bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Discrimination and Toleration
Authors: Hatzis Nicholas
Published: June 2021

The chapter discusses, and rejects, two further arguments for the prohibition of religious insults targeting minority religious beliefs. The first is that they perpetuate negative perceptions of minority groups so over time it becomes acceptable to treat their members in a discriminatory manner. I explore what exactly is meant by the claim that speech leads to discriminatory acts and what causal link between expression and discrimination ought to be required for the government to suppress religiously offensive speech. The second argument is that offending religious beliefs is a form of intolerance towards those who hold them, so when the government is restricting communications which offend, it gives effect to the value of toleration. My discussion focuses on the kind of moral obligations which flow from toleration. I defend the view that a commitment to toleration should always leave some room for the expression of a negative attitude towards that which is being tolerated and that, in principle, speech is the appropriate means for conveying such an attitude.
Introduction
Authors: Abraham William J.
Published: June 2021

This chapter introduces the concerns and the argument of this volume. It situates the volume in relation to the previous three volumes. The chapter suggests this volume will explore the content and coherence of God as an agent. Theology raises deep questions about the central concepts we use in our thinking about God. Occasionally we need to step back and analyze the concepts that are so central to theological discourse. This volume will do this by attending to the concept of God as an agent as it appears in different traditional problems in systematic theology, like the relationship of freedom and grace as well as divine revelation and historical explanation. It argues that seeking the concept of God as an agent and looking at issues of divine agency and divine action should form the basis of a research agenda to extend beyond the author’s own work.
Divine Agency, Divine Freedom, and Divine Suffering
Authors: Abraham William J.
Published: June 2021

This chapter argues that traditional concepts of God as pure act, impassible, atemporal, and simple should be rethought in light of the canonical claims the Christian tradition makes about divine action. First, it examines why we should hold to a strong account of divine agency. On this basis, it argues that we cannot avoid predicating such concepts as choice, mercy, rational deliberation, love, suffering, wrath, and patience to God. The chapter calls this divine “agentism.” Second, it argues that the central claims of agentism are incompatible with the thought of Thomas Aquinas (“Thomism”) and some of its major exponents. Third, it argues why Thomism is unpersuasive. Finally, it indicates some directions for future research in this area.
Divine Action and Divine Identity in Christianity and Islam
Authors: Abraham William J.
Published: June 2021

The chapter seeks to answer the question about whether the God Christians worship is the same as that of Islam. It argues that Christians and Muslims believe in the same God and under certain agreed descriptions worship the same God. It explores and defends this notion philosophically, in conversation with recent analytic philosophy, linguistic philosophy, and recent studies of the relation of Christianity and Islam. It offers a rejection of the author’s previous view that Christians and Muslims believe in the same God but worship different Gods. It concludes by analyzing the political and theological consequences of this view, and suggests a retrieval of a natural theology at the heart of the American political project to make more room for Muslims in American society.
Genome and Epigenome
Authors: Parrington John
Published: June 2021

This chapter focuses on the role that genes play in the formation of human consciousness. While the genome has generally been defined as the sum of the genes in an organism, the more we study real genomes, the more we realise that viewing them in this way is a major oversimplification of their true complexity. Perhaps the most surprising outcome of the Human Genome Project was the realization that genes only represent a small fraction of the total DNA sequence. More recently, evidence has been accumulating to show that a significant proportion of the ‘non-coding’ DNA plays key roles in gene regulation—that is, determining which genes get switched on or off and when. In addition, instead of DNA being seen as the sole controller of cellular function, there is now growing recognition that RNA also plays a key role. Meanwhile, the new science of ‘epigenetics’ is revealing that the DNA ‘recipe’ for each organism appears far more responsive to the environment than previously thought, both to changes in the cellular environment, and those outside the organism itself. These new ways of looking at the genome have important implications for the understanding of how the human brain works, and of some of the factors that might make it unique compared to those of other species.
Conscious and Unconscious
Authors: Parrington John
Published: June 2021

This chapter determines the relationship between the conscious and unconscious aspects of brain function. The unconscious consists of those mental processes that occur automatically and are not available to introspection. Increasingly, studies of brain function are revealing that a surprising amount of that function is automatic, and therefore, unconscious. However, there are controversial aspects to discussions about the unconscious, particularly the idea that it may play a far more contradictory role in consciousness, even acting in opposition to conscious thoughts. Such a viewpoint sees the unconscious as a force that may suppress unwelcome thoughts, but which might also make us carry out actions that do not appear to have been planned by our rational minds, and may even appear wholly irrational. This view of the unconscious mind is most associated with Sigmund Freud. Freud viewed the unconscious as the epicentre of people's repressed thoughts, traumatic memories, and fundamental drives of sex and aggression. This chapter reconsiders this view of the unconscious by relating to Mind Shift’s central theme about the importance of language in shaping consciousness.
Depression and Anxiety
Authors: Parrington John
Published: June 2021

