In Somalia the boom in labor remittances inflows fueled a different type of informal economy. More specifically, while the oil boom period reduced the Somali state’s ability to regulate the economy as in Egypt and Sudan, the consequences of this development differed. In Somalia informal financial networks facilitated a thriving commercial sector comprised of firms oriented around clan families. It was not religious or class affiliations, but rather ethnic mobilization and conflict that became the most salient. This difference was due to two factors: the dearth of formally organized institutions (i.e., official banks, and publicly registered enterprises); and the fact that President Siad Barre pitted one clan against another in his search for legitimacy and financed a patronage system excluding clans and constituencies that opposed his rule. Thus, with the expansion of the parallel economy, the politics of ethnicity and personalistic networks quickly eclipsed the power of the state.

Failed states, I argue in the conclusion, do not necessarily afford terrorists a conducive context for recruiting new members. This is due to four challenges that confront terrorist organizations. The first challenge is the lack of government-enforced order in failed states that is needed to provide security against local authorities. Second, is the unreliability of local allies, as in the case of Somalia, where local ties of clan and sect overlap in complicated ways. The third challenge is that the better an area is for training recruits, the more remote and sparsely populated it is, the harder it to meet basic sustenance needs. The fourth problem is the challenge of getting fiscal resources in place. Financial services in the region continue to be weak and Islamic militants have not been able to effectively use the Hawalaat to provide key financial services in weakly governed areas of the Horn of Africa.

This chapter covers a large literary category which I call ‘hagiographical’: it includes miracle stories that involve the Virgin Mary, full-length Lives of the Virgin (which began to be produced from the late eighth or early ninth century onward) and two Apocalypses. Many of the texts studied here are composed in a colloquial style that may have appealed to wider audiences in non-liturgical settings. This genre thus contrasts with the liturgical texts that are studied in the first four chapters: according to hagiography, Mary assumes power and agency that goes beyond her theological role in giving birth to Christ. Christians appeal to this female holy figure as one who is able to appeal to Christ and who is willing to help sinners or supplicants who despair of God’s direct favour. Christological teaching persists in these texts, but the emphasis has shifted to Mary’s intercessory role among Christians.

The Eumenides contains one of the earliest descriptions anywhere of Hades as a universal judge. The Erinyes threaten Orestes with a continuation of his punishment after death by “the great assessor of mortals beneath the earth.” This passage contains the first extant catalogue of Hades’ ethical concerns: he is said to punish human–divine, parent–child, and guest–host transgressions. Although he “sees all things,” the name Hades derives from a-idein, literally the “unseen,” a moniker that exemplifies the human inability to confront this nonpolitical, absolute judge. By differentiating Hades from the Erinyes, this chapter draws out the dynamics of his character and ethical law. Like them, Hades’ connection with blood and punishment entails pollution, but unlike them, he is never subordinated to Athens. The analysis then contrasts Hades’ law to the “new law” that Athena creates. It argues that Hades represents an alternate, yet still valid ethical code that can be used to critique the jingoistic and bellicose politics of the trilogy’s ending.

The Chorus of the Agamemnon depict death and the afterlife in diverse ways, both in their dramatic role as the Elders of Argos and in their more universal choral songs. This chapter examines the ethical and political values their contradictory references imply, whether any affect their actions as characters, and how each links to other themes in the trilogy. The Elders go further than the Herald by not only treating death as oblivion at some points but even actively wishing death at others. In what way does this seeming escapism, contrasted with their emphasis on a good death as glorious, affect their resistance to the coup d’état? How does their story of returning casualties color the Argive critique of the Trojan War? The choral songs introduce different types of afterlives into the trilogy: in the memory of the living, at the grave, through the psyche that survives after death, in the possibility of resurrection, and even as a realm of punishment for ethical wrongs. The rest of the Oresteia significantly develops many of the Elders’ wide-ranging speculations.

The introduction provides necessary background on Ancient Greek religious and literary ideas about the afterlife, methods for analyzing ethics in literature that several of the chapters will challenge, a working definition of tragic poetics, and historical context and preliminary definitions relevant for political structures and themes in the Oresteia.

In the Oresteia’s central scene, Cassandra tells of being cursed by Apollo to foretell the future but be disbelieved. The Trojan princess, who “cheated” the god in a violent sexual encounter, who survived her city’s extirpation, goes to her own known doom bravely, predicting Agamemnon’s death and vengeance to come. Yet there is an unexplored aspect to this famous and moving scene – Cassandra’s hint of her own continuation in the afterlife. It seems (eoika) to her that she will soon be singing prophecies in Hades. This chapter argues that attention to Cassandra’s potential afterlife changes how we view her prophecies of death and vengeance, her rebellion against Apollo and Clytemnestra, her bravery, her language of closure, and the ironies each of these entail. Moreover, the “poetics of plurality” uncovered in Cassandra’s statement and its uncertain status sophisticate and perhaps even reverse our understanding of her fate.

Chapter 6 details how the collapse of the State in Somalia led to the emergence of severe inter-clan conflicts. These conflicts were rooted in wrenching political conflicts over the monopolization of labor remittances and local currencies and characterized by continued attempts to institute law and order through military and ideological means. In the wake of state collapse, remittances continue to represent the backbone of the Somali economy. These are transferred through informal banking systems and remain untaxed by local authorities. The informal economy’s efficiency in facilitating currency trade, and the extent to which ethnic and religious networks control access to the wages of expatriate Somali labor is determining the political fortunes of local elite’s and variable patterns of state building in different regions of the country. The Somali case calls into question the very principles and analysis of conventional state building and “sovereignty” of nation states in less developed societies.

This chapter deals with the development of early hymnography (c. 400–600 CE), including the Syriac and Georgian texts that influenced, or witnessed to, the Greek tradition. After an introductory section that deals with the second-century Odes of Solomon and fourth-century hymns of Ephrem the Syrian, the chapter moves on to fifth- and sixth-century Syriac poetry and dialogues, followed by important Greek hymns such as the Akathistos. The chapter concludes with sections on the Akathistos Hymn and on the sixth-century hymnographer Romanos the Melodist, who was responsible for creating a more human, as opposed to symbolic, literary image of the Virgin. Romanos remained influential for both hymnography and homiletics in subsequent centuries, as liturgical writers elaborated the image of the Virgin Mary as human mother and intercessor for their audiences.

I return to hymnography in this chapter, looking at the development of a full calendar of Marian praise between about 600 and 1000 CE. The main source of Marian hymnography is the major feasts, which include the Virgin’s Nativity, Entrance into the Temple, Annunciation, Dormition and others. The festal hymns, which include kontakia, stichera, kanons and various other forms, provide Christological teaching, although intercessory supplication to the Virgin may also play a role in short hymns known as theotokia. It is especially in the weekday services that we find intense supplication to the Theotokos, particularly on Wednesdays and Fridays. Her human lament at the foot of the cross, which was remembered on those days throughout the liturgical year, may symbolise the contrition that was expected of monks and nuns at all times; it also highlights Mary’s human qualities, which came to be understood as models for ascetics to imitate.

Poetic, religious, and philosophical engagement with the beyond transcends cultures and time periods. The notion of the afterlife has always operated both literally and as a metaphor. Issa evokes the thin crust separating everyday life from the cavernous domain of death, ever present but disregarded. Zweig incites us, through Freud’s continuing influence, to examine unconscious, violent forces, both in our individual psyches and on a global level. Achebe narrates the rituals surrounding dead ancestors and the role that their masked impersonators play in traditional life, including the active mediation of quarrels for the sake of the community.