bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Negative Freedom Argument for the Market Economy
Authors: Widerquist Karl , McCall Grant S.
Published: May 2022

The negative freedom argument for the market economy relies on the belief that capitalism delivers greater freedom from interference and coercion than any other system. This chapter shows that this claim cannot be established in pure a priori theory and that “propertarians” (people who use this argument) have so far failed to establish it empirically. Section 1 shows that the establishment and maintenance of the private property system involves an empirical tradeoff of liberties that most versions of the negative-freedom argument ignore. Section 2 considers and rejects a priori attempts to use a rights-based conception of freedom to resolve that tradeoff. Section 3 considers other possibilities for resolving the tradeoff in pure theory and concludes that it must be addressed empirically. Section 4 explains why a particularly useful way to examine that tradeoff is to make an empirical comparison of the freedom experienced by people in the market economy and the hunter-gatherer band economy.
The History of an Hypothesis
Authors: Widerquist Karl , McCall Grant S.
Published: May 2022

This chapter reviews the intellectual history of the individual appropriation hypothesis from its seventeenth-century origins to the present to show how it became a background assumption in contemporary political theory. The history of appropriation theory and the appropriation story are intertwined with the history of the hypothesis.
The Impossibility of a Purely A Priori Justification of Private Property
Authors: Widerquist Karl , McCall Grant S.
Published: May 2022

This chapter assesses attempts to justify specifically private property rights on an a priori basis. It shows how such attempts either resort to special pleading or fall back on one or another version of the individual appropriation hypothesis. It demonstrates that arguments based on negative freedom, opportunity, inequality, market power, self-ownership, and the Lockean proviso all fail to rule out a property-owning government. Even Loren Lomasky’s explicit attempt to remove empirical claims from the theory involves both special pleading and the appropriation hypothesis.
The Privatization of the Earth, 1500–2000 ce
Authors: Widerquist Karl , McCall Grant S.
Published: May 2022

How did the now-ubiquitous system of unitary private ownership spread around the world, and what role did individual appropriation play in that process? This chapter discusses two parallel trends that made full liberal ownership globally ubiquitous between about 1500 and 2000CE: the enclosure movement mostly within Europe and the colonial movement mostly outside Europe. The process of enclosure and waves of colonists who went out from Europe established landownership rights that were both outside of historical traditions worldwide and only then being established within Europe. The enclosure and colonial movements were coercive, violent processes that didn’t simply steal property around the world; they established a new property system. They imposed the private property system on people who had exercised their free will to establish complex, overlapping, flexible, nonspatial, and at least partly collective land-tenure systems with a significant commons.
Rhythm, Rhuthmos and Rhythmanalysis
Authors: Crespi Paola , Manghani Sunil
Published: May 2022

This first introduction by the editors provides an overview of the chapter contributions, structured with specific commentaries for each of the three parts of the book (Modalities of Rhythm; Sites and Practices; and Rhythmanalysis). More broadly, the introduction sets out the underlying critical and historical themes. Overall, the account provides the book with its underlying critical concept of rhythm that is not simply about beat and measure, but of a particular sense of a changeable form, and which is as much spatial as it is temporal (something which becomes of apparent in recent critical thinking about rhythm). Thus, through this etymological, historical and critical account, the term rhuthmós helps establishing an overarching understanding of rhythm and related themes as picked up in varying ways throughout the book.
Drawing Rhythm: On the Work of Rudolf Laban
Authors: Crespi Paola
Published: May 2022

This chapter locates, in the wider context of critical theory, the practice-based approach to rhythm of choreographer and movement-thinker Rudolf Laban. In doing so, its aim is both to add a significant and overlooked voice to the ongoing debate on rhythm as it has unfolded in Western thought, and to argue for the value of a practitioner’s insight into an otherwise prominently if not exclusively theoretical discourse. Laban’s work in define and understand rhythm is here discussed in relation to his politics, his artistic output and his philosophy through an exploration and analysis of his unpublished manuscripts and diagrams held at the National Resource Centre for Dance at the University of Surrey.
What is at Stake in a Theory of Rhythm
Authors: Meschonnic Henri
Published: May 2022

This chapter presents an unpublished translation of a text from Henri Meschonnic’s opus magnum Critique du rythme. Anthropologie historique du langage (Lagrasse: Verdier, 1982). Meschonnic (1932-2009) was a French linguist, poet and translator of the Bible who developed a theory of language based on the notion of rhythm. His theory of language is of concern for many fields and aims at transforming notions such as rhythm, the subject, the poem and the episteme altogether, thus developing a poetics of society. The new translation provided for this chapter exposes in a nutshell some of the main notions of Meschonnic’s theory. Based on Émile Benveniste’s linguistic archaeology of the notion of rhythm, in which he argues for this term to originally designate the ‘form in movement’, Meschonnic developed his poetics of rhythm transforming the traditional formal notion into a semantic one. Rhythm thus becomes central to ‘signifiance’, that is, the way meaning is constituted.
Attunement of Value and Capital in the Algorithms of Social Media
Authors: Yuill Simon , Skeggs Beverley
Published: May 2022

