The most famous of all medieval Jewish thinkers, Moses Maimonides is known for his monumental contributions to Jewish law, theology and medicine and an influence that extends into the wider world. His remarkable work, The Guide for the Perplexed, is notoriously difficult to interpret since Maimonides aimed it at those already versed in both philosophy and the rabbinic tradition and used literary techniques to test his readers and force them to think through his arguments. Daniel Davies explores Maimonides’ approaches to issues of perennial and universal concern: human nature and the soul, the problem of evil, the creation of the world, the question of God’s existence, and negative theology. He addresses the unusual ways in which Maimonides presented his arguments, contextualizing Maimonides’ thought in the philosophy and religion of his own time, as well as elucidating it for today’s readers. This philosophically rich introduction is an essential guide for students and scholars of medieval philosophy, philosophy of religion, theology and Jewish studies.

From England and France to the Low Countries, Wales, Scotland, and Italy, the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) fundamentally shaped late-medieval literature. This volume adopts an expansive focus to reveal the transnational literary consequences of over a century of international conflict. While traditionally seen as an Anglo-French conflict, the Hundred Years War was a multilateral conflict with connections across the continent through alliances and proxy battles. Writers, whether as witnesses, diplomats, or provocateurs, played key roles in shaping the conflict, and the conflict equally impacted the course of literary history. The volume shows how a wide variety of genres and works are deeply engaged with responses to the war, from women’s visionary writing by figures like Catherine of Siena to anonymous lyric poetry, from Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. -- .

How can finite minds approach an infinite and ultimately unknowable God? Is it true that Christianity is a religion of love and Judaism a religion of law? Can a Jew accept the Orthodox Christian veneration of holy images? How much do Jews and Orthodox Christians have in common when they worship God? What can be done about Christian prayers that Jews find offensive? How much responsibility do Christians carry for antisemitism? These and other questions are addressed in this book which is intended as a major contribution to encounters between Judaism and Orthodox Christianity. In seventeen chapters, expert theologians and historians examine central issues of common concern relating to theology and worship as well as to the vexed historical question of anti-Semitism. The focus is on dialogue and deepened knowledge, as the contributors s dispel widely-held misconceptions and identify a good deal of common ground.

Few contemporary intellectuals have attempted to inform theory, the academy and social change as does Lewis Gordon. Following his own path of Fanon, Cesaire and Said, Gordon's work is an urgent call to action that is critical 'in the trying times' in which we find ourselves. In this important book, international scholars from many disciplines and areas of life engage in Gordon's work to prod, rattle and rethink our thinking to inform and change our practices as humans in institutions, politics, and the personal, legal and social paradigms. The book focuses on the importance of radical theory and thinkers to push for projects of change in the area of Black Existentialism. Gordon's now extensive oeuvre personifies this. The essays use the work of Lewis Gordon to demonstrate how theory and thought be can used for transformation of existence, antiracism and critiques of alterity, resistance, pedagogy, political action theory and disciplinary decadence in the academy and beyond.

This edited volume provides a complete introduction to critical issues across the field of Indigenous peoples in contemporary Taiwan, from theoretical approaches to empirical analysis. Seeking to inform wider audiences about Taiwan's Indigenous peoples, this book brings together both leading and emerging scholars as part of an international collaborative research project, sharing broad specialisms on modern Indigenous issues in Taiwan. This is one of the first dedicated volumes in English to examine contemporary Taiwan's Indigenous peoples from such a range of disciplinary angles, following four section themes: long-term perspectives, the arts, education, and politics. Chapters offer perspectives not only from academic researchers, but also from writers bearing rich practitioner and activist experience from within the Taiwanese Indigenous rights movement. Methods range from extensive fieldwork to Indigenous-directed film and literary analysis. Taiwan's Contemporary Indigenous Peoples will prove a useful resource for students and scholars of Taiwan Studies, Indigenous Studies and Asia Pacific Studies, as well as educators designing future courses on Indigenous studies.

