Starting from the murmuring stories of Numbers (and Exodus), this chapter shows how questions of punishment, responsibility, and intention plays into the book’s treatment of the motif of murmuring.

The chapter completes my discussion of the inception of periodical publishing in asylums, by examining the histories of two of the first asylum periodicals published in America and Britain and their patient-founders: Barber Badger’s Retreat Gazette (Hartford Retreat in Connecticut, 1837) and John Reid Adam’s Chronicles of the Monastery (Glasgow Royal Asylum, 1842). It shows that the histories of early asylum periodicals were tightly intertwined with their founders’ fates, which was the major reason for the publications’ comparatively short runs. Furthermore, these founders were all patients with printing skills or, in the case of Adam, literary aspirations and willingness to learn, and the opportunity to print in the asylum played an important role in their lives and professional careers: for Badger, it was a way to continue providing for his family, while for Adam, institutionalisation constituted an apprenticeship that eventually enabled them to pursue a career in publishing beyond their discharge. Asylum periodicals allowed patients to apply their existing skills or gain new ones in the pursuit of their own aspirations and personal interests.

This chapter describes the book and its chapters. The second section shows how recent research in history of the book and history of reading discredits Romantic critics who pretended that Minerva Press fiction was third rate, empty of ideas and read only by ignorant females, and supports the public and private praise contemporaries gave many of them during the 1780s and 1790s. The third section uses the biographical work of three generations of modern feminist scholars to check Marotti-style big-data analyses and develop a profile of Lane’s many signing female regulars, most of whom wrote for him for ten years or more, and in practice formulated and developed Minerva genres

Chapter 8 charts the path toward The Great EdTech Pivot, arguing that meaningful change in educational technology depends on our collective agency across teachers, researchers, policymakers, developers, and families. It begins by positioning teacher training and professional preparation as essential levers for this transformation, ensuring educators can critically evaluate and effectively integrate technology. The chapter then introduces the evolution from EdTech 2.0 to EdTech 3.0, an emerging phase defined not only by evidence and accountability but also by intentional mindset shifts. These shifts include rethinking how EdTech research is conducted, redefining what counts as credible evidence, and embracing the science of learning as a universal anchor for design and evaluation. Through these paradigm shifts, access to high-quality EdTech is reframed as more than device availability and it becomes equitable access to tools proven to support learning. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the vital role of adults across the ecosystem in sustaining this pivot.

Unlike nineteenth-century National Tales, Minerva’s earlier versions adapted the Romance structure that Natasha Tessone calls “the Inheritance Plot.” to argue against, or sometimes for, Union. Welsh, Irish, Scottish and American National Tales by Anna Maria Bennett, Maria Hunter, Eliza Parsons, Frances Jacson and many anonymous others puffed the superiority of the Celtic fringe over the corrupt and villainous English, celebrated the happiness of endogamous marriages and recommended retreating from England into harmonious local communities in one’s native Welsh, Irish or Scottish country or emigrating to America. Susannah Rowson and Charles Brockden Brown adapted the same formula to offer a bleaker view of the Early Republic. The second section shows that though episodes of wandering occurred in all genres (because central to Romance), stories titled Wanderers’ Tales highlighted the evils of homelessness, especially for young ladies, and debated the consequences of distance in a world where Britons were perpetually on the move.

How did shiʿr al-ʿāmmiyya, or Egyptian colloquial poetry, emerge? And what is its significance within the broader context of Arabic literary tradition? While examples of colloquial verse like zajal and mawwāl existed early on, they were largely excluded from the recognized canon and thus marginalized. The rise of Egyptian cinema and radio in the mid twentieth century, however, helped popularize Egyptian ʿāmmiyya across the Arab world, making it a familiar and influential dialect. The growing acceptance of ʿāmmiyya in the 1950s, allowed the poets Fuad Haddad, al-Abnudi, and Salah Jahin to pioneer a new poetic movement that broke from classical forms, embracing modernist aesthetics and everyday language, giving voice to the lived experiences of ordinary people. In so doing, shiʿr al-ʿāmmiyya redefined the boundaries of Arabic poetic expression.

This chapter uses the twin rubrics of “state” and “sovereignty” to understand many of the most important or controversial aspects of ‘Alamgir’s forty-nine-year reign. What emerges is a portrait of a ruler who was, by turns, determined to restore law and order, protect social hierarchies, coopt or crush anyone who opposed his efforts, replenish the imperial treasury, and strengthen Mughal rule. Although ‘Alamgir mostly positioned himself as a typical Mughal emperor in terms of his sovereign self-expression, his style of renunciate sovereignty (at once Timurid and Islamic) radiated into the court and empire in distinctive ways. Ultimately, his decision to invade the Deccan in the early 1680s proved to be his and the Mughal Empire’s undoing. Against a backdrop of political and military failure, ‘Alamgir nonetheless held on to his throne. This chapter ends by arguing that his emergence as a living saint–emperor (Zinda Pir ‘Alamgir) was a key factor in his political survival.