This chapter starts from the premise that the Homeric epics are essentially products of the time in which they are conventionally supposed to have been created – very roughly sometime in the late eighth century BCE. The extent to which they might be recognizable as the Iliad and Odyssey we have inherited, having passed through processes like the Pisistratid "recension" and the hands of Alexandrian editors, is certainly debatable, but there is enough evidence of both a relatively direct and more circumstantial nature to suggest that cycles of epic song, including elements that we can associate with the specifically Homeric epics, were already in circulation in Greece in the decades around 700 BCE. The wider historical and ideological contexts in which this development took place are of particular interest for the questions of why it took place when it did and what its purpose might have been. The archaeological record of the later eighth century can shed light on other important developments in various parts of the Greek world, which together may have some bearing on these questions. At the same time, the epics themselves contain various elements which may provide clues to the ideological context which informed them.

Until quite recently, little was known about Alejo Carpentier’s private life and family background, apart from the facts that he chose to reveal, several of which later turned out to be false. This chapter explores a hidden level of Carpentier’s literary work, characterized by repeated and cryptic references to family traumas involving Alejo’s father, Georges Carpentier. Especially significant are the circumstances surrounding Georges’s choice to abandon his wife and son during a difficult period; events which the author never referred to publicly, but which we can now start to discern with the help of previously unpublished documents. The details of this trauma and the way the author turned it into a part of his fictional universe represent an important key if we wish to understand the emotional and psychological undercurrents fueling the author’s creative writing process.

This chapter provides a survey of iconographic themes found in the pottery, figurines, fibulas, terracotta, metalwork, jewelry, and seals produced across Greek-speaking communities. Rejecting a traditional assumption of close ties with the Homeric epics, the study combines two approaches to offer a more socially embedded understanding of image-making in early Greece. Examining the iconography within multiple contexts, from the types of objects on which imagery appears to their archaeological contexts and the material behavior associated with their use, reveals that not just politics but also social reproduction lay behind artistic development. Second, it demonstrates how expanding the discussion to the larger world of representations adds further dimensions to the ways in which the Greeks projected an imagined ideal society. Themes discussed include mourning, warriors and weapons, battle, hunting, horse culture, dance, abduction, divinities and religious iconography, animals, hybrid monsters, and mythic narrative. The developments of Geometric art can be understood as responses to the new complexities of social hierarchy and gender, access to the wider world, the growing integration of religious institutions into community life, and political alliances that constituted the experience of the city-state.

This chapter explores the importance of Ginsberg’s sexuality in the context of his life and work. Aware of his nonnormative sexual desires from an early age, Ginsberg’s lifelong quest for self-understanding was necessarily shaped and informed by poetic explorations into his sexuality, his relationship with which was sometimes fraught. His work bears the imprint of his enduring preoccupation with the variable experiences of queer minds and bodies (often his own) in both straight and queer spaces. The chapter examines selected canonical poems including “A Supermarket in California,” “My Sad Self,” “Howl,” “City Midnight Junk Strains,” and “The Green Automobile,” in order to highlight their generative provocations in the context of a period of prevailing queer invisibility and to emphasize Ginsberg’s legacy as a queer poet in the twenty-first century. The chapter also examines the relationship between Ginsberg’s status as a queer pioneer and some of the more troubling aspects of his in some areas limited and limiting visions and modes of sexuality.

The beginning of iron technology in Greece represents the earliest known phase of iron production and use in Europe. Traditionally, scholars have attributed the emergence of iron technology in Greece to the diffusion of knowledge from the eastern Mediterranean. Over the past twenty years, numerous excavations have brought to light objects and industrial waste that allow us to reconsider how iron working started, how it developed, and its broader impact on the sociocultural changes in ancient Greece. This chapter proposes an alternative interpretation based on a novel interdisciplinary methodology that combines the archaeological examination of style and context with metallographic and chemical analysis to fingerprint the local characteristics of iron technology. The chapter concludes that iron technology appeared as a local, most probably accidental, innovation and was not the result of diffusion. It further argues that the localized technological traditions in both smelting and manufacturing that emerged in Iron Age Greece continued and solidified in the following periods.

