Suchergebnisse

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) open access license. Debating civilisations offers an up-to-date evaluation of the re-emerging field of civilisational analysis, tracing its main currents and comparing it to rival paradigms such as Marxism, globalisation theory and postcolonial sociology. The book suggests that civilisational analysis offers an alternative approach to understanding globalisation, one that focuses on the dense engagement of societies, cultures, empires and civilisations in human history. Building on Castoriadis's theory of social imaginaries, it argues that civilisations are best understood as the products of routine contacts and connections carried out by anonymous actors over the course of long periods of time. It illustrates this argument through case studies of modern Japan, the Pacific and post-Conquest Latin America (including the revival of indigenous civilisations), exploring discourses of civilisation outside the West within the context of growing Western imperial power

Part I: Theoretical engagements in civilisational analysis. Civilisations debated : uses and critiques of 'civilisation' -- Currents and perspectives in contemporary civilisational analysis -- Counterpoints, critiques, dialogues -- Inter-civilisational engagement : imaginaries, power, connected worlds -- Part II: Studies in inter-civilisational engagement. Salt water horizons : seas, oceans and civilisations -- Pacific imaginaries : ontologies of connection, reconstruction of memory -- Engagement in the cross-currents of history : perspectives on civilisation in Latin America -- Japan in engagement and the discourses of civilisation -- Conclusion.

Johann Arnason's exploration of the historical constellation of East Asia has helped reproblematize the conceptual framework of modernity and civilization. This article outlines Arnason's innovations in civilizational analysis and social theory in the field of comparative studies of Japan. It sets out the terms on which a nuanced elaboration of Arnason's framework could occur. Two areas warrant closer attention: state formation and the institution of capitalism. It is argued that there are signs of what might be termed a 'tertiary' phase of state formation, implicit in Arnason's discussion of advanced modernity. Moreover, this phase brought Japan into close contact with the newly unfolding context of the West's civilizational imaginary, particularly in its ideological expressions of evolutionism. The article ends on the problematic of capitalism, raising questions about further potential theoretical developments based on Arnason's conclusions and other inventive studies of Japanese capitalism.

Electrostatic interactions between DNA molecules have been extensively studied experimentally and theoretically, but several aspects (e.g. its role in determining the pitch of the cholesteric DNA phase) still remain unclear. Here, we performed large-scale all-atom molecular dynamics simulations in explicit water and 150 mM sodium chloride, to reconstruct the potential of mean force (PMF) of two DNA oligomers 24 base pairs long as a function of their interaxial angle and intermolecular distance. We find that the potential of mean force is dominated by total DNA charge, and not by the helical geometry of its charged groups. The theory of homogeneously charged cylinders fits well all our simulation data, and the fit yields the optimal value of the total compensated charge on DNA to ≈65% of its total fixed charge (arising from the phosphorous atoms), close to the value expected from Manning's theory of ion condensation. The PMF calculated from our simulations does not show a significant dependence on the handedness of the angle between the two DNA molecules, or its size is on the order of [Formula: see text]. Thermal noise for molecules of the studied length seems to mask the effect of detailed helical charge patterns of DNA. The fact that in monovalent salt the effective interaction between two DNA molecules is independent on the handedness of the tilt may suggest that alternative mechanisms are required to understand the cholesteric phase of DNA. ; This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. RC was supported by the United Kingdom Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (grant No. EP/H004319/1), the French Institut National du Cancer, Grant No. INCa 5960, by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Grant No. ANR-13-BSV5-0010-03, and the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under REA grant agreement n 608959. We acknowledge support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, 'Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013-2017'. We acknowledge the support of the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya.

This book revisits the concept of strategic culture by examining the relationships between Russia and its neighbors in the east and west. The book explains how the competing Russian and western influences create innovative strategies, that display common regional characteristics of the different countries' cultures.