De Gruyter Brill on the Wire

Few figures stand as prominently in Marxist theory and history as V.I. Lenin. The revolutionary who played a pivotal role in one of the most important events in world history has received reverence, damnation, and everything in between, but much of that response depends on deep misunderstandings of both what he thought and what he did. This misunderstanding was deep enough that even he took notice...

Gender, and regulations of and discourses on it, have historically been a cornerstone of the conservative Christian belief system. The stance of the Catholic Church on feminism, for instance, has often been criticized for being reductive and exclusionary. As Christianity has exerted a profound influence on the government and principles of the United States from the time of its founding, in this mo...

The rich and complex prose of the celebrated Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky provides a detailed look at the fabric of European literary and social discourse and continues to attract scholarly attention, even 200 years after his birth. 2021 marks the bicentenary of Dostoevsky’s birth. To commemorate this occasion, join us in conversation with Prof. Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover, Adjunct Associate Prof...

Imagination is a fundamental trait of the human species. Given how our most commonplace experiences get filtered differently through the lens of our imaginations, it deeply influences everything we think about and do. For better or worse, imagination is “the resin that binds human civilization together.” In this new episode, Keith Moser, Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Mississippi S...

Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is often invoked, but usually as a means of cultural critique and analysis. However, my guest Lorenzo Fusaro argues in his recent book Crises and Hegemonic Transitions: From Gramsci's Quaderni to the Contemporary World Economy (Haymarket Books, 2020) that Gramsci’s work is permeated by Marx’s economic critique and his theories of value. Split into two parts, the book...

Meryl Altman's new book Beauvoir in Time, published by Brill Rodopi Press (2020), situates Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) in its historical context and responds to criticism that muddles what she actually said about sex, race and class. She takes up three aspects of Beauvoir's work today’s feminists find problematic: the characterizations of the frigid woman and lesbians, the analogy o...

In this episode, Steven Fine, Churgin Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University, Israel, discusses his new book Arch of Titus: From Jerusalem to Rome—and Back, published in Brill’s Religious Studies, Theology and Philosophy E-Books Online collection. He explores how the Arch has been a symbol of subjugation as well as empowerment for both Jewish and Christian cultures as they evolved acros...

What should the relationship between school and society be? Obstinate Education: Reconnecting School and Society (Brill, 2019) argues that education is not just there to give individuals, groups and societies what they want from it, but that education has a duty to resist. Education needs to be obstinate, not for the sake of being difficult, but in order to make sure that it can contribute to eman...

World Christianity publications proliferate but the issue of methodology has received little attention. World Christianity: Methodological Considerations (Brill, 2020) addresses this lacuna and explores the methodological ramifications of the World Christianity turn. In twelve chapters scholars from various academic backgrounds (anthropology, religious studies, history, missiology, intercultural s...

The highest literacy rates worldwide, free universal healthcare, social security, strong economies —these are traits commonly associated with the Nordic countries. They also reflect the equally renowned, well-developed system of education available to the residents of each country. Despite the similarities, each country’s education system is distinct, thanks to their differing historical experienc...

This interview features Drs. Peter Bisschop (Leiden University) and Yuko Yokochi (Kyoto University) and their work on the monumental Skandapurāṇa project. Started in the 1990's, the project is aimed at creating a critical edition of the Skandapurāṇa along with documenting its variations over time as well producing important studies of the text. Their latest instalment of this project (Volume 5, fe...

In Duplex Regnum Christi: Christ's Twofold Kingdom in Reformed Theology (Brill, 2020), Jonathon D. Beeke surveys the development of thinking among early modern Reformed theologians about the relationship between religion and civil government. Taking cues from Calvin, but showing how the Reformed tradition variegates around his contribution, Beeke shows how the medieval ideas of two cities and two...

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced people indoors and has moved even important businesses and interactions online. Diplomatic interactions are no exception. In the second episode of our new themed series Across the Rainbow, we speak with Dr. Ann Towns, Professor of Political Science at the University of Gothenberg, and Dr. Katarzyna Jezierska, Associate Professor of Political Science at University W...

