The Stacks (Library of Anglo-American Culture & History - FID AAC, Göttingen State and University Library)
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The Case of Belief Reports
No full textThis paper delves into the temporal interpretation of fronting constructions in English, a topic that has received limited attention in the literature on tense semantics. It presents new empirical findings revealing that specific fronting configurations, involving present tense morphology in a complement CP under a matrix past tense, can yield a theoretically unexpected simultaneous interpretation. A novel theoretical framework for understanding English tense is proposed, which accounts for the temporal interpretation of both fronting and non-fronting versions of attitude reports. The framework introduces a null simultaneous tense as a replacement for the conventional indexical present and the Sequence-of-Tense (SOT) de se tense. It is argued that in complement CPs the null simultaneous tense, as well as past tense, can be anchored either to the attitude time or to the utterance time. In either case, each tense receives a de re interpretation. Moreover, the paper contends that evidence from fronting constructions supports Kratzer’s (Proceedings of semantics and linguistic theory 8, pp. 92–110, 1998 ) proposal that the transmission of temporal features (as part of the mechanism of SOT) occurs at PF. Finally, the proposed revision of the English tense system contributes to a more unified cross-linguistic perspective on tense. It is demonstrated how the temporal readings of attitude reports arising in such non-SOT languages as Russian, Japanese, and Hebrew can be captured within the system developed for English, with known contrasts attributed to the absence of Feature Transmission in those languages. Further known and new data from English, Modern Greek, and German are examined, revealing variations in SOT effects across SOT languages. These data are used as additional evidence supporting the claim that cross-linguistic variation in the interpretation of complement tense stems solely from differences in Feature Transmission. Regarding the semantic profile of tenses, it can be considered largely invariant.Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (1018
Immortality and Digital Rebirth in Science Fiction
No full textImmortality and great longevity were long considered divine gifts of the immortals or, at least, supernatural phenomena, but they repeatedly appear within the reach of human power in science fiction. Beginning with Mary Shelley’s foundational novel Frankenstein (1818), the ambition of defying death is closely connected to the motif of the artificial human. In the context of the Digital Age, mind uploading has emerged as a related concept for artificial life extension or even as a digital rebirth. This article discusses mind uploading as an attempt to defeat death in Anglophone science fiction from William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) to Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon (2002), including texts by Greg Egan and other writers.Unsterblichkeit und ein ungewöhnlich langes Leben galten lange als göttliches Geschenk oder zumindest als übernatürliches Phänomen, erscheinen in der Science Fiction aber immer wieder als wissenschaftlich greifbar. Schon Mary Shelleys SF-Roman Frankenstein (1818) verbindet dabei die Ambition, den Tod zu überwinden, mit dem Motiv des künstlichen Menschen. Im Kontext des Computerzeitalters erscheint eine digitale Kopie des menschlichen Geistes als ein verwandtes Konzept für eine künstliche Lebensverlängerung oder sogar als digitale Wiedergeburt. Dieser Artikel erörtert ‚Mind Uploading‘ als mögliche Überwindung des Todes in englischsprachiger Science-Fiction-Literatur, von William Gibsons Neuromancer (1984) bis zu Richard Morgans Altered Carbon (2002) und Werken anderer Autoren wie etwa Greg Egan
Death as a Unifier in 'The Last Battle' by C.S. Lewis
No full textAlthough death is usually viewed as a great divider in secular culture, C.S. Lewis challenges this perspective by offering a reverse one. He portrays death as a unifier with one’s contemporaries, ancestors and finally with God. This paper analyses Lewis’s treatment of death in the last book of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle (1956), by drawing parallels between his main ideas about the subject and their corresponding scriptural sources of inspiration. The aim of my research is to highlight Lewis’s fascinating outlook on death as being only a door to a better lifeObwohl der Tod in der säkularen Kultur gewöhnlich als ‚großer Trenner‘ betrachtet wird, stellt C.S. Lewis diese Sichtweise in Frage, indem er eine umgekehrte Perspektive anbietet. Er zeichnet den Tod als ein verbindendes Element mit den eigenen Zeitgenossen, Vorfahren und schließlich mit Gott. Dieser Artikel analysiert Lewis’ Behandlung des Todes im letzten Buch der Chroniken von Narnia, Der letzte Kampf (1956), indem Parallelen zwischen seinen wichtigsten Ideen zu diesem Thema und ihren entsprechenden biblischen Inspirationsquellen gezogen werden. Das Ziel der Untersuchung ist es, Lewis’ faszinierende Sichtweise des Todes als nur einer Tür zu einem besseren Leben herauszustellen
Histories of Northern and Regional Australia
No full textIn 1877, a special Government Savings Bank fund was established for the 'safekeeping' of wages belonging to South Sea Islanders working in Queensland's sugar industry. Legisla-
