bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Wartime Novels
Authors: Hathaway Heather
Published: May 2022

This chapter studies, in depth, the only two currently known novels written in the camps, Toshio Mori’s The Brothers Murata and Hiroshi Nakamura’s Treadmill: A Documentary Novel. It analyzes Mori’s portrayal of the destruction of a relationship between two brothers as a result of their differing responses to the incarceration, and to the loyalty questionnaire specifically. The chapter then explores the wide variety of issues presented in Treadmill, ranging from the more common, such as the effect of the loyalty questionnaire and the impact of the incarceration on family unity, to rarely depicted events such as mental illness, sexual assault, unplanned pregnancy, suicide, and class and caste differences among inmates. Hisaye Yamamoto’s story, The Legend of Miss Sasagawara, is also studied within the context of mental illness during the imprisonment.
The Hyksos State
Authors: Forstner-Müller Irene
Published: May 2022

This chapter discusses the history of northern Egypt during the Fifteenth Dynasty (seventeenth to sixteenth centuries BC), when, following the collapse of the central state at the end of the Middle Kingdom, the north of Egypt split from the rest of the country, became independent, and finally turned into the “Hyksos State.” The city of Avaris became the capital of the Hyksos and was one of the largest cities in the ancient Near East. This chapter discusses the rise of the Fifteenth Dynasty kings and the characteristics of “Hyksos culture.” Special focus is given to material culture, administrative practices, and the evidence for diplomatic contacts and trade both within Egypt and outside it, with the Levant and Syria to the north and Nubia and the kingdom of Kerma to the south.
Mittani and Its Empire
Authors: von Dassow Eva
Published: May 2022

The kingdom of Mittani, also known as Hanigalbat, the Hurrian kingdom, and Naharina, was established in the area of the upper Khabur River in the late sixteenth century BC. Having first taken form as Hanigalbat, this kingdom incorporated immigrants from beyond the Zagros into local populations among whom speakers of Hurrian predominated. Mittani acquired an empire extending across northern Mesopotamia, Syria, and eastern Anatolia during the fifteenth century BC, vying with New Kingdom Egypt as one of two “superpowers” in the Near East. It later lost this status, and its empire, in competition with Assyria and Hatti, then struggled along under the name Hanigalbat until it was extinguished in the thirteenth century BC. This chapter surveys the sources and covers the history of Mittani from its obscure origins through the growth of its empire to its dismemberment and demise. The chapter also examines the role attributed to speakers of an Indo-Aryan language, horse-drawn chariotry as a factor in the emergence of a new political and social order, and the governance of Mittani’s empire. During its floruit, the kingdom of Mittani appears to have experimented with diverse models of imperial rule, pioneered the differentiation of citizenship between sovereign and subject states, and promoted the differentiation of social classes according to status and socioeconomic capacity. Meanwhile, its culture featured an efflorescence of new styles and technologies in diverse media, notably including glass manufacture. Some of the innovations survived Mittani’s demise, as did some Hurrian literature, transmitted and transformed by Assyrian, Hittite, and other hands.
The semantics of openness
Authors: Matczak Marcin
Published: May 2022

Judges in different jurisdictions tend to quote foreign verdicts when deciding domestic cases. This practice flies in the face of the well-entrenched theory according to which law is a product of a domestic, sovereign lawmaker, and foreign judicial decisions are irrelevant to its interpretation. This chapter explains why the practice does not follow the theory and argue that it is not the former that should be changed but the latter. It shows that the notion of a sovereign lawmaker is based on an author-centred theory of language, semantic internalism. This theory states that the sole source of meaning is the intention of a unique speaker. An alternative theory of language, semantic externalism, locates the meaning in the relationship between language and external reality, which is broadly similar in all languages and jurisdictions. Semantic externalism better explains why judicial borrowings are ubiquitous amongst different jurisdictions and thereby provides a better theoretical underpinning for this behaviour.
Balancing interpretation rules as the element of judicial discretion
Authors: Wojciechowski Bartosz
Published: May 2022

This chapter describes the operative interpretation of indefinite legal concepts and general clauses as a balancing act which involves a certain degree of margin of appreciation or judicial discretion in its broad sense. A ‘balancing’ of different methods of interpretation—namely linguistic, systemic or functional interpretation—weighs against the rule of clara sunt interpretanda. The application of the rules of a systemic or functional interpretation in case of arriving at a semantic clarity of the interpreted concept, based on the rules of linguistic interpretation, is not in fact the interpreter’s obligation but only serves the purpose of verifying the result of the interpretation. The situation differs when the rules of linguistic interpretation prove insufficient to achieve said ‘clarity’ because then there arises the need to apply the other rules.
Interpreting multilingual laws
Authors: Solan Lawrence M.
Published: May 2022

