This chapter explores Bowen’s relation to Ireland in literary and cultural criticism over the past half century. It charts how developments and trends in literary criticism – the rise of postcolonial studies and Irish studies, the development of ‘Irish modernism’ as a critical category – have shaped how we understand Bowen as an Irish writer, and her fiction as Irish literature, in the twenty-first century. In particular, it examines whether Bowen’s work readily corresponds to the nationalist and statist concerns that the category of Irish literature often implies. Through a reading of how Bowen figures Ireland and Irishness in A World of Love (1955), I suggest that Bowen’s Irish modernism operates beyond the limits of national and nationalist history, a circumstance that enables a reconsideration of some of the limits and ideologies of the category of Irish literature.

Intermittent auscultation (IA) refers to listening to the fetal heart rate (FHR) at predefined regular intervals during labour. It aims to detect the changes in the FHR that may suggest the onset of a fetal stress response, so that continuous electronic fetal heart monitoring using a cardiotocograph may be instituted to exclude fetal compromise. When IA is used with the application of knowledge of fetal physiology, it is termed Intelligent Intermittent Auscultation (IIA). IIA is recommended for women at low risk of complications in their pregnancy and birth, and when the risk of fetal hypoxia and acidosis during labour is deemed very low. This is based on the premise that a fetus who is exposed to a gradually evolving hypoxic stress would exhibit a predictable series of physiological responses prior to the onset of decompensation that can be detected using IIA. However, it is important to appreciate that although most fetuses without any identified risk factors have good perinatal outcomes, it is not always possible to exclude the risk of intrapartum hypoxic–ischaemic injury because the current ‘risk assessment’ tools are not robust.

Chapter 5 reanimates social theoretical accounts of the state, particularly those of Carl Schmitt, Max Weber, and Pierre Bourdieu. Bringing together common elements of their work and context and linking these with al-Wardi’s work and context reveals profound resonances in the Iraqi experience of state consolidation. It argues that the state is an order that is consolidated through two main factors: a state’s ability to dominate population and territory, and the sociological legitimacy of the state as the arbitrator of collective life. Domination is a prerequisite for legitimacy, and establishing legitimacy is a historically contingent process. When these two elements come together sufficiently, a state may appear as a reified actor that is coherent, bounded, and autonomous in its actions. But this appearance is an effect of the state’s disciplinary power rather than a reflection of a sociological reality. At the same time, this effect is necessary for the maintenance of state consolidation.

Chapter 6 demonstrates how Langland’s use of personification allegory, romance tropes, and alliterative verse develops Lady Church as a theologically robust yet devotionally accessible being in Piers Plowman. The chapter argues that Piers Plowman presents Lady Church as a preexistent being who assumes a series of incarnate forms and depicts religious maturation and ecclesiastical reform as a transformed relationship with Lady Church, from dependence on the Church as a maternal figure to a pursuit of her as a promiscuous yet demanding romance heroine.

Managing an agitated patient in the emergency department is one of the most high-risk, emotionally charged, and potentially dangerous clinical challenges. This chapter equips emergency providers with a structured, team-based approach that prioritizes patient dignity while ensuring staff and patient safety. Grounded in ACEP guidelines and the ten domains of verbal de-escalation, the chapter emphasizes early intervention, collaborative engagement, and situational awareness. Learners will explore verbal de-escalation as a first-line strategy, followed by practical guidance on performing limited medical evaluations, assessing decision-making capacity, and invoking emergency exceptions when needed. The use of chemical or physical restraints is discussed in detail as a last resort, with emphasis on documentation, ethical use, and post-intervention debriefing. Ultimately, this chapter reinforces that managing agitation is not just about control, it’s about compassion, clarity, and clinical readiness in moments that test both skill and emotional resilience.

Misak argues that, contra the once-popular “eclipse” narrative, pragmatism has always had periods of greater and of lesser respectability. The version of pragmatism that began with Charles Peirce and that continued with Frank Ramsey and C. I. Lewis “was always a vital part of analytic philosophy.” After Rorty’s appropriation of some of William James’s and John Dewey’s ideas, pragmatism began to ramify in ways some of which were inspired by the idea that “there is no getting away from the human when it comes to truth or any other concept of ours.” Setting aside questions about representational relations between words and things, new pragmatists sought to understand the concepts of meaning, truth, knowledge, etc. in terms of human agency and practices. Even newer pragmatists have brought this sensibility to bear on a wide range of philosophical issues and in law, medicine, and international relations. There has been a recent proliferation of excellent scholarly work on classical pragmatists and of work that excavates “the buried contribution of early women pragmatists” like Victoria Lady Welby and Margaret Macdonald. Misak concludes that the future of pragmatism is very bright.