This chapter highlights clinical depression and anxiety. What seemed like a major step forward both in the understanding of depression, and how to treat it, occurred in the 1950s, when evidence emerged that depression might be due to low levels of the neurochemical serotonin. In particular, neuroscientists discovered that certain chemicals that alleviated the symptoms of depression appeared to work by inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin into certain neurons in the brain. The chapter then looks at the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are now used to treat far more conditions than clinical depression. Recently, doubts have surfaced about the appropriateness of doctors prescribing SSRIs for such different conditions, the effectiveness of these drugs, and the mechanisms by which they affect brain function. One problem in determining the true effectiveness of SSRIs for the treatment of depression is how little is understood about the biological basis of this disorder and how drugs like SSRIs alleviate it. A complicating factor for any attempt to identify a biological basis to depression, or for that matter any mental disorder, is the important role that the social environment plays in the genesis of such disorders.
Normality and Diversity
Authors: Parrington John
Published: June 2021

This chapter begins by arguing that the different approaches to mental disorders are united in viewing such mental conditions as abnormal. Yet is it really the case that everything termed a mental ‘disorder’ is indeed so? Or could it be that in diagnosing conditions that affect the mind, we are ignoring the possibility that some ‘disorders’ may be part of the normal spectrum of human diversity? To take this argument further, could it even be the case that such diversity is an important component of human society and a source of some of its richness and achievements? The chapter looks at these possibilities, with particular reference to two quite different mental conditions—autism spectrum disorder and bipolar disorder. Autism spectrum disorders have been described as characterized by 'impairments in social interaction and both verbal and non-verbal communication, along with restricted, repetitive or stereotyped behaviour'. Meanwhile, the high and low phases of bipolar disorder are often so extreme that they interfere with everyday life; consequentially this can be a highly debilitating disorder. However, there is also an association of both types of mental disorder with great creativity, and high levels of intelligence.
Crime and Punishment
Authors: Parrington John
Published: June 2021

This chapter focuses on the criminally insane, assessing whether brain biology is significantly different in a serial killer. One of the first people to suggest that criminality arose from abnormalities in the brain was Cesare Lombroso, an Italian surgeon, who in 1871 conducted a postmortem of a serial murderer and rapist. While Lombroso's theories can be dismissed as a product of a misunderstanding of evolutionary mechanisms and the prejudices of his time, this does not mean that the belief that criminality has a biological basis is no longer held. Indeed, there has been a recent resurgence in this view, focusing on the claim that criminality is a product of biological differences in the brain. The claim is based on genetic analysis, and study of the brain itself. One gene linked to criminal behaviour is monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), which encodes an enzyme that destroys a particular type of neurotransmitter as a way of controlling its activity. The chapter then considers the idea of a link between brain injuries and criminal behaviour. The problem in looking for biological differences as the primary cause of criminality is that this could mean less acknowledgment of the role of social environment in the development of a criminal personality.
Class and Division
Authors: Parrington John
Published: June 2021

This chapter discusses how the structure of current society is relevant to discussions about human brain function. One feature of the human brain that might explain why many working people can accept and even acquiesce in their state of exploitation, and even sometimes see other workers as the primary threat, rather than as allies in campaigns for better pay and conditions at work, is the way our brains have evolved to respond to living in a potentially hostile natural environment. There is increasing evidence that many unconscious fears about a perceived threat of people of a different skin colour, sexual persuasion, or even male fears about female equality, involve the amygdala. Because of this, although inflammatory speeches by politicians or media articles may enhance such fears, thereby dividing people who have much to gain by working together for better pay and conditions, they are helped by being able to trigger deep-seated impulses in the human brain. Ultimately, the divisions in current society, by ethnicity and gender as well as class, exert a heavy toll on mental health. This chapter also looks at the phenomenon of alienation, and how this both affects our relationship to modern society and is linked to our wider state of self-conscious awareness.
Resistance and Rebellion
Authors: Parrington John
Published: June 2021

This chapter examines how ideas can change in a mass movement such as a strike, and why in some periods of history such activities can seem few and far between, while in others widespread industrial militancy is a central feature. It looks at moments in history when resistance to the status quo reached such a scale that a fundamental shift occurred in the structure of society—so-called revolutions. In so doing, the chapter relates the actions of a mass movement to what might be going on in the heads of its individual participants. It also asks what mental processes might underlie the apparently rapid shifts in social consciousness that seem to be a key feature of any genuine mass progressive movement of the people. A survey of past protest movements reveals a number of typical characteristics that may provide clues as to how human consciousness—here particularly meaning conscious awareness of oneself and one’s place in society—develops in such circumstances. The chapter also looks at how reactionary social movements can come to power, such as in Nazi Germany, and asks why some people join or acquiesce to such movements, while others actively resist them, and how this might reflect different aspects of human brain function.
Art and Design
Authors: Parrington John
Published: June 2021

