In 1599, the English organ builder Thomas Dallam prepared an instrument for voyage to the Ottoman Empire, a diplomatic gift for Sultan Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603) on behalf of the English crown. Funded by merchants of the Levant Company, the instrument was installed in Constantinople in the Sultan’s harem, the female-centered space of the Ottoman court. The negotiations for this gift were entrusted to two women who navigated the space between the Sultan and the world outside the court: the Sultana, Ṣāfiye Sultan (d. 1619), and her kira, a Jewish woman by the name of Esperanza Malchi (d. 1600). Women negotiated this musical–diplomatic relationship at a time when England was fiercely pursuing trade with the East. By centering a marginalized individual whose actions were enabled by trust and knowledge, I complicate the notion that the harem was an environment in which sexual transactions were the only economy of power.

This case presents a scenario involving a botulism bioterrorism attack targeting a small rural community, where restaurant salad bars were intentionally contaminated with botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT). The local emergency department of a 45-bed hospital is overwhelmed with multiple patients exhibiting progressive neurological deficits and respiratory distress after consuming contaminated food. With limited critical care resources, including only four ventilators, the hospital faces the challenge of managing a rapidly escalating crisis. Key teaching points include the diagnosis and management of botulism, advanced airway support in severe cases, and coordination with national emergency preparedness resources for procuring antitoxins. The scenario emphasizes the transition from conventional to contingency and crisis operations, triggering the hospital’s incident command system (HICS) and raising ethical questions about critical care resource allocation. It highlights the importance of disaster preparedness, collaboration with public health authorities, and effective crisis management in responding to a mass casualty bioterrorism event.

Esther Roper, a suffragist and one of the early cohorts of women graduates from Owens College, helped to set up the Manchester University Settlement in Ancoats, and a year later was joined in her work there by Eva Gore-Booth, the sister of the future Countess Markiewicz. This chapter examines the nature of their work together, how it developed in line with their work on suffrage, including their campaign against Winston Churchill’s re-election in 1908, and how their work provides a new context for how we read Gore-Booth’s recently republished poems, especially in her three Manchester books, Unseen Kings (1904), The Egyptian Pillar (1907) and The Agate Lamp (1912).

Chapter 4 examines how Augustine’s theology of the righteousness of faith also becomes more Christological, that is, uniquely shaped by having Christ as its object. This chapter begins with the fundamental contrast between pride and humility. Augustine sees pride as the love of the delusional thought that one is the center of reality, and faith in Christ as the healing remedy which restores the soul’s relationship to God, the true center. Returning to confessiones (Confessions), Augustine understands faith in Christ as more than just an ascent to God. Instead, it initiates a double movement in which the soul is first humbled by its recognition in faith of Christ’s humble humanity and then exalted by its reception of his divinity. Finally, the chapter turns to de trinitate (The Trinity), in which Augustine explains how, because sacraments present eternal realities through temporal signs, Christ as sacrament makes the humility of God accessible to faith.

Industrial imperialism affected Europe before anywhere else, bringing a dizzying burst of modernization that altered habits of life and the ways in which wealth was created and distributed. Among the many results of this disruption would be the opening of new niches in what had become an ossified theatrical environment. At the same time, realism and romanticism offered new ways of viewing the world and shaped how theatre artists filled those niches. Ballet and opera were transformed by romanticism although both would also eventually be touched by realism. The literary romanticism of spoken theatre was overwhelmed by competition from melodrama (which effectively integrated romanticism and realism) and the “well-made play” (which eschewed literary ambition in favor of stage-worthiness). It was then outflanked by a stringent realism that emphasized psychological and social issues, whose theatrical plainness led to avant-garde efforts to “retheatricalize” theatre.

This case focuses on the response to traumatic asphyxiation following a stampede at a county fair, leading to the compression of a 26-year-old female against a wall. The scenario highlights the need for rapid trauma assessment in a resource-limited rural hospital with limited critical care capacity. The patient presents with respiratory distress, diminished lung sounds, bruising, and petechiae, consistent with traumatic asphyxiation. Key interventions include airway management, intubation, placement of chest tubes, and initiation of blood transfusion to manage her respiratory and hemodynamic status. The patient also shows signs of a hemothorax, necessitating emergency interventions and stabilization before transfer to a trauma center. The case emphasizes early recognition of traumatic asphyxiation, resource management, and coordination with higher levels of care, while also addressing the complexities of triaging additional patients from a mass casualty event.

Chapter 5 follows Souffles–Anfās editor ʿAbdellatif Laâbi to Beirut in 1970, where he theorized Maghrebi thought within Arabic transregionalism, which he dubbed a Second Nahḍa (Renaissance). The chapter studies his translations of, and commentaries on, Palestinian poetry, particularly by Mahmoud Darwish, as performing dialectical ties between national and Arab scales. For the Moroccan thinker, transregional poetry (or “totality”) amplified readers’ perceptions of a common Arab experience by mobilizing gendered figures of Arab revolt across proper languages. His translations, against conservative ideas of fuṣḥā under the Moroccan monarchy, attested to the revolutionary vitality of Arabic in the Mashreq. Laâbi critically reclaimed Arab nationalism from Frantz Fanon, who dismissed it as a racialized frame for culture under colonialism in The Wretched of the Earth. The chapter also theorizes Laâbi’s French-language poems on Palestine and Arab nationalism as transregional Arabic literature in French.

In Colombia, the category of ‘victim’ constitutes a significant legal and political identity, granting access to truth, justice, and reparation measures. Yet transitional justice processes often reinforce hegemonic narratives of ‘ideal victimhood’, reproducing gendered, racial, and political-military stereotypes that marginalise those who deviate from these norms. Focusing on conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), this chapter examines how social movements, particularly women’s and LGBTQI+ groups, contest dominant imaginaries of the ‘ideal SGBV victim’ as a passive, cisgender, heterosexual civilian woman. These groups advocate for inclusive approaches within Colombia’s Truth Commission and Special Jurisdiction for Peace. The chapter contrasts their efforts with the case of Corporación Rosa Blanca, former FARC women combatants who strategically embrace the ‘ideal victim’ narrative to secure legitimacy. This group contrasts with more progressive victims’ groups and illustrates how they navigate between complex identities and traditional victimhood narratives in Colombia’s transitional justice.

In this chapter, we will analyze constructions including dative arguments. To begin with, we will discuss ditransitive constructions. On the one hand, we will present the different types of datives involved in these constructions, such as recipients, benefactives, external possessors, affected datives, and sources. On the other hand, we will analyze the nature of trivalent verbal forms, particularly auxiliary selection and applicative morphemes. Additionally, we will explore constructions that involve two arguments instead of three. We will start with those constructions that involve an ergative and a dative argument, referred to as bivalent unergatives by Fernández and Ortiz de Urbina (2012). Then, we will analyze constructions involving an absolutive and a dative argument, termed bivalent unaccusatives by the same authors (2010). Dative alternations will also be discussed. Other contexts where dative marks subjects or objects predicating from (psych) nouns and adjectives will be explored in Chapter 4.

Chapter 6 emphasizes the Court’s practice pertaining to freedom of expression Article 10) and freedom of assembly and reunion (Article 11). It underlines ‘deliberative pluralism’ as the core principle relevant to tackle the populist erosion of democracy. However, while the Court puts emphasis on deliberative pluralism in its proportionality analysis, the Court only adduces minimal infrastructural guarantees that may be perverted by populist governments, such as ‘procedural guarantees’, while the scrutiny of media bodies and the larger media landscape remains largely cosmetic. This is reflected most prominently in a limited and parsimonious proportionality analysis.

In 1891 Sheridan Delépine became the University’s first Professor of Pathology and Morbid Anatomy. He developed his department’s work to become a national leader in applying the new bacteriology to public health, primarily through training medical officers of health and providing diagnostic and testing services for local authorities across the Manchester region. In a decade, his enterprise had expanded to support 60 councils. As well as routine work, his laboratory investigated specific issues, notably arsenic in beer, summer diarrhoea, anthrax, tubercular milk, disinfection and water filtration. The novel model of university-municipal cooperation was mutually beneficial. It brought income to the University and a favourable regional profile.

Contrary to the widespread narrative, Polish constitutional law theory played a crucial role in the transition from authoritarian socialism to constitutional democracy. This chapter examines the evolution of Polish constitutional law within the political and legal context of the Polish People’s Republic (1944–1989). It argues that the discourse surrounding constitutional law evolved from being merely a façade to becoming a solid foundation for democracy, largely due to the development of a scholarly doctrine of constitutional review in the late 1960s. This doctrine allowed political elites, under both internal and external pressures, to initiate institutional changes, most notably the establishment of the Constitutional Tribunal. Poland became the only Warsaw Pact country with a constitutional court, and the Tribunal played a pivotal role in the country’s democratic transition. Consequently, the reforms of the 1980s can be seen as an institutionalization rather than a rejection of Polish constitutional law theory. Finally, this evolution helps in understanding the Central Eastern European constitutionalism, including the recent debate on the origins of the rule-of-law crisis.

This scenario explores the management of nonfreezing cold immersion injury (NFCI) in a Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) field hospital setting. The scenario involves a 38-year-old firefighter/EMT who, after prolonged exposure to cold floodwaters, presents with severe pain and swelling in his lower extremities. The case highlights the clinical presentation, diagnostic challenges, and treatment strategies for NFCI, emphasizing the importance of timely intervention and appropriate care in austere environments. Key teaching points include the recognition and management of mild hypothermia, differential diagnosis of cold and wet exposure, and effective communication and teamwork in a field hospital context. The case also discusses the logistical considerations for patient transfer and the critical actions required to stabilize and manage NFCI in a resource-limited setting. This study serves as a valuable educational tool for medical professionals working in disaster response and emergency medicine.

Enriqueta Rylands (1843–1908), widow of the cotton magnate John Rylands, was an independent woman who founded Manchester’s John Rylands Library as an independent institution. This chapter demonstrates that the library, its collections, its architecture and its governance were very much the product of her vision, which was rooted in her allegiance to a non-denominational Protestant nonconformity. Theology, and biblical scholarship in particular, was central to her conception of the library, and she was also instrumental in the creation of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Manchester in 1904, notably by endowing the first two non-denominational chairs of theology in a British university.

This chapter highlights the extent to which a radical and absolute struggle such as the Cold War opposition of Communists and anti-Communists involves the aspects of religious faith and moral values. The theological anti-Communism promoted by the churches of Pius XI and Pius XII strongly influenced the perception of Communism in Italy. Communists were frequently seen as ‘godless’ sinners and immoral corruptors of the youth. Such common perception forced the Italian Communist Party to a reaction based on the claim of its full compliance to the inner spirit of the Christian message of charity and solidarity.

Social relationships are not only linked to emotional well-being, but also significantly associated with physical health. Reviewing the epidemiological and experimental body of research reveals evidence of directional and potentially causal associations between social connection and health and longevity. This is consistent with theoretical approaches to social relationships including attachment, social baseline, social network, and social support theory, all of which identify social relationships as vital to health and well-being. Theoretical models further conceptualize how it is that social relationships influence health. The growing scientific evidence documents some of the biological and behavioral pathways involved. While the evidence on the associations between social relationships and health is robust, the literature is uneven pointing to the need for further research on the complex nature of relationship quality and tech-based social connection.

Through an analysis of his Pauline exegesis in the 390s, especially Romans 7, Chapter 2 demonstrates that Augustine develops a consistent interpretation of Paul on justification: faith justifies because it trusts God to give the grace of charity to fulfill the law by the Holy Spirit in baptism. The chapter situates this interpretation within the predominantly baptismal theology of justification in Ambrose and North Africa. This context unlocks how Augustine’s account of faith justifying by obtaining grace is intended to interpret the catechumen’s reception of the Holy Spirit in baptism; in Augustine’s own analogy, faith is the conception of grace, and baptism is its birth. Turning to ad Simplicianum (To Simplician), Augustine’s changed view on election preserves this interpretation of justification by faith. The chapter concludes by applying Augustine’s interpretation of Paul to his conversion in confessiones (Confessions), though this also reveals Augustine’s need to explain why faith sometimes fails to obtain grace.