The chapter leads to a new reading of the relations between time, technicity and capital, different from those of the industrial factory and recent concepts of the social factory. It makes more explicit the ways in which algorithms intervene in and constitute processes of the capture of value and circulation of capital and what, if anything, is left behind or outside the particular logics of capital these implement. What is shown is how capital is captured from interventions within various circulations rather than from direct production. Analysis of which is aided by key critical concepts of Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis, in which different rhythms are seen to interact with one another in ways that do not simply correlate but are rather conflictual and overdetermining.
Adventures of a Line of Thought: Rhythmic Evolutions of Intelligent Machines in Post-Digital Culture
Authors: Portanova Stamatia
Published: May 2022

This chapter offers a speculative reading of the concept of rhythm in relation to capital and in the context of financial technologies such as trading algorithms, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (the blockchain), which are treated through a reading of the posthumanist philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Defined as the gait of difference escaping both chaos and order, rhythm is here defined as that which continuously changes direction along critical, although infinitesimal, differentiations. Departing from this definition, the chapter focuses on different financial milieus in an attempt to understand the way in which these milieus might said to be rhythmic, that is, more than mere metric repetition. Milieus are defined by Deleuze and Guattari as periodic repetitions of coded components. In this sense, they are not normally rhythmic, they are metric. However, milieus also pass into each other in the process of becoming, transcoding themselves and giving birth to a process of differentiation. Blockchain technology is a distributed database of economic transactions that works thanks to the p2p system, a public ledger that does not need any centralized authority to register and ratify the transactions. Using Deleuze and Guattari’s terminology, the Ethereum blockchain, for example, can be defined as a technological milieu: a set of periodic repetitions of one main component (the registered transaction). In order for this economy to become rhythmic in the way described above, transactions (the blocks) should act as ‘blocks of becoming’: they would have to pass between different milieus and accept elements of different codes. To explore this proposition further, the chapter takes as a case study the Economic Space Agency, a financial platform whose aim is to share production means and to involve heterogeneous financial operators.
Rhythm, Rhythmanalysis and Algorithm-Analysis
Authors: Henriques Julian
Published: May 2022

This chapter explores the appeal of rhythm and algorithm; rhythm in rhythmanalysis and algorithm in pattern of life analysis and AI. It compares the origins of rhythm in ancient Greek thought via Benveniste and more recently Pascal Michon with the origins of algorithm in 10th century Persian thought and the work of Algoritmi who gave the term its name. It identifies the common conversion process of two concepts: quantities into qualities, measure into number and mathematics into geometry. It then names ‘algorithmanalysis’ (as distinct from the analysis of algorithms) as this process of recoding data as pattern, in contrast to quantization that encodes the patterning of continuous analogue variation as digital data. Finally the chapter considers three areas in which algorithmanalysis has been put to use in the commercial world predicting consumer buying and other behaviours, in the political world by identifying particular groups of UK voters via social media, and in warfare for targeting drone missiles.
The Persian Presence in Victorian Poetry
Authors: Taher-Kermani Reza
Published: May 2022

The Persian Presence in Victorian Poetry surveys the variety of ways in which Persia, and the multitude of ideological, historical, cultural and political notions that it embodied, were received, circulated, and appropriated. The word ‘Persia’ to the Victorian was not just the name of a territorial entity but a matrix of different notions, created and crafted by a range of oral and written stories, themes and tropes. ‘Persia’ was a product of a mental vision with a long historical heritage, formed by a variety of sources, and circulating in different media. The Victorians responded to this heritage from different perspectives, marked by every shade of social class, religious affiliation, or political allegiance. This book charts this diversity of perceptions, exploring the ways in which ‘Persia’ figures in Victorian poetry across a broad range of works incorporating literary, historical, and cultural material.
Epilogue: The Persian Presence in Victorian Poetry
Authors: Taher-Kermani Reza
Published: May 2022

This book has aimed to reveal something of the richness and variety in the treatment of Persia in Victorian poetry. The images and associations that Persia evoked in the cultural imaginary of nineteenth-century Britain certainly do not lend themselves to easy classification. To the Victorians, Persia was at once the enemy of the Greeks, the saviour of the Jews, the realm of legendary kings such as Cyrus, the throne of feeble monarchs like Ahasuerus, the battleground of extraordinary young men like Sohrab, the rose garden of wine-drinking lyricists such as Omar Khayyám, and the land of mystic dervishes like Ferishtah. But while the Victorians layered a multitude of meanings on Persia, they were reluctant to perceive it in its contemporary state. It was as though they had decided not to engage with the actual Persia, that they had conspired to portray Persia only in the context of the past – a past, moreover, in which history played a less important part than myth. Looking back at the numerous examples in ...
When Violence Meets Experimentalism: Unraveling Cinematic Suture in Raúl Ruiz’s Tres Tristes Tigres and Pablo Larraín’s Post Mortem 1
Authors: Ledesma Eduardo
Published: May 2022

