What does it mean to live under occupation? How does it shape the culture and identities of European nations? How does it affect the way we write and read literature? These are fundamental questions that set the stage for an in-depth exploration. Focusing on the literary works of writers from various European countries that were occupied by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union or the Allies during and after World War II, the contributions in this edited volume seek to unravel the complex interplay ...

In Guatemala, the 36-year armed conflict from 1960 to 1996 claimed 200,000 lives, over two per cent of the population, and displaced a million more. In the 1970s and the 1980s the widespread and violent repression of social movements fighting for justice and human rights reached unimaginable proportions, involving assassinations, disappearances, and exile. Even parts of the Church, traditionally considered an ally of the powerful and the wealthy, were not spared this fate.

Missionaries and Re...

No other Neoplatonic text has sparked as much debate as Ennead V. 7 [18] of Plotinus, ‘On the question of whether there are also Forms of individuals’. In this text, Plotinus is believed to postulate the existence of Forms of individuals alongside the traditional Platonic Forms of genera and species. If so, Plotinus stands as the sole figure in Platonism to advocate this problematic theory. Regrettably, most research on V. 7 [18] has focused solely on the Forms of individuals, overlooking...

A smart and witty guide to all you want to know about human genetics.

Human genetics is not the playground of science alone. Genetics concerns all of us, for we all have DNA, genes, genomes, and chromosomes. Our genes determine partly our appearance and our behaviour, our talents and our health risks.

The authors of 'The Human Recipe' use humour to explain what we understand about human genetics. With anecdotes and topical examples, they demonstrate how genetics affects our everyday lives. Wh...

The development of historical geographical information systems (HGIS) and other methods from the digital humanities have revolutionised historical research on cultural landscapes. One of today’s major challenges, however, concerns the concepts and tools to be deployed for mapping processes of transformation—that is, interpreting and imagining the relational complexity of urban and rural landscapes, both in space and in time, at micro- and macro-scale. The opening up of increasingly divers...

In 2022, the Belgian parliament made a landmark decision by approving the decriminalisation of sex work. This move positioned the small nation as the first country in Europe – and the second globally – to abandon the hypocrisy of tolerance. Yet this was not the first time paid sex in Belgium gained international notoriety. The bathhouses of the fifteenth-century ‘frows of Flanders’ were well-known throughout Europe. In the nineteenth century, Belgium faced international outrage as the...

“In groups the most contradictory ideas can exist side by side and tolerate each other, without any conflict arising from the logical contradiction between them”, wrote Freud in his 1921 book Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. One hundred years later, in an age of war, social networks, and ubiquitous threats to democracy, the questions raised by Freud are as relevant as ever. In today’s mass and group formations, psychological processes and mechanisms can be recognized as the...

The many preserved collections of student notes from the early modern period – ranging from neatly maintained notebooks to barely legible scribbles crammed between lines of printed text – hold considerable but largely untapped potential as an historical source. At the same time, the analysis of these notes poses significant challenges for scholars. This book aims to be a concise and accessible companion for scholars interested in engaging with this young and burgeoning research field. Wri...