USA and certain British Noble Lords. Without the dedication and determination of many establishment figures on both sides of the Atlantic, the wealth of talent that had until that time been nurtured in Germany would have been lost. This article describes some of the prominent British figures who played such a significant and, as it turned out, life-saving role during this crucial period.

This article seeks to answer the following research questions: (1) why have the Chechen leaders become extremely religious, whereas at the beginning of the Russo-Chechen conflict in the 1990s, they were predominantly secular; and (2) what led the Chechens to use terrorism to fulfil their aspirations for complete independence from Russia. The article shows that the flow of foreign religious terrorists into the republic, as well as financial assistance to the Chechen population and its fighting leaders, turned the Chechen leaders from predominantly secular ones into extremely religious ones. At the same time, the traumatization of the Chechens by Russia’s disproportionate use of force against civilians was the reason that Chechens use terrorism against the Russian forces.

This essay recounts the career of Jacques-Pierre Brissot, the leader of the Girondists during the French Revolution, in a manner designed to pose questions about the nature of historical research in general. How, in piecing together information taken from scraps of paper, do historians come to an understanding of other lives? Put in the abstract, the problem belongs to epistemology or ethics. Confronted in practice, it is more like the puzzles uncovered by archaeologists. The historian digs out a shard of evidence from the archives and asks: was Brissot, the ultimate idealist, a spy for the police? By stepping in and out of layers of time, the historian is actually playing a deeper game, one that he or she may be reluctant to admit.