This study analyses the evolution of body mass index (BMI) as income increases across the population, controlling for age, sex, educational level, marital status and some lifestyle habits. To this end, a quantile regression, an econometric technique that readjusts the weights of the variables in each quantile to minimize deviations, has been carried out, where the variable that orders the sample is income. We use 316,777 observations from the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) for these regressions. This approach allows us to separate the regression analyses for low-, middle-, and high-income groups, evidence that as individual income increases, BMI tends to rise. Consequently, individuals with higher incomes exhibit higher BMI levels. Additionally, the estimated parameters for explanatory variables increase with income, signifying that wealthier individuals not only have a greater likelihood of increased BMI but also that socio-economic factors influencing BMI – whether positively or negatively – evince a stronger impact as income levels rise.

This study, focused on the Czech Republic, examines the influence of ethnic nationalism on the public willingness to accept war refugees from countries with different cultural and religious backgrounds. We present evidence relating to forced migration from Ukraine (predominantly Christian) and from countries with predominantly Muslim populations. The theoretical-conceptual framework for our study encompasses the concepts of ethnicity and historical institutionalism, and the theory of social identity. Our theoretical analysis is strengthened by evidence from structured and semi-structured interviews. We find that ethnic nationalism does contribute in part to public rejection of migrants with different ethnic or religious backgrounds in the Czech Republic, as one of several factors that encourage a perceived ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy among certain sectors of the Czech population.

This article explores the concept of the ‘Trump effect’, defined by a technological disconnection and evaluated through alterations in export specialization among various economies. It scrutinizes if there were any shifts in the techno-nationalist trends of the EU, China and the US in terms of domestic value-added exports in technology sectors after 2017. The research covers the period from 1995 to 2020 and utilizes a fluctuating difference-in-differences approach. The findings suggest that technological global value chains (GVCs) were minimally affected by Trump’s policies, showing scant evidence of significant disconnection in the economies under study. Consequently, the research underscores the robustness of GVCs against the measures taken by the Trump administration.

While the previous studies of the world history of literature are mostly concerned with the cross-cultural dissemination of literature, this article intends to analyse the intermediality of world literature in light of intermedial studies. It argues that the cross-cultural transmissions of literature are often entangled with and empowered by the intermedial interactions between literature and different forms of art. Under the theoretical framework of cross-cultural and intermedial studies, two representative Chinese literary works are discussed at length, namely Mulan ci (The Ballad of Mulan, sixth century) and Hong gaoliang (Red Sorghum, 1987). In addition to a careful analysis of their respective history of overseas transmissions, a comparative study of the two, an ancient poem and a modern novel, is carried out to show how the evolution of media has contributed to the cross-cultural transmissions of literature.

This article aims to explore the social representations of the Spanish Second Republic and the Transition epochs among university students of various national identities within the Spanish state. A free-association exercise elicited by the words ‘Second Republic’ and ‘Transition’ was completed by 477 university students of the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia, and Madrid, who were also asked about their national identity ideological orientation. Lexical analysis was used to analyse their responses. The results demonstrate how these two periods are strongly anchored in the ideological affiliations and social identity of the participants. Furthermore, we observed that the Spanish identity and right-wing ideology were related to a narrative crafted by the political elites during the inception of the current democratic period. Meanwhile, the peripheral national identities and left-wing ideology were associated with a contentious narrative that responds to the contested narrative. In addition, the results also reveal the current relevance of these two periods through their symbols and transmission, whose senses and meanings differ based on the ideological affiliation and national identity of the participants.

The purpose of this study is to thoroughly examine the concept and significance of corruption in the European Union from an ethical standpoint and analyse statistical data on the level of corruption and attitudes towards it, using the example of Italy, Greece and Latvia. For effective research on the subject, it is important to use the hermeneutical method and quantitative analysis. The study considers corruption and ethics, identifies the essence, their concept and content, and demonstrates the connection between them. The analysis of an international regulatory act related to the fight against corruption is conducted and, based on this analysis, the forms of corruption are determined. The influence of corruption on society and various spheres of state government, both in general, in the international arena (and directly within the European Union), and on the example of individual states (Italy, Greece and Latvia) is established. The level of corruption is analysed in accordance with the Corruption Perceptions Index Transparency International, and the best and worst indicators among the member states of the European Union are highlighted. As a result of the study, the most thorough definitions of the concepts of ethics and corruption are provided, the relationship between these concepts is demonstrated, and statistical data on the level of corruption in the world’s countries (in particular, in relation to the selected states) are established. Changes in the perception of the level of corruption in 27 European Union states from 2012 to 2023 are also analysed. This study emphasizes the importance of compliance with ethical behaviour by representatives of the civil service and enterprises. The specific problem of employees exceeding their powers, which leads to public disbelief in the effectiveness of the government of their state, is also noted. In addition, the study showed that focusing on ethical issues can substantially contribute to preventing and combating corruption.

A fundamental question in relation to academic freedom is the setting of research agendas. In relation to this issue, this article first points to the great diversity of research as a result of the complex structure of the research ecosystem. Against this backdrop, the article continues by discussing six different steps in setting a research agenda. This, in turn, leads to a comparison of the two main approaches to set up a research agenda: bottom-up and top-down. Finally, the article presents recent tendencies and limitations to research agendas.

This article examines the narrative strategies employed in the representation of world literature history, departing from the chronological and geographical divisions used in the recently published four-volume work, Literature: A World History. The separation of the narrative paths by continents may appear overly mechanical, but the work demonstrates remarkable flexibility in this regard. The example of classical literature is particularly illustrative. Despite the chapters belonging to the ‘Europe’ category, the work discusses literature produced in all three continents around the Mediterranean together and without any mechanical separation. Although divisions in a narrative of such a vast scope are unavoidable, it is essential to apply them in a flexible manner.

