I sat with a student in our classroom on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem sometime in December 2024. While we were discussing some point of the task at hand, I paused mid-sentence and looked up at the ceiling to listen to the sound of what was likely some big piece of furniture being moved across the floor in the classroom above us. My student nodded at me and empathized, “Yup, we’re all post-trauma.” Without a word, we both knew why the completely innocuous noise upstairs had caught my attention. After a breath, we went back to the assignment.

What Gascia Ouzounian calls “anticipatory listening” is a known phenomenon in civilian experiences of war and has become central to the experience and discourse of Israelis over the course of a number of wars with Hamas in Gaza since 2008.1 Since the events of October 7, 2023, when Israel entered its longest period of war, this heightened state of alert has intensified, placing greater physical and emotional strain on civilians. This chapter examines what sound and silence communicate during times of war, exploring how different types of sounds prescribe actions, emotions, and behaviors through culturally shared knowledge. By analyzing the informational and symbolic meanings embedded in Israel's wartime soundscape since October 7, I demonstrate how the soundscape both frames Israelis’ experience of war and creates regimes of cultural knowledge, taking into consideration both epistemological and phenomenological approaches to the study of aurality.

Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi begins the conversation on migrants’ return to their homeland and the difficulties surrounding the process of reintegration. Kweku Sai's dismissal from Beth Israel Hospital provides the impetus for his return to Ghana, and the racism that underlies the incident is influential in his decision. Dismissed, blacklisted, and forcibly removed from the premises, Kweku returns to Ghana without informing his family, builds a house, marries another woman, and settles down until his death. The challenges to Kweku's return are highlighted in his abandoned relationship with his family and their struggles to reconcile. I argue that while Kweku's return and death provide an alternative to the racism in America, the move is not without its complications.

The critical reception of Selasi's novel has been enthusiastic. Conventionally received and critiqued in view of its connections to Afropolitanism, largely due to his seminal essay “Bye-Bye Babar,” Aretha Phiri points out that Selasi “describes the aesthetic appeal and political agency of ‘the newest generation of African emigrants,’ whose embodied specificity and universality testify to the increasingly mobile and fluid, globalised character of Twenty-first century African subjectivities.” Several critics have drawn from this essay and Selasi's theorizations on mobilities and crossings, borders and boundaries, and their implications for identity, gender, race, and class to explore the experience of the Sai family in the novel—a mobile experience that constitutes journeys from Accra, Ghana, and Lagos, Nigeria, to New York, to Lagos, back to New York, and then to Accra. In this framework of spatial and temporal mobilities, writers have offered varied and at times contested readings of the novel.

INTRODUCTION

This is a pamphlet-length narrative about the investigation and trial of four witchcraft suspects in Irvine in 1618. The author was evidently an eyewitness of, or participant in, the investigation. His access to pre-trial confession documents suggests that he may have been one of the ministers or others involved in the interrogations. The pamphlet is similar to many English witchcraft pamphlets of this period. It also bears comparison with the best-known Scottish witchcraft pamphlet, Newes from Scotland (c.1591). It may well have been written for publication, though no contemporary published version is known.

The narrative initially concerns Margaret Barclay, the wife of Archibald Dean, burgess of Irvine. In 1617 she brought a slander case before the kirk session against John Dean, a skipper, her brother-in-law, who had called her a thief. The case was ended by a reconciliation. However, on John Dean's next voyage, late that year, his ship was wrecked at Padstow in Cornwall; he and five others, including the burgh's provost, were drowned. It turned out that the sinking had allegedly been foretold in Irvine by a wandering magical practitioner, John Stewart, known as ‘the Juglour’, who was arrested in April 1618 and interrogated. Stewart's detailed confession implicated Barclay, who had allegedly cursed the ship vengefully; she too was interrogated, and confessed under torture. Stewart's and Barclay's confessions drew in two more suspects, Isobel Inch – whom Stewart picked out of an identity parade – and, later, Isobel Crawford – whom Barclay named.Crawford eventually confessed under torture also. Further colourful evidence was provided by Inch's 8-year-old daughter, Margaret Taylor.