This chapter focuses on how the birth of figurative art marked a significant shift in our species’ ability to represent the world around us, and presumably, a step forward in our capacity for conscious awareness. The ability to draw a familiar object such as a cat or dog develops so naturally in children that it is easy to forget what a remarkable human capacity this is. For unlike tool use, spoken language, or perhaps even the capacity to make music, which may all have evolutionary precedents in the actions or sounds made by other species, the ability to draw appears to have no relationship to anything found in the rest of the animal kingdom. And certainly for the view presented in this book of the uniqueness of human conscious awareness, the ability of humans to both produce and appreciate visual art is something that deserves a wider discussion. In particular, abstract symbols, mathematical systems, planning diagrams, and other forms that constitute visual art, can all be viewed as further examples of the 'cultural tools' that shape our minds besides language.
Mind and Meaning
Authors: Parrington John
Published: June 2021

This chapter addresses how religion might have originated and why it still maintains such a strong hold on the human mind, even amidst the science and technology of the twenty-first century. Since this book is concerned primarily with aspects of consciousness that can be examined scientifically, the approach here is to ask what material reasons one can find to explain belief in the supernatural, and link this to this book’s theme, which is how culture has shaped the human mind. One suggestion is that such belief arose as a by-product of response mechanisms that evolved to protect our species in its first phase of existence. Another feature of human beings is what has been called our ‘theory of mind’—the capacity to understand that other humans have thoughts and desires, and have some idea what these might be. Yet while helping humans to survive, such attributes may have led to supernatural beliefs. This chapter looks at the relationship between religion and other changes in society and social consciousness. It also looks at the question of how non-religious individuals find meaning in life, and why meaning is so central to the unique ways in which human beings navigate life.
Historical (i.e. Defunct) European Party Systems
Authors: Casal Bértoa Fernando , Enyedi Zsolt
Published: June 2021

The fourth chapter presents the profile and the condensed history of the 21 historical party systems that ceased to be democratic. Here we discuss the dynamics of the changes, and relate them to the ideological configurations and alliance structures. We show that the changes in closure figures indicate well the transformations of party politics, we link developments in the governmental arena to the conflicts in the party system in general, and we associate each party system with a specific trajectory of closure development and a specific party system type. We show how, in clear contrast to currently functioning European party systems, the plurality of historical party systems fit into a multi-polar configuration that impeded them from reaching higher levels of systemic stability. Tellingly, we find no instances of consistent growth and high-level stabilization or grand coalitions. Two-party and two-plus-one party systems, so common in currently functioning party systems, were also extremely rare among the collapsed systems.
From Time to Time
Authors: Casal Bértoa Fernando , Enyedi Zsolt
Published: June 2021

The sixth chapter relates the changes in closure and volatility to general political developments, but it mainly concerns itself with opposing the birth year of party systems to their age. Of course, within the group of currently existing systems these two coincide, but if one adds to the pool historical cases, then one can investigate whether those systems were more closed that were established earlier, or those which had a higher age. We check the importance of these two features not only for closure but also for volatility. While we question the ability of the volatility index to tap systemic features of party politics, we consider it as a relevant indicator of demand-side stability. By relating volatility to closure, the chapter reveals how the demand and supply sides of party politics, the electoral and governmental arenas, connect to each other.
Inflammatory bowel disease and colonic disorders
Authors: McGregor Colleen
Published: June 2021

This chapter covers core curriculum topics relating to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and colonic disorders. A diagnostic approach to IBD is covered including the role of imaging, endoscopy, histopathology and clinical features. Pathophysiology and epidemiology of IBD is detailed. Management of Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease includes assessment of disease severity, imaging modalities and therapeutic management. Particular focus is given to therapeutic drug monitoring and indications for biologic therapies. Surgical management of IBD is broadly covered including indications, timing and approach. Coverage is also given to the diagnosis and management of extra-intestinal manifestations of IBD, IBD in special situations (pregnancy, elderly, transition) and the prevention of cancer in IBD. Colorectal cancer and benign conditions including constipation, functional gut disorders and other colitides are also featured.
Miscellaneous
Authors: Marjot Thomas
Published: June 2021

