Jutta Wimmler – författare

Why did it seem strange when Battlestar Galactica ended its narrative on a religious note instead of providing a scientific explanation? And what does this have to do with gender? This book explores the connection between the triumph of religion and the dominance of femininity in Battlestar Galactica and its prequel series Caprica. Both series breached science fiction's convention of representing the "irrationality" of femininity and religion. Analyzing the connections (and disconnections) between women and men, and theology and technology, the author argues that the "Battlestarverse" depicts women as zones of contact between the seemingly contradictory spheres of science and religion by simultaneously employing and breaking gender stereotypes.

Globalized Peripheries examines the commodity flows and financial ties within Central and Eastern Europe in order to situate these regions as important contributors to Atlantic trade networks.The early modern Atlantic world, with its flows of bullion, of free and unfree labourers, of colonial produce and of manufactures from Europe and Asia, with mercantile networks and rent-seeking capital, has to date been described almost entirely as the preserve of the Western sea powers. More recent scholarship has rediscovered the dense entanglements with Central and Eastern Europe. Globalized Peripheries goes further by looking beyond slavery and American plantations. Contributions look at the trading practices and networks of merchants established in Central and Eastern Europe, investigate commodity flows between these regions and the Atlantic world, and explore the production of export commodities, two-way migration as well as financial ties. The volume uncovers new economic and financial connections between Prussia, the Habsburg Empire, Russia, as well as northern and western Germany with the Atlantic world. Its period coverage connects the end of the early modern world with the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Research of the past twenty years has revealed the deep connections between colonial spaces and Central European trade, production, and consumption in the early modern period. This book argues that the results of this research need to be integrated into our understanding of “German colonialism” on a conceptual level. Bridging research on “early modern” and “modern” colonial-isms, the papers in this volume suggest that we need to take the specific character of Central European entanglements with global spaces more seriously. At the same time, the book exam-ines the analytical boundaries of “Germany” and the importance of a transnational perspective for Central and Northern European involvements with colonialism. Zooming in to questions of dependency, the individual contributions interrogate the scope of action of differently posi-tioned actors, often generating surprising results about the possibilities and limits of agency. The ten thematic papers are framed by a historiographical essay and an introduction that proposes a framework for thoroughly re-thinking how we might conceptualize “German colonialism” moving forward.