Since the creation of the “Grupo Cine Experimental” at the University of Chile in the 1950s, through the New Chilean cinema of the 1960s, and with the recent explosion of novísimo Cinema in the 2000s, Chilean film has oscillated between the experimental and the overtly political, attempting to balance representation and formalism; what has unified Chilean film, however, has been the prevalence of violence, whether political, quotidian, or formal. This chapter examines Raúl Ruiz’s Tres tristes tigres and Pablo Larrain’s Post mortem in order to analyze their negotiation regarding how much experimentation viewers will tolerate, how much content-based and formal violence they can withstand. While Ruiz’s film subverts realist codes and stages pre-revolutionary violence to expose social inequality, Larraín’s disrupts narrative form to dispassionately dissect the violence generated by the 1973 coup. This chapter contends that, it is violence itself, perpetrated on the spectators, that provides the key to both works; a violence that reveals filmic mechanisms even as it slices open historical wounds.
Gothic Memory and Ghostly Aesthetics: Post Mortem as a Horror Film
Authors: Díaz-Zambrana Rosana
Published: May 2022

During the last decade, the expansion and popularity of horror film productions worldwide have simultaneously soared in countries like Chile where the horror genre was formerly either unprecedented or a rarity. This symptomatic shift responds to the new demands of the global market and the mass-media consumer. Although recent examples of Chilean horror cinema follow the standard traits, devices, and motifs of global horror, at the same time, those film productions adapt their narratives to a national specificity by incorporating cultural practices, economic tensions, and political debates enrooted in the country’s social reality and historical past. Even though productions that depict graphic cruelty and psychological and physical torment within a political context such as La noche los lápices or Garaje Olimpo are usually considered “political dramas,” this chapter argues that Post mortem by Pablo Larraín could be understood under the rubric of horror film despite being classified a drama. In many aspects, Post mortem utilizes the haunting phenomenon as a filmic narrative but also exploits spatial, symbolic, and visual effects associated with the horror genre film tradition to denounce the nation’s traumatic past.
Aestheticization of Politics and the War Machine in No by Pablo Larraín
Authors: Gozalo-Salellas Ignasi , Dapena Xavier
Published: May 2022

This chapter argues that the film No by Pablo Larraín presents a progressive aestheticization of the political through its configuration as a dispositif or “war machine.” Thus, the argument presents two movements, a first in which the film of Larraín is situated in tension with the “aestheticization of politics” raised by Walter Benjamin (1931) and answered through the “Politics of Aesthetics” by Jacques Rancière (2005). This tension is the result of the conflicting positions of the protagonists regarding the representation of history and its imaginaries through a spectacularization of politics. As a result of this first movement, the film is read as a “war machine” within the framework of contemporary capitalism (Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, 2010). In this sense, this chapter suggests that No, both as technical and political device, consists of two machinelike effects: at the diegesis level, the advertising language turns into an electoral war machine and television mimics a semiotic apparatus that summons the masses in their ritual of contemplation. At the level of the reception of the film itself, the cinematographic machinery functions also as an artifact of political subjectivization.
Adaptation and the Use of Documentary Material in No
Authors: Hatry Laura
Published: May 2022

This chapter will analyze Pablo Larraín’s adaptation of No from the play El plebiscito by Antonio Skármeta through a close reading and textual analysis of the unpublished play (provided by Skármeta), focusing especially on the ideological shift from one work to another. Skármeta used his own play as well in a different form of adaptation, that is, in his novel Los días del arcoiris, which will be analyzed briefly. Given the vital importance of archival elements in both the play and the film, this chapter also aims at shedding light onto the way in which Larraín incorporates historic, documentary footage, as well as the real participants from the 1988 referendum into his work. For example, Patricio Bañados and Patricio Aylwin make appearances in No in the same clothing they wore in 1988, but without trying to hide their age some 24 years later. These shots, appearing as if they’d been taken right before the moment the No campaign went on air, are merged with the original footage by means of careful montage. The construction of this spatial-temporary continuity allows Larraín to visually erase the boundaries of facts and fiction.
Beyond Neoliberalism? Gift Economies in the Films of the Dardenne Brothers
Authors: O’Shaughnessy Martin
Published: May 2022

I argue that there is something akin to a gift economy running through the works of the Dardenne brothers. that implicitly opens up more politically promising ways forward than their more overt ethical probings. I further argue that the films require this unacknowledged gift economy to flesh out the relationships they show and give them a future in a way that their ethical narratives cannot. I initially examine two scenes from Le Fils/The Son (2002) to give a more concrete sense of my position. I then discuss how the gift has been theorised, drawing on Marcel Mauss, the great French anthropologist, and some key critics of his work. I finally return to the films, looking at how a gift economy has supplemented their deployment of a Levinasian ethics from The Promise to the most recent films.
Badfilm
Authors: Bartlett Becky
Published: May 2022

