bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Mexico and World War II
Authors: Jones Halbert
Published: July 2021

World War II had a significant impact on the trajectory of postrevolutionary Mexican development. Pressure from the United States for collaboration in defense efforts and the ambivalence of the Mexican public toward an active role in the conflict posed challenges. Yet the crisis atmosphere created by the war allowed the country’s leaders to insist upon a policy of national unity. The Ávila Camacho administration was thus able to maintain a broad political coalition as it took Mexico formally into the war on the side of the Allies in 1942 and then gradually expanded the scope of the country’s participation in the conflict. Wartime conditions prompted Mexico to expand its capacities and make new demands on citizens; they served as well to accelerate the professionalization and depoliticization of the armed forces. In economic terms, the war disrupted trade with Europe but spurred US demand for the strategic outputs of Mexican mines and farms and Mexican labor. The unavailability of previously imported goods provided an impetus for a process of industrialization that would continue into the postwar period, but many workers saw their living standards fall as wartime inflation eroded their real wages. Mexico emerged from the war with a claim to regional leadership, much-improved relations with Washington, a rapidly growing industrial sector, and a political landscape considerably more stable and consolidated than it had been in the two decades immediately following the Mexican Revolution.
The Rise of Postcolonial Criticism in Biblical Studies and Its Current Status
Authors: Nadella Raj
Published: July 2021

This chapter explores the origins and development of the rapidly growing field of postcolonial biblical criticism and examines its current status. It begins with a brief account of postcolonial discourse in the secular academy which traces its roots to the anticolonial political and cultural struggles in twentieth-century Asia, Africa, and Latin America and serves as the foundation for postcolonial biblical criticism. It highlights major phases in the emergence of the field, its intellectual precursors, methods, and theories and assesses the contributions of key practitioners. The article analyzes the multifaceted and interdisciplinary nature of the field, its impact on biblical studies and current interpretive trajectories, and calls attention to the directions that research in the field should continue to take.
Mitochondrial Dynamics and Stress Signaling in Cancer
Authors: Rubio-Patiño Camila , Chipuk Jerry Edward
Published: July 2021

Mitochondria are double-membrane organelles that provide precursors, metabolites, and energy—all of which impact upon the fundamental principles of cell biology. Over the past decade, the study of mitochondrial dynamics has also achieved great significance in cancer mechanisms—the mitochondrial dynamics literature expands beyond cell biology principles, and now captures our attention as a major contributor to cancer-promoting pathways. In parallel, mitochondria activate a repertoire of stress response cascades that facilitate organelle quality control through proteostasis and mitophagy and when stress is irreparable, eventual commitment to apoptosis. This chapter explores current literature that discusses how the mitochondrial dynamics machinery functions in the context of oncogenic and tumor suppressor pathways. Particular emphasis will be placed on the intersection of mitochondria-specific stress responses and mitochondrial dynamics in the context of cancer. Our goal is to capture how mitochondrial pathways directly impinge upon the principles of cell biology and the fundamentals of cancer mechanisms to motivate further research efforts in these areas.
Consumers’ Perceptions and Evaluations of Luxury and Luxury Brands
Authors: Wiedmann Klaus-Peter
Published: July 2021

This chapter takes a critical look at concepts for measuring the perception and evaluation of luxuries by consumers. After a short clarification of the multifaceted relationship between consumers and luxury brands, the first focus lies on the presentation of relevant and much-noticed measurement concepts. The critical discussion of these approaches reveals three challenges that need to be mastered by future research: (1) the relevant points of reference for the perception and evaluation of luxury goods need to be identified in a more differentiated and systematic way; (2) the interplay between conscious and unconscious perception and appraisal must be considered; last but not least (3) the resulting perceived value of luxury brands should be recorded in a much more differentiated manner. Subsequently, the chapter mainly offers first proposals to close the highlighted research gaps.
“In-Betweeners”
Authors: Morse Ainsley
Published: July 2021

Late Soviet culture abounded in spaces, practices, and even individuals who existed “in-between” with respect to official and unofficial culture(s). Negotiations between official ideology and discourse and the way people lived and made art became increasingly complex and intimate in the years between the Thaw and perestroika. This article interrogates the concept of “in-between” aesthetics—posited as one of eclecticism and ambiguity—through an examination of widespread, yet highly variable manifestations of “in-between” creative activity, including literature, bard music, translation, and children’s books (including illustration). The disparate examples of “in-between” activity given here only constitute a few instances of a tendency that, even while liminal by definition, approached the mainstream in its ubiquity in the late Soviet period.
Video Games and Identity Formation in Contemporary Society
Authors: Muriel Daniel
Published: July 2021

