This chapter discusses the importance of the audience in research on forensic performance. “Forensic performance” is taken here to include the dramaturgical techniques that inform Erving Goffman’s account of “the presentation of self in everyday life,” extending not only to ways of affirming one’s own position but also to ways of portraying the various figures or propositions in a legal dispute. These practices include the use of speech, gesture, and ritual to convey arguments, embody or criticize legal authority, and impersonate a party, witness, or any other participant in an actual or imagined scenario. The audience includes those in the courtroom and imagined observers in the larger public. The chapter begins by examining criticisms of forensic performance in the early modern period and then turns to the use of cross-examination in the nineteenth century. Finally, the discussion considers judges’ behavior, particularly when they encourage the audience to laugh in response to their questions. By doing so, judges merge the role of an impartial interlocutor attending to policy questions and the role of an individual to whom the law might apply.

The present chapter attempts a comparative analysis of three different legal systems and their approaches to environmental law, contributing to the extensive literature on this area of law in numerous areas of the world such as the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. However, that literature appears to have had little coverage of the treatment of environmental law in Islamic law, one of the three main global legal systems together with common and civil law. The bold spread of Islamic tendency in the Middle East that followed the so-called “Arab Spring” assures major changes in the political and economic sphere, including environmental and natural resource levels. Environmental threats are very pressing all over the world, as the Earth needs to be protected through the adoption of universally applicable legal rules and the right to a healthy environment needs to be elaborated on in international instruments. Man’s position in the universe is premised on two principles: the stewardship of man which means that man is not only a creature but also God’s khalifa (steward) on earth.

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are used in court to analyse legal data, cite case law, evaluate and generate evidence, or support judges with prediction. As technological advancements enter the courtroom, assessing their impact on core judicial values is crucial. This chapter asks whether AI undermines procedural fairness in judicial decision-making. To address this question, it first presents procedural fairness as a normative concept studied across different disciplines. It shows why procedural fairness matters and what values fair procedures aim to foster. Drawing on case studies and scholarly work, it then illustrates how AI systems may impair these values. It then investigates how regulatory attempts and ethical frameworks for AI in judicial systems aim to address the resulting issues by analysing fundamental principles of technology regulation. The main argument of the chapter is that AI regulation must be complemented by specific procedural rules tailored to the judicial domain. In the age of AI, fair procedures should realise participation, increase trust, preserve neutrality, and provide mechanisms to detect errors in AI systems.

This chapter brings the book to a close by advancing an understanding of languaging as a relational, embodied, and political practice. Rather than treating language as a neutral vehicle for transmitting information, the chapter emphasises how languaging is deeply entwined with questions of identity, belonging, and power. It is shown to be simultaneously playful and precarious, resistant and creative, continually challenging static and purified notions of language. The chapter further develops the notion of pedagogical languaging as a way of reframing education in response to the radical cultural and communicative reconfigurations of the twenty-first century. Pedagogy, it argues, must move beyond the delivery of standardised curricula to become the intentional design of spaces where learners mobilise their full semiotic repertoires such as linguistic, embodied, cultural, and digital in dynamic, relational, and multimodal meaning-making.

This chapter speaks of Sancho’s meaning to me as a Black Briton. It is also about his general place in the pantheon of Black British figures. I write about belonging and Sancho because it is at the heart of the reason to study a life such as his. Knowing about this Black Briton and his eighteenth-century world can impact on Black lives lived in the UK today. Sancho’s legacy is his engagement with the world of his time and the mirror of that engagement in ours. Artistic, political, and domestic history is interwoven with personal views on a figure who made his compromises and his accommodations in a world not designed for him or people like him. My chapter seeks to unearth a little talked about and less known subject, which is Britain’s deep and exceptionally involved participation in the human trafficking of millions of Black people from the continent of Africa. I conclude with highlighting the positive, contemporary manifestations of interest in Sancho and his world.