During the mid-sixteenth century, English reformers invited a group of continental Protestant refugees to London and surrounding provinces. The ecclesiastical authorities allowed them liberty to establish their own churches with relatively little oversight by the English church. These "Stranger Churches," many of whom still maintained close ties to their friends and families in the Low Countries,...

Today we are joined by Martha Moffitt Peacock, Professor of Art History at Brigham Young University about her new book, Heroines, Harpies, and Housewives: Imaging Women of Consequence in the Dutch Golden Age, out in 2020 with Brill. In Heroines, Harpies, and Housewives, Peacock provides a novel interpretive approach to the artistic practice of imaging women of consequence in the Dutch Golden Age....

In his pioneering study, Men in Metal: A Topography of Public Bronze Statuary in Modern Japan (Brill, 2020), Sven Saaler examines Japanese public statuary as a central site of historical memory from its beginnings in the Meiji period through the twenty-first century.  Saaler shows how the elites of the modern Japanese nation-state went about constructing an iconography of national heroes to serve...

Queer lives in semi-urban and rural India are typically required to conform to heteronormativity in a way that stands apart from Western and urban Indian experiences. In the first episode of our new themed series Across the Rainbow, Dr. Jayaprakash Mishra, a research scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India, shares with us why he chose to examine the emotions of guilt in Sout...

Japan's Private Spheres: Autonomy in Japanese History, 1600-1930 (Brill, 2021) traces the shifting nature of autonomy in early modern and modern Japan. In this far-reaching, interdisciplinary study, W. Puck Brecher explores the historical development of the private and its evolving relationship with public authority, a dynamic that evokes stereotypes about an alleged dearth of individual agency in...

There has been a resurgent global interest in the origins and formation of authoritarian regimes as many states around the world drift away from liberal democracy. Indonesia’s experiences with such an authoritarian turn in the 1950s and 1960s offers many lessons from history. In Authoritarian Modernization in Indonesia’s Early Independence Period (Brill, 2020), Farabi Fakih offers a historical ana...

The 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche stands among the canon’s most-cited figures, with aphorisms dotting texts on a variety of topics, and his name evokes strong responses from almost anyone who has ever heard of him. His aphoristic and poetic writing style have made it difficult at times to understand what he meant, although the wealth of commentaries pulling him in a variety o...

Key to the revolutionary ideas of 19th century Italian modernist sculptor Medardo Rosso are his materials and technique. But for a long time, scholars and experts on his work took little time to truly explore these. In this episode, Dr. Sharon Hecker, art historian and curator, and author of a recent Brill publication on Medardo Rosso titled Finding Lost Wax: The Disappearance and Recovery of an A...

The last several decades have seen tremendous political and cultural strides forward for the LGBTQ+ community with both the legislative and cultural recognition helping many secure a more safe and open lifestyle than possible just a short while ago. However, these advances have raised a number of criticisms and qualifications, and not just from stuffy conservatives either. Many on the radical left...

In The Dutch Language in Japan (1600-1900): A Cultural and Sociolinguistic Study of Dutch as a Contact Language in Tokugawa and Meiji Japan (Brill, 2020), Christopher Joby offers the first book-length account of the knowledge and use of the Dutch language in Tokugawa and Meiji Japan. For most of this period, the Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to trade with Japan. Using the analytical tool...

Brendan McNamara, who teaches religion at University College Cork, Ireland, has published an excellent new book on the expansion of the Bahá’í faith into western Europe. In the late nineteenth century, religious scholars and clergy in Britain became aware of a movement of reform in Persia that they framed as a revitalisation project within Islam, and which attracted converts including the former O...

Viruses are not very different from machines that process information, and thus, how the virus functions can be simulated on a computer. This ability to “imitate” the way viruses behave is particularly useful today, as we battle the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and struggle to prepare for similar events. Dr. Klaus Mainzer, Co-founder and Senior Professor at the Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker...