This chapter explores the murder of Thomas Becket and his subsequent martyrdom.

This chapter, published by the journal Asian Ethnology, is a theoretical exercise, inspired by Mary Douglas’s classic anthropological text Purity and Danger, that sets out to clarify the wide range of relationships between religions and humanitarian traditions as ideological movements, taking Islam as an instance. It postulates that the concept of the "sacred" is a special case of boundary maintenance or "purism". Metaphorically, "puripetal force" (a neologism) is defined as a tendency common to all ideological systems, a resistance to social entropy or anomie. An explanatory model is proposed that accommodates forms of concentrated purism such as (within Islam) Wahhabi-Salafism and (within humanitarianism) the legacy of Henry Dunant, founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Specific Islamic charities and welfare organizations interact differentially with both religious and humanitarian traditions. Meanwhile, US government policy towards charities sometimes seems dominated by an urge to peer into purity of motives. Finally, it is suggested that the model could equally be applied to Christian and other religious traditions, with the concluding thought that the common ground between the institutions of international humanitarianism and religious traditions is currently expanding.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book tracks author's own growth and development as a filmmaker. It addresses the difficulties of working internationally, and shows how infinite patience and stubbornness can be required when working with a broadcast station. The book discusses the pros and cons of working with partners, and also shows what happens when there is harmony, or where things break down through disagreements. It confronts the problem of pitching. The book looks at a few pitching sessions author have attended. It deals with the development of a four-part series on opera, and explores the challenges of making a complex cinéma vérité family film. The book brings out issues of making a hybrid documentary, developing proposals, research, and scriptwriting.

Great walls, such as the one built by the Chinese, have had the objective of protecting those who constructed them from the assaults of enemy troops. The justification that the jurists of the nineteenth century gave to Article 330 of the Penal Code of 1810, which had created the wall of modesty. The wall of modesty guaranteed citizens a peaceful indulgence in their sexuality, as long as their activities remained hidden from the public gaze.

Building on the notion that the Gothic is shaped by (and responds to) Enlightenment historiography and shifting conceptions of the past in the eighteenth century, this chapter proposes that The Old English Baron can be read as a reaction to a popular (and frequently neglected) work of proto-Enlightenment English history that Reeve was very familiar with: Nicholas Tindal’s translation of Rapin’s History of England (1721–1731). Focusing on this previously ignored relationship, this chapter considers the religious and political implications of Rapin’s history for the Gothic past presented in The Old English Baron. Furthermore, it reveals the ways in which Reeve’s novel can be read as a rewriting of Otranto and draws attention to the historical specificity that she introduces to the Gothic genre at this time. Focusing on Reeve’s Old Whig political beliefs and the English setting of her novel, it assesses the extent to which The Old English Baron conveys Whig historico-political nightmares and focuses on how her Gothic past betrays contemporary anxieties. This chapter shows how The Old English Baron subverts the Walpolean Gothic and responds to the Enlightenment drive to secularise the historical cause.

The protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s never stopped proclaiming that the personal was political too. The new offense of sexual exhibitionism marked the end of a juridico-political technique of spatial surveillance of sexuality in which publicity was to be free of any display of sexuality. The crime of sexual exhibitionism is now an offense for which publicity is at once both an essential and subsidiary element.

Chapter 8 presents a variety of readers of the printed epigram book: the general implied reader against whom the epigrammatist extended habitual scorn, the ideal reader that a few imagined, and the expected (or dreamed of) role of patrons of epigram books. The genre’s common quality and the cheap formats in which epigrams were published led epigrammatists to expect a non-elite readership. Such was at times in tension with the dedications to named elite figures whom the epigrammatist sought to distinguish from the common reader. Some epigram books also reflect upon the differing responses of male and female readers. While the bulk of the chapter concerns the authors’ expectations of readers, in particular as explored in case studies of Thomas Bastard and John Heath, it ends with rare evidence of an actual reader, one who left his or her marginalia in a copy of Harington's Epigrams.

This chapter takes a look at Brian O'Nolan, who was also known as Flann O'Brien and Myles na Gopaleen in the literary world, introducing each of O'Nolan's literary personas, from the novelist and short-story writer (O'Brien), to the author of the funniest newspaper feature (na Gopaleen). From there the discussion focuses his two main novels, At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman. It notes that At Swim-Two-Birds was written through the second half of the 1930s and that it follows from the early writings of that decade. The Third Policeman, on the other hand, has lesser elements than the other novels, but is considered as more concentrated and serious.

Insurgents may fail in their insurgent efforts but that does not mean they give up their struggle. In fact, they may retreat from attempts to engage in wider-scale warfare to carrying out terrorist attacks as a means of showing their continued relevance. In some cases, factions of violent armed groups remain committed to armed confrontation. In these cases, the dissenting factions may refuse to accept truces or peace agreements and continue to launch terrorist attacks as a way of sabotaging peaceful outcomes.