tion was subsequently introduced under the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1880 and The Pacific Islander Labourers Act 1880 Amendment Act 1884 to further regulate and protect South Sea Islander wages in Queensland. In theory, these policies ensured the protection and regular distribution of pay to recruits and facilitated their purchase of trade goods, an integral outcome of their employment. However, research by Adrian Graves and Clive Moore has demonstrated that this system was frequently exploited by employers, storekeepers and the Queensland government for their own financial benefit. Employing a microhistory approach, this paper builds on Graves and Moore’s research by exploring how a general store in Ayr, North Queensland manipulated government-led financial systems and South Sea Islander labourers for its economic gain. Utilising a unique collection of letters written to the store’s owner Charles Coutts between March 1901 and April 1902, it explores the techniques adopted at the Coutts Store to financially and psychologically exploit South Sea Islanders, a practice which ultimately facilitated the business’s expansion into a multimillion dollar company throughout the 20th century
Aesthetics
No full textThis essay explores how the Fallout game series reimagines the zombie through its figure of the ghoul, questioning its role as a mirror of American racial politics. Unlike the generic video game zombie, which many titles use as a ubiquitous antagonist, Fallout’s ghoul foregrounds ongoing processes of racialization and de-racialization, showing how play, history, race, science fiction, and monstrosity intersect. Drawing on the cultural genealogy of zombie figures, the analysis details how the ghoul’s uncanny status as posthuman and monstrous Other invites players into affective and ethical entanglements that may reveal the persistence of racial antagonisms. While encounters with ghouls tend to expose the racist basis of xenophobia and anti-ghoul bigotry in Fallout 3 and New Vegas, the later titles increasingly downplay or erase these dimensions. By tracing how ghouls oscillate between individualized voices and faceless hordes, the essay shows how game design mirrors larger cultural struggles to confront or suppress race. Situating Fallout’s shifting portrayals against the backdrop of US race relations, ranging from the Bush era’s War on Terror to Trump’s populist xenophobia, it reads the figure as a contested and complex site for America’s haunted racial unconscious
Nation, Environment, and Identity in Australia
No full textThis article explores the significant contributions of Australian women composers and instrumentalists – such as Jennifer Fowler, Moya Henderson, Sarah Hopkins, Julia Ryder, Cathy Milliken, Vanessa Tomlinson, Liza Lim, Madeline Roycroft, and Jaslyn Robertson – to the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt. It highlights the historical connection between Darmstadt and Australia, emphasizing how these artists have shaped contemporary music. The research is based on interviews with selected composers, specialized literature on Australian contemporary music, Neue Musik, and gender, as well as materials from the archive at the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt
Contemporary Australia and Emerging Challenges
No full textLanguage shift has been a major feature associated with the linguistic history of Australia since European invasion, with catastrophic results for the linguistic ecology of the continent. Whilst language shift is often associated with the loss of traditional cultural, ecological and linguistic knowledge, there is still the potential for their transmission into the newly adopted language. In this paper, we examine the potential for continuity of Miriwoong culture as the community has shifted towards Kununurra Kriol as their main language of everyday use, a Creole language that emerged in the community following the devastating impacts of colonisation and subsequent decline and endangerment of the traditional Miriwoong language. The transmission of Miriwoong knowledge and culture is demonstrated through the use of code-switching and integration of Miriwoong loanwords into Kununurra Kriol, as well as the calquing of Miriwoong-language concepts into the new language. A strong Miriwoong identity is further reflected in individuals’ conceptions of the new language. This paper shows that, whilst the effects of language shift are catastrophic, the culture remains a living one
Diachronic Word Sense Annotations for Word Sense Induction and Lexical Semantic Change Detection
No full textThere has been extensive work on human word sense annotation, i.e., manually labeling word uses in natural texts according to their senses. Such labels were primarily created for the tasks of Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) and Word Sense Induction (WSI). However, almost all datasets annotated with word senses are synchronic datasets, i.e., contain texts created in a relatively short period of time and often do not provide the creation date of the texts. This ignores possible applications in diachronic-historic settings, where the aim is to induce or disambiguate historical word senses or changes in senses across time. To facilitate investigations into historical WSD and WSI and to establish connections with the task of Lexical Semantic Change Detection (LSCD), there is a crucial need for historical word sense-annotated data. Hence, we created a new reliable diachronic WSD/WSI dataset ‘DWUG DE Sense’. We describe the preparation and annotation and analyze central statistics. We then describe a thorough evaluation of different prediction systems for jointly solving both WSI and LSCD tasks. All our systems are based on a state-of-the-art architecture that combines Word-in-Context models and graph clustering techniques with different hyperparameter settings. Our findings reveal that using the WSI task as optimization criterion yields better results for both tasks even when the LSCD task is the focal point of optimization. This underscores that although both tasks are related, WSI seems to be more general and able to incorporate the LSCD task.Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Vetenskapsrådethttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004359Riksbankens Jubileumsfondhttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004472Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollohttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100020884European Union’s Horizon EuropeUniversität Stuttgart (1023