This chapter explores time, death, and memory, analyzing material cultures of death in relation to deceased bodies, their material and visual representation, in historical contexts. It discusses anthropological perspectives on memory and time as articulated through material object domains, examining related issues of: temporal stasis (e.g., memorial effigies); process (e.g., transi tombs); temporal dimensions of memento mori; the interplay of preservation and decomposition in memory objects; aspects of fragmentation and display; and the imagery of darkness, light, and instruments used in the measurement of time. Each of these – significant in Western material cultures of death and memory – is examined in terms of how it materializes or visualizes bodies in transformation. Even when deceased bodies are represented as static, they tend to be animated through their relation to death, figured or evoked as moving presence. Bodies after death exist in time, perhaps most forcefully represented as decaying, disintegrating, or disappearing. Tracing aspects of death’s temporalities, as conveyed in memory objects and images, this chapter shows how varied and changing effects of time are registered by bodies rendered in paper, ivory, wood, wax, and other materials for memorial purposes and as means to reflect on acts of remembering.

This chapter examines the tale of Atlantis, the second story the merchants tell Heinrich, which makes up the whole of Chapter 3. It uncovers the symbolism of the tale as an early presentation of the idea that poetry has a unifying power that can bring about wholeness in the world. The central characters of the tale, the young forest-dweller, his father, the Princess of Atlantis, and her father, the King of Atlantis, all prefigure characters that will re-emerge later in the novel. The tale ends with a scene of recollection that embodies the idea of a new Golden Age central to Novalis’s work.

This chapter provides an overview of the aims and structure of the book, which explores the emergent development and challenges in implementing community–investor consultation, dispute prevention and facilitation mechanisms amongst multilateral and national development banks operating in the Asia Pacific region. In the several decades since the development of the first multilateral community–investor dispute resolution and accountability mechanisms, much has been learned about public facilitation, community engagement and dispute prevention during the early stages of major infrastructure development programmes. Drawing on a qualitative triangulating approach that compares public facilitation policy design with case-based practice, the remaining chapters of the book will examine community–investor dispute resolution policy design, supplemented by case studies, surveys and interviews of select private non-state actors in the Asia Pacific region to address the question of whether, and if so how, multi-stakeholder community–investor public facilitation methods contribute to the prevention and early resolution of infrastructure disputes and advance sustainable development objectives.

In this chapter, the Christological and soteriological ideas that have tacitly informed the theodicy are made explicit, and it is argued that the theodicy strengthens the coherence of the Christian web of beliefs. It is also argued that the analysis of love that the theodicy builds on enables a deeper understanding of Christ’s atoning and sanctifying work.

Building on the findings of Chapter 5 of Persistent Citizens, this chapter shifts focus to the origins of the three "2ei" attitudes (i.e., entitlement, indignation, and self-efficacy). The authors explore various factors that might explain why some individuals feel more entitled, indignant, and efficacious than others. Their analysis finds that domain-specific knowledge – knowledge of social rights – is a particularly strong predictor of these attitudes. The chapter provides evidence that knowledge of social rights is a more significant factor than socioeconomic status, prior experiences with the state, or general civic engagement. Path models show how knowledge of social rights plausibly affects 2ei, driving state-centric persistence.

This chapter begins by discussing the quasi-fictional medieval poet known as Afterdingen or Ofterdingen, who inspired the novel’s title, and the early thirteenth-century historical context. It distinguishes the novel’s genre from the traditional romance and coming-of-age novel or Bildungsroman. Lastly, the chapter clarifies the novel’s two parts (“The Expectation” of Part I and the “The Fulfillment” of Part II) in terms of a principle of typology common to Biblical criticism. For Novalis, typology is a method of foreshadowing: later characters and events in the story reveal, as postfigurations, what earlier characters and events conceal, as prefigurations.

This chapter introduces the foundational concepts of epidemiology as the scientific study of health and disease patterns in populations. It outlines the distinction between descriptive and analytical approaches, establishing the importance of both for understanding public health. Key measures such as prevalence and incidence are defined and contrasted, highlighting how they provide different perspectives on the burden of disease. Mortality indicators, including crude death rate, cause-specific death rate, age-specific death rate, and standardized mortality ratio, are discussed with emphasis on their application and limitations. The chapter stresses the central role of epidemiology in identifying risk factors, informing prevention strategies, and guiding resource allocation. Using analogies and examples, it illustrates how associations between exposures and outcomes can be identified, while also noting the importance of not conflating correlation with causation. The scope of epidemiological enquiry is presented as both scientific and practical, with applications extending from clinical decision-making to national health planning. By providing readers with a conceptual toolkit of terms and principles, this chapter establishes the groundwork for more detailed exploration of study designs, statistical methods, and research applications that follow in subsequent chapters. This chapter maps to syllabus section 3.1, which requires understanding of epidemiological principles, mortality and morbidity measures, validity, and bias.

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing homes were underfunded, under-regulated, and wildly at risk of a mass viral event. For decades industry watchers had called for oversight, but media accounts regarding home closures were misleading and poorly sourced. Increased private equity interest and legislative inaction heightened risks across the sector. COVID-19 was a perfect storm, preying on these systemic challenges and decimating robust, lively resident populations. More than 200,000 elder and disabled residents of nursing homes died of COVID-19 or related causes between March 2020 and March 2022. That number is grossly underestimated because nursing homes, which self-report their number of ill and deceased, feared bad reputations; many concealed deaths, mis-ascribed causes of death, or sent ill residents to nearby hospitals to avoid deaths on site. The conclusion of lawyers, staff, residents, and experts is that, while COVID-19 was a disaster waiting to happen, the mass deaths experienced in nursing homes could have been prevented. Since the initial years of COVID-19, some efforts by subsequent state and federal administrations have addressed inadequacies, but on the whole, little has been done to correct the many challenges the industry continues to face, even as the US elder population continues to rise.

This chapter examines the first Argentine productions of Verdi’s Otello, including one starring tenor Francesco Tamagno. Expectations in Buenos Aires surrounding the Otello productions were heightened by the new media landscape and by the city’s changing urban and demographic environment, including plans for a new Teatro Colón. These shifts also generated scrutiny of the layers of cultural, geographical and technological distance between Argentina and Italy. Tamagno’s Otello emerged as a sticking point, however: an element considered fundamental to Verdi’s conception, yet the tenor’s powerful voice appeared to resist future reproduction. The material complexities of Otello as a work in performance and the opera’s depiction of a flawed military hero ultimately intersected in the figure of ‘Tamagno-Otello’, I argue: a figure poised between a heroic Italian past and a mechanical future, crystallising wider debates over operatic mediation in the Argentine capital. Turning to Italy I consider how Argentine perceptions of Tamagno’s uniqueness and of Verdi’s Italian status were ultimately internalised, pointing to the intertwining of national mythologies with new technological media.