The irruption and broad adoption of digital technologies such as video games are reshaping individuals and affecting fundamental aspects of their symbolic and material configuration such as their identity, gaze, body, and agency. This chapter focuses on what video gamers’ identities tell us about the contemporary processes of identity formation. Drawing on social theorists who have approached the crisis of identity in contemporary society, the chapter sets out a theoretical framework that describes the shift in the identity construction models from those based on solid and permanent identities to those centered around fluid and fragmented ones. The text then explores the most relevant empirical research on gaming and identity, linking it to the main debates on the subject. Not only do video games express the fluid, contingent, and volatile nature of identity in today’s world; they also anticipate social settings in which the very notion of identity is under scrutiny.
The Effects of Confessional Strife on Religious Authority in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century
Authors: Nellen Henk
Published: July 2021

This chapter discusses the confessional controversies on biblical authority and ecclesiastical tradition in the first half of the seventeenth century. While Protestant theologians upheld the status of the Bible as a divinely inspired, unique, coherent, and self-evident source of faith and stressed the subordinate significance of the patristic legacy, the Roman Catholic camp embraced the importance of the teachings of the Church Fathers, conciliar decrees, and papal decisions as a rock-solid criterion for a sound interpretation of the Bible. On the basis of treatises authored by eminent and hard-core exponents of Calvinism like Abraham Scultetus, Jean Daillé, Louis Cappel, and André Rivet, set against the views of the Jesuit Denis Pétau, expert in the history of the primitive church, it is argued that debates led to a reciprocal undermining of viewpoints, which eventually paved the way for more radical positions at the end of the century.
Unity and Engagement in the Modern World
Authors: Wood John Halsey
Published: July 2021

In the midst of the roiling chaos of the nineteenth century, Abraham Kuyper’s Neo-Calvinism was a strategy to maintain a Calvinist unity and engagement with an increasingly disintegrated Western world. The unity Kuyper pursued was of two kinds: intellectual and social. As a thinker, Kuyper valued coherent, interrelated systems. He took as his starting point the systematic Calvinism of Protestant scholastics and the Reformed Confessions as well as Romanticism’s organic impulse which elevated the organic and natural over mechanical and artificial. In addition to a unified mind, Kuyper also pursued a unified Calvinist community, albeit a different kind than imagined by earlier Calvinists. Under the pressures of modernity, Kuyper didn’t pursue a repristinated Calvinist culture, but a renewed Calvinist subculture.
Calvin’s Geneva
Authors: Spierling Karen E.
Published: July 2021

Since Calvin’s lifetime, Reformation-era Geneva has taken on a life of its own as the model—and even the myth—of what truly dedicated Christian reformers can achieve: a community dedicated unswervingly to Christian piety and living out ‘true’ Christian doctrine in daily life. Despite the tenacity of this myth of Calvin’s Geneva, scholarship of recent decades has begun to forge a more precise and complicated picture of the Reformation as it happened in Geneva: a reform with seemingly absolute goals but without absolutely rigid or complete effects. As this chapter demonstrates, in order to contextualize the work of Calvin fully, we must continue to deepen our understanding of Geneva as the perpetual work-in-progress that Calvin himself would have recognized rather than only as the ‘most perfect school of Christ’ trumpeted by John Knox.
Old Princeton and European Scholarship
Authors: Aubert Annette G.
Published: July 2021

This chapter discusses Old Princeton in its broad intellectual and historical contexts, especially the engagement of Princeton faculty with European religious scholars. The Princeton professors used German and European scholarship extensively in their work, including in their defences of Calvinism. The chapter addresses some of the challenges that the Princeton professors faced in the context of modernity, and provides details regarding their reliance on a transatlantic community of evangelical scholars who were familiar with the Enlightenment Bible and issues tied to the rise of modern universities. A transatlantic reading supports an examination of scientific theological efforts on the part of Princeton-based scholars, and underscores their links with evangelical European scholars. The chapter shows how current research on the academic work and defence of traditional Calvinist ideas that emerged from Princeton Theological Seminary in the nineteenth century benefits from a broader historical context that includes the influx of European ideas.
Calvinism and Reformed Confessions in the Korean Presbyterian Church
Authors: Kim Byunghoon
Published: July 2021

The study of Calvin and Calvinism in Korean churches is closely related to the history and development of Presbyterianism in Korea. For the most part of its history, Calvinism in Presbyterian churches had been understood very limitedly in one of three ways: the Westminster Confession of Faith, Calvin’s Institutes, or the five points of TULIP. Such a narrow understanding, however, began to change after 1980 due to the efforts of scholars and doctoral students who had studied abroad and also with many books on Calvin and Calvinism being translated into the Korean language. This chapter examines this development by tracing the role of confessional documents adopted by the Korean Presbyterian churches. In light of the historical context, this chapter looks at how the first creed of the Korean Presbyterian Church called the Twelve Articles, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and other Reformed Confessions have shaped the identity of Korean Presbyterianism, which claims itself to be in the heritage of Calvinistic tradition.
(Re)Discoveries of the Reformed Faith in Brazil
Authors: Campos Heber
Published: July 2021

