What causes mental illness, and what is the role of evolutionary forces, genes, neurobiology, life experiences, and social stressors within a biopsychosocial model?

When, in August 2022, the Supreme Court convened to hear the case of Raila Odinga and Others vs William Ruto and Others, the stakes could not have been higher. The 2022 presidential election had finished in a near-dead heat. According to the declared results, William Ruto had edged out Raila Odinga by 50.49% to 48.85%. The elections had been marked by familiar accusations of irregularities, ballot-stuffing, vote-rigging, errors in transmission of results from the polling booths, and – somewhat novel – electoral interference by some mysterious ‘Venezuelans’ who had apparently been in charge of the software for the voting machines. More spectacularly, when the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Wafula Chebukati, wanted to declare the results, he found himself facing a rebellion from four of his own fellow-commissioners, who dissociated themselves from the process and held a press conference denouncing him. Chebukati went ahead and declared the results anyway – more grist for the mill of those who believed that William Ruto's electoral victory was irredeemably tainted.

Whichever way the Supreme Court ruled – and under the 2010 Constitution it had to rule, one way or another – it was bound to upset, even enrage, a very large number of people. Not that the Supreme Court was any stranger to such a situation.

Bristol Archives

• • CC/2/7. The Maire of Bristow Is Kalendar [Ricart's Kalendar]. 1479–1899

• • P.AS/B/11. William Peraldus, Sermones, etc. 15 1/2

• • P.AS/B/10. Gerard Zerbolt, De spiritualibus ascensionibus, etc. 15 1/2, the

• main portion pre-1432

• • P.St T/PM/1. The St. Thomas Bible. c. 1420

Bristol Central Library

• • MS 1. Bible. 13 1/2

• • MS 2. Missal. 15 4/4 or 16 1/4

• • MS 3. Anthology of Isidore and Augustine. Pre-1242

• • MS 5. Jacob Voragine, Sermones quadragesimales. 15 2/2

• • MS 6. Devotional Compilation. 1502

• • MS 11. Book of Hours. 1479

• • MS 12. Psalter. 12 3/4

• • MS 14. Book of Hours (The Ruddok-Clyve Hours). 14 4/4 with additions

• 15 1/4 and 1/2

This introduction establishes a foundation for the chapters that follow by providing an overview of Vasari’s work at Santa Maria della Pieve in Arezzo and the state of the research on the topic. It also maps out the structure of the book, identifies the methodologies and primary and secondary source material upon which it is based, and establishes its contribution to the literature on Vasari and the history of Italian Renaissance art.

In my Introduction, I emphasized the fluid, shifting nature of sexual desire. It is now time to consider other, similarly fluid desires on the part of the protagonist who has played a more significant role than any other in how issues of sexuality and gender in music have been investigated in recent decades: the listener. Us, the authors of reception history. The author is dead, leaving us as the custodians of their work today. But as we have seen, the reception history of a work can narrow its impact and ossify its meaning, with one interpretation nudging out others like a cuckoo in a nest. And if we impose our preferred meaning in this fashion, we condemn composers to a second death by denying them their voice, negating their desires in favor of our own. The reception history of the composers investigated here is one in which they have repeatedly been denied agency, even to the point of being portrayed a victim, supposedly tossed about by either circumstances or hormones beyond their control.

Beethoven's Fidelio exemplifies how what we desire to see in a work today can cloud our vision as to what is actually there. Since the end of the Second World War, interest in Beethoven's erotic life has intensified, ranging from claims that his nephew was really his son to the never-ending arguments about the identity of the “Immortal beloved,” with Josephine von Brunsvik currently the most likely candidate and her daughter Minona yet another possible scion of the genius.

Recently, hydrology has become a significant academic discipline as major environmental, economic, and geopolitical issues point to the crucial role rivers and other water bodies play in development. Emerging global issues such as climate change, food scarcity, and sustainability of aquatic life cannot be effectively addressed without recourse to hydrological processes and the impact of rivers in addressing these issues. Much of the existing literature has focused on recurring themes in hydrological research, including the cultural histories of rivers and their contributions to the political and economic development of specific communities and human civilizations at large. This book expounds on these fundamental issues by delimiting research focus to the African continent while expanding on topical issues.

African rivers – not only major international rivers such as Nile, Congo, and Zambezi, but also local or regional rivers – are vital components of the continent's ecology and culture, playing a crucial role in shaping landscapes, supporting ecosystems, and sustaining human life. Reflecting Africa's geological history, climate variability, and ecological diversity, these rivers hold significant ecological, political, economic, and sociocultural importance. However, their exploitation and sustainability face numerous challenges due to human activities, transboundary conflicts, and climate change. Organized into three sections, each of which explores a major theme related to the study of rivers, this book presents a detailed exposition of the cultural histories of African rivers and their contributions to the transformation of human civilizations in pre-modern history as well as contemporary developments in sociocultural, economic, and political spheres at both national and international levels.

Chapter 3 operationalizes the book’s core concepts and provides a comparative framework for tracing electoral legitimation through partisan inclusion. It introduces a set of indicators capturing: the legal, administrative, and political dimensions of electoral management body (EMB) design; the scope and quality of party engagement; and the observable implications that strengthen independence. The chapter introduces a typology of EMB models and consultation arrangements. It discusses methodological challenges, such as distinguishing formal rules from actual behavior, and outlines strategies to assess autonomy using interviews, archival materials, and election observation reports. The chapter concludes by showing how these measures structure the empirical analysis in the subsequent country studies.

