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The 13th-century Arabic grimoire, al-Sakkākī's Kitāb al-Shāmil (Book of the Complete), provides numerous methods of contacting jinn. The first such jinn described, Abū Isrā'īl Būzayn ibn Sulaymān, arrives with a donkey. In the course of offering an explanation for his ritual, this Element reveals the double-sided nature of asinine symbology, and explains why this animal has served as the companion of both demons and prophets. Focusing on two nodes of donkey symbology—the phallus and the bray-it reveals a coincidentia oppositorum in a deceptively humble and comic animal form. Thus, the donkey, bearer of a demonic voice, and of a phallus symbolic of base materiality, also represents transcendence of the material and protection from the demonic. In addition to Arabic literature and occult rituals, the Element refers to evidence from the ancient Near East, Egypt, and Greece, as well as to medieval Jewish and Christian texts.
This history of early modern news focuses on news itself rather than specific material forms. Centering on movement through different media, time, and place, it makes the case for a truly comparative, pan-European history of news. After the Introduction, the second section, News Moves, explores how we think about and research news culture and news communication, demonstrating movement is more important than static forms. The third, News Sings, focuses on news ballads, comparing actors, publics, music, and soundscapes of ballad singing in several European cities, highlighting the central role of immaterial elements, such as sound, music and voice. The fourth, News Counts, argues that seeing news the way a machine might read it—through its metadata—is one way of moving beyond form, allowing us to find surprising commonalities in news cultures which differ greatly in both time and place.
Within Muslim populations, debates about the compatibility between science and religion tend to be framed by the long-standing competition between modernizing reformers, particularly westernizers, and theological conservatives. Much like their liberal Christian counterparts, reformers propose to embrace technical knowledge and reinterpret traditional beliefs undermined by modern science. Conservatives are more open to challenging the content of science, especially when science appears to support materialist views. Islamists promote an alternative, non-western style of modernity, nurturing a more pious professional class that contrasts with westernized elites. By scientific standards, westernizers appear to have the upper hand, especially as conservative apologetics is drawn toward distortions of science such as creationism, or fruitless attempts to Islamize science. But conservatives can also point to some success in defusing tensions between scientific and religious institutions without adopting the full secularization of science seen in post-Christian countries.
This Element seeks to characterize the scribal culture in ancient Egypt through its textual acts, which were of prime importance in this culture: writing, list-making, drawing, and copying. Drawing upon texts, material objects, and archeological evidence, this Element will touch upon main themes at the heart of the study of this culture, while building on current discussions in literacy and literary as well as social history.
Gossiping and its reputation effects are viewed as the most powerful mechanism to sustain cooperation without the intervention of formal authorities. Being virtually costless, gossiping is highly effective in monitoring and sanctioning norm violators. Rational individuals cooperate in order to avoid negative reputations. But this narrative is incomplete and often leads to wrong predictions. Goal Framing Theory, a cognitive-behavioral approach anchored in evolutionary research, provides a better explanatory framework. Three overarching goal frames (hedonic, gain, and normative) constantly compete for being in our cognitive foreground. This Element argues that for gossip to have reputation effects, a salient normative goal frame is required. But since the hedonic mindset usually trumps gain and normative concerns, most gossip will be driven by hedonic motives and therefore not have strong reputation effects. Propositions on cultural, structural, dispositional, situational, and technological gossip antecedents and consequences are developed and illustrated with evidence from the empirical record.
The Egyptian hieroglyphic script was exceptionally versatile, as becomes clear when studying its multiple uses both within Ancient Egypt and beyond its borders. Even the few cases discussed in this Element demonstrate that in the ancient world hieroglyphs appealed to a wide readership, which ranged from highly accomplished scribes, artists and priests, to semi-literate workmen, as well as to speakers of non-Egyptian languages. Creative processes within these different groups resulted in very different adaptations of regular hieroglyphic writing: highly specialized enigmatic compositions, less informed ad hoc orthographies, isolated uses of hieroglyphs as marks and emblems, and the development of new writing systems. Important reasons for the wide appeal and deep impact of hieroglyphic writing are the iconicity and cultural messages of its individual signs on the one hand, and its remarkable semiotic strategies in rendering human language on the other.
