Chapter 12 introduces Goethe’s two Wilhelm Meister novels. It problematises the notion of the Bildungsroman which is often assigned to the first novel, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meisters Apprenticeship), and proposes that the two novels exemplify the four modes proposed by Northrop Frye: satire, irony and comedy in the case of the Lehrjahre, and, in the case of the sequel, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (Wilhelm Meisters Journeyman Years), romance. The chapter argues that the supposed disjunctions within and between the two novels are in fact part of their unifying principle.

Chapter 30 examines Goethe’s relationship with America. The country was for him an imagined space full of possibility, a historical frontier which opened onto modernity. The chapter considers the transatlantic network which, in the post-Napoleonic period, linked Harvard, Göttingen and Weimar, and would prove particularly important for Goethe’s geological studies. It also describes the – at times ambivalent – perspectives on American democracy that reached Goethe from Prince Bernhard, the son of Carl August, during his American travels, before moving to an analysis of American influences on and representations of America in Goethe’s literary work.

This contribution brings racial affect theory to bear on the literary representation of Roman manumission, in the process developing new critical tools for the history of Roman slavery as a mechanism for racialization. Through a close reading of the freed man Hermeros’ diatribe in the Cena Trimalchionis, I argue for the centrality of racial melancholy to the discursive and social forms by which manumission came to be experienced and figured. The operation of this racial melancholy in Petronius’ text is decomposable into two distinct, but complementary, sentimental performances: paranoia on the one hand, and compulsion into (evasive) autobiographical confession on the other. The interlinking of these performances within Hermeros’ speech generates a melancholic affect, which I conceptualize as a disposition for managing and negotiating the grief of enslavement and manumission. In formulating and grounding this claim, I hope to clear a space for mutually enriching exchange among historians of Roman slavery, historians of premodern race, and those literary critics and cultural theorists who have been influential in setting the terms for the “affective turn.”

I’m a member of ‘the human race’, as well as being a mother of four children. My middle child was diagnosed with a mental illness in 2016. I experienced some different emotions during that difficult time. I was so frightened regarding my son’s unusual behaviour. I could not understand what was happening, or why this was happening within my family. At times, I felt angry because everything seemed to be out of my control. I began to isolate myself. I could not even tell my family or friends in the first instances; it was too embarrassing. I did not want to speak to anyone. I felt so disappointed in myself; I thought I had failed in my duties as a mother. Sometimes, the feeling of guilt would consume me so much. My stomach would constantly be in pain. My head and heart would always be pounding so loud. My sleeping patterns were altered so much that I could not remember if I managed to close my eyes at times during those bleak nights.

The centuries between the fall of Huari and the rise of the Inca were marked in Peru by the florescence of several large states along the coast north (Sicán, Chimor) ad smaller ones along the central and south coasts (Chancay, Pachacamac. Ychsma, Ica etc).. Some of these are mentioned in early Spanish accounts taken from native oral histories, others, those of the northern Andes are completely prehistoric.

The chapter opens with an overview of basic categories within the field of study of lexical semantics. It next presents fundamental concepts related to the lexicon, especially the lexeme as the basic unit of lexicology. It also analyzes the concept of lexical meaning and provides a brief overview of some of the approaches adopted in the study of denotation and connotation. The central part of the chapter describes polysemy and its basic mechanisms – metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche. The examples feature Serbian and other Slavic lexemes exhibiting the richest polysemy. The next section tackles syntagmatic lexical relations, the notion of collocation and the role of context in the study of lexical meaning. Paradigmatic lexical relations are also observed, especially synonymy and antonymy, both true and contextual or quasi-.

This chapter addresses the phenomenon of false cognates in Slavic languages, i.e. words that sound alike but have different meanings, such as Polish brak ‘deficiency’ and Bulgarian brak ‘marriage’. Inter-Slavic false cognates are seen primarily as endpoints of diverging semantic and derivation processes in various Slavic languages. The chapter also discusses Slavic to non-Slavic false cognates, where in most cases diverging processes in lexical borrowing represent generators of this kind of relationship. False cognates thus provide important insights into all major processes of lexical enrichment. Pedagogical implications of false cognates in teaching Slavic languages are also presented.

This chapter examines Lakhdar Brahimi’s agency as a mediator in Syria, while also clarifying how his strategic perceptions affected his mediation behavior. Adopting a slightly different structure than its predecessor, it consists of two sections. The first assesses the mediator’s agency in determining the main mediation policies and responses from his appointment on August 17, 2012 till his resignation on May 13, 2014. During this period, five policy responses stand out—the Eid al Adha Ceasefire, the May 7 Communiqué, responding to the use of chemical weapons, Geneva II, and the mediator’s resignation. A first-level analysis is applied to clarify the mediator’s input on each. The second section moves to explain the dynamics behind his decision-making. To do so, it focuses on the mediator’s perceptions regarding the four categories outlined in the contingency model—the identity of the mediator, the context of mediation, the parties, and the process of mediation. Such analysis helps shed light on the links between the mediator’s perceptions on these four categories and his decision-making in Syria as well as the formulation of more generalizable principles.

The present chapter summarizes the patterns of lexical derivation in Slavic languages. Lexical derivation is presented here as word formation. Words are formed in the sentence by word-structure rules that expand root categories like N and A to derived structures like N[A–N] and A[N–A], followed by the lexicalization of the root and suffix categories with morphemes from the lexicon. Differing from the morpheme approach to morphology is the word approach, which assumes a lexicon of words and favors processes over items. The author presents basic patterns of prefixation, suffixation, and suffixless recategorization.