To modern readers this opening may sound abrupt, but it was a formula in ancient Roman letter writing. Acts 23:26 begins another letter that traveled with Paul from Jerusalem to Caesarea following his arrest: “Claudius Lysias to his Excellency the governor Felix, greetings.” This is simply efficient: It identifies the author and, in some cases, includes the destination. Keep in mind that this letter did not travel with a modern envelope. It was likely rolled and then sealed for privacy. Only the courier knew its destination. 1Thess 1:1 shows a similar introduction: “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.” By comparison 1 John has no greeting, and this suggests it is an essay; 2 John and 3 John are classic short letters written as custom expected.

This chapter describes the initial phase of the urban commune campaign, in the second half of 1958, and it investigates both Party official rhetoric and archival sources from the early communes in Beijing to show how early models of collectivization were presented as “prescriptive descriptions” to be followed, but also how contradictions between the different goals of this mass movement surfaced almost immediately and framed the praxis of activists and workers at the street level.

This chapter evaluates the Life of Aesop as a fictional biography that traces Aesop’s rise from mute slave to celebrated orator, dramatizing a subversive educational trajectory. Through contests with slaveowners and sophists, Aesop acquires the rhetorical authority associated with elite paideia—yet weaponizes elementary techniques like gnome, chreia, and fable to challenge the prestige of rhetorical schooling. Special focus is given to Aesop’s divine acquisition of speech, his parody of the Platonic Phaedrus, and his schooling under the philosopher Xanthus. The chapter argues that the Life inverts the structure of the rhetorical curriculum: whereas fables were taught as preliminary exercises, Aesop reserves them for the height of his intellectual ascent, delivering animal tales before public assemblies as political counsel. In this way, the Life not only reclaims muthos as a legitimate form of public speech but also reimagines "fiction competence" as the true test of education.

The end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age (ca. 1200–1050 BCE) on Crete is known in ceramic terms as the Late Minoan (LM) IIIC period. The LM IIIC period is often considered to represent the start of the Early Iron Age as iron was present, though objects of that material were extremely rare on the island before the eleventh century. The period was characterized by a dramatic shift in settlement patterns and in many aspects of material culture, including settlement organization and architecture, burial and cult practices, and sociopolitical structures. Although these changes mark a clear break from the previous period of Mycenaean influence, there are also elements of continuity. In addition, the island was defined by a high degree of regionalism in LM IIIC (and throughout the EIA), perhaps most visible in variations in settlement patterns, cult activity, burial practices, and ceramic styles. This regionalism was probably influenced by geography, previous traditions, sociopolitical organization, population size, and cultural identity.

During his month-long visit to Cuba in 1965, Allen Ginsberg’s ideals of expressive freedom, sexual openness, and poetic individualism came into direct conflict with the increasingly repressive Castroist regime. Invited by the state organization Casa de las Américas to judge a poetry competition, Ginsberg quickly drew scrutiny from the regime for his outspoken views on homosexuality, drug use, and freedom of expression. His subsequent surveillance by the state’s vice squad, arrest, and deportation underscored the Cuban government’s intolerance for nonconformist expression, especially as it pertained to sexuality and dissent. Ginsberg’s experiences, recorded in his Cuban diaries, letters, and poems, reveal a central paradox of revolutionary politics: While seeking liberation, regimes might deploy repressive mechanisms of censorship and control. Ginsberg’s confrontation with Cold War ideologies – both US and Cuban – solidified his vision of a humanist poetics aimed at disrupting authoritarian systems and expanding consciousness through individuals’ radical self-expression.

