This chapter examines Pablo Neruda’s deep and complex relationship with the Soviet Union, as reflected in his memoirs Confieso que he vivido: Memorias (I Confess That I Have Lived: Memoirs, 1974). It explores the poet’s encounters, reflections, and evolving perceptions of the country, its people, and their connections to Chile. It analyzes Neruda’s initial fascination with Soviet socialism and communism and his gradual disillusionment with certain aspects of the regime under Stalin’s leadership. The chapter delves into the complexities of the poet’s political and personal allegiances reflected in his encounters with the prominent figures of the Soviet intelligentsia, such as Ilya Ehrenburg. The comparative analysis of Neruda’s memoirs and poetry allows us to shed light on the intertwined histories of Chile and the Soviet Union, highlighting the enduring impact of Neruda’s Soviet odyssey on his literary work and political convictions.

Chapter Two examines the notions of “becoming” and “being” Qizilbash, contextualizing the Ottoman Qizilbash within the broader literature on belonging while revealing the multitude of factors influencing this choice of adherence, as perceived by both the ruler and the ruled. More specifically it examines the motivations behind Qizilbash belonging in Ottoman lands through a framework that scrutinizes their lived experience under two major modes: belonging rooted in spiritual conviction and belonging driven by social, economic, and political compulsion. Within this framework, the chapter aims to illustrate that belonging took on diverse forms and that a shift in sectarian affiliation did not always entail the complete abandonment of previously held beliefs; instead, it often occurred within a larger interplay of politics and morality, as well as personal and material needs.

In this chapter, the book is introduced by interrogating how a political community is constructed and with what membership boundaries, especially when it lies across borders, or at another level than the nation-state. I argue that the political belonging found at the local level and based on ideas of ‘indigeneity’ – whereby the individual is bound to a particular community and has access to a bundle of rights by virtue of the ‘first-comer’ or ‘early-comer rule’– informs and contributes to the making of other types of political belonging at different levels.

The opening chapter provides a historical overview of Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM), tracing its development through the convergence of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou dialects. It introduces the subsequent chapters, each dedicated to specific phonological aspects: vowels, consonants, tones, syllable structure, segmental and tonal mutations, tonal domains, rhythm, and the evolving accent patterns of younger speakers, particularly the iGeneration Taiwanese Southern Min (iTSM), which represents a distinctive phonological profile.

The chapter also introduces the Taiwanese Romanization notation system alongside the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the framework for data presentation throughout the study. Three robust TSM corpora, synthesized from earlier National Science Council research, provide the empirical foundation for the analysis. Statistical evaluations of the corpora support investigations into segmental transformations, tonal evolution, and prosodic patterns.

This introduction sets the stage for a comprehensive exploration of TSM phonology, encouraging readers to critically engage with the evidence and form independent interpretations. It prepares readers for a nuanced journey into the complexities of TSM phonology in the chapters ahead.

This chapter examines how the 2011 uprising disrupted the authoritative intellectual model, leading to an ideal of radical embeddedness – a position of unconditional solidarity with the people. Intellectuals, once expected to enlighten and guide, increasingly deferred to public sentiment, sometimes at the expense of critical intervention. Two intellectual orientations co-existed: a Bourdieusian model, which maintained analytical distance, and a Boltanskian model, which embraced radical egalitarianism. However, exile fostered self-perceptions of epistemic inferiority, particularly in trauma work aimed at global solidarity. While radical embeddedness strengthened solidarity narratives, it also weakened political influence, leading intellectuals to avoid institutional politics and produce politically hesitant interventions. The chapter argues that this shift neutralised secular democratic currents, leaving the movement vulnerable to competing ideological forces. Ultimately, while embedded intellectuals sought praxis, their deference to public sentiment limited their impact.

Barbara Strozzi’s Opus 1 (1644), composed to poetry by Giulio Strozzi, comprises madrigals of two to five voices, so that it stands apart from all of her other works, largely written for one or two voices. While many of the themes in the book follow the work of Barbara’s predecessors and contemporaries, with poems of love, both requited and unrequited, some of the texts refer to old age and the fleetingness of life. In this chapter I suggest that the book represents, in part, an homage to the recently deceased maestro di capella, Claudio Monteverdi (1568-1643). Aside from nods to “la vecchiezza,” there is the transformation of Strozzi’s and Monteverdi’s “Gira il nemico” from Book 8 into a lament of old age, along with references to the master’s Orfeo and to the composer’s last publication, Selva morale e spirituale.

As one of the most prolific poets of twentieth-century Hispanic literature, Pablo Neruda’s influence affected diverse cultural and sociopolitical environments. His literary creation and participation in the public sphere led to the poet receiving prizes and awards of both modest and spectacular prestige. While some of Neruda’s awards prompted political controversies that revealed the peculiarities of his character, all of these honors extended his prominence as Chile’s chief poet in the World Republic of Letters. The acquisition of coveted international recognition was, however, of secondary importance to Neruda: His greatest achievement was his own people’s understanding and emotional identification with his poetry.