This edited volume provides a complete introduction to critical issues across the field of Indigenous peoples in contemporary Taiwan, from theoretical approaches to empirical analysis. Seeking to inform wider audiences about Taiwan's Indigenous peoples, this book brings together both leading and emerging scholars as part of an international collaborative research project, sharing broad specialisms on modern Indigenous issues in Taiwan. This is one of the first dedicated volumes in English to examine contemporary Taiwan's Indigenous peoples from such a range of disciplinary angles, following four section themes: long-term perspectives, the arts, education, and politics. Chapters offer perspectives not only from academic researchers, but also from writers bearing rich practitioner and activist experience from within the Taiwanese Indigenous rights movement. Methods range from extensive fieldwork to Indigenous-directed film and literary analysis. Taiwan's Contemporary Indigenous Peoples will prove a useful resource for students and scholars of Taiwan Studies, Indigenous Studies and Asia Pacific Studies, as well as educators designing future courses on Indigenous studies.

Few contemporary intellectuals have attempted to inform theory, the academy and social change as does Lewis Gordon. Following his own path of Fanon, Cesaire and Said, Gordon's work is an urgent call to action that is critical 'in the trying times' in which we find ourselves. In this important book, international scholars from many disciplines and areas of life engage in Gordon's work to prod, rattle and rethink our thinking to inform and change our practices as humans in institutions, politics, and the personal, legal and social paradigms. The book focuses on the importance of radical theory and thinkers to push for projects of change in the area of Black Existentialism. Gordon's now extensive oeuvre personifies this. The essays use the work of Lewis Gordon to demonstrate how theory and thought be can used for transformation of existence, antiracism and critiques of alterity, resistance, pedagogy, political action theory and disciplinary decadence in the academy and beyond.

Cutting-edge and fresh new outlooks on medieval literature, emphasising the vibrancy of the field. New Medieval Literatures is an annual of work on medieval textual cultures, aiming to engage with intellectual and cultural pluralism in the Middle Ages and now. Its scope is inclusive of work across the theoretical, archival, philological, and historicist methodologies associated with medieval literary studies, and embraces the range of European cultures, capaciously defined. Essays in this volume investigate a range of writers from late antiquity to the fifteenth century. They explore encounters between humans and animals in French romance; reflect on what contemporary sound studies can offer to Anglo-French poetry; trace how the reception of Trojan history is influenced by late medieval military practices; attend to the complex multilingualism of a devotional poetry that tests the limits of both language and theology; analyse the ways in which Christ's sexuality upsets religious typology inlate medieval drama; document the lines of national and European affinities found in French poetic manuscripts; and argue for why we should study "ugly" manuscripts of practical instruction not only for what they teach us but alsofor their insights into medieval literacy. Texts discussed include romances such as Chretien de Troyes's Yvain and Beroul's Tristan; the theologian John of Howden's adaptation of the Philomela legend in his Rossignos; Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde read alongside siege chronicles of the Hundred Years War; Bruder Hans's quadrilingual Ave Maria; the York Corpus Christi Plays; the poetry of Charles d'Orleans; and a group oflate medieval manuscripts which include herbals, account books, and medical treatises. KELLIE ROBERTSON is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Maryland; WENDY SCASE is Geoffrey Shepherd Professor of Medieval English Literature at the University of Birmingham; LAURA ASHE is Professor of English at the University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor at Worcester College, Oxford; PHILIP KNOX Is University Lecturer inEnglish and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Contributors: Lukas Hadrian Ovrom, Terrence Cullen, Steven Rozenski, Tison Pugh, Rory G. Critten, Daniel Wakelin.

Offers expansive and intersecting understandings of erotic subjectivity, intimacy, and trauma in performance ethnography and in institutional and disciplinary settings. Focused on research within Africa and the African diaspora, contributors to this volume think through the painful iterations of trauma, systemic racism, and the vestiges of colonial oppression as well as the processes of healing and emancipation that emerge from wounded states. Their chapters explore an acoustemology of intimacy, woman-centered eroticism generated through musical performance, desire and longing in ethnographic knowledge production, and listening as intimacy. On the other end of the spectrum, authors engage with and question the fetishization of race in jazz; examine conceptions of vulgarity and profanity in movement and dance-ethnography; and address pain, trauma, and violation, whether physical, spiritual, intellectual, or political. Authors in this volume strive toward empathetic, ethical, and creative ethnographic engagements that summon vulnerability and healing. They propose pathways to aesthetic, discursive transformation by reorienting conceptions of knowledge as emergent, performative, and sonically enabled. The resulting book explores sensory knowledge that is frequently left unacknowledged in ethnographic work, advancing conversations about performed sonic and somatic modalities through which we navigate our entanglements as engaged scholars.

