Introduction: In this book, we evaluate the ancient testimonia; investigate production materials from Greek and Roman casting debris; look at bronzes inside and out; apply modern technology to reconstructing the ancient industry; and assess the impact of technique on the way in which we understand classical bronze statuary. Furthermore, recognizing post-antique features in restoration, patina, and display can help to correct long-held misconceptions.

This chapter offers a close reading of Chapters 7 and 8 of Heinrich von Ofterdingen. These two brief chapters of the novel turn on Heinrich’s formal apprenticeship to Klingsohr in the art of poetry, and both chapters end with a conversation between Heinrich and Mathilde. It is shown how Klingsohr stresses to Heinrich the importance of balancing reason and feeling, intellect and imagination, in order to become a fully realized poet. The chapter draws attention to the love dialogue between Heinrich and Mathilde, showing why the concept of religion enters into the novel at this stage of his development.

In 2021, the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, there was an exponential increase in the number of deaths in the country. These deaths can be explained, among other factors, by the easing of restrictions on social isolation and the delay in purchasing vaccines. In that context, family members and friends had to deal with abbreviated funeral rituals experienced in a context of necropolitics. In this chapter, based on the analysis of the death of Vítor, a forty-six-year-old Pentecostal pastor, we see how new protocols aimed at containing the spread of the virus affected the traditional rites, shortening their sequences and phases – thus reducing community participation to a minimum – and, in turn, how they drove the creation of new possible rituals. If, on the one hand, the new possible rites point to a process of creating funerals that combines in-person tributes and the use of new technologies, on the other, they highlight the consequences of mourning experienced in a context of political tension mainly due to the actions of a conservative and denialist government.

This chapter introduces the broad conceptual framework of the processes of subjectivisation within global discourses and connects it to agency. It introduces the idea of situational agency and draws upon Mahmood’s work to suggest that agency can be found in the ‘inhabitation of norms’. the chapter provides a background context to post-genocide Rwandan policies, introducing the key agenda of unity and reconciliation, and presents Rwanda as a post-colonial state. Finally, this chapter problematises the collection and interpretation of field data in a post-colonial setting.

Chapter 5 argues that there is a distinctive activity and with it a particular problem, a particular kind of mischief, that is the central concern of the rule of law ideal. The activity is the exercise of power. The focus is not on the purpose of power’s exercise, for which we have other concepts, but the way it is exercised. The goal is to minimise arbitrary ways of exercising it. The chapter explicates the notions of power and arbitrariness. It argues that power itself is not an evil but a necessity for many good things. Nor for that matter is arbitrariness evil in itself. Rather, it is the combination of arbitrariness with power, when substantial, that is obnoxious. It suggests several reasons why it is both intrinsically immoral and likely to have bad consequences. The chapter concludes by arguing that hostility to arbitrary power is rarely the only game in town, but it is almost always justified. Power that is not arbitrary is not what we most want out of life, but it is a condition for many of the things we do want. Hostility to it is immanent in the rule of law ideal.

This chapter explores developments after standards for pre-project consultation were raised in 2013. The six cases examined in this chapter, funded by multilateral and national development banks operating in the Asia Pacific region after heightened community engagement policies, were introduced underscore a number of key insights. The post-2013 cases broadly demonstrate a number of key improvements including greater rigour in consultation and diligence mechanisms, heightened precision in identifying issues of community concern, higher pre-project diligence and screening standards, ongoing environmental and technical monitoring, the presence of locally trained mediators, skill development for consultation participants, and a longer-term view of community welfare and responsive grievance remedies. Shortcomings persisted in some cases, including instances of duress, lack of information disclosure, fraud, limited access to consultation mechanisms and environmental harm leading to project cessation in two cases when the adverse social impacts were seen to outweigh potential benefits. On the whole, corresponding with more rigorous community consultation and diligence standards, during this phase, the number of stalled/cancelled and litigated case declined by 33%, the percentages of cases brought to court declined by 16%, and the number of cases pursuing party agreement through mediation or negotiation increased by 50% compared with ad-hoc discretionary consultation practices prior to 2013.

This chapter offers a close reading of Chapter 9 of Heinrich von Ofterdingen. This chapter of the novel consists of an elaborate fairytale that Klingsohr tells Heinrich and a group of listeners at the home of old Schwaning. The fairytale is about a world divided into three realms, a celestial kingdom, an earthly realm, and an underground realm. It is shown how the fairytale allegorizes the state of the soul in fragmentation, as the soul becomes subject either to the ruling force of the intellect or fantasy. The fairytale further allegorizes the soul’s path to wholeness under the guidance of poetry.

This chapter critiques competing ideologies – socialism, populism, and liberalism – and their impacts on development. It revisits dependency theory, institutional economics, and recent policy experiments in Latin America. While state-led models expanded access and welfare, they often fostered dependency and inefficiency. A reformed liberalism, focused on inclusion, accountability, and strategic intervention, emerges as a viable path forward.

