This paper calls for a broad conception of sacrifice to be developed as a resource for cultural sociology. It argues the term was framed too narrowly in the classical work of Hubert and Mauss. The later approach of Bataille permits a maximal understanding of sacrifice as non-utilitarian expenditures of money, energy, passion and effort directed towards the experience of transcendence. From this perspective, pilgrimage can be understood as a specific modality of sacrificial activity. This paper applies this understanding of sacrifice and pilgrimage to the annual Bayreuth “Wagner” Festival in Germany. Drawing on a multi-year mixed-methods study involving ethnography, semi-structured interviews and historical research, the article traces sacrificial expenditures at the level of individual festival attendees. These include financial costs, arduous travel, dedicated research of the artworks, and disciplines of the body. Some are lucky enough to experience transcendence in the form of deep emotional experience, and a sense of contact with sacred spaces and forces. Our study is intended as an exemplary paradigm case that can be drawn upon analogically by scholars. We suggest that other aspects of social experience, including many that are more ‘everyday’, can be understood through a maximal model of sacrifice and that a rigorous, wider comparative sociology could be developed using this tool.

Russia's renewed interest and involvement in the African continent is reminiscent of a time when the Soviet Union supported various ideologically aligned groups to win a geopolitical power struggle and assert its position as a global superpower. The motives seem to have changed, but the question is whether Russian warfare in Africa has changed as well. In this comparative study, the Soviet Union's support for the MPLA and their takeover in Angola in 1975 is compared with Russia's support for the military junta that seized power in Mali after a military coup in 2020, aiming to determine how Russian/Soviet warfare in Africa has evolved over time. Supported by Thomas Rid and Lars Ulfving's theoretical framework on so-called active measures, three operationalized variables are identified and analyzed as: white, gray, and black. Through qualitative text analysis, reports and literature from the cases are examined. The results of this study provide a deeper understanding of how hybrid warfare has been and is currently used as a means of Russian influence in Africa. The methods for this have rather been reinforced than changed historically by global development trends, especially the spread of information technology and the utilization of private companies and other actors. This study has confirmed that there is a historically rooted common Russian strategy to acquire and exert influence, a strategy based on the Soviet Union's traditional methods, active measures. A dual strategy consisting of both official policies and unofficial means where the unofficial means are driven by private actors, facilitating Russia's plausible deniability.

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No description available.

This study delves into the conflict landscape in the form of a case study of the Central African Republic, with a specific focus on the involvement of the private military company Wagner Group, framed within Mary Kaldor's theory of New Wars. The theory emphasises that since the 1990s wars have been carried out in the name of identity politics, are between the state and non-state actors, that violence is directed at civilians and that the global economy is a driving condition. These characteristics are generally true for the conflict in CAR. The Wagner Group's role remains largely unexplored within academic circles, necessitating a closer examination of its impact on conflict dynamics to better understand the broader implications for regional stability and global power dynamics. Since CAR became independent in 1960, CAR has been imprinted by armed conflict and widespread violence against civilians. In 2018 the government ceded parts of its monopoly on violence to the Wagner group through an agreement where the group protects the state in exchange for access to natural resources. The Wagner group's presence also contributes to increased regional conflict dynamics and can lead to increased violence and criminal activity.

This thesis aims to investigate how the Russian PMSC the Wagner Group affects conflict severity in countries where they operate. To illustrate their impact two countries, The Central African Republic and Syria, will be compared to each other. PMSCs and their effect on conflict dynamics have been studied before, usually by using a quantitive method, and the Wagner Group since their debut to the daylight in 2014 have also received scholarly attention. However, these two fields have not been linked together before and thus will this thesis bring new knowledge to both scientific fields by presenting a qualitative comparative study. The study is based on the social movement theoretical framework of resource mobilization by John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald and sets out to test the theory whitin this new context of conflict dynamics. The result from this thesis shows some correlation between the implementation of the Wagner Group and conflict severity and that resource mobilization can be used to explain changes in conflict dynamics. However, the results isnt´t conclusive, and more research is needed on the subject.