This book examines badfilms, a subcategory of ‘bad cinema’ marked by incompetence and typically exacerbated by material poverty and restrictive production conditions. It establishes a framework through which the formal characteristics of failure can be established and analysed, and identifies intentionality as central to how badfilms are recognised and valued as cult texts. Drawing on debates about cult cinema, film form, cultural value and taste, and interrogating critical concepts such as ‘so bad it’s good’, the book investigates the impact of failure, incompetence, and ineptitude in post-production sound, uses of recycled footage, performance and editing through a series of case studies. Focusing primarily on ‘classic’ American badfilms from the 1950s and 1960s, such as Plan 9 from Outer Space, Robot Monster, The Beast of Yucca Flats, and Manos: The Hands of Fate, this book proposes a means of ‘taking the badness of badfilms seriously’. With the films discussed within this book characterised by incompetence and failed intentions, they provide unique opportunities to consider not only how we identify, respond to, and potentially value failure, but how failure itself works within the films.
Bad Acting and the Cultification of Bad Actors
Authors: Bartlett Becky
Published: May 2022

This chapter examines the characteristics of bad acting, drawing on a range of textual and other evidence to propose a means of understanding subsequent cultification and re-evaluation – or lack thereof. A range of case studies are included, from the cultification of ‘has-beens’ like Bela Lugosi, to bad acting in sexploitation films, as well as critical analysis of performances by director-actors, such as Ed Wood, and cult personalities like Criswell. As the various case studies demonstrate, bad acting reveals the work of acting and therefore has the potential to collapse the boundaries between actor and character. The complex interactions between text, character and viewer can become further complicated by the cult reputations of certain bad actors, collapsing the boundaries between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ acting. As demonstrated throughout this chapter, examining the relationship between bad acting and cult stardom also offers opportunities to further interrogate broader claims of badness, failure and incompetence, subjectivity, and the critical concept of ‘so bad it’s good’.
Legal Authorities in Castilian Courts’ Practice: Decisiones and Consilia to Study the Arbitrium Iudicis
Authors: Martín Javier García
Published: May 2022

The decisiones literature is not very popular in early modern Castile. Nevertheless, two of the seventeenth century legal authors, Larrea and Vela de Oreña, magistrates at the Granada Chancillería, wrote successfully on this genre. Considering some of their decisiones on family and contract law, but also some consilia by other Castilian authors, this chapter analises the role played by law reports in guiding Castilian high courts arbitrium to provide legal interpretation within the ius commune. Crucially, it shows the value of precedent (exempla) in Castilian law, highlighting the arguments used by some of these authors to bring about changes in the hierarchy of Castilian sources when needed to solve dubious judicial cases. Such changes in legal interpretation are studied in relation to three main legal sources: statutory law, customary law, and legal literature. The last one, literature, is crucial in clarifying the role played in Castile by Canon law and the criteria to conform the so called communis opinio doctorum. Finally, the chapter seeks to explain the demise of the decisiones literature during the second half of the eighteenth century, and the success of the Castilian commentaries on royal laws, especially the Leyes de Toro and the collections of statutes.
Iura scripta and Operae iurisperitorum in Municipal Courts of the Kingdom of Poland (Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries)
Authors: Mikuła Maciej
Published: May 2022

In the early modern era, so called Ius municipale Polonicum was in use in towns in the Kingdom of Poland. The catalogue of sources of law included i.a. acts of Magdeburg law, royal and parliamentary legislation, legal acts of city councils. Also works of lawyers (operae iuriperitorum) played a significant role in the legal practice. Municipal criminal books (records) deliver a lot of evidence, which prove it. Not only legal regulations (iura scripta), also works of lawyers (operae iurisperitorum) were quoted in the verdicts and proceeding’s documents, prepared by parties (prosecutors and defendants), for instance works of: Bartłomiej Groicki, Ten postępek wybran jest z praw cesarskich (1559); Bartłomiej Groicki, Porządek sądów i spraw miejskich prawa majdeburskiego w Koronie Polskiej, (1559); Joost de Damhouder, Praxis rerum criminalium, Antverpiae 1570; Julii Clari patritii Alexandrini... Opera Omnia, Lugduni 1575; Benedict Carpzov, Practicae novae Imperialis Saxonicae rerum criminalium, Lipsiae 1639; Andrzej Lipski, Practicarum Observationum ex Iure Civili et Saxonico..., Rigae 1602. The paper shows why and how aforementioned works were used by parties and courts in the legal practice.
Under the Legal Authority of the Senate of Milan (Sixteenth to Seventeenth Centuries)
Authors: Monti Annamaria
Published: May 2022