The Epilogue tells the story of how a 2024 proposal to amend the Iraqi family law (Personal Status Law (PSL)) came to pass in early 2025 and outlines the objections to it in the context of this book’s main thesis about how and why state consolidation matters. The Epilogue highlights the main objections to the amendment, coming from Iraqi critics, which are focused on the social justice implications of introducing a legal structure wherein an authority is granted decision-making power over an aspect of public life that is parallel to, and outside of, the state’s authority. Critics see this as a canonization of state fragmentation and the underlying ethno-sectarian power-sharing arrangement on which it rests. The epilogue illustrates through this political and legal contestation the connections that run through sites of state fragmentation, attempts to consolidate a political order, historical legacies of state consolidation, and social justice. What the PSL story suggests is that who decides on public life is consequential to the political possibilities of justice.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms are complementary to court proceedings and have gained wide acceptance. The main advantage of ADR techniques is that litigants are not bound by the technicalities of ordinary court procedures. Society, the state and parties to a dispute are equally under an obligation to resolve the dispute before it disturbs the peace in the family, business community and, ultimately, humanity as a whole, because a civilised society implies the application of the rule of law and principles of natural justice. In fact, arbitration, one such ADR mechanism, has a long tradition in many countries, and India too has an age-old tradition of settlement of disputes through arbitration and conciliation. In ancient rural India, panchayats were a forum for the settlement of disputes. In villages, disputes were not to be taken to the courts of law; instead, they were referred to the panchayats consisting of village elders who commanded great respect. The village panchayats were so called because each consisted of five (panch) elders, who used to preside over civil, criminal and family disputes; these five elders were referred to as panch parameswar (equating them to the gods). This system worked successfully in the villages and was independent of state authority and control. The concept of parties settling their disputes in a binding manner by referring them to a person or persons of their choice or private tribunals was thus well known in ancient and medieval India. Appeals were also often made against the decisions of such persons or tribunals to the courts of judges appointed by the king and, ultimately, to the king himself.

This clinical vignette describes a woman who presents with acute, constant vertigo and unsteadiness, beginning suddenly while sitting. Her symptoms are not positional and are associated with nausea but no focal neurological findings. A HINTS exam reveals findings consistent with a peripheral vestibular cause. The diagnosis is acute vestibular syndrome, likely vestibular neuritis. This case illustrates how bedside examination and GRACE-3 guideline-informed reasoning can help avoid unnecessary imaging, appropriately triage dizziness, and improve diagnostic accuracy in the emergency department.

The use of ST-Analyser (STAN) with the current CTG interpretation tool recommended by the manufacturer that randomly groups different ‘features’ into different categories to classify CTG traces into ‘normal, intermediary, abnormal’ has not been shown to reduce intrapartum emergency caesarean sections or have any significant improvement in long-term perinatal outcomes. The currently recommended CTG classification table does not address features of fetal neuroinflammation (e.g. absence of cycling and ZigZag patterns). Moreover, use of population-based parameters (e.g. baseline FHR of 110–150 bpm) being considered normal would miss changes occurring in the same fetus. For example, if the fetus increases the baseline FHR from 120 bpm to 140 bpm due to an ongoing chorioamnionitis, the current guideline will miss this abnormality. Similarly, a fetus with reduced physiological reserve (e.g. fetal growth restriction) will not be able to increase the baseline FHR to above 150 bpm at term to be classified as ‘abnormal’, leading to poor perinatal outcomes. Therefore, the authors recommend the use of the Physiological CTG/STAN Guidelines, which have been implemented in several hospitals.

The chapter examines the representation of Cold War nuclear threat and international politics in The Little Girls. The triangular relationship of the three girls over time, from the burying of the box before the First World War until the Cold War setting in 1962, plays out a Macbeth-inflected version of the international relations governing the nuclear world. Bowen had registered the shape and dangers of those relations at the Paris Peace Conference in 1946, which she attended with her lover, the Canadian diplomat Charles Ritchie. The rule of three governing the girls’ friendship and experience of war trauma matches the three geopolitical points of the triangle of Cold War politics – the West, the communist bloc, the non-aligned nations – as well as mimicking forms of international diplomacy, two conflicting parties, and a third-party mediator.

The rapid digitalization of the economy has led to the proliferation of companies with primarily digital presences and global operations. This transformation has prompted governments worldwide to impose digital taxes on technology companies, sparking debates about the compatibility of such measures with international investment law. The introduction of digital taxes represents a significant departure from traditional territorial based tax principles, creating legal uncertainty and potentially discriminatory effects. And while the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework aims to establish a multilateral solution to digital taxation, its implementation poses challenges, including potential investor claims. Against this backdrop, this chapter explores the implications of digital taxation on foreign investors’ rights under international investment agreements, by examining four key questions: whether digital assets can qualify as protected “investments” under investment treaties; whether digital taxes violate national treatment obligations by disproportionately burdening foreign investors; whether such measures breach the right to fair and equitable treatment, including legal stability; and whether they amount to unlawful indirect expropriation by neutralizing digital assets as investments. By addressing these issues, this chapter highlights the evolving interplay between digital taxation and international investment law, emphasizing the need for balanced solutions that mitigate conflicts while fostering legal certainty in the digital economy.