This chapter discusses some of the many costs and benefits of the multilingual interpretation of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The costs are fairly clear. First, the equal authenticity of the language versions causes rule of law issues because the parties in a dispute may be ‘blindsided’ by interpretations that they would have no reason to have considered. Second, and most obviously, it costs a lot to translate laws into twenty-four versions that are as equivalent as the translators can make them. And third, even a perfunctory reading of the literature on legal translation demonstrates that the expectation of true equivalence is a fantasy. Yet, there are benefits as well. The interpretive methods of the CJEU produce fair results when there appears to be a conflict among the various language versions. The Court typically examines multiple versions of the law, and then triangulates in an effort to extract the meaning that the Court concludes best reflects the intent of the enacting legislature. This chapter attempts to weigh the potential advantages of multilingual interpretation against its costs.
Crimes against women in armed conflicts
Authors: Ristova-Aasterud Karolina
Published: May 2022

This chapter examines the novelties in international humanitarian law of the 1990s regarding crimes against women in armed conflicts and argues that they can be explained by two key factors. The first factor is the judicial activism of the ad hoc criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, rather uncommon for the criminal law area. The second factor is the very organized background work of the feminist ‘interpretative community’ against the gender bias in international law. The main conclusion is that although some challenges remain to be addressed, feminist legal discourse has finally started to win the semantic and conceptual ‘war’ against the most serious wording and ontological gaps in international humanitarian law that have existed since the aftermath of World War II, with the creation of the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, and the subsequent Geneva Regime of 1949.
On the Dark Path
Authors: Christie Douglas E.
Published: May 2022

This chapter examines the place of wandering and exile in contemplative practice, considering in particular Michel de Certeau’s claim that instability, uncertainty, and wandering (which he describes as leading “elsewhere” or “nowhere”) are fundamental to the mystic quest. It considers also Hadewijch’s assertion that “those who have glimpsed that [mystical] truth [hasten], on the dark path, Untraced, unmarked, all inner.” And it examines—in the context of a journey with a friend across Germany to the death camps of eastern Poland—whether this mystical sense of “elsewhere” or “nowhere” or “void” can help one face and respond to places of deepest loss and emptiness in recent historical experience. And whether the construction and experience of heterotopias (e.g., Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin) can help us cultivate contemplative practices of shared vulnerability and instability that make it possible for us to join with others who are wandering in the night.
The Common Life
Authors: Christie Douglas E.
Published: May 2022

This chapter focuses on the question of how contemplative thought and practice can deepen our shared sense of what it means to encounter and cultivate what mystics often refer to as “the common life.” It examines the dialectical relationships between solitude and community, and contemplation and action that have long preoccupied Christian contemplatives and mystics and considers how the journey into the night or emptiness can be understood as grounded in and expressive of love. It situates these questions within the distinctive social and political realities of Argentina and the experience of communal living from 2013 to 2015. And it examines, in relation to the thought of Evagrius, Hadewijch, Ruusbroec, Marguerite Porete, Simone Weil, and others, what it means to take seriously the social and political implications of contemplative life and practice, and how this integrated contemplative vision can contribute to a deepening of the shared practice of accompaniment.
Platform Power
Authors: Nielsen Rasmus Kleis , Sarah Anne Ganter
Published: May 2022

This chapter discusses the implications of the development analyzed throughout the book for news specifically and societies more widely. The chapter argues platform power is a defining feature of relations between platforms and publishers, and that the way in which this power is exercised is becoming increasingly relevant for every other type of actor who seeks to capture people’s attention and communicate with them, whether for political, commercial, or other reasons. This highlights a fundamental feature of our world: many different institutions, like the news media, are increasingly simultaneously empowered by and dependent on a few powerful technology companies.
Shelley’s Uncreative Mind
Authors: Townsend Chris
Published: May 2022

Mary Shelley wrote of her late husband that he was a ‘disciple of the immaterialist Philosophy of Berkeley’—a claim that does not seem to sit easily with Shelley’s responses to organized religion nor his strongly sceptical thought. This chapter makes the case for such a discipleship in Shelley by taking up his thinking in the essay fragment ‘On Life’, in which Berkeley’s claim that everything exists as it is perceived is taken up by Shelley as a universal and fundamental truth. The chapter shows that, where Shelley moves beyond Berkeley to suggest that there is a noumenal world beyond our perceptions, his brand of scepticism is still rooted in Berkeleian ideas; for Shelley, in ‘On Life’ and the great lyric ‘Mont Blanc’, the very nature of being is something that is felt and inferred in a manner that is strikingly redolent of Berkeley’s category of ‘notional’ knowledge of spirits.
Conclusion
Authors: Townsend Chris
Published: May 2022