The recent widespread interest in the Reformed faith among evangelicals in Brazil raises the question of how much Calvinism entered and established itself in this country. Brazilian Presbyterianism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries appears to have been more conservative evangelical, more anti-Roman Catholic, than distinctively Reformed. The twenty-first-century interest in the Reformed faith among many evangelicals from different denominations (including a greater interest among Presbyterians) comes through four avenues: literature, conferences, media, and theological schools. However, the variegated use of the terms ‘Reformed’ and ‘Calvinism’ allows the conclusion that many elements that have composed this historical tradition have not been widely rediscovered. In order for Brazilians further to understand Calvinism, there needs to be a discovery of its rich legacy in biblical-hermeneutical, historical-dogmatic, as well as pastoral studies.
Calvin, Calvinism, and Medieval Thought
Authors: Zahnd Ueli
Published: July 2021

This chapter deals with the possible role of medieval scholasticism in early Reformed theology and aims at re-evaluating the triangle of medieval, Reformation, and post-Reformation thought. First, the chapter briefly reviews the question of medieval thought in Calvin’s theology, it discusses then the role of medieval scholasticism in the emergence of Reformed scholasticism, and it finally focuses on three exemplary cases of post-Reformation theologians and their attitude towards medieval thought: Antoine de Chandieu, Lambert Daneau, and Polanus of Polansdorf. In doing so, the chapter both extends and qualifies the ‘positive continuity view’ prevalent in recent research: on the one hand, on the level of explicit references, it points to the apparent discontinuity in the expressed attitude towards medieval thought between the first few and the later generations of Reformed theologians. On the other, it argues that on the level of implicit allusions and methodological imitations the doctrinal and methodical continuities between Calvin and later ‘Calvinists’ can be extended to continuities between late medieval and early Reformed theology.
John Knox and John Calvin
Authors: Dawson Jane
Published: July 2021

John Calvin and John Knox were very different personalities, with the Scotsman looking to the French Reformer for religious leadership and defending Calvin’s reputation with fierce loyalty. Their personal relationship was forged between 1554 and 1559 when Knox was based in Geneva and served as co-minister to the English exile congregation in the city. When dealing with this enthusiastic, if independent, Scottish admirer, Calvin demonstrated patience and forbearance. Knox sought to follow Calvin’s lead on predestination but was prepared to go his own way on worship and especially on the validity of resistance to a ruler. Knox’s 1558 resistance tracts, not sanctioned by Calvin, brought major consequences for the way in which Calvin, Beza, and the ‘example of Geneva’ were viewed in Tudor England and Stewart Scotland. This had long-lasting implications for the Protestant identities of the two kingdoms and for the unity of the wider Reformed family.
TMS measures and voluntary motor function
Authors: Rothwell John C. , Hannah Ricci
Published: July 2021

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can be viewed as interacting with voluntary movement in two ways: it can used to probe the excitability of central nervous system (CNS) pathways before, during, and after a movement; alternatively, it can be used to interfere with movement and give information about the role of different cortical areas in different aspects of a task. This chapter concentrates on the role of single and paired pulse TMS methods that have been covered in detail in previous chapters. Long lasting effects of repetitive TMS (rTMS) are described in later chapters. Almost all of the TMS measures described in previous chapters differ in subjects at rest and during tonic voluntary activity.
The Presence of the First World War in Weimar Culture
Authors: Siebrecht Claudia
Published: July 2021

This chapter considers Weimar Germany as a post-war society and addresses the key historiographical strands that interpret the political and cultural significance of the lost war. It demonstrates the importance of the war’s legacy for Weimar political culture by looking at commemorative practices on a national, local, and individual level and by reflecting on some examples of the memory of the war in art, literature, photography, and film. It argues that the plurality and ambivalence of remembrance rituals and war memories in Weimar Germany need to be accounted for beyond a domination by the nationalist right and a left–right divide of commemorative activities. How and why people remembered the way they did is best understood not only at the level of the nation, but by looking at local communities, families, and individuals.
The Reichswehr and Armament Policies
Authors: Ziemann Benjamin
Published: July 2021

The Reichswehr had a specific place in the history of the Weimar Republic, as it was pivotal for every attempt to rebuilt full national sovereignty vis-à-vis the stipulations of the Treaty of Versailles. At the same time, state-sponsored armed forces were a crucial prerequisite for attempts to crack down on the localized civil war waged by the radical left in 1919/20, and to defend the German border in the East. The chapter analyses the Reichswehr as an attempt to create a modern, professional army that aimed to accommodate the insights gained by the introduction of machine warfare since 1916. Yet the armament policies of the Reichswehr also relied on the self-mobilization of society for defence, whether through the Home Guards in 1919/20 or through the clandestine build-up of the ‘black’ Reichswehr.
Democracy and the Quality of Government
Authors: Bauhr Monika , Grimes Marcia
Published: July 2021