This chapter includes a range of miscellaneous curriculum topics including endoscopy, anorectal disorders and gastrointestinal (GI) investigations. Questions discussing the role and indications for antibiotic prophylaxis in endoscopy, sedation, performance measures and consent will provide education on best practice in endoscopy. Coverage is also given to the management of anticoagulation pre- and post-endoscopy together with commonly encountered procedural complications: post-polypectomy syndrome, post-endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography pancreatitis and caustic injury. The presentation and management of key anorectal disorders (haemorrhoids, anal fissures, anal intraepithelial neoplasia, infectious proctitis) are also presented here. Finally, principles of salient GI investigations including anorectal manometry and breath tests are well described. Additional curriculum material regarding miscellaneous gastrointestinal conditions and investigations will be covered in the mock examination chapter.
Quantum statistical physics: Functional integration formalism
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

The functional integral representation of the density matrix at thermal equilibrium in non-relativistic quantum mechanics (QM) with many degrees of freedom, in the grand canonical formulation is introduced. In QM, Hamiltonians H(p,q) can be also expressed in terms of creation and annihilation operators, a method adapted to the study of perturbed harmonic oscillators. In the holomorphic formalism, quantum operators act by multiplication and differentiation on a vector space of analytic functions. Alternatively, they can also be represented by kernels, functions of complex variables that correspond in the classical limit to a complex parametrization of phase space. The formalism is adapted to the description of many-body boson systems. To this formalism corresponds a path integral representation of the density matrix at thermal equilibrium, where paths belong to complex spaces, instead of the more usual position–momentum phase space. A parallel formalism can be set up to describe systems with many fermion degrees of freedom, with Grassmann variables replacing complex variables. Both formalisms can be generalized to quantum gases of Bose and Fermi particles in the grand canonical formulation. Field integral representations of the corresponding quantum partition functions are derived.
Renormalization of local polynomials. Short-distance expansion (SDE)
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

This chapter discusses two related topics: the renormalization of local polynomials (or local operators) of the field, and the short-distance expansion (SDE) of the product of local operators, in space dimension 4 for simplicity. Both problems are related, since one can consider the insertion of a product of operators at different point as a regularization by point splitting of the product at the same points. Therefore, in the limit of coinciding points, one expects that the product is dominated by a linear combination of the local operators which appear in the renormalization of the product, with singular coefficients, functions of the separation, replacing the usual cut-off dependent renormalization constants. We first discuss the renormalization of local polynomials is first discussed from the viewpoint of power counting. Callan–Symanzik (CS) equations are derived for the insertion of operators of dimension 4 in the φ4 quantum field theory (QFT). Field equations are shown to imply linear relations between operators. The existence of a SDE for the product of two basic fields is established. A CS equation is derived for the Fourier transform of the coefficient of the expansion at leading order. The generalization of this analysis to the SDE beyond leading order, to the SDE of arbitrary operators and to the light-cone expansion (LCE), which appears in the study of the large momentum behaviour of real-time correlation function, are briefly discussed.
Becchi–Rouet–Stora–Tyutin (BRST) symmetry. Gauge theories: Zinn-Justin equation (ZJ) and renormalization
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

The first part of the chapter describes Faddeev–Popov's quantization method, nd the resulting Slavnov–Taylor (ST) identities, in a simple context. This construction automatically implies, after introduction of Faddeev–Popov ‘ghost’ fermions, a Becchi–Rouet–Stora–Tyutin (BRST) symmetry, whose properties are derived. The differential operator, of fermionic type, representing the BRST symmetry, with a proper choice of variables, has the form of a cohomology operator, and a simple form in terms of Grassmann coordinates. The second part of the chapter is devoted to the quantization and renormalization of non-Abelian gauge theories. Quantization of gauge theories require a gauge-fixing procedure. Starting from the non-covariant temporal gauge, and using a simple identity, one shows the equivalence with a quantization in a general class of gauges, including relativistic covariant gauges. Adapting the formalism developed in the first part, ST identities, and the corresponding BRST symmetry are derived. However, the explicit form of the BRST symmetry is not stable under renormalization. The BRST symmetry implies a more general, quadratic master equation, also called Zinn-Justin (ZJ) equation, satisfied by the quantized action, equation in which gauge and BRST symmetries are no longer explicit. By contrast, in the case of renormalizable gauges, the ZJ equation is stable under renormalization, and its solution yields the general form of the renormalized gauge action.
Supersymmetric quantum field theory (QFT): Introduction
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

Supersymmetry has been proposed, in particular as a principle to solve the so-called fine-tuning problem in particle physics by relating the masses of scalar particles (like Higgs fields) to those of fermions, which can be protected against ‘large’ mass renormalization by chiral symmetry. However, supersymmetry is, at best, an approximate symmetry broken at a scale beyond the reach of a large hadron collider (LHC), because the possible supersymmetric partners of known particles have not been discovered yet (2020) and thus, if they exist, must be much heavier. Exact supersymmetry would also have implied the vanishing of the vacuum energy and thus, of the cosmological constant. The discovery of dark energy has a natural interpretation as resulting from a very small cosmological constant. However, a naive model based on broken supersymmetry would still predict 60 orders of magnitude too large a value compared to 120 orders of magnitude otherwise. Gauging supersymmetry leads naturally to a unification with gravity, because the commutators of supersymmetry currents involve the energy momentum tensor. First, examples of supersymmetric theories involving scalar superfields, simple generalizations of supersymmetric quantum mechanics (QM) are described. The new feature of supersymmetry in higher dimensions is the combination of supersymmetry with spin, since fermions have spins. In four dimensions, theories with chiral scalar fields and vector fields are constructed.
Degenerate classical minima and instantons
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