In light of the discussion of Berkeley’s place in Romantic thought across the rest of this book, the conclusion turns around three interrelated questions: what is Romanticism’s contribution to the history of ideas? What role does Berkeley play in the construction of that original contribution? And what role does verse play in Romanticism’s thinking, apart from and beyond philosophic prose? The claim in this conclusion is that Berkeley’s reception in Romanticism points to one answer for all of those questions: that Romanticism’s signal achievement was the thinking through of the world and its appearances within the strange and singular appearance in the world that is poetry itself.
The Contours of the State
Authors: Rao M. Govinda
Published: May 2022

The nature of public finance in the country depends on the role of the State it chooses to adopt. While the benevolent view of the State considers it a social guardian maximizing people’s welfare, the public choice view regards it to be impinging on people’s freedom and, therefore, its role should be restricted to providing basic public goods. In some ways, the two views represent the normative and positive views on of State activity. In actual practice, in a democratic polity, the role of public finance depends on the mandate of the people. However, it is important to note that the intervention through public financing involves opportunity cost in terms of resources forgone and, therefore, public finance intervention can be justified only when it results in higher social return than its corresponding private use. Furthermore, there is a consensus that public provision does not entail public production.
Tax Policy and Reforms in India
Authors: Rao M. Govinda
Published: May 2022

The lessons from optimal tax theory and best practice approaches show that tax reforms should attempt to broaden the base, lower the rates, and reduce rate differences to evolve a simple, predictable, and a transparent tax system. The objective should be to increase revenues by minimizing the cost of collection, compliance cost, and distortions. Indian tax system, in contrast, suffers from low tax-GDP ratio, much below its potential despite several attempts at reform. Income tax exemption to agricultural incomes narrows the base and opens up avenues for evasion. The assignment of the tax on agricultural incomes to the states and their reluctance to tax them has led to significant evasion and avoidance of the tax, often through misclassification. The proliferation of tax preferences in both direct and indirect taxes to achieve multiple objectives narrows the base, complicates the system, and reduces compliance. The wilful avoidance by multinationals with headquarters in tax havens has been a major source of revenue loss. The capacity of the tax administration also needs to be augmented to deal with complex business systems.
Shadow of a Taxman
Authors: Adams R. J. C.
Published: May 2022

Shadow of a Taxman investigates how the unrecognized Irish Republic’s money was solicited, collected, transmitted, and safeguarded, as well as who the financial backers were and what might have influenced their decision to contribute. The Republic’s quest for funds took its emissaries as far afield as New York, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, and Melbourne, as well as to the Irish community in Britain and virtually every parish in Ireland. By selling ‘war bonds’ to supporters, it raised £370,165 from 140,000 people in Ireland and nearly $6m from 300,000 in the United States. These bonds promised a return to subscribers when British forces had left Ireland and an independent Irish Republic was internationally recognized. Exploiting newly uncovered documents, Shadow of a Taxman reveals the identities of these subscribers. Cross-referencing with census returns, intelligence reports, memoirs, and IRA membership rolls, it provides the first demographic analysis of non-combatant supporters of Irish independence on the eve of its realization. It also shows how access to funds shaped the course of the Irish War of Independence and, ultimately, Irish republicans’ negotiating position with the British government in 1921.
Behind the Scenes
Authors: Adams R. J. C.
Published: May 2022

Chapter 8 explores the internal dynamics of the External Loan organization. It shows how the Dáil mission vied with the Irish-American leadership for control of Irish nationalist fundraising in America. In particular, it follows the struggle between John Devoy and Justice Daniel Cohalan of the Friends of Irish Freedom on one hand, and Éamon de Valera and the Dáil mission to America on the other. Flashpoints such as de Valera’s ‘Cuba interview’ with the Westminster Gazette and his attempts to influence the Democratic and Republican platforms in the 1920 US presidential election are analysed. The chapter also explores the practical obstacles standing in the way of a successful bond drive, such as extreme weather conditions, the Spanish ’Flu, and the bureaucratic burden of such a large organization.
State of Economic Growth and Development
Authors: Khan Bilal Ahmad
Published: May 2022

J&K State is lagging behind in diversified economic structure; as such the state economy is mostly dependent on Agriculture sector. Situation is not any better in primary sector where the proportion of net area sown to the total cropped area, average yield per hectare of land, and production of food grains has been stagnant through 80s and much of the 90s. And from the last fifteen years it has been declining. This has created a situation where the imports constitute 80 per cent of the SDP which makes massive leakage effect leading to present crisis. Prior to the turbulent period, the J&K economy was primarily based on agriculture and the service sector was dominated only by tourism. Tourism was identified as the engine of growth and development. However, militant activities since 1989 onwards, there was a colossal setback of it. History bears witness to the fact that whenever and wherever militancy or political instability found roots, the economy of that region became a major causality.
Issues of Unemployment and Underemployment
Authors: Khan Bilal Ahmad
Published: May 2022