Does democracy reduce corruption and improve quality of government? While the corruption-reducing effect of democracy may be seemingly self-evident in light of theoretical expectations, a wealth of empirical literature suggests that democracy is not always as effective as theories predict. Studies consistently demonstrate that newly democratized countries exhibit, on average, higher levels of corruption than more established democracies but also than some autocracies. This chapter takes stock of recent advances in efforts to understand how, whether, and when democracy contributes to weeding out corrupt leaders and government corruption more generally. While research has made notable advances, we suggest that a closer examination of the underlying theory of change and assumptions upon which the beneficial effects of democracy rest can identify new ways forward. We point to a need for greater attention to how, for example, state capacity, transparency, and experiences with different forms of corruption influence civic and electoral engagement against corruption.
Trust, Populism, and the Quality of Government
Authors: Keefer Philip , Scartascini Carlos , Vlaicu Razvan
Published: July 2021

Why do voters elect politicians whose populist policies degrade the quality of government? Low social trust can account for this paradox: it undermines the collective action by voters that is necessary to elect politicians who support high-quality government. If all voters believe that every other voter will accept particularistic benefits in exchange for supporting poorly performing governments, no voter has an incentive to spurn those benefits in order to select politicians who promise high-quality government. By the same logic, low social trust prevents voters from sanctioning politicians who renege on their promises. Low political trust springs from social mistrust, yielding low-quality government and populism as optimal electoral strategies. New survey data from seven Latin American countries reveal that respondents who exhibit low social trust are more likely to prefer populist policies that reflect a low quality of government.
Electoral Rules and Corruption
Authors: Xezonakis Georgios , Dawson Stephen
Published: July 2021

A large literature reviews the effects of constitutional arrangements and electoral rules on various aspects of QoG. The state of the debate, so far, is not one that provides straightforward answers regarding the important institutions, the magnitude of the effects, or even their direction. Through a meta-analysis of the relevant literature, we seek in this chapter to evaluate the relationship between electoral rules and corruption. The results of the meta-analysis suggest support for an individual accountability mechanism that transcends the crude majoritarian–proportional distinction. We show that absence of corruption can be positively correlated with systems in which district magnitude is at its lowest (plurality systems) and its highest (proportional systems). The important electoral system features appear to be those that cultivate a “personal vote,” strengthening accountability between voters and individual legislators.
Inequality and Corruption
Authors: You Jong-sung
Published: July 2021

Corruption is a primary problem for the quality of government. Since most corrupt exchanges favor the wealthy and the powerful rather than the poor and the powerless, corruption tends to reinforce and widen existing inequalities of wealth and power. Higher inequalities in income and wealth may lead to higher levels of corruption by undermining democratic accountability mechanisms. The wealthy elite may capture policymaking and implementation processes and corrupt electoral process through sponsoring clientelistic politics. Also, high inequality is likely to affect norms and perceptions about corruption, eroding social trust and encouraging corruption. The reciprocal causality may create a vicious cycle of high corruption and high inequality as well as a virtuous cycle of low corruption and low inequality, especially in democracies.
Quality of Government
Authors: Rothstein Bo
Published: July 2021

In trying to conceptualize quality of government (QoG) one enters into the same difficulties as with other central concepts in the social sciences such as power, democracy, corruption, violence, etc. It is argued that conceptual precision is necessary for creating valid and reliable measures without which empirical research and policy solutions will not be possible. The strategy used in this conceptual operation has been to try to define what could be the opposite of corruption. It is argued that quality of government should be defined as separate from quality of democracy and also government effectiveness since we want to explain the latter by the former. A number of choices for defining QoG are presented (normative vs. empirical, substantive vs. procedural, universal vs. relativistic, multi- vs. unidimensional) are presented. The suggested definition is based on the idea of impartiality in the exercise of public power. Lastly, a number of challenges to this definition are presented.
Corruption, Elites, and Power: An Overview of International Policy Efforts to Improve the Quality of Government
Authors: Fukuyama Francis , Recanatini Francesca
Published: July 2021

In 1996, the then president of the World Bank James Wolfenson stressed the malign effects of corruption on development, putting anticorruption on his institution’s agenda. Since then, the Bank and many other development institutions have focused on corruption and quality of government. This chapter reviews the different approaches taken to improve the quality of governments while fighting corruption: state structural reform, simplification and reduction of administrative discretion, transparency and accountability initiatives, international agreements and conventions, and specialized anticorruption bodies. This chapter reviews the effectiveness of these approaches and concludes that while there have been some successes, there is relatively little evidence of major improvement in aggregate levels of corruption. The reason for this lies in the political nature of corruption and the powerful incentives of elites to maintain the status quo. The limited impact of anticorruption efforts reflects the fact that the international donor community, often operating in an uncoordinated way, usually does not have the political leverage to shift these incentives.
International Efforts to Combat Corruption
Authors: Lohaus Mathis , Gutterman Ellen
Published: July 2021