In the previous chapter the fragmentation of the modern age has been discussed. In this chapter I will show that for the Romantics this fragmentation is a form of stagnation of time, where the transformative power proper of Becoming is missing and where, therefore, freedom is not deemed possible. How can the transformative power be re-introduced into history without falling into the illusion that the self could be the sovereign agent of such a transformation? The Romantic answer to this question deals with three key concepts: critical thinking, humanity, and utopia. Critical thinking is viewed as a creative act that detects in the present signs of a better future, humanity as the future non-sovereign subject of history, and utopia as the imagination of a possible future that, at the same time, does not imply a concept of history as ‘progress’. Together, as will be analysed at the end of the chapter, they allow us to think the relationship between history and nature neither as opposition nor as identity, providing thought-provoking and original perspectives on the actual debate in environmental philosophy.

Chapter 2 explores how networks of power both reinforced and blurred social and occupational boundaries for non-Muslims. It examines which professions they were barred from, which they were pushed into, and which they came to dominate. In some instances, demand for goods and services such as music, dance, and alcohol created negotiated spaces where Muslims relied on non-Muslims, illustrating how exclusion and dependence coexisted in ways that unsettled rigid divisions – a dynamic analyzed through the concept of heterotopia. At the same time, although formally restricted from certain trades, non-Muslims were entrusted with sensitive occupations such as banking and currency exchange that required significant trust. Many also became leading merchants or specialized craftsmen, using transnational networks of co-religionists to expand their influence, advocate for greater rights, and secure a stronger position in regional commerce. The chapter introduces some well-established non-Muslim trading firms.

Chapter 1 traces the conceptual history of judgments of perfection from Leibniz and Wolff to Kant, clarifying their significance for art criticism. In rationalist aesthetics, perfection was identified with beauty, and judgments of perfection were considered aesthetic judgments governed by rules. Kant’s rejection of this view marked a decisive break with the rationalist tradition, but his transformation of the concept has been largely overlooked. This chapter reconstructs Kant’s reinterpretation: judgments of perfection become nonaesthetic evaluations that attribute goodness to an object relative to a concept of its kind, such as “Blade Runner is an excellent neo-noir film.” These judgments remain important within Kant’s framework, not as substitutes for judgments of taste but as judgments that can inform and support aesthetic evaluation. By recovering this neglected role, the chapter lays the groundwork for a Kantian account of criticism that honors Kant’s rejection of aesthetic testimony and general principles of taste while making room for reasoned evaluation.

Transitions are essentially changes in relation to physical locations, routines and experiences. This explanation from 2012 still appropriately identifies some of the key transitions in early childhood. Transitions happen whenever children switch from parent to educator, move from place to place, or change from one activity to another. However, since 2012, we have become more aware of the significance of different transitions and the impact they can have on many other aspects of a child’s life. This chapter will start by defining what transitions are in early childhood and the different transitions that occur for most children into, within and beyond the ECEC service. Individual children respond differently to transitions so we will explore how both large and smaller transitions can impact and influence some children. This chapter will conclude with the importance of maintaining high expectations for all children, through embedding different strategies that can be used to support all children during transitions, whether they are large transitions in early childhood or smaller transitions during the day.

The Iron Age and the Archaic period were a period of profound transformations in Sicily: Greek and Phoenician colonial settlers interacted with the Indigenous communities of the hinterland and played a key role in processes of change that also involved daily social and economic life.

This chapter presents the archaeological evidence from three settlements in western Sicily, dating from between the early Iron Age and the late Archaic period: Monte Maranfusa, in the middle Belice valley; Makella, located in the Eleuterio valley; and the small settlement on the Castello della Pietra in the lower Belice valley.

The central theme of Chapter 1 is the negotiation between non-Muslims’ sense of belonging and the degree of recognition granted by Muslims and state authorities. It examines the tension between national and religious identities and the legal frameworks that shaped non-Muslims’ lives, including the concept of dhimma/zemmeh, the payment of the non-Muslim tax (jezyeh), judicial procedures, and the valuation of blood money (diyeh). Particular attention is given to the Treaty of Torkamanchay and its consequences for non-Muslim Iranians, especially the establishment of the “Department of Diverse Peoples” within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to handle their cases. Patterns of migration and displacement also form part of this discussion. The chapter further argues that the emergence of the Babi and later Bahaʾi faith in Iran unsettled and redefined perceptions of all non-Muslims in Iranian society.

Nonparametric statistics is concerned with making inference about aspects of an underlying distribution without enforcing explicit structural assumptions on their form. We study the nonparametric statistical problem of estimating a (Lebesgue) density based on a sample of independent, real-valued random variables. Kernel density estimators are simple and conceptually appealing, and we present finite-sample guarantees on their variance and bias under appropriate smoothness assumptions. These clarify the role of the key tuning parameter associated with the method, namely the bandwidth. We also present two techniques for bandwidth selection, based on least-squares cross-validation and Lepski's method.