This chapter returns to the convent of Santa Maria di Monteluce, situating MS 410 within the liturgical and civic life of Perugia. It focuses on the Assumption feast as both a devotional and communal event, linking its liturgy with the contemplative practice prescribed by the Meditations on the Life of Christ. The manuscript would have activated associations between the convent and Mount Zion, where the Virgin Mary was believed to have spent her final days, thereby reinforcing the convent’s significance as the focal point of Perugia’s annual Assumption procession. While the contemplation encouraged by MS 410 was interior and solitary, the chapter argues that it also carried communal and civic significance, as reflected in the imagery of the nuns’ choir. Contemplative practice is thus understood not only as a spiritual discipline but also as a contributor to the construction of shared religious and civic identity.

The United Nations and its bodies have ‘opened up’ to a broad range of non-state actors over the last three decades, including for-profit actors and their representatives. The shift is reflected in the UN’s sustainable development goals and the Global Compact, emphasizing public-private partnerships; in greater participation of corporations at treaty conferences; in trade group roles as observers at organizations; and in multi-stakeholder projects. Yet international organizations have generally not developed robust responses to legitimacy concerns about businesses becoming closely involved in lawmaking and governance projects. These concerns focus on interest group capture, entrenchment of western economic elites, creeping privatization, and erasure of public deliberation. Indeed, the participation of for-profit actors and their representatives has largely been a ‘silent revolution’: under-heralded and under-examined. This chapter argues that responses to for-profit roles in the work of international organizations tend to express one of two logics, not yet reconciled. The logic of ‘representation’ values public authority, interest representation, transparency, and accountability. The logic of ‘expedience’ values pragmatic problem-solving, efficiency, knowledge, and progress. Each has different priorities and blind spots, encompasses an array of theoretical approaches, and would push the international system in a different direction.

In this chapter, we outline how foreign aid and migration management practices impact governance. To do so, we set out to define a new category of aid – migration management aid – and estimate its size, distribution, and impact. We begin by taking a global picture – examining the trends, challenges, and opportunities that migration management aid presents in the twenty-first century – and then narrow our analysis to the EUTF and recipient countries in Africa. We identify three pathways for how migration management aid impacts authoritarianism and repression and explain how we explore these pathways through four case studies: Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Finally, we preview the lessons that can be learned if policymakers continue to intertwine aid and migration management.

Lives are comprised of the stories we tell. At the beginning of this chapter, I argue for the importance of understanding how narratives not only mirror but also shape our understanding of ourselves and others. I draw on classic and contemporary research in social and cultural psychology to show how narratives are remembered and transformed over time and between people. I also discuss master narratives – dominant stories that help create shared understanding and cohesion in societies. I then introduce two dominant master narratives concerning economic development. The first highlights growing inequality and its detrimental impact on societies. The second emphasizes that, despite the vices of capitalism, economic growth has led to increased prosperity. I situate these narratives in the contemporary political and academic zeitgeist, where inequality dominates. I end the chapter by discussing the moral imperative to alleviate global poverty, create fairer societies, and pursue human capabilities as a guide for rethinking economic development.

As the first technique to reach out beyond the visible spectrum, radio astronomy uncovered a wide range of previously unknown phenomena that has transformed astronomy. Quasars, pulsars, radio galaxies, gravitational lensing, solar radio bursts, extra-solar planets, the cosmic microwave background, interstellar molecules, super-luminal motion, dark matter, cosmic evolution, fast radio bursts, electrical storms on Jupiter, the greenhouse effect on Venus, non-thermal radiation, cosmic molecular masers, and many other phenomena were all unknown until they were discovered by radio astronomers using a wide range of innovative new techniques and instrumentation. Mostly, this new breed of astronomers were young, had little or no training in astronomy with backgrounds in physics or radio engineering, and often worked outside of the traditional academic environment. Their discoveries were largely serendipitous; that is, they were accidentally the result of looking for something else or just plain looking. Theory played no role, and sometimes incorrect theory delayed a discovery. The chapter concludes with discussion of the changing sociology of modern astronomical research and speculation on the prospects for new discoveries.

I first encountered MS 410 in 2010 when, on the search for a new subject for research, I visited the library of Corpus Christi College in Oxford. I knew the MVC was a lively vita Christi narrative that had played a vital role in shaping Franciscan spirituality and exerted a profound influence on late medieval devotional art. I was also familiar with the profusely illustrated and well-known MVC manuscript, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Ital. 115, with its elaborate program of detailed tinted drawings. At first glance, although the smaller and less refined illuminations of MS 410 appeared less impressive, their frequent striking deviations from their accompanying text aroused my curiosity.

I start this chapter by briefly describing three possibilities for the future of capitalism and economic inequality. The first is that the rich continue to get richer; the second is a polar opposite approach that seeks to create economic equality at all costs; and the third involves the possibility of multiple forms of capitalism. Each possibility is explored in the next three chapters. In the remainder of this chapter, I explain why it is important to chart possibilities: doing so helps us understand potential paths forward and can meaningfully guide us toward the forms most congruent with our wishes. This world-making approach to psychology draws on theorizing around the psychology of imagination, which I develop here. I also return to value pluralism to help frame our understanding of the three futures that comprise Part III.

This chapter analyses how phenomenological explorations on autism and research on the double empathy problem can mutually elucidate the intertwinement of empathy, vulnerability, and emotions in autism spectrum disorder. The chapter starts with research findings from phenomenological psychopathology concerning difficulties in affective empathy and emotions in autism spectrum disorder. What is sometimes neglected in these studies, however, are the exclusionary and stigmatizing experiences that people with autism are often exposed to. With a selection of first-person reports and insights from double empathy research, it is then analysed how individuals with autism experience the challenges of emotional regulation and empathy in social arrangements. Based on this analysis, the original hypothesis in phenomenological psychopathology is in a further step explicated as the disturbance of affective contact or resonance. The latter includes the entire social relationship among persons both with and without autism and not only unique symptoms of the autism spectrum disorders. Finally, it is discussed how both research perspectives enlighten and complement each other in exploring autism spectrum disorder.

This chapter introduces Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 410, the only complete illuminated manuscript of the long Latin Meditations on the Life of Christ and likely its earliest illustrated copy. Produced in trecento Italy for a Poor Clare nun, the manuscript offers a unique opportunity to examine how one of the Middle Ages’ most influential devotional texts was experienced by its earliest readers. The chapter situates MS 410 within the broader textual tradition of the Meditationes Vitae Christi and outlines the manuscript’s exceptional image program of 154 illuminations. It argues that, rather than functioning primarily as a vehicle for affective piety, MS 410 stages its female recipient as an erudite reader and exegete. Through strategies of visual repetition, association, and comparison, the manuscript promotes a form of meditative reading rooted in monastic lectio divina. The chapter sets out the book’s central aim: to analyse how text and image work together to guide the contemplative reader toward insight into the paradoxes of Christ’s humanity and divinity.

The Epilogue discusses the book’s overall argument. It explores the general implications of the different epistemic shocks in anthropology arising from engagement with the weird, the paranormal, the unexplained, and the ineffable. It highlights the book’s conceptual innovation, with ideas such as not-knowing, blind spots, negative capability, the weird, and what lies outside reason. Drawing on the author’s personal experience of Songhay sorcery in Niger, the Epilogue describes the existential transformation that intimate encounters with the unknown and beyond reason can have in life. The immersion in liminal space offers creative potential, a possibility to think beyond reason, to unlearn, to play, and to imagine alternative futures. It also delineates a path to regain trust in human values and to transform anthropological thinking from within.