Attempts to improve the domestic quality of government often involve international arrangements and the fight against corruption is a prominent example. Since the 1990s, anticorruption pledges, international treaties, soft law arrangements, transnational advocacy campaigns, and other commitments have proliferated to control bribery and corruption in a range of contexts. This chapter surveys the literature on the emergence and characteristics of these various initiatives and provides an overview of what is known about their impacts on policy and discourse, law, and behavior. While empirical evidence on the impact of international anticorruption efforts is mixed, existing studies and directions for future research suggest that the quality of government in highly developed states is crucial when it comes to controlling transnational business bribery, money laundering, and other illicit financial flows.
Gender, Gender Equality, and Corruption
Authors: Alexander Amy C.
Published: July 2021

This chapter covers the state of the art in theory and evidence on the relationship between gender, gender equality, and corruption. Starting with the theoretical assumptions that link individuals’ gender to the likelihood to engage in corruption, the chapter covers the four mechanisms proposed throughout the literature for expecting women to engage less: gender role socialization, power marginalization, the greater importance of an effective state for women’s self-determination, and the tendency to hold women to higher standards. From here, the chapter reviews additional societal-level theories on gender equality and corruption: 1) theory assuming that gender equality lowers corruption by empowering women, promoting women’s interests and generating norms of impartiality; and, 2) theory assuming that lower corruption increases gender equality. The chapter then reviews the evidence in support of the various theories and concludes with a critical assessment that identifies gaps and suggests future research.
Happiness and the Quality of Government
Authors: Helliwell John F. , Huang Haifang , Wang Shun
Published: July 2021

This chapter uses happiness data to assess the quality of government. Our happiness data are drawn from the Gallup World Poll, starting in 2005 and extending to 2017 or 2018. In our analysis of the panel of more than 150 countries and generally over 1,500 national-level observations, we show that government delivery quality is significantly correlated with national happiness, but democratic quality is not. We also analyze other quality of government indicators. Confidence in government is correlated with happiness, however forms of democracy and government spending seem not. We further discuss three channels (including peace and conflict, trust, and inequality) whereby quality of government and happiness are linked. We finally summarize what has been learned about how government policies could be formed to improve citizens’ happiness.
The Universalization of Ethical Universalism
Authors: Mungiu-Pippidi Alina
Published: July 2021

This chapter argues that the adoption of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in 2004 and its subsequent ratification by more than 180 parties indicates universal agreement on the norms of quality of government, putting an end to moral relativist arguments. While UNCAC does not define corruption, it defines good governance and sets ethical universalism as its key benchmark. The chapter then follows the intellectual history of this concept and its remarkable success, with the norm of equal, fair, and nondiscriminatory treatment of every citizen present in every current constitutional contract. Ratification does not necessarily mean implementation when corruption is concerned, and the chapter surveys limitations to the practice of ethical universalism in governance and existing approaches to narrow the gap between norm and practice.
Improving Governance in Tightly Controlled Societies
Authors: Rotberg Robert I.
Published: July 2021

This chapter is about the seeming contradiction—quality of government without full democracy. Quality of government (QoG) depends critically on the vision and actions of transformational or less-than-transformational leadership. This factor is often overlooked by analyses of structural and contingent factors. The nature of that leadership sometimes leads to societies in which citizens enjoy high QoG despite undemocratic rule. A few nations provide high government quality to their citizens, but restrict fundamental freedoms (and thus are less than democratic). Should we reconceptualize quality of government to take account of these “imperfect” governmental providers?
The Challenge of State-Building in Historical Perspective
Authors: Berman Sheri
Published: July 2021

Over the past decades scholars have increasingly recognized that strong, effective states are an essential prerequisite for a wide variety of political and economic goods. Yet while many recent studies remind us that strong, effective states are important and explain how they differ from weak, predatory ones, few focus on how such states actually develop. An examination of the European experience reveals that, in the past as today, centralizing authority was an extremely difficult process. The particular strategies state-builders used to defeat their adversaries, or at least gain their acquiescence, profoundly impacted subsequent political development in general and the challenges associated with establishing high-quality government in particular since these strategies critically influenced whether or how easily a state could develop.
The Quality of Government and Civil Conflict
Authors: Deglow Annekatrin , Fjelde Hanne
Published: July 2021