Writing histories of world literature was, for the longest time, an almost exclusively European, or in any case Western, enterprise. Moreover, it was overwhelmingly centred on European, or again Western, literature. To do away with such Eurocentrism was the avowed aim of the project upon which an international set of literary scholars embarked in 2006, and which resulted in the four-volume Literature: A World History published in 2022. In the articles to follow, five scholars (Pettersson, Trivedi, Utas, Zhang, D’haen) directly involved with the project look back on their experience and reflect on the pros and cons, the successes and the failures, the achievements and the shortcomings, of the enterprise. As counterbalance, six scholars (Ette, Hajdu, Hawas, He, Larsen, Rydholm) not involved with the project reflect on the (im)possibilities of writing world histories of literature.

Academic freedom is founded on two fundamental principles: professional autonomy and the public good. These dual foundations are necessarily in tension with each other. Academic freedom is not a civil right, as is freedom of speech, nor is it an individual employment benefit provided to those in a restricted number of academic appointments. It is, instead, a freedom belonging to the academic profession collectively to pursue inquiry and teach freely, limited and guided by the principles of that profession and of a scholar’s respective disciplines. Academic freedom guarantees both faculty members and students the right to engage in intellectual inquiry and debate without fear of censorship or retaliation. It grants considerable scope to the consciences of individual teachers and researchers, but functions ultimately as the collective freedom of the scholarly community to govern itself in the interest of serving the common good in a democratic society. Academic freedom must protect not only independent research and classroom teaching, but a scholar’s expression as a citizen of both the university and the broader polity. Hence, to thrive, academic freedom depends on a democratic and constitutional system that guarantees the rule of law. Academic freedom has always been contested and vulnerable, to be sure, but in recent years it has faced a series of escalating challenges almost everywhere, amounting to a major crisis. In this context, calls for ‘institutional neutrality’ must be critically examined.

This article investigates the evolving dynamics of global scientific production and collaboration from 2000 to 2022, focusing on the impact of geopolitical changes on academic freedom and international research collaboration. Historically dominated by Western liberal democracies, the global scientific landscape has seen a significant shift with the rise of emerging economies, particularly within the BRICS group. This transition reflects broader changes in wealth distribution and scientific output, with China emerging as the largest scientific system. The analysis employs bibliometric indicators and political metrics, including the V-Dem’s Liberal Democracy Index and the Academic Freedom Index, to assess changes in scientific output, academic freedom, and international collaboration. Results reveal a decline in academic freedom and liberal democracy in major science-producing countries, coinciding with increased scientific output from nations with lower academic freedoms. The study also examines international collaboration patterns, highlighting a shift away from traditional Western partners towards increased collaboration within the BRICS group. This shift is particularly evident in the growing partnerships between China, India and Russia. Despite the increased scientific output from these countries, Western countries, particularly the USA and European nations, remain pivotal in global scientific networks. In summary, the findings suggest a move towards a more multipolar scientific world, where the balance of power is shifting away from traditional Western hegemony. However, this shift comes with significant challenges, particularly concerning the erosion of academic freedom in many of the expanding scientific regions.

Most literary histories with a global ambition attempt to map the world, often tilted toward a European/Western perspective and written as a teamwork by individual experts on a variety of regions – and maybe originating from those regions – each of them taking responsibility for their own linguistic and regional specialty. Often, the regional or local chapters offer few new insights for readers from that region, but useful insights for people from other parts of the world. A project along those lines follows what I will call a mapping strategy, which often leaves out an idea or a concept of what ‘world’ means in this context apart from the sum total of separate localities. This is, however, a necessary conceptualization which allows for a rethinking and rewriting of literary history, leading it in new directions beyond the aim of achieving global coverage. This article attempts to sketch an alternative to the mapping strategy.

‘No nation has produced more anthologies or collections of women’s poetry than late imperial China’, according to Kang-i Sun Chang. Indeed, the open-access database of Ming–Qing Women’s Writings at McGill University Library includes 5239 women writers and 431 poetry collections. Yet virtually no trace of this phenomenon, or of these women writers, can be found in transcultural literary histories and anthologies of world literature published in the West in the twentieth century and beyond. How is this possible? The reason is not simply the lack of translations of many of the poems, but rather it has to do with the lack of canonization of these women poets in Chinese literary history until the late twentieth century, when they were ‘rediscovered’. This article investigates this neglect with the aim of showing that there were several different reasons for it, related to poetics, genre hierarchies, anthology editing practices, etc., in the imperial era, and to aspects of Chinese literary historiography in the twentieth century. Two women ci poets, Liu Shi and Qiu Jin, are briefly introduced to show that the reasons for their exclusion, as well as their later inclusion in the national literary canon, also need to be addressed on an individual level.

This chapter is based on the assumption that conflicts between separate ethnolinguistic identities and imperial cultures have existed throughout history, and often played important roles. The four-volume work, Literature: A World History, serves as a starting-point for a discussion of the effects of such conflicts on various literatures. Examples are taken from, in particular, literatures written in Iranian and Slavonic languages, but the Chinese, Arabic and Turkic/Turkish impact on various literatures is also mentioned. Finally, it is questioned what this four-volume work has done to address the problem of literature and such conflicts, and what can be done to avoid spreading narratives that are – perhaps unconsciously – imperialistic. After all, this work is written in English, the most broadly used imperial language ever, and it is questioned what it means that it is being presented in this language.