The Senato of Milan was one of the most powerful European courts of justice in the early modern period, and its case law greatly influenced the development of substantive law. The supreme court was thus a creative interpreter of the law, but we should not be misled: it was not “inventing” new laws, but rather adapting the substantive and procedural laws in force on a case-by-case basis. And it would even disapply some laws if the circumstances so required. Indeed, recent research on the problems of legislation, law and the role of judges today has shone a spotlight on how case law impacts sources of law. In this chapter I examine the issue by looking back on the institutional values and systems that society had in place during the ancien régime, of which the Senato itself was at once an expression and a guarantor.
The Imperial Chamber Court and the Development of the Law in the Holy Roman Empire
Authors: Oestmann Peter
Published: May 2022

This contribution focuses on the decisions of the Imperial Chamber Court (Reichskammergericht) as a source of authority. It shows how did they influence German legal practice and German law, and how did the same Imperial Chamber Court use its own precedents as authorities. While there is much literature on the Reichskammergericht, little research has been done to see whether its decisions had any influence on the development of the substantive law.
The Parliament of Paris and the Making of the Law at the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Storez-Brancourt Isabelle
Published: May 2022

The Parlement of Paris is undoubtedly the first, the most important and most influential Court of Law of the Kingdom of France, from the triple point of view of politics, judicial action and legal evolution. After depicting the Parlement of Paris on the basis of its sources, this contribution demonstrates, looking particularly at the archives of the King's general Prosecutor, how the Parisian Parliament served to bring about a subtle alchemy in the progress of criminal Law, probably since 1670, and especially since the Chancellor d’Aguesseau (1717). A collaboration between the Court and the King's Council was established, which brought about a real and mutual influence in the practice of criminal and civil Justice in the Parliament on the evolution of the conception of Law and the regularization of legal procedure.
Legal Fragmentation in the Dutch Republic During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Authors: Thomas Philip
Published: May 2022

The chapter sets out the birth and the resulting confederate character of the Dutch republic, which explains the limited jurisdiction and influence of the highest court. The secrecy of in camera discussions and the practice of not motivating judicial decisions resulted in few published collections of court decisions. Forensic practice followed the medieval tradition of topical argumentation. Adaptation to changing times was reflected in the diminishing authority of Roman law supplanted by contemporary authors relying on custom and modern legislation.
Spinsters, Widows and Chars
Authors: Mortimer Claire
Published: May 2022

Overlooked yet reassuringly familiar, the ageing woman has been central to the narrative landscape of British cinema. Historicising and contextualising enduring archetypes, this book establishes a taxonomy of female ageing in British cinema from the 1930s to the present day, encompassing bluestockings, battleaxes, witches, widow-women, duchesses, matriarchs and spinsters. These archetypes draw on well-established mythologies regarding ageing femininity. The prevalence of various iterations of female ageing is essential in understanding the nature of British cinema and how it developed to define itself under the shadow of Hollywood. The book examines the work of ageing British film stars including Ciceley Courtneidge, Margaret Rutherford, Maggie Smith and Sybil Thorndike, in performing female ageing. Centred on close textual analysis of a broad range of films from over 80 years of British cinema, the book casts a fresh light on both the familiar and lesser known, including Blithe Spirit (1945), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1968), and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012). The films are considered within the context of the broader historical factors which impacted on ageing femininities, including the Second World War, the post-war settlement and the Welfare State, and looks at the implications for the women’s movement as a whole.
The Bush Administration’s Second Term: Searching for the Responsible Stakeholder
Authors: Warren Aiden , Bartley Adam
Published: May 2022

The second Bush administration, this chapter reveals, marked a notable shift in attitudes and style in its approach to dealing with China. Noteworthy changes in personnel presaged greater support for more engagement with Beijing as Condoleezza Rice became secretary of state. Strategic priorities in the ongoing War on Terror, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the threat of nuclear proliferation in North Korea made for significant anchors in this paradigm shift. At the same time, there was also reason to believe that important changes in China’s behavior and makeup could develop significantly along the lines of the theory that more engagement, and not less, would work to soften authoritarian rule on the mainland as economic integration reinforced the liberal status quo. What comes to fore in the analysis of these security relationships is the misconception in the White House that the “constructive” partnership was interpreted analogously on each side and in terms of American priorities and challenges. By the end of the Bush years, it was too late to correct the error that in the lingering anticipation of cooperative outcomes, the administration had accepted progress in process as the measurement of positive results. The shortfall in expectations would come to bear directly on the Obama administration’s expectations and policies for China.
The Obama Administration’s First Term: The Promises of the “Pivot”
Authors: Warren Aiden , Bartley Adam
Published: May 2022

The chapter assesses Obama’s first four years in the White House in relation to an increasingly intensifying relationship between the United States and China. Despite seemingly new attempts at cooperation, ongoing and emerging bilateral differences became a persistent and debilitating theme as issues during the first term emanating from the “pivot” and Chinese assertions in the South China Sea (SCS) came to the fore. Ultimately, Obama’s China policies were varied. Washington saw some success in new diplomatic engagements on defense issues but there were significant missteps also, from confusion of American interests in the pivot to the more specific and increasing use of military assets to counter assertive Chinese actions in the SCS. There was some success in getting China to sign up to relevant sanctions programs. But as was the trend in the final Bush years, cooperation had become difficult, and deception more openly accepted. More broadly, the Obama years were important for the new engagement it brought to East Asia and Southeast Asia more specifically. Attempting to make up for the lack of attention in Bush years, the Obama administration brought diplomatic agreements and processes back to the spotlight in American foreign policy.
The Trump Administration: Conflicting Narratives and Aberrant Departures
Authors: Warren Aiden , Bartley Adam
Published: May 2022

