Asylums’ adoption of printing and periodical publishing from the late 1830s was related to two major developments on both sides of the Atlantic: the growing accessibility of print and printing presses and the spread of the moral treatment of insanity. As the periodical press permeated daily life, and printing equipment became cheaper and easier to use, the introduction of presses into asylums was a practical move. The presses served multiple purposes: recreational, therapeutic, as well as administrative. This chapter identifies various factors that contributed to the introduction of printing in asylums and addresses concerns about the exploitation of patients’ labour hidden behind the theory of moral therapeutics. It also reflects on the symbolic meaning of the press, its association with civilizational progress, and the influence of such ideas on the early adoption of periodical publishing in America and Scotland. While presses were almost never bought solely for patients’ benefits, they offered novel opportunities for inmates to exercise initiative and agency as partners in the development of early psychiatry, as well as civilization.

How has modern Arabic literature imagined the future? Focusing on dystopian narratives as cultural responses to political, environmental, and social crises, this chapter examines the shifting concept of “the future” from a modernist ideal of progress to a site of uncertainty and threat, shaped by posthumanist and ecological thought. The analysis centers on Ahmad Khalid Tawfiq’s novel Utopia (2008), which portrays a near-future Egypt marked by extreme inequality, environmental degradation, and social collapse. The novel exemplifies “critical dystopia,” blending pessimistic visions with moments of resistance and open-endedness. The analysis situates Utopia within a broader tradition of Arabic speculative fiction, tracing its roots to the Nahda and its evolution through contemporary climate fiction. It argues that Arabic literature offers a vital space for reimagining temporality, critiquing slow violence, and envisioning alternative futures amid ongoing regional and global upheavals.

This chapter retraces the evolution of Arabic print culture from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, challenging Eurocentric narratives that prioritize Western technologies and ideologies. It demonstrates how local actors in the Arab world adapted and integrated printing practices with traditional scribal methods. Through a close reading of early sources, particularly the encyclopedia entry on printing in Kitab Daʼirat al-Maʻarif, the chapter emphasizes the material, visual, and technological dimensions of Arabic print culture, arguing that printing was not merely a tool for modernization or nationalism, but a complex cultural practice shaped by aesthetics, labor, and local knowledge systems. It ultimately considers the implications of new media for the preservation and interpretation of Arabic print traditions, urging a re-evaluation of how digital technologies reshape scholarly engagement with historical texts.

Focusing on Jurji Zaydan’s 1892 article “The Recent Egyptian Nahda,” this chapter traces the emergence of “nahḍa” as a cultural and political concept in the late nineteenth century. The word, which had long signified a physical act of rising, was expanded in this period to express a set of metaphorical “risings”: collective political awakening, cultural revival, the nineteenth century itself. Eurocentric translations of nahḍa as “renaissance” or “enlightenment” obscure the term’s semantic complexity, making Arabic cultural moments into belated European ones. The term once expressed diverse political imaginaries, from anticolonial solidarity to Islamic modernism, but later narrowed to the parameters of its European glosses. Exploring both the early instability of “nahḍa” and its later canonization, the chapter advocates for an approach to Nahda studies that is historically grounded but also speculative, embracing the many futures once possible within the term, and asking what we might yet learn from them.

The Byzantine Rite today transcends confessional, geographical, linguistic and cultural barriers. It is the ritual expression of millions of believers, both Orthodox and Catholic, throughout the world. This essay looks at the Byzantine Rite as it is practised in the Greek and Slavonic traditions, notes some observable differences between the two, then continues with a discussion of the Greek Catholic tradition, and ends with a discussion about movements of renewal and reform.

This chapter presents a representative selection of the reception history of Numbers. Some of the names and movements that occur here are: Qumran, Philo, Josephus, the New Testament, Origen, Rashi, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, John Bunyan, Goethe, feminist interpretation, and ChatGPT.

As it re-evaluates the foundational role of translation in shaping modern Arabic literature, this chapter challenges reductive narratives that portray translation as a mere one-way importation of European forms, instead revealing a rich legacy of literary exchange where Arabic literature has both absorbed and influenced global traditions. Through case studies spanning from the Nahda to post-9/11 publishing trends and prize circuits, the chapter demonstrates how translation mediates aesthetics, ethics, and cultural capital. It further analyzes the politics of domestication and foreignization in English translations of Arabic texts at several points in recent history. The chapter posits that Arabic literature has always been world literature, not solely through its export into English, but through its deep embeddedness in transhistorical and translingual circuits of exchange. Ultimately, translation is presented not as a secondary act, but as a constitutive force in Arabic literary modernity and its global reception.