The Adjunct Dilemma is a concise guide that offers higher education professionals a way to measure the degree of equality taking place in work environments across institutional settings. It frames the relevant issues and nationwide surveys that reveal the current professional landscape. The goal is to offer a standardized way to identify both unjust and equitable labour practices that impact adjunct faculty on campus. The main feature of this guide is The Non Tenure Track Faculty Report Card, a tool to help evaluate current labour practices that impact adjuncts in both positive and negative ways. This tool measures 3 areas of labour conditions: Material Equity: Pay, job security and benefits Professional Equity: Opportunities for advancement, academic freedom and professional development Social Equity: Gender and racial parity between contingent and non-contingent faculty in proportion to populations served

The Adjunct Dilemma is a concise guide that offers higher education professionals a way to measure the degree of equality taking place in work environments across institutional settings. It frames the relevant issues and nationwide surveys that reveal the current professional landscape. The goal is to offer a standardized way to identify both unjust and equitable labour practices that impact adjunct faculty on campus. The main feature of this guide is The Non Tenure Track Faculty Report Card, a tool to help evaluate current labour practices that impact adjuncts in both positive and negative ways. This tool measures 3 areas of labour conditions: Material Equity: Pay, job security and benefits Professional Equity: Opportunities for advancement, academic freedom and professional development Social Equity: Gender and racial parity between contingent and non-contingent faculty in proportion to populations served

This book creatively explores the gold rushes in the Tasman World through an examination of the Otago gold rushes, revealing how transnational connections and local social and natural environments shaped colonial identities. The first monograph-length study on the Otago gold rushes and their place in the histories of British and Irish migration, it increases our understanding of the British World by grounding transnational networks in the local ecologies, geologies and weather patterns which shaped local social structures and profoundly affected migrants' relationships to loved ones in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere.

This book creatively explores the gold rushes in the Tasman World through an examination of the Otago gold rushes, revealing how transnational connections and local social and natural environments shaped colonial identities. The first monograph-length study on the Otago gold rushes and their place in the histories of British and Irish migration, it increases our understanding of the British World by grounding transnational networks in the local ecologies, geologies and weather patterns which shaped local social structures and profoundly affected migrants' relationships to loved ones in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere.

The most famous of all medieval Jewish thinkers, Moses Maimonides is known for his monumental contributions to Jewish law, theology and medicine and an influence that extends into the wider world. His remarkable work, The Guide for the Perplexed, is notoriously difficult to interpret since Maimonides aimed it at those already versed in both philosophy and the rabbinic tradition and used literary techniques to test his readers and force them to think through his arguments. Daniel Davies explores Maimonides’ approaches to issues of perennial and universal concern: human nature and the soul, the problem of evil, the creation of the world, the question of God’s existence, and negative theology. He addresses the unusual ways in which Maimonides presented his arguments, contextualizing Maimonides’ thought in the philosophy and religion of his own time, as well as elucidating it for today’s readers. This philosophically rich introduction is an essential guide for students and scholars of medieval philosophy, philosophy of religion, theology and Jewish studies.

The fame of the Polish school at Lvov rests with the diverse and fundamental contributions of Polish mathematicians working there during the interwar years. In particular, despite material hardship and without a notable mathematical tradition, the school made major contributions to what is now called functional analysis. The results and names of Banach, Kac, Kuratowski, Mazur, Nikodym, Orlicz, Schauder, Sierpinski, Steinhaus, and Ulam, among others, now appear in all the standard textbooks. The vibrant joie de vivre and singular ambience of Lvov's once scintillating social scene are evocatively recaptured in personal recollections. The heyday of the famous Scottish Cafe - unquestionably the most mathematically productive cafeteria of all time - and its precious Scottish Book of highly influential problems are described in detail, revealing the special synergy of scholarship and camaraderie that permanently elevated Polish mathematics from utter obscurity to global prominence. This chronicle of the Lvov school - its legacy and the tumultuous historical events which defined its lifespan - will appeal equally to mathematicians, historians, or general readers seeking a cultural and institutional overview of key aspects of twentieth-century Polish mathematics not described anywhere else in the extant English-language literature.

Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) was arguably the single most important Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, with an impact on the later Jewish tradition that was unparalleled by any of his contemporaries. In this volume of new essays, world-leading scholars address themes relevant to his philosophical outlook, including his relationship with his Islamicate surroundings and the impact of his work on subsequent Jewish and Christian writings, as well as his reception in twentieth-century scholarship. The essays also address the nature and aim of Maimonides' philosophical writing, including its connection with biblical exegesis, and the philosophical and theological arguments that are central to his work, such as revelation, ritual, divine providence, and teleology. Wide-ranging and fully up-to-date, the volume will be highly valuable for those interested in Jewish history and thought, medieval philosophy, and religious studies.

All Galen's surviving shorter works on psychology and ethics - including the recently discovered Avoiding Distress, and the neglected Character Traits, extant only in Arabic - are here presented in one volume in a new English translation, with substantial introductions and notes and extensive glossaries. Original and penetrating analyses are provided of the psychological and philosophical thought, both of the above and of two absolutely central works of Galenic philosophy, Affections and Errors and The Capacities of the Soul, by some of the foremost experts in the field. Each treatise has also been subjected to fresh textual study, taking account of the latest scholarly developments, and is presented with accompanying textual discussions, adding greatly to the value and accuracy of the work without detracting from its accessibility to a wider readership. The volume thus makes a major contribution to the understanding of the ancient world's most prominent doctor-philosopher in his intellectual context.

All Galen's surviving shorter works on psychology and ethics - including the recently discovered Avoiding Distress, and the neglected Character Traits, extant only in Arabic - are here presented in one volume in a new English translation, with substantial introductions and notes and extensive glossaries. Original and penetrating analyses are provided of the psychological and philosophical thought, both of the above and of two absolutely central works of Galenic philosophy, Affections and Errors and The Capacities of the Soul, by some of the foremost experts in the field. Each treatise has also been subjected to fresh textual study, taking account of the latest scholarly developments, and is presented with accompanying textual discussions, adding greatly to the value and accuracy of the work without detracting from its accessibility to a wider readership. The volume thus makes a major contribution to the understanding of the ancient world's most prominent doctor-philosopher in his intellectual context.

Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed is one of the most discussed books in Jewish history. Over 800 years after the author's death it remains disputed with readers seeking secret philosophical messages behind its explicit teaching, a quest fueled partly by Maimonides' own statement that certain parts of the Guide are based upon ideas that conflict with other parts. Many who adhere to an 'esoteric' reading of the Guide profess to find these contradictions in Maimonides' metaphysical beliefs. Through close readings of the Guide, this book addresses the major debates surrounding its secret doctrine. It argues that perceived contradictions in Maimonides' accounts of creation and divine attributes can be squared by paying attention to the various ways in which he presented his arguments. Furthermore, it shows how a coherent theological view can emerge from the many layers of the Guide. But Maimonides' clear declaration that certain matters must be hidden from the masses cannot be ignored and the kind of inconsistency that is peculiar to the Guide requires another explanation. It is found in the purpose Maimonides assigns to the Guide scriptural exegesis. Ezekiel's Account of the Chariot, treated in one of the most laconic sections of the Guide, is the subject of the final chapters. They offer a detailed exposition of Maimonides' interpretation, the deepest ''secret of the Torah, '' which, in Maimonides' works, shares its name with metaphysics. By connecting the vision with currents in the wider Islamic world, the chapters show how Maimonides devised a new method of presentation in order to imitate scripture's multi-layered manner of communication. He updated what he took to be the correct interpretation of scripture by writing it in a work appropriate for his own time and to do so he had to keep the Torah's most hidden secrets.