Instantons play an important role in the following situation: quantum theories corresponding to classical actions that have non-continuously connected degenerate minima. The simplest examples are provided by one-dimensional quantum systems with symmetries and potentials with non-symmetric minima. Classically, the states of minimum energy correspond to a particle sitting at any of the minima of the potential. The position of the particle breaks (spontaneously) the symmetry of the system. By contrast, in quantum mechanics (QM), the modulus of the ground-state wave function is large near all the minima of the potential, as a consequence of barrier penetration effects. Two typical examples illustrate this phenomenon: the double-well potential, and the cosine potential, whose periodic structure is closer to field theory examples. In the context of stochastic dynamics, instantons are related to Arrhenius law. The proof of the existence of instantons relies on an inequality related to supersymmetric structures, and which generalizes to some field theory examples. Again, the presence of instantons again indicates that the classical minima are connected by quantum tunnelling, and that the symmetry between them is not spontaneously broken. Examples of such a situation are provided, in two dimensions, by the charge conjugation parity (CP) (N − 1) models and, in four dimensions, by SU(2) gauge theories.
‘The Restful Place’
Authors: Stamatakis Chris
Published: June 2021

Addressing the apparent absence of vernacular literary criticism in early Tudor culture, this chapter argues that a nascent poetics lies within the period’s lyric poetry itself. The critical lexicon that laces this lyric poetry shows poets beginning to theorize literature in spatial, geometric, or formal terms. Recalling the place logic of Henrician pedagogy and the blurring of boundaries between poetic invention and critical judgement, the poetry of Wyatt, Surrey, and their early Tudor acolytes ventures a rudimentary theory of poetic composition as the constraining of memory into form. Responding to the Italian commentary tradition that locates Petrarch’s poems in allusive relation to other poems, early Tudor lyric gestures to an intertextual model of how to read texts in a network of remembered literary ‘places’. As imitation fuses into commentary, external places of criticism are constrained internally within Henrician poetry itself.
The Corrector as Critic
Authors: Chenoweth Katie
Published: June 2021

This chapter proposes that the print shop emerges in the sixteenth century as a key site for the production of literary criticism. Of particular interest is the figure of the printer’s corrector, an expert in error and artisan of precision whose task is to discover and amend faults before a text goes into print. Taking as an exemplary case the French poet, literary critic, and orthographic reformer Jacques Peletier du Mans (1517–1582/3)—who maintained close relationships with his printers and was employed as a corrector in the workshop of Jean de Tournes in Lyon—the chapter examines how the practice of correction and the mechanical ethos of printing inform early meta-poetic work in France, including Peletier’s seminal translation of Horace’s Ars poetica and his own Art Poëtiquɇ of 1555.
‘Ce rond de sciences…nommé Encyclopédie’
Authors: Tomlinson Rowan Cerys
Published: June 2021

This essay examines the role of the place of the ‘encyclopaedia’, or circle of learning, in writing on poetics by humanist authors from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, from Italy and France and in neo-Latin and the vernacular. It explores two questions: what is the relationship between Renaissance appropriations of the encyclopaedia as an ideal and contemporary views on how poetic competence is achieved? And how does the place of the encyclopaedia interact with other poetic commonplaces in circulation in pan-European Renaissance culture? Comparative analysis of occurrences, overt and implicit, of the commonplace in writing by Joachim Du Bellay, Cristoforo Landino, Marco Girolamo Vida, and Jacques Peletier Du Mans reveals that the circle of learning is an important touchstone for positions taken in longstanding debates that see Neoplatonic and Horatian approaches to poetics variously opposed, appropriated, and reconciled.
Grammar, Prosody, and the Place of Accent in Elizabethan Criticism
Authors: Alexander Gavin
Published: June 2021

The Elizabethan poets and critics realized that the English verse line was neither merely syllabic (like French verse) nor quantitative (like Greek or Latin verse), but, they argued, governed by the regular disposition of accents. What seems obvious to us was not so to them. Accent did not belong to any metrical system known to sixteenth-century humanists; it pertained to the spoken pronunciation of the individual (Greek or Latin) word, and to the teaching of grammar, where it was known as prosody. The chapter outlines the place of accent in ancient and early modern grammatical theory before discussing George Gascoigne’s revolutionary theory of English metrical accent. It then looks at some subsequent developments in thinking about verse and accent in later sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers and consider grammar as a neglected place of criticism.
Writing in the New World
Authors: Casal Rodrigo Cacho
Published: June 2021