This chapter examines the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy at Hagia Sophia, the Great Church of Constantinople, roughly in the period after the end of Iconoclasm after 843 until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The beginning of this period coincides with the liturgical texts of the Divine Liturgy in the oldest extant Byzantine euchologion that serve as the basis for the synchronic and thematic analysis of the preparatory rites, the reading of Scripture, the moments of consecration and the reception of communion. Along with the texts of the prayers of the Divine Liturgy from the euchologion, the diataxis (book of rubrics) of Philotheos Kokkinos and Demetrios Gemistos and liturgical commentaries by St Germanos of Constantinople, Nicholas of Andida, Nicholas Kabasilas and St Symeon of Thessalonike are brought together to present a more complete picture of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy. Nevertheless, this is the perspective of the clergy—and not the faithful—since by this time the prayers were recited inaudibly. For a better understanding of what the faithful experienced during the Divine Liturgy, questions of hymnography, mystagogy, movement and participation are briefly examined. Overall, the Divine Liturgy expressed the theology of the Church as a vision of the glory of God and the celebration of the passion, death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Thus, the church became the dwelling place of God—whether in the Great Church of Constantinople or anywhere the Byzantine Rite was celebrated.

The subject of this chapter is the Byzantine church from the reconquest of Constantinople in 1261 until the fall of the Byzantine empire, with a distinct focus on the fourteenth-century hesychast controversy. Key themes addressed are the relations between the church and State, ecclesiastical reform and mysticism. Beginning with the Arsenite Schism of the late thirteenth century and the reforms of Athanasius I in the early fourteenth, most attention is paid to the dramatic upheaval in ecclesiastical life created by the hesychast controversy that began in the 1330s and continued with vigour for several decades. We summarise the nature of the controversy, highlighting the strong synthesis of ascetic and sacramental practice and theology it created. This synthesis was quickly bequeathed beyond the empire’s borders, especially among Slavic Christians, and it likewise proved resilient for Greek-speaking Christians of the Ottoman empire after the fall of Constantinople. The theology and spirituality of the late Byzantine church in this period became instrumental in shaping the ongoing practices and theology of the Orthodox church.

For the Byzantine emperor orthodoxy was a strategic imperative. From the perspective of Constantinople, to practise wrong belief, whether as a Jew or a Christian not adhering to imperially defined orthodoxy, was a dissident act which risked angering God and could put the empire in peril. For the dissidents themselves, to obey imperial religious policy was to betray God, and therefore not an option.

This chapter considers dissident practices and their persecution by emperors through a series of case studies from roughly the sixth through twelfth centuries. The chapter begins with a study of the persecution of those who opposed the Council of Chalcedon, particularly under the reign of the emperor Justinian. This is followed by the persecution of the Jews, with a focus on the period beginning in the seventh century. We then address the opponents of imperial religious policy, namely the Christological policies of the Heraclian dynasty, and resistance during the iconoclast controversy. Finally, we conclude with two semi-dualistic movements, the Paulicians and Bogomils.

How was al-fuṣḥā as the idealized form of Arabic ideologically constructed and contested in modern literary and linguistic discourse? Tracing its historical evolution from a marker of eloquence to a symbol of linguistic purity and correctness, the chapter explores how al-fuṣḥā became central to debates over language, identity, and literary legitimacy during and after the Nahda. Through a close reading of Taha Hussein’s lectures and writings, it highlights the tensions between accessibility and elitism, tradition and innovation, and the performative and prescriptive dimensions of al-fuṣḥā. While al-fuṣḥā has been upheld as the language of public discourse and cultural heritage, its rigid policing has alienated it from everyday usage and literary creativity. Ultimately, this chapter promotes a more inclusive and historically grounded understanding of Arabic’s linguistic diversity and literary potential.

The following chapter examines the reception of Byzantium through the lenses of the Church and Orthodoxy. The conventional term ‘Byzantium’ — though currently disputed — remains the most widely used name for the Eastern Roman Empire. Byzantine reception surpasses mere texts; it encompasses Byzantine literature, art, culture and the liturgical tradition. This brief survey opens with a general discussion on Byzantine reception up to the modern era, offering several examples that illustrate how Orthodoxy and the Church, broadly defined, were (re)appropriated in the period following the Fall of Constantinople. It then delves into aspects of Byzantium’s reception intricately tied to the concept of the Church, encompassing both architectural structures and artifacts, as well as religious identities and traditions.

The main topic of this chapter is the series of ecumenical councils extending from Constantine the Great until the age of Photius. These councils were imperial councils, convened by the emperor, their decrees issued as imperial laws. From the Council of Chalcedon onwards, both the agenda and the decisions taken by each council were dictated by the emperor of the time, who was particularly concerned to secure decrees that would reunite the church after a period of division. Conciliar definitions of doctrine may have served the development of doctrine, but this was not their aim, which was to reaffirm and protect the doctrines of the church fathers from contamination by novel heresy. Also to be examined is the category of council called σύνοδος ἐνδημοῦσα/synodos endemousa, usually translated as ‘home synod’, which were councils whose distinctive feature was their summoning when needed by the patriarch of Constantinople on his own authority; these councils came to replace ecumenical ones. Finally, to illustrate the contrasting situation in Late Byzantium, the pro-Palamite synods of 1341, 1347, 1351 and 1357 will be discussed; these were primarily patriarchal synods, though with imperial involvement.