This final chapter examines the Trump administration’s many changes to the United States-China bilateral relationship and the president’s, by all measures, unconventional style of leadership and White House management. Remarkable differences in experience, behaviour, priorities, and processes clearly distinguished the administration from its two notable predecessors. As the chapter also demonstrates, serious inconsistency marked the Trump administration’s China policies and its approach to strategy vis-à-vis the Indo-Pacific concept. Long delays in implementation, coupled with diverging foreign policy priorities, distracted the administration from what it defined, explicitly, as the greatest strategic threat of the new era. Trump’s unpredictable behaviour, careless rhetoric, and rejection of liberal international norms created a legitimacy problem as Asian regional partners decided whether or not to join in further American initiatives such as Trump’s competitor to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the BUILD (Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development) Act. As the administration concluded its fourth year amid major disruptions emanating from COVID-19, U.S. race protests and subsequent riots, and the further deterioration of trade talks, Trump remained increasingly limited in offering a vision for international security and relations with China going forward.
Introduction
Authors: Banister Mustafa
Published: May 2022

This introductory chapter discusses past scholarship on the Abbasid Caliphate of Cairo (1261-1517) and lays out some of the main themes, concerns and guiding questions of the book. The book’s central hypothesis and organisation are also presented in summary.
Normative Perspectives on the Caliphate of Cairo: Jurisprudential, Advice and Courtly Literature
Authors: Banister Mustafa
Published: May 2022

In five chronological sections, this chapter discusses authors of different backgrounds and genres who engaged with the contemporary Abbasid Caliphate directly and indirectly. Authors addressing the intrinsic workings of government and contemporary politics often found it necessary to acknowledge the special arrangement between sultans and caliphs in the context of the Syro-Egyptian Cairo Sultanate. The chapter surveys several specimens of so-called ‘political literature’ dealing with the normative or idealised theory of the imamate according to a sampling of jurists, religious scholars and courtiers from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, including the works of: al-Qarāfī (d. 1285), Hasan al-ʿAbbāsī (d. after 1316), Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), al-Nuwayrī (d. 1333), Ibn Jamāʿa (d. 1333), Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 1370), Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406), al-Qalqashandī (d. 821/1418), Khalīl ibn Shāhīn al-Ẓāhirī (d. 1468), Ibn Rūzbihān Khunjī-Iṣfahānī (d. 1520), and the sixteenth-century courtly majālis sessions of sultan al-Ghawrī.
Conclusions
Authors: van der Hulst Harry
Published: May 2022

This chapter summarizes the contribution of RcvP to our understanding of segmental and syllabic representations. I will outline strengths as well as weaknesses, and point to future research which will contribute to the advancement of models in this domain. I also briefly consider the extension of RcvP to higher levels of phonological/prosodic structure. In an Appendix, I provide a summary of all relevant structure and their interpretations.
Introduction
Authors: MacKechnie Aonghus
Published: May 2022

The book’s period-span is defined both by seismic political events and changing architectural fashions, so thisintroduction ties these two things together, providing a contextual backdrop. 1660s Scotland needed reconstruction following war and occupation. Militarised challenge to a replacement and anti-Catholic monarchy extended from 1689 until 1746; and meanwhile, the country entered union with England in 1707, exiting the international stage politically, but not architecturally. Scotland’s early Classicism provides a discrete episode within that time span, and also sits between its two castle ages: between rejection of the castle as a model, and its re-birth and popularisation.
A Classic Looks at the Gothic: Sir John Clerk, Ruins and Romance
Authors: Brown Iain Gordon
Published: May 2022

Sir John Clerk of Penicuik (1676-1755) was the most distinguished antiquary and gentleman amateur architect of his day in Scotland. With a classical education and the experience of a remarkable Grand Tour behind him (he spent eighteen months in Rome alone) he pursued a cultivated life of ‘Roman’ ease at his Midlothian country seat of Newbiging and at his ‘suburban’ villa of Mavisbank where he played the roles of both the Maecenas and the Lord Burlington of Scotland. Today he is regarded almost wholly as cast in this classical mould. But Clerk was also a respecter of the remains of the past regardless of period. This chapter examines his attitude to the Gothic and the Gothick, as well as his interest in, and the preservation of, the ecclesiastical and secular buildings of Britain, especially those of his native Scotland.
Thomas Albourn, William Bruce’s Plasterer: ‘An Englishman and the Best Plaisterer that was ever yet in Scotland’
Authors: Napier William
Published: May 2022

