In 1679 Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716) was banished from the province of Holland. Why was this humanist scholar exiled from one of the most tolerant parts of Europe in the seventeenth century? To answer this question, this book places Beverland's writings on sex, sin, and scholarship in their historical context for the first time. Beverland argued that sexual lust was the original sin and highlighted the importance of sex in human nature, ancient history, and his own society. His audacious works hit a raw nerve: Dutch theologians accused him of atheism, he was abandoned by his humanist colleagues, and he was banished by the University of Leiden. By positioning Beverland's extraordinary scholarship in the context of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, this book examines how his radical studies challenged the intellectual, ecclesiastical, and political elite, providing a fresh perspective upon the Dutch Republic in the last decades of its Golden Age.

This volume is a collection of essays written by colleagues and friends in honor of Michael W. Blastic, O.F.M., on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The contributing scholars endeavored to address significant issues within the academic areas in which Fr. Blastic has taught and published. Three essays are devoted to the Writings of Saint Francis; seven are dedicated to particular issues in Franciscan history, hagiography, spirituality and several texts; five deal specifically with women during the Middle Ages; and three final essays explore aspects of Franciscan theology and philosophy. Fr. Michael Blastic has taught at the Washington Theological Union, the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University and Siena College and served as a widely-respected retreat master. Contributors are Maria Pia Alberzoni, Luciano Bertazzo, O.F.M. Conv., Joshua C. Benson, Aaron Canty, Joseph Chinnici, O.F.M., Michael F. Cusato, O.F.M., Jay M. Hammond, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, O.F.M. Conv., Timothy J. Johnson, Lezlie Knox, Pietro Maranesi, Steven J. McMichael, O.F.M. Conv., Benedikt Mertens, O.F.M., Catherine M. Mooney, Luigi Pellegrini, Michael Robson, and William J. Short, O.F.M.

Ethology, or how animals relate to their environments, is currently enjoying increased academic attention. A prominent figure in this scholarship is Gilles Deleuze and yet, the significance of his relational metaphysics to ethology has still not been scrutinised. Jason Cullen's book is the first text to analyse Deleuze's philosophical ethology and he prioritises the theorist's examination of how beings relate to each other. For Cullen, Deleuze's Cinema books are integral to this investigation and he highlights how they expose a key Deleuzian theme: that beings are fundamentally continuous with each other. In light of this continuity then, Cullen reveals that how beings understand each other shapes them and allows them to transform their shared worlds.