Chapter 7 examines how the German Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt, AA) strategically engaged with scholarly international law between 1920 and 1925 to challenge the post-Versailles international order. Drawing on extensive archival research, it explores how the AA mobilized legal scholars, subsidized international law publications and institutes, and sought to exploit the legal framework established by the League of Nations as a double-edged sword – originally designed to serve the Entente, yet also capable of inflicting damage on its wielder. The study demonstrates that the AA covertly collaborated with international law scholars as informants and agents and actively sought to influence international legal discourse – as seen, for example, in the case of the Hague Academy of International Law. It highlights the AA’s increasing sophistication in navigating within the newly formed Versailles system of international law. Ultimately, the study reveals a deeply entangled relationship between diplomacy and academia, suggesting that international law was not merely a normative framework but an instrument of statecraft in German foreign policy, weaponized in the service of national interests under the guise of academic independence.

Al-Mizan: A Covenant for the Earth was completed which is led by United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) under the umbrella of Faith-Based Organizations and is contributed by Muslim thought leaders worldwide. The covenant reminds that responsibility of humanity, especially Muslim communities, is on climate change and is to project natural resources and biological variety of world’s common heritage. Moreover, the covenant emphasizes that it is a sacred aim that humanity must respect the natural balance in accordance with values that establish the fundamental of Islam.

This chapter provides an examination of the documentary evidence for Charles Ignatius Sancho’s life and career as a servant in the household of the Dukes of Montagu. It is based on archive sources, with particular focus on the archive of the Duke of Buccleuch and the papers of his ancestors, John 2nd Duke of Montagu (1690–1749) and George Duke of Montagu (1712–1790).

This chapter explores the interplay of playfulness and precarity in AI-mediated languaging. Drawing on examples from social media users experimenting with generative AI, the chapter illustrates how AI reshapes communication, linguistic practices, and social interaction. These playful engagements demonstrate AI’s capacity to expand linguistic creativity and produce novel forms of meaning, while simultaneously revealing its fragility and the ethical tensions inherent in its use. By exposing the cultural assumptions, power relations, and value judgments embedded in AI systems, such moments highlight the non-neutral and unpredictable nature of AI technologies. The chapter argues that while AI opens up new possibilities for expression, it also demands critical reflection on issues of power, identity, and social norms. Ultimately, these examples highlight the ‘dis’engagement with AI’s potentiality while recognising and addressing the risks it poses to language and society.

In this chapter I address the problem of human suffering. After giving an account of the nature of suffering, I argue that suffering does not justify intending death. However, suffering needs to be understood within the larger story of Christ’s redemptive work.

This chapter focuses on the present and potential uses of artificial intelligence (AI) in Turkey's court system, including non-judicial tasks. Although Türkiye lacks sophisticated AI applications in a strict technical sense, the National Judiciary Informatics System (UYAP) has modernised judicial processes by digitising legal proceedings. While this system enhances accessibility and efficiency, the Turkish Constitutional Court and the Court of Cassation are exploring more advanced AI models. These courts are leveraging AI for tasks such as case classification, decision support, and reducing backlog.

Pindar’s epinician odes feature narrations of mythical events and references to the realm of myth. There has been a long-standing controversy about how to understand the function of myth within, and its relevance to, these songs, with regard to both their semantic coherence and their relation to festal contexts. Starting from general observations and a brief survey of the main narrations, this chapter explores how Pindar’s use of myth can be conceived as contributing to the praise of the victor, the primary aim of the epinician genre. This investigation focuses on direct comparisons between victors and mythical figures, the victor’s genealogy and place of origin, aetiological references to the past, depictions of the mindset of heroes, metaphorical parallelisms between past and present with regard to both the victory and the odes’ performance, and the intertextual dimension. These uses of myth operate less by directly equating agonistic present and mythical past and more by implying a parallel through indirect means, in either case with the aim of situating, and thereby giving meaning to, the agonistic victory within, and often as the pinnacle of, the history of human civilization.

Islamic legal scholarship is split on the permissibility of corporate personhood. While some scholars advocate unequivocal permissibility, others are critical because Islamic law prohibits limited liability in most contracts. The religion also regards the human being as the only subject of Divine command. Despite their differences, most jurists agree that the corporate form is an effective tool to mobilize large amounts of capital. However, only one scholar, Ahmad Ali Abdullah addresses the exploitative impact corporations have on human rights and the environment. In this context, I argue that we should address the issue of corporate personhood from a maqasid framework. The preservation and protection of wealth is a legitimate purpose of Islamic law. However, the preservation and protection of life is a higher purpose in the hierarchy. The preservation of life is directly linked to the preservation of the earth. While recognizing the corporate form’s utility, I advocate creating alternative business models that lead to more sustainable development.