Der erste Teil dieser Arbeit ist dem Kondogittermodell gewidmet. Für ein Elektron, das in einen ferromagnetisch gesättigten Hintergrund aus lokalen Spinmomenten eingebracht wird (ferromagnetisches Polaron), wird die stationäre Schrödingergleichung gelöst und das vollständige Eigenwertspektrum im endlichen und unendlichen Gitter abgeleitet. Danach wird die zeitabhängige Schrödingergleichung für beliebige Anfangsbedingungen gelöst und eine detaillierte Analyse des Down-Elektron-Zerfalls vorgenommen. Für endliche Bandfüllungen wird im Anschluss das magnetische Grundzustandsphasendiagramm mit Hilfe einer Molekularfeldtheorie bestimmt. Der Einfluss von Verdünnung/Unordnung im lokalen Momentensystem auf die auftretenden Phasen wird analysiert. Im zweiten Teil der Arbeit wird das Hubbardmodell untersucht. Für dieses wird mit Hilfe einer modifizierten Störungstheorie (englisch: modified perturbation theory, MPT) eine wellenzahlabhängige (nicht-lokale) Selbstenergie abgeleitet, die sowohl für schwache als auch für starke Coulombwechselwirkungen gute Ergebnisse liefert. Mit dieser werden dann Spektraldichten und Quasiteilchenzustandsdichten berechnet, wobei insbesondere die nicht-lokalen Korrelationseffekte im Fokus stehen. Daneben werden Ergebnisse für die optische Leitfähigkeit, die in einer renormierten diagrammatischen Ein-Schleifen-Näherung berechnet wurden, besprochen. Es wird dann gezeigt, dass nur unter Beachtung der nicht-lokalen Korrelationseffekte ein ferromagnetisches Phasendiagramm konstruiert werden kann, das in Einklang mit dem Mermin-Wagner-Theorem steht. / The first part of this work deals with the Kondo-lattice model. The stationary Schrödinger equation is solved for the case of one electron in a ferromagnetically saturated local moment system (the magnetic polaron). The complete eigensystem is derived for the finite and infinite lattice. The time-dependent Schrödinger equation is then solved for arbitrary initial conditions and a detailed analysis of the down-electron decay dynamics is given. For finite band occupations the magnetic ground-state phase diagram is constructed within a mean-field theory. The effect of disorder/dilution in the local moment system on the phase diagram is discussed. The second part concentrates on the investigation of the Hubbard model. A nonlocal self-energy is derived within a modified perturbation theory that interpolates between weak and strong Coulomb repulsion. Results for the spectral density and quasiparticle density of states are shown with special attention to the effects of nonlocal correlations. Results for the optical conductivity within a renormalized one-loop approximation are also discussed. The main result of this section is the importance of nonlocal correlations for the fulfillment of the Mermin-Wagner theorem. A phase diagram that shows regions of ferromagnetic order is calculated for the simple cubic lattice.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This work aims to study, comparatively, the narrative Tristan and Isolde and homonymous Richard Wagner‟s opera. This study, of inter artistic transposition, analyses two versions, namely Tristão e Isolda, by Fernandel Abrantes and O Romance de Tristão e Isolda, by Joseph Bédier (translated by Luis Claudio de Castro e Costa), to build a relationship between both plots, setting, characters and time, to justify the choice of the versions, deriving from a series of recovered fragments as representative of the myth of Tristan. After the text of this research, we offer a literary analysis of Tristan and Isolde opera libretto as well as a brief explanation of the artist‟s composition procedures and a presentation of music critics who have studied Wagner‟s work. In an attempt to show the established proximities between the legend and the opera, we shall analyze comparatively the observations made about the narrative and the opera under the inter artistic transposition concepts. / Este trabalho tem como objetivo o estudo comparatista entre a narrativa Tristão e Isolda e a ópera homônima de Richard Wagner. O estudo de transposição interartes proposto nesta dissertação de mestrado visa analisar literariamente duas versões, a saber, Tristão e Isolda, de Fernandel Abrantes e O Romance de Tristão e Isolda, de Joseph Bédier (tradução de Luis Claudio de Castro e Costa), a fim de relacionar os enredos, espaço, personagens e tempo de ambas, para justificar a escolha das versões, provenientes de vários fragmentos resgatados, como representante do mito de Tristão. Após essa pesquisa, propomos uma análise literária do libreto da ópera Tristão e Isolda, de Wagner, assim como uma breve explicação da construção operística do compositor e uma apresentação de teóricos musicais que se debruçaram sobre essa obra. Em uma tentativa de demonstrar as proximidades estabelecidas pelo compositor entre a lenda e o texto operístico, analisaremos comparativamente as observações feitas sobre o texto literário e o texto operístico sob a luz dos conceitos de transposição interartes. / Mestre em Teoria Literária