What did Robert of Torigni see in the chronicle tradition of Sigebert of Gembloux? To answer this question, we should not only analyse which chron¬icles Robert read and continued but also explore what those texts meant to twelfth-century readers: how their message (political or otherwise) was trans¬lated and made real. The journey into Robert's Chronography and its manuscript culture must therefore start with the Chronographia of Sigebert of Gembloux. Sigebert was considered a modern authority because of the historical value of his chronicle and – perhaps above all – the exactness of its computus. The Chronographia enjoyed an enormous success across north-western Europe and found many continuators, starting within the cloister of Gembloux. The first continuator was Anselm, abbot of Gembloux (d. 1136), who updated the chronicle until 1135. After Anselm, the Chronographia was carried on locally until 1148 by two Gembloux monks who produced the so-called Continuatio Gemblacensis. The volume containing Sigebert's Chronographia, along with the Continuatio Gemblacensis, became the basis for independent local continu¬ations which, throughout the twelfth century, spread Sigebert's chronicle further into Germany, west of the Rhine, and into France where it became the epitome of the genre of universal chronicle-writing.

However, Sigebert's chronicle, in the textual arrangement conceived by its author, was not the format in which the Chronographia became most successful. After Sigebert completed the so-called second redaction, this version of the Chronographia was acquired by the abbey of Saint-Sauveur d’Anchin in north-eastern France. At Anchin, Sigebert's chronicle was attached to the chronicles of Eusebius of Caesarea (263–339), in the Latin translation of Jerome (347–420), Jerome's continuation, and the spurious Chronicon Imperiale or Gallic Chronicle 452, erroneously attributed to Prosper of Aquitaine (390–445). This association defined a textual corpus that travelled with Sigebert's text for most of its twelfth-century transmission. In Normandy, Sigebert's chronicle circulated via Paris, BnF, MS Latin 17545, a manuscript that was derived from the original Anchin exemplar. Produced at Beauvais in the first half of the twelfth century, BnF MS Lat. 17545 presented a version of the text that not only differed from Sigebert's early project, but also from the Anchin version of the text.

Historians have long been interested in the itinerations of medieval kings. Ever since the nineteenth century, when Thomas Duffus Hardy and Johann Friedrich Böhmer first began the laborious task of compiling itineraries based upon a systematic study of contemporary sources, scholars have sought to reconstruct the daily movements of individual medieval monarchs. For England's kings, for instance, there are now established itineraries for most rulers, including kings John, Henry III and Edward II. The movements of the Capetians and their Valois successors have been similarly established from the reign of Louis VII onwards, while the itinerations of many medieval German emperors and kings are recorded in that monumental work of past and present scholarship, the Regesta Imperii.

Even so, and until relatively recently, at least in Anglophone scholarship, the interpretation of the information supplied by such itineraries has usually been superficial, focusing overwhelmingly on their chronological and geographical details. Itineraries do of course offer rudimentary albeit valuable evidence for when, and potentially how long, any king stayed at a specific location. This is especially useful when analysing political crises or military campaigns.

Using the prism of identity, this chapter will try to understand how the Palatines were perceived by the English and Irish, how they may have viewed themselves and the power of an emerging media in shaping public opinion. Although most Palatines in Ireland identified as Protestant, given the large number of Catholics amongst the 1709 migrants and issues of conformity and nonconformity discussed previously, I will argue that Palatines took on different identities on their arrival.

Immigrant identities are constructed and can be fluid over time. Palatine families arriving in Ireland had multiple alternative religious and occupational identities available to them, for example, as Huguenots or linen-weavers. Examples will be provided of families in Ireland who have escaped attention in the Palatine historiography to date. First, the chapter will address questions of identity and public opinion. It will then provide examples of alternative identities adopted by Palatines. The involvement of Palatines in linen and weaving industries in Ireland deserves further attention – after all it was those skilled in such industries who were chosen to be shipped to Ireland in August 1709. Schools which grew up in parallel with the linen industry may also offer clues to settlement patterns of Palatines in Ireland. William Conolly, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons was one of the many landlords who gave land for a charity school to be built on his estate in Celbridge, Co. Kildare. Conolly, a Whig, also appears on a list of gentlemen who drew Palatines (Table 4.1.), retaining four families in 1710 according to reports sent to London. In these charity schools, children were taught to read and write, instructed in the ‘Christian and Protestant’ religion and employed in the cultivation of crops and the manufacture of linen and hemp.