This chapter explores the work and influence of Thomas Alburn an English plasterer who came to Scotland as a soldier and stayed on after the Restoration to work in houses thoughout the southern half of the country. The plasterwork created by Alburn and his men evolved from the 1660s when it relied on decorative elements borrowed from the early seventeenth century, before being influenced by plasterwork common in England.It then transformed completely after he worked alongside plasterers from London at Thirlestane, Holyrood and Balcaskie. Throughout this period the Alburn family seem to have been the plasterers of choice of Sir William Bruce, having worked under his direction at the Royal Palaces, directly for him at Balcaskie and Kinross, and in many of the houses of his private clients. The Alburns also undertook work for Bruce’s successor in office, James Smith. However, their influence in the eighteenth century appears to have lessened as plasterers Clayton, Enzer and Calderwood rose to prominence, the Alburn family plaster moulds eventually being sold at roup in 1750s.
The Roof Structure of George Heriot’s Hospital Chapel and Roof Design in Scotland During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Authors: Serafini Anna , González-Longo Cristina
Published: May 2022

The great developments in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architecture in Scotland corresponded to a gradual development of roof construction techniques and structural arrangements: the challenge was to pass from large spans covered by open purlin structures, to large spans covered by shallower roofs carrying heavy plaster ceilings. Whilst the few remaining Scottish open purlin roofs have been widely investigated, little research has been carried out on the roof structures hidden behind timber and plaster ceilings, whichare the vast majority in Scotland in that period. This chapter investigates the timber roof structure of George Heriot Hospital’s Chapel in Edinburgh, a seventeenth-century common rafter roof with later alterations, and compares it with earlier and later examples, such as Parliament Hall and Tron Kirk by John Scott, in order to discuss the development of Scottish roof structures during the period. It looks at the different constructional arrangements, the design process and the influence of the timber trade with North-East Europe.
The Architectural Innovations of Mr James Smith of Whitehill (c. 1645–1731) within the European Context
Authors: MacKechnie Aonghus
Published: May 2022

This chapter provides the evidence to demonstrate that the architecture of Mr James Smith constituted a paradigm shift in Scotland. He gave a very personal and original development, based on his wider European experience, rather than a just acting as a precursor of English Palladianism, as it has been interpreted by Howard Colvin and others. It also discusses how Smith experimented with the very latest architectural theories and representation of his time. He was exposed to these during his studies at the Collegio Romano, in particular to Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz’s theories on ‘oblique architecture’ and Athanasius Kircher’s drawings. G. B. Vignola, rather than Palladio, was a great influence for Smith and examples of this are given: from an almost identical reproduction of a doorway at Newhailes to a reinterpretation of elements, critically his very characteristic ogee roof. The great sophistication and originality - at European level - of Smith’s architecture has been overlooked and part of his work has been attributed to others. This chapter dissects Smith’s innovations, interpreting them in accordance to the European architectural culture of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Architectural Works by Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun
Authors: Lamb Rory
Published: May 2022

This chapter considers the work of the Scottish politician Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun as an amateur gentleman architect, setting his schemes against the background of his well-travelled life. Fletcher was well-connected and inquisitive, and his correspondence points to engagement with the work of several leading architects in England, chiefly Christopher Wren. The discussion focusses on Fletcher’s designs for a small, astylar villa, providing an explanation of the drawings themselves and analysing the sources for his work. These reflect a rich context rooted in Fletcher’s European travels and radical politics which illustrates how architecture embodied the international perspective of Scots at the opening of the eighteenth century.
‘The Inexpressible Need of Inclosing and Planting’: Country House Policies in Scotland, 1660–1750
Authors: Dingwall Christopher
Published: May 2022

This chapter is concerned with the ornamental planting surrounding Scotland’s country houses, often referred to as the ‘policies’, a word which is said to be derived from the Latin word ‘politus’ meaning polished or elegant.The period of the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century is often described as the Age of Improvement, when many landowners invested in the enclosure of their estates and the plantation of trees.Using contemporary accounts and illustrations, the chapter describes the geometrical style of planting which was popular at the time, examining links with contemporary English and European landscaping of the period.Reference is made to the social context, which allowed Scotland’s landowners to exchange ideas and keep up with changes of fashion.Among notable figures whose work is described are John Reid, author of Scotland’s first gardening book The Scots Gard’ner, along with the architect Sir William Bruce and prominent landowners such as Thomas Hamilton Sixth Earl of Haddington and John Dalrymple Second Earl of Stair.
Interpretation of European Classicism: Three Eighteenth-century University Libraries
Authors: Mays Deborah
Published: May 2022

These buildings illustrate three very different reactions to classical design as inspired by examples on the Continent and from the various Treatises then available. As University buildings they are, as we might expect, showcases of the latest thought. They are the product of seats of learning who prided themselves on international exchange and whose libraries were status symbols. Yet their three designers were each very different and the results contrast considerably. The examples illustrate the evolution of the architectural profession across the eighteenth century and the challenges it faced. Gardner, not least, was not an architect but a local wright.
Robert Burns and Theatre
Authors: Davis Jim , Cattell Tracy
Published: May 2022