This chapter offers a survey of the jus gentium in South East Aasia between the fifteenth and the late eighteenth centuries. It starts by providing an overview of the region and elucidating the challenges inherent in its study. Subsequently, the examination follows three lines of enquiry: first, it explores basic values and principles governing inter-ruler and interpolity relations on the eve of European colonialism around 1450–1500 by discussing and problematising tributary relations. Second, it examines the uniqueness of these relations when juxtaposed with Europe, highlighting key facets such as hierarchy, the prioritisation of people over land, and the forging of alliances with communities of the sea and land. Finally, the chapter plots the transformative impact of European colonial policies and practices, such as the militarisation of maritime spaces, the use of sea passes and the introduction of written agreements and commercial treaties.

The bones of the Neandertal arm and forearm are remarkable for their robusticity and for the rugosity of their muscle entheses. In addition to having had proportions characteristic of humans adapted to cold environments, Neandertal upper limb remains bespeak a way of life that required relatively great upper body strength in the performance of subsistence tasks. It is clear that Neandertal upper limbs were built to be able to exert large forces in the context of surviving in Pleistocene Eurasia with relatively simple Mousterian technology. What is less certain is the degree to which Neandertals were using their muscular upper limbs to throw heavy Mousterian spears during hunting, and the relative importance of long-range projectile weapons in their subsistence ecology. Resolving this question, which involves careful consideration of the functional morphology of the bones of the upper limb, is important for a fuller understanding of Neandertal ecology.

In 1988, Congolese philosopher Valentin-Yves Mudimbe called for a study of the influence of Graeco-Roman literature on the European invention of Africa. Whether or not Graeco-Roman literature presents a coherent picture of Africa as a geography and ethnography of alterity, early modern European writings made use of these descriptions to justify European superiority and colonial expansion into African territories. While the aims and contexts of the ancient texts differed widely from their later instrumentalisations, this chapter asks whether Roman representations of African territories and people already show traces of dehumanisation and cultural hierarchies that can be productively analysed with the tools of race and critical race theories.

This chapter explores the challenge of teaching Homer and Vergil in the Roman Empire, focusing on the pleasures of fiction in epic poetry. Using the Phaeacian books of the Odyssey (6–13) and Carthaginian books of the Aeneid (1–4) as case studies, it shows how educators reckoned with the poetic seduction that threatened to derail heroic virtue and integrity. Drawing on philosophical critiques of these canonical poets, the chapter traces evolving responses to the nexus of “Phaeacian pleasures” in their episodes. In the second half, it analyzes how four educators – Plutarch, the anonymous author of the Essay on Homer, Tiberius Claudius Donatus, and Augustine – developed distinctive approaches to epic pleasure. While Plutarch disciplines poetic deception into a propaedeutic for philosophy, the Essay embraces Homeric fiction as a new pedagogy of pleasure. Donatus treats the Aeneid as rhetorical panegyric, while Augustine transforms the affective power of Aeneas and Dido into a new Christian grammar. Together, these authors reveal the centrality of epic pleasure to Imperial education and the divergent strategies by which students learned to navigate literary enchantment

Chapter 3.6 addresses how payment mechanisms can foster value for money and quality in long term care. Payment and resource allocation mechanisms for long-term care (LTC) are distinct from those for health care for a number of reasons. Key learning includes that

• LTC is particularly prone to poor quality or inadequate care, under-provision, overmedicalization and to delivery in sub-optimal settings.

• The challenges for LTC reflect its differences from conventional health care markets, including that:

• – In health care the focus is on curing disease whereas, once an individual needs LTC, that need for care is permanent and the emphasis shifts to maintaining quality of life

• – LTC is often provided by low-paid or informal (often unpaid) caregivers rather than professionals.

• – LTC markets are generally fragmented, with a multitude of funding sources and purchasers involved.

• – Collecting data on LTC quality is difficult and makes value-based payments particularly challenging.

• Well-designed economic incentives can influence the type, setting, volume and quality of care offered, particularly when

• – Payments are adjusted to reflect cost variations between patients

• – Payment types are combined and include mechanisms to reward quality and cost containment.

• Informal caregivers may be compensated either with cash or non-monetary benefits. Although these do not normally cover the full costs of providing care, they acknowledge carers’ contributions and to some extent address issues such as working hours lost.