Aarhus University Press is a commercial Foundation which was inaugurated in 1985 for the purpose of disseminating the results of scientific research, as well as other scientific activity within the University of Aarhus. The Foundation is managed by a board of at least 5 and maximum of 13 members appointed by the Academic Council of the University on the recommendation of the Rector on the basis of proposals from the main areas.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 418
ISBN: 9788787564175
Pub Date: 17 Aug 2010
Description:
The war on terror, the globalisation of politics and the emergence of international law have shaped our recent history and brought about new questions and challenges for politicians as well as for the sciences concerned with understanding the dynamics at play. With contributions from philosophy, the history of ideas, social science, political science and literature studies, this book offers thirteen investigations into the co-constitutive relationship between subjectivity and political and legal order, combining theoretical reflection with empirical and historical case studies. The result is an interdisciplinary kaleidoscope providing the reader with distinct and original perspectives on what is at heart a singular concern: the significance of order and its limits for the exercise of freedom of thought and action for the human being.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 362
ISBN: 9788779345201
Pub Date: 31 Jul 2010
Illustrations: illus
Description:
In Antiquity the Black Sea region was a meeting point for several different population groups with diverse cultural backgrounds. The present monograph takes its point of departure in burial data from four coastal localities in the northern region of the Black Sea. The mortuary practices are decoded and interpreted within a framework mainly based on concepts of cultural interaction rather than cultural polarisation.
Thus, the dogma of 'The Greeks and the Others' is challenged, and alternative perceptions of interactions between the people in the Black Sea region form the basis of the study. The burials are primarily analysed with emphasis on social strategies and cultural diversity. Furthermore, the Black Sea region is set into a comparative perspective through an outlook on burial customs and mortuary practices in the colonial milieus of contemporary Southern Italy.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 1064
ISBN: 9788779345232
Pub Date: 31 Jul 2010
Illustrations: illus
Description:
This book is a publication of an entire city quarter of one of the most important ancient Greek Black Sea cities, Olbia. The publication is a result of collaboration between Danish, Ukrainian, Canadian and Russian scholars. It includes a study of the architecture and finds made during excavations between 1985 and 2002.
It is the first publication of a Black Sea city with full documentation. It documents life in the residential quarters of Olbia's lower city from the time of the city's foundation in the middle of the 6th century BC until the Roman period. Contributors to this volume include: P Guldager Bilde, L Bjerg, A Bujskikh, O Buravcuk, P Diatroptov, J Hjarl Petersen, S Handberg, J M Hojte, V V Krapivina, V Krutilov, S D Kryziskij, M Lawall, N Lejpunskaja & A Rusjaeva.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 401
ISBN: 9788779344921
Pub Date: 12 Jul 2010
Description:
This book discusses the significance of the state in a globalised economy. Focusing on Denmark and Ireland, the book analyses how small states adapt to the international market and argues that the institutional mediation of globalisation helps us explain why some states seem to possess more capacity to adjust than others. Not only must we bring the state back in, we must also consider how history, culture and collective identities influence the performance of the nation-state in the new globalised world order.
With contributions by Francis Fukuyama, Bob Jessop, David Marsh, John A Hall and John Campbell, Georg Sorensen, Bjorn Hvinden, Rory ODonnell, Peadar Kirby, Joseph Ruane, Brian Girvin, Sean ORiain, Chris McInerny, Gert and Gunnar Svendsen, Lars Bo Kaspersen and Linda Thorsager, Henrik Bang, and Michael Boss.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 533
ISBN: 9788779345133
Pub Date: 31 May 2010
Illustrations: colour illus
Description:
Christianity changed the culture and society of Iceland, as it also did in other parts of Northern Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. One of the important areas of change involved the introduction of new rules on the legal requirements for marriage. This book examines Icelandic law codes, marriage contracts, and other documents related to court proceedings.