Over the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Spanish American poetry and poetic theory experience a crucial moment of affirmation. Literary networks strengthen their circle of influence, and several authors, both creole and settlers, are able to promote their careers, further facilitated by the printing press. Books such as Miscelánea austral (Lima, 1602/1603) by Diego Dávalos y Figueroa, Grandeza mexicana (Mexico City, 1604) by Bernardo de Balbuena, and Parnaso antártico (Seville, 1608) by Diego Mexía contain a number of texts which lay the foundations for a new American poetics. They constitute a canon of New World authors who fashion themselves at the centre of a transatlantic exchange, both as followers and innovators of the peninsular literary tradition of the Renaissance. Framed within the rhetorical genre of “defences of poetry” and “defences of women”, these poets put forward an engaging critical representation of their own poetic identity.
Dryden’s Debts
Authors: Read Sophie
Published: June 2021

This essay considers the ways in which the late seventeenth-century critic John Dryden uses the metaphor of coinage, and the related ideas of commerce and debt, trade and empire, to think about past writers. It argues that the figure of the coin, as something of both intrinsic and contingent value, allows Dryden to isolate the ‘wit’ of works he admires—by Virgil, Shakespeare, and Donne—and translate it, in his own writing, for his own time. The essay argues that this trope is both fundamental to the development of Dryden’s critical voice and a creative stimulus, particularly when he comes to think about the sound of verse in his late career as a translator of the classics.
Introduction
Authors: Patterson Jonathan
Published: June 2021

This study is framed as a transcultural enquiry that flows between moral, criminal, and social notions of villainy. The rationale of the book is outlined: to focus primarily on pre-modern French culture and secondly on its overflowing into English culture. The Introduction sets out conceptual adjustments required to calibrate English notions of villainy with French notions (vilenie/vilain). These adjustments enable us to begin considering how pre-modern villainy flows between ‘villainous’ offences and their redress, through the twin lenses of law and literature. Legal-anthropological reflection on law as both rule-based and processual activity (litigation and out-of-court arbitration) will inform this study’s handling of offensive/redressive behaviour. Of particular literary interest is writing that is couched in a ‘villainous style’, abusing readers’ moral, social, and aesthetic sensibilities. The book’s chronological parameters (1463–1610) are explained and its structure in five parts is outlined.
Panurge
Authors: Patterson Jonathan
Published: June 2021

At the centre of this book is an analysis of what Rabelais called ‘la plus grande villanie du monde’—‘the world’s greatest villainy’ (Pantagruel chs. 21–2). In this episode, Panurge enacts a vengeful trick on a Haughty Lady who spurned his advances. Chapter 8 evaluates divergent allegorical readings of the trick in relation to the episode’s farcical, scatological, and legal overtones. Since there is no judicial redress, Rabelais leaves us with an unfixed vilain et énorme cas of sorts: a situation that is morally, criminally, and aesthetically vilain; and énorme in an ever-expanding, spatial sense. Across the chapter, Panurge’s expansive villainy (panourgia) is explored in relation to his ageist–sexist tendencies, and in relation to his taste for facetious litigation (causes grasses) in the first half of Pantagruel. To these may be added his remonstrating against the scandalous ‘heretic’ Raminograbis and his cowardly, diabolical ravings (Tiers Livre chs. 21–3).
Family Crimes
Authors: Patterson Jonathan
Published: June 2021

Over time, L’Estoile’s journals tended to portray vilenies in a form of writing that sat between legal and literary representation of crimes énormes. Building on work done by Tom Hamilton, this chapter shows how L’Estoile’s writings on crimes committed in a family context (‘family crimes’) partially imitate a chronicler’s curious fragment, a racy histoire tragique, or a magistrate’s judgement of events on the scaffold. The chapter concludes with a legal-literary reading of the Ravalet Tourlaville affair, a notorious case of incest and adultery that became the subject of an histoire tragique by François de Rosset. L’Estoile’s version of events differs strikingly from Rosset’s.
Islands of Settlement
Authors: Jarvis Michael J.
Published: June 2021

North Atlantic islands played a key role in early English imperial expansion as critical sites of precedent and experimentation. From John Cabot’s first landing in 1497, Newfoundland gave England both a claim to America and a base for an enormously profitable fishery. Further south, and following its initial accidental English occupation in 1609, Bermuda became England’s first fully settled overseas colony. Furthermore, and crucially, it provided a template for colonial success that was widely copied throughout the Caribbean. New England’s Nantucket Island offers a third maritime-oriented imperial site of innovation as a uniquely successful seventeenth-century whaling base. This chapter highlights the contributions these different North Atlantic islands made in British imperial expansion and their changing roles across time, especially in the wake of the American Revolution.
Islands and the Age of Revolutions in the Indian and Pacific Oceans
Authors: Sivasundaram Sujit
Published: June 2021