The J&K has shown high economic growth but has not been able to meet the aspirations of the youth who are looking for opportunities for education and employment. Frequent disturbances have created an atmosphere of uncertainty, impacting employment creation which has alienated the youth. The current unrest environment surfaced since 90s makes it difficult to attract large scale private investment into the state, especially in the industrial sector. The alternative is to focus on the agriculture and services sectors that have the potential to generate jobs quickly. However, agriculture sector responds quickly, that is, in a short run to the investments and productivity. Education level is increasing at an alarming rate. However, the problem youth face is that they cannot earn their livelihood after completing their degrees. They remain jobless most of the time. The problem of educated unemployment constitutes a serious and menacing problem. The educated unemployed are more dangerous than uneducated person. Rising rate of unemployment is one of the main reasons for late marriages and violence.
Prospects of Employment Generation in Jammu & Kashmir
Authors: Khan Bilal Ahmad
Published: May 2022

Unfortunately, that the youth, despite their contributions to national developments, find themselves trapped in a culture marked by violence and frustration. This is the best time for state to invest in youth and reactivate and relocate their energies if there is any need for economic growth and social development. Employment generation is the key channel through which economic growth translates into prosperity for the population. In a growing economy, employment growth with rising productivity is the most effective mechanism available to the poor to participate in the growth process and raise their standard of living. In order to reduce the unemployment the following points must be considered to frame the policies to eradicate the plague of unemployment. I. Promotion of labour intensive generation activities, for example, horticulture, regeneration of degraded forests, watershed development, etc. II. The non-farm activities in the rural areas should be given preference. There is lot of service activities required in the remote and rural areas in the field of education, health, and in respect of information technology. III. The major employment generation sectors like tourism and handicrafts are required to be encouraged and new tourist spots should be explored. The State of J&K has certain inherent strengths that can be utilized to improve the income of its people and to provide gainful employment opportunities on sustainable basis, which are like strong base of traditional skills not found elsewhere; untapped natural resource; a natural environment which has been very profitably utilized by other countries for high income-environment friendly tourism industry.
Summary and Conclusion
Authors: Khan Bilal Ahmad
Published: May 2022

The book provides a comprehensive analysis of the state economy in connection with employment generation and the way conflict situation changed its nature in the militancy and post-militancy period. The volume of work also shows the hidden factors responsible to the changing nature of employment. It can be concluded that the workforce growth is accompanied and assisted by structural transformation unevenly in the sectors due to unpretentious development. The decline of workforce share in primary sector is compensated by the increase in the share of tertiary sector gives fillip to the process of urbanization by way of migration from rural to urban areas. This dynamic nature accelerated more State Gross Domestic Product and employment generation. Work participation rates among districts show high disparity over time. To be very brief, two major challenges that state is confronting are ferocity and lackadaisical or imprudent policies, pursued by the subsequent governments that eroded our strengths and potential. There is dire need of permanent agreement for the resolution of conflict between India and Pakistan so that peace full environment will be created once for all and all economic sectors will be encouraged rapidly. The state must make a radical shift in its policies especially in the education sector in order to remove its impediments so that we can give birth to capable workforce. Actually, the remedy lies in revamping the education sector by crafting appropriate policies for appropriate skills in line with the socioeconomic requirements of the society.
This chapter in nutshell makes a thoughtful effort to understand some important issues. This gains significance as it attempts to reflect the change in trend and pattern of workforce in quick glance. The cursory problems and important suggestions for employment generation by author for improving the system have been highlighted and summarized in this chapter. This chapter makes the assessment of the book in short form.
Women Writing Race, Nation, and History
Authors: Sarker Sonita
Published: May 2022

This book presents how Nation and Narrative are bound together through the figure of the “N/native” as it appears in the non-fictional writings of Cornelia Sorabji, Grazia Deledda, Zitkála-Šá, Virginia Woolf, Victoria Ocampo, and Gwendolyn Bennett. It addresses two questions: How did women writers in the early twentieth century tackle the entangled roots of political and cultural citizenship from which crises of belonging arise? How do their narrative negotiations of those crises inform modernist practice and modernity, then and now? The “N/native” moves between “born in” and “first in” in the context of the modern nation-state. In the dominant discourses of post-imperial as well as decolonizing nations, “Native” is relegated to Time (static or fetishized through nostalgia and romance). History is envisioned as active and contoured, associated with motion and progress, which the “native” inhabits and for whom citizenship is a political as well as a temporal attribute. The six authors’ identities as Native, settler, indigenous, immigrant, or native-citizen are formed from their gendered, racialized, and classed locations in their respective nations. Each author negotiates the intertwined strands of Time and History by mobilizing the “N/native” to reclaim citizenship (cultural-political belonging). This study reveals how their lineage, connections to land, experiences in learning (education), and their labor generate their narratives. The juxtaposition of the six writers keeps in focus the asymmetries in their responses to their times, and illustrates how relevant women’s/feminist production were then, and are in today’s versions of the same urgent debates about heightened nativisms and nationalisms.
Grazia Deledda
Authors: Sarker Sonita
Published: May 2022