Based on extensive source material never researched before, this pioneer study explores the very gradual Christianisation of marriage in Iceland. It shows that this process, which lasted for hundreds of years, had consequences for family and kinship politics, for inheritance and property transfer, and for gender relations. As canon law began to change the old ritual of betrothal, the virginal state of the woman entering marriage gained greater importance. At the same time, marriage in the Late Middle Ages continued to include many elements of its older understanding as a contract concerning property transfer between families. A new perception of gender relations also arose, whereby women became partners in the actual contract-making. The 'handshake' was now between the husband and wife, instead of between the father of the bride and her future husband. The rituals connected to the different bonds gained new meaning: marriage was no longer a financial matter alone, but also involved religious beliefs and a closer union of the spouses.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 522
ISBN: 9788779343948
Pub Date: 20 Apr 2010
Illustrations: colour & b/w photos
Description:
This is an account of a remarkable nomadic people in the heart of West Africa, presumably the only hunting and foraging community to withstand its bloody legacy of slave-raiding, colonisation, warfare, and environmental degradation. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Ida Nicolaisen's evocative book on the Haddad recreates the essence of nomadic existence from prehistoric times through the ups and downs of Sudanese Empires to our times. Based on fieldwork among the Haddad and a meticulous reading of the scanty sources on the cultures of Northern Chad, the author offers a fascinating description of the every-day life, subsistence strategies, knowledge, poetry and music of this little known people.
The book takes the reader on hunting expeditions with one group that chases gazelle and antelope into cleverly placed 'traps' of nets; it describes how hunters of another group crawl up on their prey in disguise with bow and arrow, as Saharan rock paintings tell us pre-historic man did in the region. Ida Nicolaisen's scientific precision informs her analysis of the complex multi-ethnic setting of which the economic and social life of the Haddad form part and her insights into the traumatic implications of the history of the region on their lives. The continued existence of hunting and foraging communities in West Africa has so far gone unnoticed. By adding this valuable material on the indigenous Haddad to the puzzle, Ida Nicolaisen's book seeks to stimulate the interest of scholars, and to encourage in the public a wider and more sophisticated reading of African history, culture and social issues.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9788779344914
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2010
Series: Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
Throughout the entire span of Graeco-Roman antiquity Alexandria represented a meeting place for many ethnic cultures and the city itself was subject to a wide range of local developments, which created and formatted a distinct Alexandrine 'culture' as well as several distinct 'cultures'. Ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish observers communicated or held claim to that particular message. Hence, Arrian, Theocritus, Strabo, and Athenaeus reported their fascination of the Alexandrine melting pot to the wider world and so did Philo, Josephus and Clement.
In various fashions, the four papers of Part I of the volume, Alexandria from Greece and Egypt, deal with the relationship between Ptolemaic Alexandria and its Greek past. However, the Egyptian origin and heritage also play important roles for the arguments. The contributions to the second part of the book are devoted to discussions of various aspects of contact and development between Rome, Judaism and Christianity.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 280
ISBN: 9788779342927
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2010
Illustrations: b/w photos & illus
Description:
This book features hitherto unpublished finds from the Minoan Palace periods discovered in major and minor excavations of recent years in the central, eastern and northern Aegean. The sites in the Aegean are Thera, Ios, Karpathos, Rhodes, Lemnos and Samothrace, while the west coast of Asia Minor are represented with the Urla peninsula (Cesme), Teichioussa, Iasos, Miletus and Troy. The papers discuss finds such as pottery, loom weights, other small finds, administrative written and sealed documents, and architecture seen in relation to questions like trade, 'minoanising' and colonization.