The Age of Revolutions altered the map of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. More of these oceans were ‘filled in’ in the European mind, as voyages of discovery and scientific studies of oceans, coastlines, and environments proceeded. But the map of these oceans changed in more important ways too. For people of all kinds, the islands of these oceans served as spaces for rethinking politics, forms of association, and social organization. Islands were key locales for the discourses and debates of the Age of Revolutions and their globalization. They became imaginative spaces for considering the past and the future of human society and for deliberating what constituted enlightenment, progress, and varieties of reform. By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, islands in these oceans became sites of counter-revolutionary imperialism. Ultimately, therefore, this chapter illustrates the changing place of islands on the globe and within Britain’s maritime empire.
What is Desire-as-Belief?
Authors: Gregory Alex
Published: June 2021

This chapter explains some basic assumptions and terminology and then introduces desire-as-belief—the view that our desires are a subset of our beliefs. The view is explained in part by an analogy to a natural view about the nature of disbelief, and that analogy helps fend off an initial objection to the view stemming from the distinction between two directions of fit. The chapter goes on to describe some simple attractions of desire-as-belief and also defends it from some further initial objections, such as the worry that inconsistent beliefs are irrational whereas inconsistent desires need not be, and a more general concern about how desire-as-belief relates to Plato’s distinction between Reason and passion.
Distributional Concerns, the ‘Developmental State’, and the Agrarian Origins of Social Assistance in Ethiopia
Authors: Lavers Tom
Published: June 2021

Existing research tends to focus on the proximate drivers of social assistance expansion in developing countries—including donor advocacy and electoral incentives. This work risks neglecting deeper continuities with longstanding mechanisms by which states distribute resources and the broader political economic context. This chapter examines Ethiopia, home to one of the largest social assistance programmes in Africa, highlighting the deep roots of social assistance within state distributional strategies, particularly regarding land access and food insecurity. Analysis shows how changing political interests and ideology have resulted in the evolution from an ‘agrarian’ distributional regime—which sought to provide welfare through land access—to a ‘productivist-pauperist’ model as part of Ethiopia’s ‘developmental state’ strategy. This model targets social assistance narrowly to specific groups, yet seeks to ensure that support is put to productive use. The chapter draws on seventy key informant interviews with politicians, bureaucrats, and donor representatives conducted from 2009–18.
Policy Diffusion, Domestic Politics, and Social Assistance in Lesotho, 1998–2012
Authors: Saminathen Maria Granvik
Published: June 2021

Lesotho is a small African country that has introduced two national cash transfer programmes, the universal old-age pension, and the child grant programme. This study indicates that the initiation of the social pension was not the result of cross-national policy diffusion in line with the ‘South African model’, but rather facilitated by a transition to political stability and a dominant government led by then prime minister, Mosisili. The child grant programme for orphaned and vulnerable children was initially driven by international organizations, yet the Lesotho government quickly took ownership of the initiative. Unlike in many other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, these reforms were not resisted by domestic political elites. Both programmes were rooted in socioeconomic changes such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and a political shift after an extended period of political competition, with the (possibly short-lived) restoration of democratic competition in the early 2000s, opening up for programmatic reform.
Social Assistance, Electoral Competition, and Political Branding in Malawi
Authors: Hamer Sam , Seekings Jeremy
Published: June 2021

Whilst partisan competition has fuelled the expansion of social assistance across much of Africa, social assistance has generally been a valence issue. In Malawi, unusually, the competing presidential candidates and their parties in the 2014 election staked out starkly contrasting positions on social assistance as part of their attempted supra-regional and supra-ethnic political ‘branding’. The incumbent president, Joyce Banda, championed social assistance for women, children, and the poor, whilst her rivals denounced ‘handouts’ and emphasized instead economic growth and support for peasant farmers. Banda’s defeat suggests that there are limits to the efficacy of social assistance for political branding. Nonetheless, the fact that she used this brand at all suggests that social assistance has grown in political significance as an expression of pro-poor priorities.
Violence, Governance, and Uncertainty
Authors: Tapscott Rebecca
Published: June 2021

The majority of today’s authoritarian regimes are characterized by a paradox in which democratic institutions exist alongside the ruler’s exercise of arbitrary power. The continued existence of civic spaces and democratic institutions can create opportunities for citizens to organize and make claims on the regime. How do rulers maintain control under such circumstances? To contribute to this ongoing debate, this book identifies ‘institutionalized arbitrariness’ as a new form of authoritarianism. Regimes characterized by institutionalized arbitrariness do not try to eliminate civic organization or democratic space, but instead use unpredictable and violent intervention to make those spaces fragile. They are more concerned with weakening competition than with maximizing control. To elaborate these dynamics, this chapter links everyday experiences of local insecurity in Uganda to contemporary debates about authoritarian rule. After positioning Uganda under President Museveni as a key case of modern authoritarianism, the chapter outlines the study and previews the book’s main findings.
Arbitrary Governance and Modern Authoritarianism
Authors: Tapscott Rebecca
Published: June 2021

How do modern authoritarian rulers project power? Until now, scholars of authoritarianism have emphasized a balancing act between coercion and patronage while scholars of post-colonial and neopatrimonial states draw attention to elite settlements. This chapter identifies arbitrary governance as a third and as yet unexplored way that today’s authoritarian regimes project power. Regimes that employ institutionalized arbitrariness do not delegate authority; instead, they stabilize control and project power directly into the lives of ordinary citizens through unpredictable assertions of authority that undermine the political autonomy of those who might otherwise challenge it. This chapter elaborates the theoretical underpinnings of institutionalized arbitrariness, and offers a four-part analytic framework that combines inductive findings from field research with scholarship on authoritarian regimes in Africa and beyond. The framework explains how regimes institutionalize unpredictability, showing not just why unpredictability matters to maintain authoritarian rule, but also how it is manufactured and sustained.
Fair Opportunity and History
Authors: Brink David O.
Published: June 2021

So far, fair opportunity has been understood synchronically. Various reasons for thinking that responsibility must be an historical concept are examined, including issues about prior manipulation, culpable incapacity and tracing, the need to take responsibility for one’s actions and their consequences, and unfortunate formative circumstances. Though fair opportunity could take an historical form, if need be, there are good reasons to accept an ahistorical conception of responsibility.
Addiction and Fair Opportunity
Authors: Brink David O.
Published: June 2021

To decide whether and, if so, under what conditions addiction might excuse misconduct, we need to understand addiction. Three complementary models of addiction are examined—the conception in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Ainslie’s hyperbolic discounting model, and Berridge’s and Holton’s model of impaired control. The law’s skepticism about an addiction excuse is examined and questioned. Duress models of how addiction might excuse are rejected. However, the cravings that are part of addiction might affect cognitive (attentional) competence or volitional control. This excuse would be at most partial, and it would be limited to those who are not substantially responsible for becoming or remaining addicted.
Battered Persons, Provocation, and Fair Opportunity
Authors: Brink David O.
Published: June 2021

Different battered person defenses are distinguished from each other and shown not to depend on Battered Woman’s Syndrome. Common law and Model Penal Code conceptions of provocation are distinguished. The Model Penal Code conception is shown to be regressive. A worry is raised that there is a double standard at work in the criminal law’s treatment of intimate partner violence involving men and women. A principled explanation is offered about when provocation justifies and when it excuses. Doubts are expressed about extending a provocation defense to those with unreasonably volatile sensibilities.
Partial Responsibility and Excuse
Authors: Brink David O.
Published: June 2021

Responsibility and excuse are shown to be scalar. Though American criminal law is bivalent about responsibility and excuse, ideal criminal law theory should be scalar and pursue proportionate justice. Bivalence cannot be defended for non-ideal theory. Different feasible ways of recognizing partial responsibility and excuse are explored, including proportionate justice, trivalence, tetravalence and pentavalence. While there is anecdotal evidence against pentavalence, the remaining three models are all worth pursuing empirically.
The Beginnings of Communications
Authors: Solymar Laszlo
Published: June 2021

The significance of communications was recognized as early as 2000 bc mainly in the military context. The most important information to be obtained was whether hostile forces were approaching. The solution was to use fire signals by watchmen positioned on carefully chosen mountains. There is evidence that in a city state inspectors were hired to look at the state of the early warning system and request maintenance if needed. An example of a link between Troy and Greece is mentioned in a play at the time. An early coding system that could code any message is discussed. Communications in the Roman Empire is shown in the form of a relief on Trajan’s column. The chapter ends with a poem by Macaulay that describes the fire signals in England indicating the arrival of the Spanish Armada.
Great Advances
Authors: Solymar Laszlo
Published: June 2021

Wars, as usual, are responsible for many technical advances. Among the most significant was the invention of new devices capable of producing higher frequencies which were to be called microwaves. This made possible the emergence of radar both for military and civil communications and sometime later Long Distance Communications was realized by microwave links where information was sent from tower to tower. Microwave networks were built in all industrialized countries. It was followed by satellite communications, first passive (relying on signal reflection) and later active, that re-radiated signal. The first mobile phones also used microwave frequencies. Further advances like digitalization, optical fibres, and inter-computer communications are introduced.