While Deledda is most frequently portrayed as a prominent Italian who won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1926), she wrote largely of Sardinia. This chapter analyzes how the disparity between self-presentation and representation speaks to her claims as “native” of Sardinia, through an exposition of her lineage, relationships to land and learning, and the nature of her labor. She taught herself standardized Italian and produced a large body of work, from her early semi-anthropological collection of Sardinian folktales to her novels. The experience of cultural and gender discrimination did not deter her from claiming a place in canonical Italian literature through her focus on Sardinia.
Virginia Woolf
Authors: Sarker Sonita
Published: May 2022

This chapter questions Englishness as a given category to which Woolf is considered “native.” It explores how Woolf herself, in fact, interrogates to what extent she is English and illustrates the iterative strategies she undertakes to assert belonging. It discusses how her Englishness is embedded in her lineage, relationships to land and learning, as well as her labor, and propels her delineations of “native” and “other.” Woolf struggled against gender marginalization to acquire an education intentionally, through study in her famous father’s library; she dedicated a large portion of her nonfictional essays to detailed analyses of English literature, as a way to establish her cultural belonging. Her White Englishness is never addressed directly but emerges strongly through her contrasts with many “others” and through a careful delineation of a gendered patriotism.
Gwendolyn Bennett
Authors: Sarker Sonita
Published: May 2022

This chapter analyzes the distance between Black womanhood and citizenship in the life of the author, who is considered a “minor” figure in the Harlem Renaissance and in North American letters. It explores the nuances of the ways in which Bennett—through her lineage, relationship with land, her learning, and her labor—claims her place in an “America” that withholds or compromises her legitimacy and validity. Her entire life and career constitute an effort to bridge the fault lines that open up between “Black,” “woman,” and “American” in the early twentieth-century United States. Her many and considerable talents—as writer, painter, editor, activist—in various educational and cultural circles, became the bases on which she constructed her own sense of belonging and claimed her place as a “native” of the country of her birth.
Public Expenditure in India
Authors: Karnam Gayithri
Published: May 2022

India has experienced a significant growth in the public spending both at the central and sub-national levels of the government. Fiscal instruments are used extensively in the sectoral development strategies adopted by the government. The framing of legislation like ‘FRBM’ to effect rule-based fiscal corrections has compelled governments both at the centre and at the state levels to attain fiscal consolidation by imposing ceiling on the fiscal and revenue deficits and the public debt. This chapter analyses trends in major public expenditure components such as ‘revenue’ and ‘capital’ accounts representing the ‘accounting’ classification and ‘general’, ‘social and community’, and ‘economic’ services representing the ‘functional’ classification of public expenditure. The discussion on central government spending in India is structured into four different phases, guided by the policy regimes and major fiscal developments: In the first phase largely the effort was to define the path of development of independent India and overcome the huge deficit burden left behind by the British government. The second phase pertains to fiscal expansionary phase starting from 1974–75 till 1990–91. This period also resulted in high fiscal and revenue deficits, and by 1991, the country had to announce major structural adjustment and stabilization measures. Analysis pertaining to the period 1990–91 till the framing of the FRBM Act by the central government relates to the third phase. This period was marked by uncontained deficits despite conditionalities attached by the international agencies to gradually reduce the fiscal deficit to 3%. The fourth phase pertains to post-FRBM till date. This period was marked by a number of fiscal reform initiatives, including rule-based governance of deficits.
Public Financial Accountability Issues in India
Authors: Karnam Gayithri
Published: May 2022

Public financial accountability has gained considerable importance of late and is rated more in terms of the efficiency with which public funds are expended, services delivered and the extent to which, the targeted output and outcomes are achieved than the quantum of financial allocations made year on year. This chapter makes an attempt to examine the issues that are of concern for India in the areas of financial accountability slated to achieve through the institutions that are responsible for ensuring accountability. The analysis focuses on the working of the current systems in place to ensure public financial accountability in India, their inadequacies and some corrective measures. Key issues addressed include whether the current control mechanism captures entire public spending, secondly, adequacy of the control mechanism in terms of providing insights on the results of public expenditure, thirdly departmental response to the CAG audit findings.
Outlays to Outcomes
Authors: Karnam Gayithri
Published: May 2022