One of the main rationales for this study is to contextualize our understanding of early nineteenth-century science within the larger crosscurrents of a pan-European romanticism. We did this in the Introduction and the three chapters that followed by exploring the concept of organicism and how it fueled a series of scientific fields of study that encouraged individuals like Alexander von Humboldt, Alessandro Volta, Luigi Galvani, Johann Wilhelm von Ritter, Franz Anton Mesmer, René Laënnec and Frédéric Dubois d’Amiens to look beyond the mere observable in order to perceive a connection between humanity and nature. Whether it be through cosmology, galvanism, mesmerism or the unseen world of the mind, scientists at the turn of the nineteenth century opened up new ways of defining the self in relation to the external environment. Coupled with the heightened cosmopolitan ethos of post-Napoleonic Europe, the early nineteenth century became an era known for its ‘romantic vision’, a dynamic way of being in the world that sought an all-encompassing unity with nature. This unity was projected into the operatic works of the time, where marriage was the catalyst for the principal characters to go beyond the known natural environment. We saw this with Max in Der Freischütz and the creation of galvanized bullets deep in a Bohemian forest (Chapter 1), Robert in Robert le diable and his use of• a mesmerized branch infused with the power to induce sleep (Chapter 2) and Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor and her retreat into a mind affected by madness, a symptom of hysteria (Chapter 3). All three principle characters were uncoupled at the start of their journey and in conflict with themselves and the people around them, which forced them to seek the inner world of nature in order to marry the person they loved.

10.1 Introduction

The fall of Dublin in 902 ended an era. The history and ambitions of the ninth-century kingdom of Dublin were brought to a sudden halt. Dublin's dominance of Viking activity in Ireland, since the mid-ninth century, may well account for the almost complete absence of such activity from the record for eleven years, after the Irish capture of Dublin in 902. Other bases were evidently closely tied to Dublin, and it seems that leaders of the east Ulster Vikings, probably based at Strangford Lough, decamped from Ireland with those of Dublin in 902. (See Fig. 10.1 for locations in Ireland). The inter-dependency of east Ulster Vikings and Dublin suggests that a Viking enclave in Ulaid was intended to ensure Dublin control of the sea passage between north-east Ireland and North Britain/Scotland. Any Vikings remaining in Ireland after 902 left no mark on the record of politico-military affairs until 914. This hiatus is unparalleled since the first Irish annalistic record of Vikings, in North Britain/Scotland, in 794. Only in the era of ‘hit-and-run’ raiding does one find more than two consecutive years in which the annals report no Viking activity in Ireland. Even then, ‘Viking-free’ intervals of eight years (799–806), three years (808–810) and seven years (814–820) are shorter than that of 903–913.

The return of Vikings to Ireland in 914 was marked from the first, as we will see, by politico-military strategy and alliances with the Gaelic Irish, which also influenced church-raiding.

LITERARY HISTORY

Literary history chronicles the evolution of literature, highlighting how authors depict and reflect on social customs, delve into heritage and identity, question existing power dynamics, amplify marginalized perspectives and cultures, tackle taboo topics, unveil and preserve minority experiences, and encourage cultural empowerment. It is frequently organized chronologically (by period, movement, or genre), culturally, socially, or geographically, with texts categorized as global, regional, national, or ethnic. Often, these categories contain subsets of linguistic, religious, gendered, and diasporic identities or affiliations.

Authors draw on critical perspectives such as Marxism, feminism, and postcolonialism to shape their literary works, while critics apply these perspectives to analyze and interpret texts. Literary history allows readers to trace the development of cultural attitudes, recognize influential traditions and authors, and grasp how earlier literary movements and genres have shaped contemporary ones. Literary history also lets readers see how innovative narrative techniques and new theoretical concepts challenge and transform traditional practices and beliefs. For instance, the Harlem Renaissance highlighted the vibrancy of African-American arts; feminist literature contested patriarchal norms; postcolonial literature opposed imperialist narratives; LGBTQ+ literature fostered inclusivity; and dystopian fiction cautioned against totalitarianism.

Literary history offers a panoramic view of the dynamic evolution between traditional forms and their innovations, a decolonization process broadly defined here as any endeavor that breaks away from restrictive systems or individuals, advances inclusive knowledge systems, and promotes self-definition. This ongoing dialectic shapes the creative and literary arts, continually redefining the boundaries of expression and cultural representation.

Un viaje a través de la lectura es el que propone Beltrán (2020), aquel que permite revisitar la historia de la mano de cronistas, adentrarse en ciudades ficcionales o reconocer el valor de los escritos de las mujeres. Este tipo de viaje, hecho a través de la lectura, recrea ciudades que no necesariamente narran todas las performatividades transculturales de quienes viajan físicamente, pero permite la reflexión y el análisis. Esta travesía es la que hemos realizado tú y yo a largo de estas páginas. Méndez de Cuenca, Garro, Castellanos, Puga, Seligson y Moscona muestran que lo que inicialmente se intenta no necesariamente es lo que se realiza, pero el resultado permite una proyección más allá de los bordes corporales, mentales, lingüísticos y territoriales. Sus narrativas de viaje son una invitación a conocer otras culturas desde un ángulo particular, entre la repetición de los mismos patrones, propios de sus contextos históricos, y la posibilidad de un cambio.