What does existing research tell us about the relationship between the quality of government and civil conflict? There is no clearly delineated literature that scholars interested in this relationship ascribe to. In general, scholars have devoted more effort to examining variations in the outlook of formal state institutions, rather than how governance is exercised within these structures. We discuss how research falling under other conceptual umbrellas, such as democracy, state repression, inequality, and institutional trust help inform the debate about the relationship between the quality of government and civil conflict. Through this broader lens we synthesize what we know both about the quality of government as a predictor for conflict outbreak and recurrence, and how civil conflict shapes the quality of government, drawing on macro- and micro-level studies. The chapter concludes by pointing towards fruitful avenues for future research.
Shadow Elites
Authors: Wedel Janine R.
Published: July 2021

Seismic transformational developments over the past several decades have reorganized governance, spawned new spaces of policy and governance, and weakened impartial government and accountability. Systemic, structural corruption, in which activities are mostly legal but violate an official institution’s public, impartial mission has arisen, along with a new breed of influencers. “Shadow elites” are the most insidious of these influencers. This chapter, grounded in social anthropology, examines the organization and modus operandi of shadow elites as compared with their “power elite” forebears and evaluates theories of institutional corruption in light of shadow elite practices and their merging of state and private power. International anticorruption regimes have emerged over the same time frame (the past quarter century) as shadow elites. Hence we ask why these regimes have largely failed to recognize the impact of the transformational developments and the forms of corruption they forge. A wide-ranging, multidisciplinary approach to studying shadow elite practices, ecosystems, and implications is urgently needed.
The Ethnographic Study of Corruption
Authors: Torsello Davide
Published: July 2021

The ethnographic study of corruption is a comparatively recent scholarly field. Classical anthropological scholarship has not programmatically dealt with this phenomenon for a number of reasons that are methodological, epistemological, and deontological in nature. This chapter illustrates, mainly from the viewpoint of social anthropology, the potentialities and drawbacks of the ethnographic study of corruption. It maintains that although ethnographic approaches to the study of large-scale corruption are difficult, corruption and a number of petty phenomena (gift giving, reciprocity, favors, and informality) can be studied from original and innovative perspectives that focus simultaneously on ideas, ideologies, and practices.
Rewriting
Authors: Efthymiadis Stephanos
Published: July 2021

The chapter surveys all the forms of rewriting in Byzantine literature: copying longer or shorter extracts from an “original” work; drawing on a previous text and adapting it into a new one; providing a new version by reworking an older text in terms of its language, style, and length; and parodying and modifying its literary character. Allegory, periphrasis, epitome, paraphrasis, and metaphrasis denoted different modes by which a given text could be rhetorically elaborated; yet, as terms, they were not used consistently by Byzantine authors. As a literary trend, rewriting had its representatives in the fourth and fifth centuries, but burgeoned in the ninth and tenth centuries, and then again in the Komnenian and Palaiologan eras, when it was characterized by literary experimentation. Compositions deriving from (an) older text(s) were treated with respect in Byzantium, as they were seen as creations that required special literary skills.
Arabic
Authors: Treiger Alexander
Published: July 2021

After the Muslim conquest of the Middle East in the seventh century, indigenous Christian populations translated thousands of Christian texts from their ancestral languages (Greek, Syriac, and Coptic) into Arabic. The present contribution surveys Arabic translations of Greek (primarily early Byzantine) Christian literature, discusses important translation centers (especially, Palestine and Antioch) and individual translators, and reviews the translated texts by genre, with special attention to biblical texts, hagiography, homiletics, theological and ascetic literature, and liturgy and hymnography. The vast majority of the texts discussed have not been edited or studied, and still await their researchers.
Biblical Hermeneutics
Authors: Constas Maximos
Published: July 2021

This chapter presents a survey of biblical interpretation in the Byzantine world from late antiquity through the late Byzantine period. Literary genres, schools of thought, historical periods, as well as major writers, theologians, and exegetes are covered. Consideration is given to the historical antecedents of Byzantine biblical hermeneutics in Jewish and Greek interpretive practices. Significant emphasis is given to hermeneutical questions, with special attention to allegory. Many of the texts that are surveyed are either unpublished, unavailable in modern translations, or only poorly known by scholars, opening up avenues for new research and study.
Orality and Textuality (With an Appendix on the Byzantine Conceptions)
Authors: Messis Charis , Papaioannou Stratis
Published: July 2021

The chapter proposes that one cannot approach Byzantine literature—preserved in either medieval and early modern manuscript books or in the form of inscriptions—without an appreciation of its textual modes of production and circulation, its possible origins in oral creation, and its likely orientation toward oral performance and auditory reception. It thus introduces and surveys three types of texts: (i) texts that reflect conditions of primary orality (songs, sayings, and short or long “stories”); (ii) texts that entail secondary orality (primarily rhetorical and liturgical texts); and (iii) a middle type of texts (texts of fictive orality and rhetoricized liturgical literature). The chapter is rounded off by an examination of Byzantine conceptions of oral vs. written discourse.
Rhetorical Figures
Authors: Valiavitcharska Vessela
Published: July 2021