Incurring of a larger budgetary outlay year-on-year has been a hallmark of governmental financial performance for long in India. There has been a growing concern about the results of the financial investments made by the governments and its effectiveness. There have been a number of failed attempts to put in place frameworks to assess the programme performance. The shift in emphasis from outlays to outcomes has been effectively operationalized using well-designed results frameworks by a number of countries even while India continues to experiment with new approaches time and again. The international best practices for programme performance assessment and their broad features are discussed in this chapter.
Artefacts, Affordances, Constructions
Authors: Cave Terence
Published: May 2022

This chapter focuses not on literary objects as such but on the thought-worlds of two anthropologists (Ingold, Barber) and an archaeologist with strong anthropological leanings (Malafouris). It engages with some of their arguments on the nature of artefacts, in particular those made with language. It is highly selective, focusing on theories that are directly relevant to the concerns of the book, and it makes no attempt to cover the issues at length. It adds some proposals for a broad definition of the term ‘affordance’ as it is used in this study; and it also comments briefly on the notion of ‘construction’ and its theoretical constraints. These commentaries are designed to provide a conceptual perspective that complements the imaginative perspective of Chapter 1 and to prepare the ground for what follows.
Questions of Language: Strange Collocations
Authors: Cave Terence
Published: May 2022

This chapter places language at the centre of attention as the material from which literary artefacts are made, elaborating key aspects of this linguistic materiality, in particular its embodied and situated character. Language appears here as an activity and a practice, or set of practices, rather than as a theoretical object assumed to have an intrinsic ‘logic’. This chapter explores the embodied and situated character of linguistic collocation, using a series of examples both from everyday language and from imaginative utterance (Alice Oswald and others). It suggests that collocation has affinities with the functioning of figurative language more generally, explores the phrase ‘Juliet is the sun’ from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, then broadens the argument further into the realm of syntax, dwelling in particular on the function of ‘as if’ as an imaginative tool.
Scorching Love
Authors: Gandhi Gopalkrishna , Suhrud Tridip
Published: May 2022

Gandhi’s letter-writing was a non-stop pre-occupation verging on an obsession. He wrote them by day, he wrote them by night, he wrote them from aboard trains, steamers, both right and left hands being pressed into service to rest one when tired out. And when both had to be rested, he dictated the letters. A great many of those letters were to his family, written in Gujarati. This volume contains translations into English of letters, mostly unpublished, that he wrote to his youngest son, Devadas.
The letters span over three decades—during which the writer grew from being a fighter for the rights of Indians in South Africa to being hailed as Father of the Nation by millions in India and—opposed by many as well. They hold his aspirations for his son and for his nation. They bear great love and they scorch.
Gandhi emerges from these letters as a man who was so preoccupied with his public work as to seem utterly neglectful of family. And at the same time as a father so conscious of his duties to his sons and daughters in law as to burn public time for home care.
And we see Devadas, the recipient of the letters, move from compliant childhood and youth to adulthood, questioning and remonstrating with his father and being just the independent son his father wants him to be.
1920–1929
Authors: Gandhi Gopalkrishna , Suhrud Tridip
Published: May 2022

This part covers the period 1920 – 1929. It includes major communications with C. Rajagopalachari, Mahadev Desai and with Trikumji. It also includes references to the first non-cooperation movement, Gandhi’s relationship with Saraladevi, the declaration of non-interference with non-violent activities for Khilafat, the Punjab Wrongs or Swaraj, and Gandhi’s advocacy for free Press.
“Spirituality” Today
Authors: Watts Galen
Published: May 2022

Drawing on original interview and fieldwork data, as well as discourse analysis of popular “spiritual” and self-help books, this chapter presents a systematic rendering of the religion of the heart—the cultural structure that informs much (if not most) of what goes by “spirituality” today. The religion of the heart is comprised of the following ten logically interrelated tenets: (1) Experiential Epistemology, (2) Immanence of God or the Superempirical, (3) Benevolent God or Universe, (4) Redemptive Self as Theodicy, (5) Self-Realization as Teleology, (6) Self-Ethic (Voice from Within), (7) Virtue is Natural, (8) Sacralization of Individual Liberty, (9) Mind-Body-Spirit Connection, (10) Methodological Individualism. The chapter concludes that this cultural structure functions as an emerging religious metanarrative that animates much of the contemporary religious landscape.
Dutch Book Arguments
Authors: Titelbaum Michael G.
Published: May 2022

This chapter assesses Dutch Book arguments. We present Dutch Book arguments for probabilism and updating by Conditionalization. An attempt is made to “depragmatize” these arguments and present them with plausible epistemological conclusions. Objections to the arguments are surveyed and responded to where possible.
The Three Great Pandemics of Plague
Authors: Primrose Sandy B.
Published: May 2022