Robert Burns enjoyed multiple connections with the theatre during his lifetime. He visited the theatre when resident in Edinburgh and supported the building of a theatre in Dumfries, which he also attended. He wrote several prologues to be spoken by actors and actresses, most notably advocating the need for a national Scottish drama and for the rights of women. He also campaigned locally in support of actors’ benefits. Although he contemplated writing for the stage and was familiar with dramatic literature, past and present, he did not complete any dramas.
Burns, Public Ceremonial and Civic Scotland, c .1796- c .1914
Authors: Whatley Christopher A.
Published: May 2022

The chapter outlines and describes the large-scale public celebrations of Robert Burns that took place in Scotland in the ‘long’ nineteenth century. It identifies the main participants in such ceremonials and explores the diverse reasons those concerned took part in these ubiquitous and carefully choreographed proceedings. Revealed are changes over time in the political and social characteristics of the main promoters of these, from Tory aristocrats to mainly Liberal civic elites, although a constant feature was popular participation. Demonstrated too are the ways in which Burns commemoration and the association of this with Scotland and Scottish values instilled national self-confidence. By nurturing consensus such performances contributed to the remarkable social stability of Scotland that was evident for much of the period with which the chapter is concerned.
Robert Burns on the Twentieth-Century Stage
Authors: Brown Rhona
Published: May 2022

This chapter analyses three twentieth-century plays with Robert Burns as a protagonist – H. Fletcher Lee’s Robert Burns: A Play in Three Acts (1926), Robert Kemp’s The Other Dear Charmer (1951) and Tom Wright’s There was a Man (1965) – and focuses on their representation not only of Burns’s biography, but of his literary corpus. In these performances, Burns’s life is inseparable from his poems and songs: his literary output is portrayed as a direct reflection of the circumstances and events of his life and, in particular, his relationships with women. This chapter argues that the plays’ conflation of the poet’s life and works functions as a metafictional dramatic device which unites the performers and the audience through shared knowledge, and offers meaningful insights into the evolution of Burns’s reception and reputation as an ‘authentic’ Scots bard throughout the twentieth century
Burns and Film
Authors: Braidwood Alistair
Published: May 2022

This chapter looks at the varied depictions of Robert Burns, and his work, on screen by examining five case-studies from across twentieth-century cinema. They show Burns's impact on cinema was greater than one may initially expect, and often in unexpected ways. From the early biopics which merged the life of Burns and his poetry, through the wide and varied use of his songs in films and the reworking of his writing as scripts, to more recent examples of his work adapted for the screen, Burns's effect on western cinema in particular is one that has been overlooked. This chapter offers a new perspective on his continuing influence on modern culture.
‘Frae my ain countrie’: Robert Burns in the Archive of Jean Redpath
Authors: Hansen Moira
Published: May 2022

Scottish singer Jean Redpath first made her name in the folk music revival sweeping 1960s America. In her clear and expressive mezzo-soprano, she brought her own Scottish folk-song repertoire, at the heart of which was the works of Robert Burns.
Jean's career would be spent living and working between the USA and Scotland, continually adding through her own research and teaching to the range of Burns materials she recorded and performed on both sides of the Atlantic. Following her death in 2014, her extensive archives were bequeathed to the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Robert Burns Studies and the University of South Carolina’s Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections
Drawing on Burns-related content of those archives, this chapter explores Jean’s relationship with the bard – the breadth and depth of her work – to understand better the nuance of his songs, the various contexts within which she recorded those songs including a project conceived with Serge Hovey to record Burns’s entire catalogue, and the impact of her career on the placement of Burns as a central figure in both national and international folk song traditions.
God’s Wide Land: War, Melancholy and the Camel
Authors: Olszok Charis
Published: May 2022

Chapter Three bridges the early focus on al-Nayhūm, al-Faqīh and al-Kūnī to a new generation of authors, bringing together al-Kūnī’s al-Tibr (1989; Gold Dust) with al-Tābūt (2006; The Coffin) and al-Khawf abqānī ḥayyan (2008; Fear Kept me Breathing) by ‘Abdallāh al-Ghazāl, a prominent novelist of the 2000s. Like al-Kūnī, his writing is marked by an explicitly Sufi poetics, entwined in environmental concern. Unlike him, he has remained in Libya for most of his life. While al-Kūnī’s Sufi poetics tend to the prophetic, al-Ghazāl writes from the perspective of emotional instability and psychological breakdown, and addresses Libya’s recent history in more explicit fashion. In this chapter, I compare novels by both, which are set within international conflicts, but take place on the margins of battle, culminating instead in scenes of violence against camels, introduced by Qur’ān 7:73. Dwelling not on heroism, but characters’ relationship to land, identity and spirituality, they convey social, psychological and spiritual disintegration with an often uncomfortably visceral depiction of spiritual and ecological interconnection.