The Byzantine tradition of tropes and figures, as it survives in various “handbooks,” is chiefly pedagogical in nature, aiming at practical proficiency. It derives from treatises composed between the first and fifth–sixth centuries ce, which were reworked and supplemented numerous times, but generally retained the late antique division into tropes (τρόποι), figures of diction (σχήματα λέξεως), and figures of thought (σχήματα διανοίας). This chapter describes the types of surviving treatises, their principles of classification, the lists of tropes and figures they contain, and their place in the rhetorical “curriculum.” It sketches out some prominent literary and rhetorical functions of figurative language in Byzantine literature, such as creating emphasis, blending concepts, setting a pace, expanding or contracting certain meanings, epitomizing arguments, and engaging the audience. The chapter is accompanied by a glossary of commonly used tropes and figures of diction and thought.
Metrics and Prose Rhythm
Authors: Hörandner Wolfram , Rhoby Andreas
Published: July 2021

The chapter deals with Byzantine metrics and prose rhythm. Byzantine poets used various meters; from the seventh century onward, primarily the Byzantine dodecasyllable, i.e., a meter with a stable number of (12) syllables, which is based on the iambic trimeter of Antiquity and Late Antiquity and is read after the word accent. Various authors (such as Ioannes Geometres, Theodoros Prodromos, and Theodoros Metochites) also wrote hexameters (not only for special occasions), but this meter was less frequently used because for the Byzantine audience the distinction between short and long syllables was lost. The fifteen-syllable verse (or political verse) represents an independent Byzantine development, which, as a combination of hemistichs of eight and seven syllables, may have its origin in early hymnography. Rhythm is part of verse and prose. The prose rhythm, an elementary element of rhetoric, describes the tendency in Greek prose to end clauses in a rhythmically patterned way. The position most suitable for rhythmical regulation of a prose text is at the end of a clause or a period, as also pointed out by Byzantine theoreticians. The so-called Meyer’s law (after Wilhelm Meyer from Speyer) describes the system of placing at least two unstressed syllables between the last two accents of a clause. The character of Byzantine cadences has been very much under debate, and recently, editors have begun to take into account the punctuation practice in manuscripts in order to get a better view of the relationship between punctuation and rhythm.
Book Culture
Authors: Ronconi Filippo , Papaioannou Stratis
Published: July 2021

The chapter surveys the culture of the manuscript book in Byzantium. It proposes a comprehensive study of Greek manuscripts that both looks at the Mediterranean multilingual book culture at large, and takes into consideration all facets (both material and social) that determined the production, circulation, and preservation of manuscripts. Statistics and relevant research tools of the preserved manuscript corpus are offered, while the disparities of such statistics and research tools also are highlighted—as Greek manuscripts remain, to a very large extent, still poorly studied despite the many recent advances. Attention is also drawn to the commerce and mobility of books in Byzantium, to the main human agents (copyists, patrons, and later owners), and main types of book (codices, scrolls, etc.) in Byzantine manuscript culture. The chapter also discusses the issue of forgery, as well as that of books which were used for ritual and other purposes, and were not meant primarily for reading.
Modes of Manuscript Transmission (Ninth–Fifteenth Centuries)
Authors: Martín Inmaculada Pérez
Published: July 2021

The chapter presents some patterns of the transmission of Byzantine texts in their cultural context. It stresses the importance of material causes to explain the conservation or loss of texts, such as the use of a particular support or the conservation in a specific library; thus, e.g., the use of fragile Eastern paper undoubtedly explains the scarcity of manuscripts preserved from such a rich literary culture as that of the Komnenian period. It also analyzes the transmission of texts in miscellanies and the beneficial combination of ancient and Byzantine works; the role of the author and his circle, especially his disciples, in the conservation and transmission of his works; the center/periphery dialectic in an empire like Byzantium, where the learning and the literary canon promoted by the administration determined not only the texts that were most widely circulated but also those that were not. To sum up, the study of transmission offers a likely window into the values and goals of those who purchased, owned, read, and wrote books, and it can illuminate the multiple functions of books in Byzantium.
Readers and Their Pleasures
Authors: Papaioannou Stratis
Published: July 2021

