This chapter concerns Lucian’s presentation of the contemporary display of literate knowledge and the practice of criticism and scholarship. That presentation is often obviously satirical, but Lucian’s tone and purpose also often remain elusive; Lucian’s voice is never easy to capture. Examples include Lucian’s account of the art of reading in On the Ignorant Book-Collector, and the posturing philosophers and ignorant grammarians of the Symposium; this latter case illustrates how Lucian’s concern with ‘the culture of criticism’ is always part of the ever-present negotiation with classical models which is a hallmark of his work, as of any major figure of the Second Sophistic. The same is true of the satire on Atticism in Lexiphanes. The final part of the chapter considers Lucian’s presentation of artistic technai, whether that be that art of writing history or the treatise on pantomime, On the Dance.

This chapter discusses Clare’s nature poetry, in the contexts of the politics of land use, then and now. It reads the verse against issues including the introduction of capitalist forms of agriculture and their effects, including the dispossession and pauperization of agricultural labourers and the degradation of ecosystems. It also considers the politics of language and memory in Clare’s poetry, in relation to changes in the agricultural economy.

This chapter deals with the historiography of international law in tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, as well as other successor states of the Soviet Union. It examines how the understanding of international law has changed in this geographic space, depending on ideologies and needs of the time. Historical contributions and interpretations of outstanding international lawyers and diplomats such as Shafirov, Martens, Baron Taube, Hrabar (Grabar), Kozhevnikov and others are mapped and discussed. Moreover, the chapter also maps how Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet scholars have understood the role of their respective countries in the global history of international law, especially the complex and sometimes problematic role of the Soviet Union and Russia.

This chapter examines the various trajectories of Christian reflection on current and potential developments in artificial intelligence (AI). It reviews the theological questions generated by the emergence of intelligent machines and explores some of the most interesting solutions proposed in response to these quandaries. The first part is dedicated to inquiries about hypothetical AI developments and their potential implications for Christian theology. Could intelligent machines become authentic selves? If so, could they also partake in the image of God? Could the Christian imaginary envisage a future where robots develop their own religiosity and robotheologies? Could robots also aspire to be saved? The second section adopts a theological anthropological angle of inquiry, considering how insights gained from AI may contribute to refining this approach. What do our fascination with AI and our deep desire to create an intelligent other reveal about human nature? How would our theological self-understanding change if intelligent machines became ubiquitous?

Isaiah was arguably the most influential book of the Hebrew Bible upon the authors of the New Testament. It was the most frequently quoted book, apart from the lengthier book of Psalms, but as David Pao points out in “Isaiah in the New Testament,” it also supplied language and structural models for significant theological themes of early Christianity. He analyzes the role of Isaiah in New Testament themes such as eschatology, Christology, obduracy, and universalism. He also looks at the way in which whole New Testament writings were shaped by Isaianic influence, including all four Gospels, Acts, Romans, and Revelation. All this illustrates why Isaiah has been called “The Fifth Gospel.”

Few writings have shaped the world as much as the book of Isaiah. Its lyricism, imagery, theology, and ethics are all deeply ingrained into us, and into Jewish and Christian culture more generally. It has been a cultural touchstone from the time when it was formed, and it influenced later biblical authors as well. The book of Isaiah is also a complex work of literature, dense with poetry, rhetoric, and theology, and richly intertwined with ancient history. For all these reasons, it is a challenge to read well. The Cambridge Companion to Isaiah serves as an up-to-date and reliable guide to this biblical book. Including diverse perspectives from leading scholars all over the world, it approaches Isaiah from a wide range of methodological approaches. It also introduces the worlds in which the book was produced, the way it was formed, and the impacts it has had on contemporary and later audiences in an accessible way.

“Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy and the Study of Isaiah” by Jonathan Stökl approaches the study of the Book of Isaiah from the perspective of other ancient Near Eastern texts attesting to prophecy, including material from the second and first millennium bce. The attested texts support the idea that prophecies of doom and of peace are very much part of the religious literary imagination. The chapter also enquires whether the Neo-Assyrian compilations can act as empirical examples of the early stages of the evolution of the Book of Isaiah as literature. The third complex area discussed is that of gender and prophecy as attested in ancient Near Eastern sources, with relevance also for the portrayal of prophecy in the book of Isaiah.

