This text on communicative ethics, first published in Denmark in 1985, represents an alternative to teleological and deontological ethics and brings Danish philosophers (such as Kierkegaard, Logstrup, Gadamer and Habermas) into the Anglo-American debate. A picture of interpersonal communication emerges via an analysis of conflicts in Doris Lessing's The Grass is Singing, and the author identifies a situation based on mutual interdependence and power relations that must be managed by exercising solidarity.

A tragic love story about two sisters who cannot live with or without each other. Far out on the plains of northern Norway stands a house. It belongs to two middle-aged sisters. They seldom venture out and nobody visits. The older needs nursing and the younger keeps house. Then, one day, a man arrives...------- Why Peirene chose to publish this book: 'This is a tragedy about a woman who yearns for love but ends up in a painfully destructive conflict with her sister. It is also a story about loneliness - both geographical and psychological. Facing the prospect of a life without love, we fall back into isolating delusions at exactly the moment when we need to connect.' Meike Ziervogel, Publisher

This book provides a new system of communicative ethics which present an alternative to teleological and deontological ethics. It brings philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Logstrup, Gadamer and Habermas into the Anglo-American debate.

Poet, novelist, and philosopher Lars Gustafsson (1936-2016) was one of Europe's leading literary figures. Much of his writing is concerned with the search for moral consciousness and the relationship between personal experience and self-awareness, imbued with a philosophically founded scepticism toward language. His poetry is renowned for relating the metaphysical to the mundane with a particular clarity and precision, illuminating the potency of ordinary objects and everyday events as he addresses critical issues that have concerned great thinkers over the centuries. His first book of poetry to be published in Britain has an introduction by Per Wastberg. Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation, shortlisted for the Bernard Shaw Prize 2018 (for translation from Swedish).

Besides products and services multinational corporations also sell myths, values and immaterial goods. Such "meta-goods" (e.g. prestige, beauty, strength) are major selling points in the context of successful marketing and advertising. Fashion adverts draw on deeply rooted human values, ideals and desires such as values and symbols of social recognition, beautification and rejuvenation. Although the reference to such meta-goods is obvious to some consumers, their rootedness in philosophical theories of human nature is less apparent, even for the marketers and advertisers themselves. This book is of special interest for researchers and students in the fields of Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Marketing, Advertising, Fashion, Cultural Critique, Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology and Psychology, and for anyone interested in the ways in which fashion operates.

There are creative writers and thinkers who are the origin of words and expressions that have a long life in history. One of them is Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783-1872). He is perhaps best known internationally for his modern ideas about lifelong learning and a completely new type of school -- the folk high school for young people as well as adults -- that was to give people the possibility of developing freely and using their abilities for the benefit of their national community. In this book we feature a selection of his well-known hymns and songs. They are among the most powerful of his entire work marked by an artistic breadth that is immediately sensed. The present English translations -- the work of the poet and translator John Irons, in collaboration with the poet Klaus Hoeck -- can and should be sung at everyday gatherings of people wishing to express themselves about what is most important in human existence: faith, hope and love.

Dirk van Bastelaere (born 1960) is regarded as one of the leading poets in Flanders. He came early to prominence with his first collection 'Vijf jaar' (Five Years, 1984), which was awarded the prize for the best first collection. In 1988 he published 'Pornschlegel en andere gedichten' (Pornschlegel and other poems), one of the most hotly debated collections of Flemish poetry in in recent times, and a volume that was to win for him recognition as the most important postmodern poet in Flanders. His work has been strongly influenced by American poets such as Gertrude Stein and John Ashbery and makes many references to contemporary art and culture, a fact which has led some critics to attack his work for its perceived intellectualism. The younger generation of Flemish poets, however, looks to him as mould-breaker. In 2000, the volume 'Hartswedervaren' (Happenings of the Heart) appeared, and is widely regarded as his finest book to date. This volume won the Flemish Culture Prize. Dirk van Bastelaere has also written essays on such philosophers as Lacan, Barthes and Kristeva. His latest collection, 'Zapruder Stress', will be published in Amsterdam in 2005. The translations are by Willem Groenewegen, John Irons and Francis R. Jones.

New poetry collection by Hannie Rouweler, The Netherlands. Translator Dutch into English: John Irons.

Finalist for 2012 National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category David Koker's diary is one of the most notable accounts of life in a German concentration camp written by a Jew during the years of the Holocaust. First brought to attention when the Dutch historian Jacob Presser-Koker's history teacher in high school-quoted from Koker's diary in his monumental history, published in English as The Destruction of the Dutch Jews (1968), the diary itself became a part of the Dutch literary canon when it was published in 1977 as Dagboek geschreven in Vught (Diary Written in Vught). It has remained in print ever since, and is notable for its literary qualities, weaving poetry and powerful observations of the emotional life of a camp prisoner, including reflections after an in-person visit by Heinrich Himmler. Surprisingly, the book has never before been translated into English. During his time in the Vught concentration camp, the 21-year-old David recorded on an almost daily basis his observations, thoughts, and feelings. He mercilessly probed the abyss that opened around him and, at times, within himself. David's diary covers almost a year, both charting his daily life in Vught as it developed over time and tracing his spiritual evolution as a writer. Until early February 1944, David was able to smuggle some 73,000 words from the camp to his best friend Karel van het Reve, a non-Jew. With an informative introduction, annotation, and list of dramatis personae by Robert Jan van Pelt, At the Edge of the Abyss offers an immediate and wholly original look into the life of a concentration camp prisoner.

Variations on the theme of the ornament in Kracauer's urban writings, suggesting ways in which the subjective can reappropraite urban life. For Siegfried Kracauer, the urban ornament was not just an aspect of design; it was the medium through which city dwellers interpreted the metropolis itself. In Ornaments of the Metropolis, Henrik Reeh traces variations on the theme of the ornament in Kracauer's writings on urbanism, from his early journalism in Germany between the wars to his "sociobiography" of Jacques Offenbach in Paris. Kracauer (1889-1966), often associated with the Frankfurt School and the intellectual milieu of Walter Benjamin, is best known for his writings on cinema and the philosophy of history. Reeh examines Kracauer's lesser-known early work, much of it written for the trendsetting newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung in the 1920s and early 1930s, and analyzes Kracauer's continuing reflections on modern urban life, through the pivotal idea of ornament. Kracauer deciphers the subjective experience of the city by viewing fragments of the city as dynamic ornaments; an employment exchange, a day shelter for the homeless, a movie theater, and an amusement park become urban microcosms. Reeh focuses on three substantial works written by Kracauer before his emigration to the United States in 1940. In the early autobiographical novel Ginster, Written by Himself, a young architect finds aesthetic pleasure in the ornamental forms that are largely unused in the profession of the time. The collection Streets of Berlin and Elsewhere, with many essays from Kracauer's years in Berlin, documents the subjectiveness of urban life. Finally, Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time shows how the superficial-in a sense, ornamental-milieu of the operetta evolved into a critical force during the Second Empire. Reeh argues that Kracauer's novel, essays, and historiography all suggest ways in which the subjective can reappropriate urban life. The book also includes a series of photographs by the author that reflect the ornamental experience of the metropolis in Paris, Frankfurt, and other cities.