The bacterium Yersinia pestis causes bubonic plague (infection of lymph glands) when transmitted by fleas, and pneumonic plague if transmitted by aerosols from a person with a lung infection. Yersinia pestis was responsible for three great plague pandemics: the Justinian plague (541–750), the Black Death (1347–1700s), and the Third Pandemic (1894–mid-twentieth century). Ancient DNA (aDNA) of Yersinia pestis has been recovered from teeth of victims of each of these plagues. Yersinia pestis diverged from the much less pathogenic Yersinia pseudotuberculosis about 5,700 years ago. Following divergence, Yersinia pestis acquired a number of plasmids that carry key virulence determinants. These included the ymt gene, essential for bacterial growth in the flea gut, the pla gene, necessary for the disease to spread in the body, and a type III secretion system. Key virulence aspects of Yersinia pestis are immune evasion mediated by outer membrane proteins, an absence of pathogen-associated molecular patterns, and an ability to survive in phagosomes.
The Most Influential Bacterium: Wolbachia pipientis
Authors: Primrose Sandy B.
Published: May 2022

Wolbachia is an endosymbiont of arthropods that can manipulate their reproductive fitness via cytoplasmic incompatibility. This phenomenon has been used successfully to reduce the transmission by mosquitoes of viral diseases. Genome analysis has shown that Wolbachia has shed many genes for cell wall biosynthesis but has large amounts of repetitive DNA and DNA of mobile genetic elements. Prophage WO encodes the Eukaryotic Association Module that is the site of many genes for eukaryotic-like proteins. Other parts of the genome also encode eukaryotic-like proteins but the role of these proteins is not understood. The genome encodes a type IV secretion system that permits transfer of effectors to the insect host. Wolbachia can manipulate its hosts in ways other than reproductive fitness, for example, increased fecundity, feminization, resistance to insect viruses. Wolbachia can infect invertebrates other than arthropods. Wolbachia-infected nematodes cause elephantiasis and infected filarial worms cause river blindness. Both diseases can be successfully treated by using antibiotics to kill Wolbachia.
An Environmental Opportunistic Pathogen: Cryptococcus
Authors: Primrose Sandy B.
Published: May 2022

Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gatti are yeasts that can cause severe, life-threatening infections of the lungs and brain, particularly in immunocompromised individuals. Cryptococci are opportunistic pathogens. Their natural habitat is the environment where they have evolved a series of mechanisms to resist radiation, desiccation, high temperatures, and digestion by protists such as amoebae. Infections of humans occurs following inhalation of the yeasts or their spores. The factors that enable survival in the environment enable the yeasts to escape many of the defences of the human immune system. Because human-to-human transmission does not occur, the genetic traits of any clinical isolate must have been selected in the environment. Cryptococcal disease initially was restricted to sub-Saharan Africa but now has spread to other parts of the world. It is not clear how this has occurred given that there is no human-to-human transmission.
A Virus That Promotes Its Own Transfer: Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus
Authors: Primrose Sandy B.
Published: May 2022

Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) is a persistent plant virus; that is, one that replicates in both its insect vector (thrips) and plants. The viral NSs protein interferes with the plant’s RNA-induced silencing complex that is the first line of defence against virus infection. The NSs protein also interferes with the plant’s jasmonate-signalling pathway and suppresses the formation of insect-repellent terpenes. This makes infected plants more attractive to thrips than uninfected plants. Infected plants also have a higher free amino acid content which favours thrips reproduction. TSWV adapts to new plant hosts by the selection of mutants in its NSs and NSm proteins, mutation being facilitated by the error-prone nature of RNA replication.
Filovirus Haemorrhagic Fevers: Marburg Virus and Ebola
Authors: Primrose Sandy B.
Published: May 2022

Filoviruses are a family of viruses that infect mammals in tropical regions and cause haemorrhagic fevers when they infect humans. The best-known members of the family are Marburg virus and Ebola. The first outbreak of Marburg virus occurred in laboratory workers handling African green monkeys from Uganda. Subsequent outbreaks occurred in Africa among workers mining guano from bat-infested caves. It is not known if monkeys and bats are reservoirs of the virus or intermediate hosts even though they show no symptoms when infected. There have been over twenty outbreaks of Ebola in various parts of Africa in the last twenty-five years. The virus is highly infectious and spread is facilitated by close contact, especially local burial practices. A refusal to accept the role of virus in the disease makes control very difficult. The different regional outbreaks of Ebola have been caused by different strains of the virus and sequence analysis suggests they had a common ancestor 2,000 years ago. However, all attempts to find the animal reservoir have failed.
Zoonotic Diseases
Authors: Primrose Sandy B.
Published: May 2022