SSR is a key element of the transitions out of war, aiming at the establishment of accountable and legitimate institutions able to prevent and sanction the use of violence. While recognizing the need to include local actors, donor policies still focus mostly on the state as a provider of security. Second generation SSR has emphasized the need to include local communities and recognize the existence of non-state actors in the provision of security and justice. However, recognition is not enough. This Element promotes a radical re-think of SSR in the context of conflict and war. Guiding question for the considerations is how can security sector reform be set up and implemented to contribute to constructive and inclusive state-society relations, and build the path to long-lasting peace? This Element argues that a focus on functional equivalents, minorities, gender, and human rights is key for the design, implementation, and success of SSR. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
In a coordination construction, which is universally available, two or more syntactic constituents are combined, with or without an overt coordinator. This Element examines how coordinate structures are derived syntactically, focussing on the syntactic operations involved, including constraints on both their operations and the representations they produce. Specifically, considering the recent research development in the syntax of coordination, the Element discusses whether any special syntactic operation is required to derive various coordinate constructions, including constructions in which each conjunct has a gap, whether there is any special functional category heading coordinate constructions in general, what the morphosyntactic statuses of coordinators (i.e., conjunctions and disjunctions) are in some specific languages, whether the structure of a coordinate construction can be beyond the binary complementation structure, and whether the mobility of conjuncts and the mobility of elements in conjuncts require any construction-specific constraint on syntactic operations.
Organisms interacting with echinoids are common and produce diverse traces that are often distinctive and can be preserved in the fossil record. Thus, echinoids provide a wealth of information regarding the role of biotic interactions as drivers of ecological and morphological adaptations over macroevolutionary timescales. Studies documenting interactions with echinoids and the resulting traces have become more numerous. This Element reviews the ecologies of skeletal trace-producing interactions on echinoids in Modern ecosystems and the recognition of those biogenic traces in the fossil record. The authors explore diversification and morphological trends in Meso-Cenozoic echinoid clades and associated predator and parasite groups in the context of selective pressures brought about by the evolution of these biotic interactions. Their intent is that this review promotes additional studies documenting the intensity of biotic interactions with echinoids in both Recent and fossil assemblages and highlights their potential to advance our understanding of ecosystem functioning and evolution. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The goal of this contribution to the Elements series is to closely examine Merge, its form, its function, and its central role in current linguistic theory. It explores what it does (and does not do), why it has the form it has, and its development over time. The basic idea behind Merge is quite simple. However, Merge interacts, in intricate ways, with other components including the language's interfaces, laws of nature, and certain language-specific conditions. Because of this, and because of its fundamental place in the human faculty of language, this Element's focus on Merge provides insights into the goals and development of generative grammar more generally, and its prospects for the future.
This Element presents three case studies of interactive digital editions of Shakespeare incorporated into classroom teaching: WordPlay Shakespeare, PerformancePlus and myShakespeare. Each interactive edition combines the text of a Shakespeare play with a recorded performance. The case studies seek to understand whether and how interactive Shakespeare editions support ambitious teaching, where students are expected to engage in authentic academic tasks, experience social learning (dialogic rather than didactic), and demonstrate their new knowledge through meaningful assessments. In our time of pandemic and considerable public contention over equity and justice, ambitious teaching further requires attention to the whole selves of students – their psychological and social development as well as their intellectual attainment. This Element examines the opportunities that interactive digital editions give teachers, software developers and scholars to connect Shakespeare's works to twenty-first century students.
This Element argues that governments allocate adjustment burdens strategically to protect their supporters, imposing adjustment costs upon the supporters of their opponents, who then protest in response. Using large-N micro-level survey data from three world regions and a global survey, it discusses the local political economy of International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending. It finds that opposition supporters in countries under IMF structural adjustment programs (SAP) are more likely to report that the IMF SAP increased economic hardships than government supporters and countries without IMF exposure. In addition, it finds that partisan gaps in IMF SAP evaluations widen in IMF program countries with an above-median number of conditions, suggesting that opposition supporters face heavier adjustment burdens, and that opposition supporters who think SAPs made their lives worse are more likely to protest. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Active approaches to teaching Shakespeare are growing in popularity, seen not only as enjoyable and accessible, but as an egalitarian and progressive teaching practice. A growing body of resources supports this work in classrooms. Yet critiques of these approaches argue they are not rigorous and do little to challenge the conservative status quo around Shakespeare. Meanwhile, Shakespeare scholarship more broadly is increasingly recognising the role of critical pedagogy, particularly feminist and decolonising approaches, and asks how best to teach Shakespeare within twenty-first century understandings of cultural value and social justice. Via vignettes of schools' participation in Coram Shakespeare School Foundation's festival, this Element draws on critical theories of education, play and identity to argue active Shakespeare teaching is a playful co-construction with learners and holds rich potential towards furthering social justice-oriented approaches to teaching the plays.