Die Legende von der unsichtbaren Stadt Kitesch setzt den für Rimskij-Korsakov langwierigen und fruchtbaren Streit mit Wagner fort und schließt ihn ab. Von einem Sieg des einen Künstlers über den anderen kann hier keine Rede sein. Eins ist jedoch unstrittig: gäbe es keinen Parsifal, wäre auch Kitesch anders geschrieben.

Dans une première partie, une nouvelle méthodologie, précise et hautement sensible de caractérisation des paramètres thermiques de liquides par radiométrie photothermique est ici présentée. Deux configurations expérimentales sont proposées. Elles ont été testées et validées avec des matériaux liquides usuels aux paramètres thermiques connus. Par la suite, cette démarche a été utilisée pour l'étude de polymères dispersés dans des cristaux liquides. Les propriétés thermiques dynamiques de chaque échantillon ont été mesurées en fonction de l'amplitude du champ électrique appliqué à une fréquence donnée aussi bien qu'en fonction de la fréquence du champ électrique à une amplitude fixe. Cette étude a montré que les propriétés thermiques étaient sujettes aux effets du champ de dépolarisation aux basses fréquences. La seconde partie de ce manuscrit décrit la nouvelle technique photothermique basée sur l'effet thermoélectrique. Cette technique est utile pour caractériser thermiquement les matériaux thermoélectriques sans avoir à recourir à un capteur extérieur pour mesurer le changement de température. Une étude théorique et expérimentale est présentée. Ces expériences ont été réalisées avec des composites polyaniline/nanotubes de carbone par mesure de la tension générée par l'échantillon thermoélectrique chauffé par un faisceau laser. Des mesures additionnelles à l'aide de la radiométrie infrarouge sur ces mêmes échantillons ont été entreprises et les résultats sont en bon accord avec ceux précédemment trouvés. Enfin, la possibilité d'utiliser les matériaux thermoélectriques comme capteur photothermique au travers d'une cavité résonnante à ondes thermiques est évoquée. / Primarily, newly developed, high sensitive and accurate methods for thermal characterization of liquids using photothermal radiometry are presented. Two experimental configurations are suggested, tested and validated with usual liquid materials. These methods are used to study polymer dispersed liquid crystal samples. Dynamic thermal properties of samples are analysed verses amplitude varying applied electric field with constant frequency as well as versus frequency varying electric field with constant amplitude. Our results clearly show the thermal properties of the samples are prone to depolarizing field effects at the lower frequencies of the applied electric field. The experimental results are modeled against existing theories to predict electric properties of the sample composites. Second part of the manuscript describes the development of a novel photothermal technique based on thermoelectric effect. This technique is particularly useful for thermally characterizing thermoelectric materials without using a separate sensor for measuring induced temperature changes. A theoretical and experimental study is presented. The experiments are done on polyaniline - carbon nanotube composite pellets by measuring Seebeck voltage generated by the samples upon heating by a modulated laser beam. Additional infrared radiometry experiments are done on the same samples and the results are in good agreement with those previously found. Later on, the possibility of photothermoelectric materials to be used as sensors for finding thermal transport properties of materials with a thermal wave resonant cavity is suggested.