I. Introduction: the German and Catholic Origins of the Term Katholische Aufklärung

Sebastian Merkle's 1908 lecture at an International Congress of Historical Sciences in Berlin on Katholische Aufklärung is now regarded as a kind of founding historiographical event, the initiation of a process which eventually saw the term ‘Catholic Enlightenment’ move from the peripheries to the scholarly mainstream. Merkle's thesis was diffused through his subsequently published Die Katholische Beurteilung des Aufklärungszeitalters (Berlin, 1909). Over the last fifty years, the concept of a Catholic Enlightenment has become an established historiographical tool for the study of intellectual and ecclesial changes in myriad linguistic and national contexts during the long eighteenth century. ‘Catholic Enlightenment’ and ‘enlightened Catholic’ are terms commonly applied to actors and phenomena as diverse as mid-eighteenth- century Italian scholars under the patronage of Prospero Lambertini (Pope Benedict XIV), Josephinism in Austria, and Bishop John Carroll (1736– 1815) in the early United States.

Merkle's Katholische Aufklärung and its variants have been very widely employed, their use ranging from casual Schlagwörter to historiographical categories employed to frame studies in early modern Catholicism. The importance of the early twentieth-century context in which Merkle coined the term ‘Catholic Enlightenment’, however, has perhaps been underestimated, at least in English-language scholarship. The national context of Merkle, a Catholic, was post-Bismarck Germany. The ecclesial context in the first decade of the twentieth century saw the highwater mark of the Roman ‘anti-Modernist’ crusade. As an academic engaged in critical scholarship who was also an ordained priest, Merkle was particularly vulnerable to an accusation of ‘Modernism’.

This chapter examines Cullen’s experience as Archbishop of Dublin, his management of his priests, his attempts to reform religious orders, particuarly of men, his support for women religious, and his attitudes towards poverty, proselytism, and the role of the state in providing social and educational services.

The author of Ipomedon and Protheselaus explicitly identifies himself as such at three separate points in the former text, and twice in the latter, in each case employing the name “Hughe” or “Hue de Rotelande”. In terms of sheer volume, he contributes more substantially to the extant tradition of French-of-England romance than any other single writer. Together, Ipomedon and Protheselaus (which is presented as a sequel to Ipomedon) run to over 23,300 lines, which is equivalent to a quarter of the entire corpus of such texts. However, out of the dozen or so extant romances that were composed in the French of medieval England (as opposed to any of the other regions in which French was in extensive use as a literary language during this period), Ipomedon and Protheselaus are the only two that have not been available in a complete modern English translation up to now.

Given how much of his work survives, it is fortunate that Hugh is both a highly capable narrator, and an attractively astute witness to the values and assumptions of the society in which he lived. His narratives are distinguished by an energetic and inventive enthusiasm for extended action-sequences featuring the exploits of knights in battle; a consistent, clearly realised and colourful setting in a distinctly imagined fictional world; a knowing, amused, and somewhat “quizzical” attitude towards “elegant society”; and a penchant for amusingly dry and incisive irony. This irony is in most cases directed at his characters, but sometimes at particular contemporaries, or at himself.11 He regularly describes the private thoughts of his characters, often in the form of dramatised conversations between voices representing competing impulses. These interior debates astutely portray the tension between reason and emotion, and they do so in ways that seem psychologically plausible, as well as entertaining.

The reign of Philippe II, known as Philippe Auguste (r.1179–1223), marked a pivotal turning point in the relationship between the French crown and the nobility, in part facilitated by the king's response to, and intervention in, conflict and rebellion. In common with his father and grandfather's reigns, Philippe Auguste's rule was punctuated by conflict with the northern French nobility. Their power and vast wealth, as well as the geographic proximity of their lands to the royal domain, made them a very real threat to the king of France, meaning that conflict and rebellion were common. Thus, throughout his reign, Philippe utilised conflict and rebellion to redefine his relationship with the nobility, facilitating the rapid expansion of royal power and influence.

Through an examination of significant disputes in the reign of Philippe Auguste involving his kin and closest advisors, it is possible to chart the changing nature of conflict and reconciliation in Capetian France and, in turn, the evolving relationship between the king and the nobility. Philippe Auguste frequently used periods of conflict to his advantage, taking the opportunity to extend royal influence over the nobility. He also intervened in intra-noble conflict, often exacting concessions from the nobility in return for royal intervention. And yet, this was not purely a period of conflict, but also one of co-operation, in which both the king and the nobility mutually benefited from their relationship. This essay will thus explore the ways in which the king and the nobility used conflict and reconciliation to define their relationships and ultimately the balance of power in Capetian France.

Fiona Tolhurst accomplished a good deal more than most researchers do even though her academic career was cut far shorter than it should have been. She made meaningful contributions to many diverse but related fields: she was a Malorian scholar par excellence; she contributed to scholarship on the alliterative Morte Arthure; she was an expert in key areas of medieval history (especially Eleanor of Aquitaine); she wrote about medievalism and modern treatments of the medieval world; and she regularly took up the mantle of public medievalist. However, it is the contributions that she made towards the study of Geoffrey of Monmouth which are likely to be judged as her most influential. In her two books on the subject – Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Feminist Origins of the Arthurian Legend (2012) and Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship (2013) – alongside her many other scholarly articles and talks, Fiona Tolhurst made the case for a contentious but very compelling reading of the twelfth-century Latinist Geoffrey of Monmouth. While most scholarship on Geoffrey's literary works tends to focus on their colonial and ethnic implications, Tolhurst shifted the conversation to his portrayal of females, and she offered this argument: ‘The varied, complex, and predominantly positive images of women Geoffrey creates in all three of his extant works distinguish him from most male authors of the Middle Ages and support the claim that he is a “feminist” for his time’.