This chapter discusses the overlooked and often ignored historiography of the history of international law in Africa. It argues that this absence is a symptom of the myth of African ahistoricity before the coming of European imperialism and the idea that the advent of intellectual independence only came after decolonisation. In order to overcome this exclusion scholars should abandon the disciplinary tools and markers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western international law that are usually employed when establishing the canon of the history of international law. Instead, the chapter proposes that pan-Africanism can offer a lens through which to view African and Black authors’ historical engagement with histories of international law on the continent. Unlike their European contemporaries, most pan-African authors were not interested in analysing detailed state practice, but had a far more ambitious project: to construct a new world order based on racial equality and self-determination. In that sense, what they were interested in was forging anew the very foundations on which international law and international relations had been built.

Recent progress has been made towards developing automated companions for the elderly. Building on work in the early days of artificial intelligence that showed that computers could deliver non-directive counselling, the possibility arises that computers could be used to provide people with an opportunity for spiritual conversation. Research using Wizard-of-Oz methodology shows that at least some people find it helpful to have spiritual conversations with what they believe to be an avatar, and work using GPT-3 shows that computers can be an acceptable interlocutor in spiritual conversation. The possibility now arises of developing a spiritual companion that would be personalised for a particular individual and become familiar with their spiritual life. This would not, in every way, replace a human spiritual guide, but could provide a resource that at least some people would find valuable and would assist in their spiritual development.

Latin American international lawyers are prolific historians. However, while having profusely written histories of international law, Latin Americans have shied away from historiographic controversy. Latin Americans have not disagreed much about how to conceive and write history, but they have had sound disagreements about the international law that is constructed by history, they have disagreed over different ways of using history as law. This chapter offers a history of these disagreements. Some Latin-Americans have used universal histories, echoing the familiar Eurocentric history from the Latin-American periphery to the core, in order to gain doctrinal authority to speak and change international law. With a similar goal in mind, other Latin-Americans have used particularistic histories, foregrounding the region’s doctrinal divergences and contributions to universal international law. Universalist and particularistic histories were dominant between the first half of the nineteenth century and the second half of the twentieth century, between independence and the Cold War. Towards the end of the Cold War, these two types of history merged into one, presenting the region’s historical trajectory as in harmony with universal international law. This represents a break. If in the nineteenth century an international legal tradition emerged in Latin-America, during the twentieth century it radicalised, diverging from international law as conceived from the West. From the Cold War merger an endemic history emerged, which depoliticised and deradicalised the Latin American tradition. Exploring this history of history-writing in the region may help rearticulating a more ambitious Latin American international law.

Clare had the good fortune to be born into a period of excitement and experimentation in poetry. Ideas about poetry were changing, as were practices of reading and writing. This chapter examines how Clare participated in these changes. He helped to elevate the meditative lyric to the pinnacle of literary prestige by showing how everyday experiences yield pleasure and insight; by using forms with roots in oral and folk cultures, including popular song; and by modelling his poems on the music of nature and the structure of bird nests. He took part in contemporary experiments with form, language, and voice. His poems draw on the philosophical atmosphere of the Romantic age by offering readers opportunities carefully to observe Clare’s world and, by doing so, to come to know it.

This chapter examines Lucian’s manipulation of images of geographical authority in his True Histories, with particular reference to his representation of human and other bodies immersed in their environments. It look first at the tension between detached geographical observation and images of bodily immersion or entanglement with particular landscapes both in imperial Greek literature more broadly, and also in Lucian’s work, where that theme has a particular prominence. That point is illustrated first through discussion of Lucian’s On the Syrian Goddess, which returns repeatedly to images that challenge the idea of a clear dividing line between bodies and their environments, and also between observer and participant status. The second half of the chapter then traces the contrast between detached observation and corporeal immersion through the True Histories, especially in the scenes in the stomach of the whale, from 1.30–2.20, arguing that Lucian in this text undercuts notions of detached geographical authority in ways that are closely related to his comical undermining of various other kinds of intellectual and social pretension in his other works.