Human societies increasingly interact with processes on a geological or even cosmic timescale. Despite this recognition, we still lack a basic understanding of these interconnections and how they translate into politics. This Element provides an exploration and systematization of 'the politics of deep time' as a novel lens of planetary politics in three steps. First, it demonstrates why deep-time interactions render the politics of deep time essential; second, it asks how deep time should be politicized and third, it explicates the politics of deep time by examining representative cases. The Element also formulates a conceptual framework to open up possibilities for alliances that seek to better understand and realize the politics of deep time, pioneering a debate on how planetary temporalities can be politically institutionalized. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This Element surveys research on three central and interrelated issues about the nature of memory and remembering. The first is about the nature of memory as a cognitive faculty. This part discusses different strategies to distinguish memory from other cognitive faculties as well as different proposed taxonomies to differentiate distinct kinds of memory. The second issue concerns what memory does, which is traditionally thought to have a simple answer: remembering. As it turns out, philosophers not only disagree as to how to characterize remembering but also whether the function of memory is indeed to remember. Finally, the third issue is about the nature of what we remember-a question that may refer to the object of our memories but also to their content, with different views disagreeing on how to characterize the relationship between the two.
The Computational Theory of Mind says that the mind is a computing system. It has a long history going back to the idea that thought is a kind of computation. Its modern incarnation relies on analogies with contemporary computing technology and the use of computational models. It comes in many versions, some more plausible than others. This Element supports the theory primarily by its contribution to solving the mind-body problem, its ability to explain mental phenomena, and the success of computational modelling and artificial intelligence. To be turned into an adequate theory, it needs to be made compatible with the tractability of cognition, the situatedness and dynamical aspects of the mind, the way the brain works, intentionality, and consciousness.
This is a call to engage with the histories of emotions and the senses, as well as with the new history of experiences, in order to write a gendered history of humanitarian action. This Element challenges essentialist interpretations according to which women have undertaken humanitarian action because of their allegedly compassionate nature. Instead, it shows how humanitarianism has allowed women to participate in international politics by claiming their rights as citizens, struggling against class inequalities, racial segregation and sexual discrimination in the light of disparate feelings such as resentment, hope, trust, shame and indignation. Ultimately, these case studies are understood to represent historically created moral economies of care: distinctive ways of feeling, performing and knowing humanitarianism which have evolved in relation to shifting emotional values associated with what it means to be human. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This Element surveys transmissions of ancient Greek and Latin texts into anglophone literatures, often straddling boundaries between translational responsibility and adaptive, re-creative textual practices. Attention to manifestations of and reasons for versioning, retranslation, hybridity, and translation as experiment, compels an introductory discussion of evolving tendencies of classical reception; with particular dispositions relating to a sociocultural context such as that of the United States observed in Section 3. The role paratexts play in the dialogue between scholarship, literary art, and performance, is the focus of Section 4, while Section 2 presents readers with a range of English responses to Homer. Creativity through sites and positions of translation is a defining feature of the workings of literary traditions; and of antiquity and modernity, in constant dialogue. This Element explores numerous textual manifestations and reasons for invention, along with integrations of thinking on classical translation over the centuries, helping shape present-day translation studies.
Lessons from service and system failures describe the pivotal roles played by governance and leadership in delivering high-quality, safe care. This Element sets out what the terms governance and leadership mean and how thinking about them has developed over time. Using real-world examples, the authors analyse research evidence on the influence of governance and leadership on quality and safety in healthcare at different levels in the health system: macro level (what national health systems do), meso level (what organisations do), and micro level (what teams and individuals do). The authors describe behaviours that may help boards focus on improving quality and show how different leadership approaches may contribute to delivering major system change. The Element presents some critiques of governance and leadership, including some challenges that can arise and gaps in the evidence, and then draws out lessons for those seeking to strengthen governance and leadership for improvement. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Short-term student exchanges can offer valuable opportunities for intercultural learning and to engage in intercultural communication using English (the language focus in this Element). However, research and educational practices often assume that the most effective intercultural learning occurs through interactions with local individuals in 'target' culture learning and adherence to standard English language norms. These assumptions overlook important learning opportunities from interactions in culturally and linguistically diverse settings as features of many international exchange experiences. This Element proposes a perspective in student exchange research and practice that reflects this diversity and encompasses the intercultural learning model of intercultural awareness, intercultural citizenship education, and Global Englishes.