The central issues of the conference are discussed among Aegean scholars in the last chapter.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 196
ISBN: 9788779345126
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2010
Illustrations: colour photos & illus
Description:
Tylos Period Burials in Bahrain - Volume II - The Hamad Town DS 3 & Shakhoura Cemeteries
Format: Paperback
Pages: 308
ISBN: 9788779345225
Pub Date: 01 Jan 2010
Series: Proceedings of the Danish Institute at Athens
Illustrations: illus
Description:
Periodical from the Danish Institute at Athens publishing results of Danish archaeological field work in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean and studies by Danish and international scholars working within the same thematic and geographical field of research. This volume includes field reports from Kalydon and the Zea harbour of Athens, and studies in Ancient Greek polyandry, Mithridates VI as Rome’s perfect enemy and sophistic literature. With contributions by Niels Andreasen, Søren Dietz, Hedvig von Ehrenheim, Martin S Harbsmeier, Dimitris C Papadopoulos, Helle Salskov Roberts, Annette Højen Sørensen, Maria Stavropoulou-Gatsi, Ingrid Strøm, Olga Zolotnikova, Christian Høgel, Jacob Isager, Bjørn Lovén, Jesper Majbom Madsen, Mads Møller Nielsen and Nota Pantzou.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 48
ISBN: 9788788415551
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2009
Illustrations: b/w photos, charts & maps
Description:
In connection to the archaeological research of the warfare sacrifices in Illerup, Ejsbøl and Nydam, a comprehensive amount of pollen samples has been collected; that is both in connection to the artefacts found and in pollen series in the different bog layers. The collection of pollen has several objectives. First and foremost it is possible to describe the vegetational development which contributes to the determination of the geneses of the specific bog.
Secondly, the archaeological find layers can be matched with the pollen series to achieve a relative dating. After the excavations, work demanding analyses have been carried out in the laboratories. However, it is not until now with Else Kolstrup's publication of the pollen research from Nydam, a connection between the vegetational development and the warfare sacrifices has been established. Added to this is the description of the vegetation in the surrounding areas. The varied intensity of farming and the relation between land and forest are described in the research. The scientific research is a significant supplement to the archaeological observations, thus, it is important that the results are published as quickly as possible. In this way the results can be added to the analyses of the pollen series from the other bog finds and for this reason we have chosen this separate type of publication.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 246
ISBN: 9788779342538
Pub Date: 31 Oct 2009
Series: Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity
Illustrations: colour photos & b/w illus
Description:
The papers in this volume illustrate the interplay between the studies of classical archaeology, religion, history, and musicology. The eight papers by the young scholars and their Nestor, Richard Hamilton, offer a fresh look at various aspects of ancient cult, including the use of the word cult in the academic disciplines of Archaeology and the History of Religion; the introduction of Asklepios to Athens, and a detailed study of the same god's sanctuary on the south slope of Akropolis, where it will be demonstrated that the layout of the early sanctuary on the east terrace was carefully designed after one central monument. The book also contains an innovative study of the Philippeion at Olympia, where it is argued that the tholos with its sculpture was a prototype for the use of divine images and royal ideology by Hellenistic rulers.
Other papers include a statistical approach to the illustration of baskets on Classical votive reliefs, a theoretical study of the role of music in ancient Greek cult, and analysis of the use of the chorus as one of the most important expressions of ancient cult in Sparta.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 376
ISBN: 9788779344464
Pub Date: 14 Oct 2009
Illustrations: colour photos & illus
Description:
This book of classic scope is a monograph of a Melanesian society, an exploration of ranked exchange and a bold critique of anthropological exchange theory. John Liep unravels the complex society and exchange system on Rossel Island east of New Guinea. At centre stage is the famous 'Rossel Island money', a hierarchy of more than twenty classes of sea shells displayed in payment rituals such as bridewealth and pig feasts.
High-ranking shells are monopolised by big men who control exchange and dominate social life on the island. Theories of reciprocity and gift exchange with their built in utopian assumption of social equality, Liep finds, cannot account for a system of ranked exchange. Instead, exchange is unequal and money an instrument of distinction and power. Liep argues that ranked exchange has remained undiscovered as a general phenomenon. Still found in some Pacific societies it was formerly widespread in Oceania and beyond. The book will be essential to students of indigenous currencies and exchange theory and of interest to economic anthropologists and Oceanists.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 1099
ISBN: 9788779342873
Pub Date: 30 Jun 2009
Illustrations: colour & b/w illus
Description:
These two volumes present a new and comprehensive theory concerning the manner in which landscapes in Western pictorial art may be interpreted in relation to the cultures that created them. Its point of departure is a hitherto unexplored developmental pattern that characterises landscape representation from Palaeolithic cave paintings through to 19th-century modernity. A structuralist comparison between this pattern and three additional fields of analysis -- self-consciousness, socially-determined perception of nature, and world picture -- reveals a fascinating insight into culture's macrohistorical organisation.