The chapter explores the ways in which the high value of reading and, especially, its association with various kinds of pleasure were constructed and conceived in Byzantium. More specifically, it examines what the effect of reading was, how its experience was perceived, and who was conceived as the ideal reader. It also explores the social profile of readers in Byzantium, and demarcates two main types of readers from the perspective of the typology of ideal discourse: the “ritual” and the “aesthetic” reader, the former predicated on the likely existential transformation enacted by reading, and the latter focused on the materiality and sensuality of reading. In relation to the aesthetics of reading, the chapter also examines the public recitation of texts in Byzantium as well as Byzantine “book art” (both the illustration and the decoration of manuscripts).
Latin
Authors: Forrai Réka
Published: July 2021

Latin-Greek and Greek-Latin translations projects, even if asymmetric in their output, are strongly interconnected. This chapter discusses translations made from Greek into Latin in an attempt to reconstruct the canon of translated Greek works in the Latin West. It offers an overview of the major chronological stages of the translation activities, as well as an enumeration of translators and their translations. The chapter also aims to shed light on the social context in which the translator and his text are embedded: patrons, libraries, manuscripts, lay and ecclesiastical courts, religious orders, and cities involved.
The Reception of Classical Literature and Ancient Myth
Authors: Kaldellis Anthony
Published: July 2021

The reception of classical literature in Byzantium was a tense field, as ancient texts were socially and intellectually prestigious but religiously and theologically dangerous. Moreover, the rhetorical tradition in which Byzantine scholars were trained applied the same categories of analysis to both pagan and Christian texts, and linguistic affinity was not overridden by religious alienation. This chapter, focusing on the reception of texts about the gods, traces how Byzantine readers and writers coped with these tensions and found ways to ameliorate them. Pagan and Christian paradigms were at times juxtaposed, combined, or placed in an overt hierarchy. Through their selection of texts and commentaries on them, Byzantine scholars played a major role in shaping the modern “classical canon,” though this process is largely ignored by modern classical scholars. The chapter surveys the technologies (ideological and material) of this reception. How did the Byzantines cope with the gods?
Narrative
Authors: Nilsson Ingela
Published: July 2021

This chapter aims to offer the reader a basis for how to approach narrative both as an object of historical investigation and as a modern methodological tool. It addresses the meaning and function of narrative form and technique in Byzantine literature, examining them through specific examples of the Byzantines’ own constant and explicit interest in narrative. The chapter contains an opening section on narrative theory and “proto-narratology,” followed by three analytical sections on characterization and focalization; time and space; narrator and narrative, author and audience. Byzantine texts under discussion include progymnasmata, the Patria, and Timarion. The chapter is concluded with some ideas for future research in the field.
Constraining the sources of nitrogen fueling export production in the Gulf of Mexico using nitrogen isotope budgets
Authors: Knapp Angela N , Thomas Rachel K , Stukel Michael R , Kelly Thomas B , Landry Michael R , Selph Karen E , Malca Estrella , Gerard Trika , Lamkin John
Published: July 2021

The availability of nitrogen (N) in ocean surface waters affects rates of photosynthesis and marine ecosystem structure. In spite of low dissolved inorganic N concentrations, export production in oligotrophic waters is comparable to more nutrient replete regions. Prior observations raise the possibility that di-nitrogen (N2) fixation supplies a significant fraction of N supporting export production in the Gulf of Mexico. In this study, geochemical tools were used to quantify the relative and absolute importance of both subsurface nitrate and N2 fixation as sources of new N fueling export production in the oligotrophic Gulf of Mexico in May 2017 and May 2018. Comparing the isotopic composition (“δ15N”) of nitrate with the δ15N of sinking particulate N collected during five sediment trap deployments each lasting two to four days indicates that N2 fixation is typically not detected and that the majority (≥80%) of export production is supported by subsurface nitrate. Moreover, no gradients in upper ocean dissolved organic N and suspended particulate N concentration and/or δ15N were found that would indicate significant N2 fixation fluxes accumulated in these pools, consistent with low Trichodesmium spp. abundance. Finally, comparing the δ15N of sinking particulate N captured within vs. below the euphotic zone indicates that during late spring regenerated N is low in δ15N compared to sinking N.
Decoding and recoding plant development
Authors: Guiziou Sarah , Chu Jonah C. , Nemhauser Jennifer L.
Published: July 2021

The development of multicellular organisms has been studied for centuries, yet many critical events and mechanisms of regulation remain challenging to observe directly. Early research focused on detailed observational and comparative studies. Molecular biology has generated insights into regulatory mechanisms, but only for a limited number of species. Now, synthetic biology is bringing these two approaches together, and by adding the possibility of sculpting novel morphologies, opening another path to understanding biology. Here, we review a variety of recently invented techniques that use CRISPR/Cas9 and phage integrases to trace the differentiation of cells over various timescales, as well as to decode the molecular states of cells in high spatiotemporal resolution. Most of these tools have been implemented in animals. The time is ripe for plant biologists to adopt and expand these approaches. Here, we describe how these tools could be used to monitor development in diverse plant species, as well as how they could guide efforts to recode programs of interest.