In June 1966, the International PEN Club held its annual conference in New York City. It was the first time in forty-two years that the United States had hosted the meeting, and there was much to celebrate. Pablo Neruda, who had repeatedly been denied visas to the United States since 1943 on the grounds that he was a communist, was one of the stars of the show. Throughout – and, indeed, long after – the conference, he made headlines, drew audiences, and made statements that had a lasting impact. He also earned the wrath of supporters of the Cuban Revolution, who attacked him for betraying the revolution by participating in the conference. This chapter discusses Neruda’s participation in the event, including the controversies that he sparked during and afterward, as well as his other activities in New York and his travels in the United States afterward.

The musicological literature has tended to focus on Giulio Strozzi’s career as a librettist, and on his participation in three academies, Ordinati in Rome, and the Incogniti, and its musical offshoot, the Unisoni, in Venice. In this chapter I discuss two biographies published about Strozzi during his lifetime, one of them quite well known (present in the Le Glorie de gli Incogniti), the other one less so (from Gian Vittorio Rossi’s Pinacotheca Imaginum Illustrium). I will highlight the means by which these biographies nuance Strozzi’s time before he became one of Venice’s most noted librettists. I offer new insight into Strozzi’s time in Rome (circa 1601–1615), and suggest that, contrary to his published Incogniti biography, he most likely never earned a degree in law from the University of Pisa.

Folk verse occupies a middle ground between formal poetry and colloquial speech, maintaining poetic structure while preserving natural speech patterns. It adapts the metrical hierarchy of traditional verse but constructs feet based on metrical beats rather than syllables. This form distinguishes between masculine and feminine rhythms, with the former being predominant and the latter creating a softer tone. Function words and medial immediate constituents (ICs) tend to share a beat, and beat sharing serves as a strategy to achieve a masculine rhythm. However, a strong beat or a final beat cannot be shared, often resulting in an unparsed shared beat. An unparsed beat does not participate in clapping, and line-initial unparsed beats reflect extrametricality. A notable feature of folk verse is its abundant use of interjections, which enhance its rhythmic quality.

Chapter 6 adopts a cross-national perspective to reassess the overall strength of the first wave of democratization outside of Britain and France. It argues that four states that scholars have long considered examples of vanguard democracies or “settled cases of democracy” in northern Europe (Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden) do not really fit this description. Belgium and the Netherlands were clearly competitive oligarchies on the eve of WWI. Denmark was indeed one of the most democratic states in Europe by WWI, but its path there had been marked by periods of militarism and rollbacks of suffrage. Sweden was not a democracy by any measure until after WWI. In each of these cases, elites ran clean elections that, because of counter-majoritarian institutions and suffrage restrictions, fell significantly short (outside of Denmark from 1901 to 1914) from the principle of one man, one vote.

The convergence of citizenship towards indigeneity implies that the instability of one can easily lead to the instability of the other. This chapter analyses how the two main political parties in Ghana capitalized on the blurred boundary between citizenship and indigeneity and how images of exclusion conveyed by the Aliens Compliance Order (that instructed all foreigners without residence permits to leave Ghana within 14 days) in 1969 strengthened the image of the NPP (New Patriotic Party) as seeking to exclude Ewe-speakers from the nation in the 1990s (in political campaigns) and the 2000s (including in the national debate about cross-border voting).

This chapter reveals the history of agrarian change in the Gulf, the social relations of farming and the struggles over land and water. It will show how the demise of the peasant existence was not linear, but rather that the management of the region’s agriculture was deeply political. This history is relevant to the central points of this book. The Gulf’s dependence on food imports, its adoption of international brands and methods, and acquisition of agricultural land outside of the country were predicated on the internal demise of this food system. These processes are the antithesis of the food sovereignty that is embodied in peasant production; they represent the manner in which the ruling class wrested control of food and agriculture, integrating it into their circuits of accumulation, and governed it to legitimise their rule.

Barbara Strozzi’s Opus 3 stands apart from her other works by virtue of its mysterious dedication to the “Ignotae Deae”—a feminized version of the motto “Ignoto Deo”— that the Accademia degli Incogniti had borrowed from St. Paul’s sermon to the Athenians. Although seemingly affirming Strozzi’s links to the Incogniti, the enigmatic dedication also speaks to Strozzi’s ability in her music—both in this volume and elsewhere in her oeuvre—to dissimilate: to use music as means not of expressing her feelings but hiding them from her listeners. This hypothesis is born out in an overview of the volume’s organization, her choice of poems, and treatment of the poems that continually emphasize deception and deceit, where the musical setting often contradicts or even undermines the poem. In the end Strozzi herself emerges as the Unknown Goddess, who neutralizes even seemingly misogynist poems with deft humor, irony, always keeping her mask firmly in place.