Controversially, this book argues that culture at a certain level of observation is marked by directional evolution. In Volume I the author traces the pictorial depth of field from its Palaeolithic beginnings, in which only separate bodies are portrayed, and on to antiquity and the Middle Ages with their quasi-perspectival vistas. This gradual accentuation of a viewpoint is interpreted as a sign of how self-consciousness -- the notion of an T detached from nature -- develops. Similarly, the raw rocky terrain and vividly coloured skies that are introduced in ancient and medieval landscape images are taken as a testimony of how cosmos splits into a chaotic Mother Earth and an indestructible masculine heaven. Finally, Volume I demonstrates that the ancient landscape images' exclusion of traces of cultivation (e.g. fields, roads, hedges, fences) is the result of work-shyness, a longing for the Golden Age, among the powers-that-be. The topic of Volume II is the breakthrough of the modern landscape image and its new perspectival vistas, transient time and cultivated - or completely deserted - terrains. This post-medieval paradigm shift is construed as the mature stage in the evolution of self-consciousness, with an urban individual contemplating nature at an aesthetic distance. Apart from being structurally equivalent with the new Copernican cosmos and the colonial expansion of Western culture, the new territorial landscape image is shown to develop in close interaction with the early modern work ethic, republicanism and capitalism. It is also demonstrated that this landscape image is at odds with the idealising Italian Renaissance vision, a conflict condensed in the imagery of strangely artificial rock formations.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 454
ISBN: 9788779344327
Pub Date: 23 Jun 2009
Illustrations: tables & charts
Description:
The experience economy is a fourth economic field, different from commodities, goods and services. Experiences are an economic value that is added to a product or identical with a product. When you buy an experience, you pay to spend time enjoying a series of memorable events that a company stages to engage a customer in a personal way.
Fuelled by an expanding global and digital economy, the experience dimension has moved into a predominant place since the 1990s. In developed countries, people haw become richer and more individual-ised, and with all their basic material needs being met they focus increasingly on personal development and self-realisation. Demand is increasing for experience-based products such as tourism and sports, as well as film, music and other contents of media and interactive technologies. Furthermore, the demand for experience values has extended to include any product or dimension of modern societies, such as the design of houses, furniture, clothes, cars, computers, etc. This is not a completely new story -- commercial entertainment and design have, after all, been around for a century or so, and the un-it values of love, sex, belief, family and the meaning of life have always been vital to human beings. What is new is the fact that capitalism is invading more and more fields of experiences connected with emotions and the extension of life. In all developed countries, and increasingly on a global scale, a series of expanding industries has to supply the market with experience-oriented goods. In this book, the business development of markets and industries is examined: from tourism, to media and entertainment, from design to sex, and the leading companies and trends in all the industries involved are also given consideration.
Grauballe Man
Portrait of a Bog Body
Pages: 244
ISBN: 9788700796577
Pub Date: 01 May 2009
Illustrations: illus
Pages: 244
ISBN: 9788700796553
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2009
Illustrations: illus
Description:
Text in German. Grauballe Man was about 34 years old when he met his death. He died from a deep cut to the throat.
His right shinbone was also fractured. He undoubtedly suffered a violent end -- he was executed -- and was then laid naked in a water-filled peat cutting in the bog. The ultimate sacrifice was made that day around 290 BC -- a human life -- to the supernatural powers or in the service of some other urgent cause. Few finds from Denmark's prehistory enjoy the attention and interest afforded by the public and the media to Grauballe Man, who is exhibited at Moesgaard Museum, south of Aarhus, Denmark. With this book in hand it is not difficult to imagine a person of flesh and blood who wandered around during the first centuries of the Iron Age, long before Caesar was born. Archaeologist Pauline Asingh of Moesgaard Museum presents the very latest discoveries about Grauballe Man, his life, his afterlife, his bog and the interpretation of him and his time. In telling his story she brings prehistory dramatically to life.