The number of zoonoses of global concern has increased every decade for the last sixty years and is linked to habitat destruction and biodiversity loss. Most countries in the world have signed up to the International Health Regulations (IHR) whose objective is to prevent and respond to potential public health emergencies of international concern (PHEIC). A key issue with the IHR, as exemplified by COVID-19, is the willingness of a country to report a PHEIC. Good surveillance is essential for the early detection of zoonoses that may become a PHEIC but the availability and cost of appropriate diagnostics is a limiting factor, particularly in the poorer countries which often have the greatest reservoirs of zoonoses. The One Health initiative, which operates at all levels from local to global, has the objectives of trying to prevent the emergence of new zoonoses and responding effectively to any PHEIC that occurs.
Into the black hole—applying complexity
Authors: Day Adam
Published: May 2022

This chapter goes beyond the description of complexity theory to its application to case studies on South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It argues that the key concepts of complexity theory—self-organization, relationality, emergence, strong attractors, non-linear change—can provide a framework for understanding how governance emerges in conflict settings. In this context, the chapter suggests that well-worn concepts like ‘resilience’ and ‘local ownership’ need to be reimagined as part of a network of relations in a complex system. Ultimately, the chapter argues that we should consider the United Nations (UN) as part of the system itself, rather than as an external actor attempting to achieve an impact. In fact, by failing to account for the strong attractors and deeply entrenched patterns in the systems, the UN often unwittingly bolsters tendencies towards authoritarianism and predation, rather that its stated goals of more stable, effective state institutions.
The Congolese ‘black hole’
Authors: Day Adam
Published: May 2022

This chapter employs the tools of complexity theory to describe the evolution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) governance system from post-colonial times to the present. It argues that a form of symbiosis emerged among armed groups, traditional leaders, businesses, and state actors, resulting in a highly networked form of governance in eastern Congo. These relationships acted as ‘strong attractors’ in the Congolese governance system, drawing resources and political energy away from state institutions and increasing reliance on violent actors to stabilize the system. During the DRC’s civil wars, this reliance on armed actors grew, while the ability of private businesses to market Congo’s natural resources internationally meant that viable state institutions were never able to develop. The result was a highly resilient, adaptive, largely non-state system of governance that tended to strip central authorities of power and resources even as it appeared to build state institutions.
The Argument from Design
Authors: von Greyerz Kaspar
Published: May 2022

Among contemporary physico-theological treatises we can distinguish different genres. The argument from design was the most prevalent among them. Chapter 3 illustrates the main concerns of practitioners of this genre while, at the same time, demonstrating the geographical and cross-cultural scope of physico-theology in introducing authors from Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Swedish Finland. It points to the pivotal role of John Ray’s works for the deployment of physico-theology in Britain and on the continent, but also makes clear that our grasp must reach beyond treatises that identify themselves explicitly as physico-theological works. Furthermore, the present chapter introduces the Scandinavian ‘wing’ of the physico-theological movement. To date, it has been well known that the famous Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus adhered to physico-theology, but owing to the canonization by traditional history of science of outstanding exponents of early modern science without considering their environment, it has been little recognized outside Scandinavia that Linnaeus was at the centre of a whole group of eighteenth-century Swedish physico-theologians.
Reframing Indigenous Rights
Authors: Rodríguez-Garavito César , Baquero-Díaz Carlos Andrés
Published: May 2022

This chapter analyses the 30-year struggle of the Sarayaku Indigenous people against oil extraction in their territory in the Ecuadorian Amazon as a largely successful and iconic instance of transnational legal mobilization. We argue that a key factor underlying the evolution and impact of the campaign is the success of the Sarayaku coalition in contesting the narrow definition of the right to free, prior, and informed consultation (FPIC) advanced by governments, corporations, and most intergovernmental agencies. We posit that the most impactful tactics of the Sarayaku people and other actors in the campaign can be construed as ‘framing’ work. The Sarayaku’s framing tactics included: (i) reframing the legal dispute in terms of the rights of Indigenous peoples to self-determination and the rights of nature; (ii) communicating such frames in ways that resonate not only with courts but also with a broad global audience of environmentally conscious supporters; and (iii) creating a bridge between the Indigenous rights frame and the emerging frame of global action against climate change.
Introduction
Authors: Ackerly Brooke A. , Marcoux Jean-Michel , Bourbeau Philippe
Published: May 2022

In line with their widespread nature, pandemics inevitably entail a broad range of consequences in economic, ethical, geographic, legal, medical, pharmaceutical, political, and sociological terms. In addition to affecting several countries, it is thus clear that pandemics cross boundaries that have been traditionally established between academic disciplines. This introductory chapter calls for a multidisciplinary approach to pandemics, with a view to providing a more comprehensive understanding of this international phenomenon and to identifying solutions that are based on principles of justice and equality. It proceeds in three steps. First, after recalling the methodological implications underlying a multidisciplinary approach, it calls for a dialogue across disciplines that have examined pandemics independently in the past. Second, it identifies ethical imperatives that have emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic by emphasizing how a multidisciplinary approach is relevant to address the links between the threats to global justice and the pandemic. Third, it provides a brief overview of the other chapters included in the edited volume.