The famous account in the Historia Augusta of Severus Alexander’s lararium, which contained an image of Christ alongside other figures including Apollonius of Tyana, Vergil, Orpheus, and Achilles, has long been accepted with insufficient discernment and dubious judgment. The present article challenges this ongoing scholarly trend, suggesting that the story should be rejected not only as history but even as a plausible fiction. In defense of this position, both literary and archeological evidence is presented and considered. Ultimately, in line with the basic orientation of modern HA scholarship, the whole tradition is suggested to be understood best as a fictive expression of “innovative traditionalism,” i.e. part of the late fourth-century polytheistic author’s fanciful yet culturally conservative reaction to the ascendant Christian culture of the post-Theodosian world.

This article focuses on a December 1867 altercation between three blackface minstrel managers – Sam Sharpley, Edwin Kelly, and Francis Leon. The conflict, which escalated from a fistfight to a shooting match, resulted in the death of Sharpley’s brother. The incident was a murder among blackface minstrels, but, more than this, it was a murder about minstrelsy. The blackface minstrel show – a deeply racist but wildly popular form of entertainment – was big business in post-Civil War New York City. Throughout 1867, Sharpley’s troupe was locked in a heated rivalry with Kelly and Leon’s company. When Kelly and Leon signed three of Sharpley’s performers and allegedly began spreading rumors about his financial well-being, Sharpley responded violently. As it examines the December confrontation, the events that preceded it, and the first-degree murder trial that followed, this article situates the incident in the larger history of blackface minstrelsy. It also suggests that popular performance culture must be understood with reference to contemporary shifts in post-Civil War American capitalism.

This article analyses whether Articles I and II of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) permit nuclear sharing. It argues—contrary to previous research—that the ordinary meaning of Articles I and II, the NPT’s travaux préparatoires and subsequent agreements and practice point to a deep ambiguity as to whether nuclear sharing is permitted under these Articles. It then suggests that, while Articles I and II NPT offer little help in determining the legality of nuclear sharing, the nuclear disarmament obligation embedded in Article VI NPT can be used to challenge the legality of the practice.

Crux de Telcz (Crux of Telč, or Kříž z Telče) was one of the most prolific scribes of late medieval Bohemia, active in the second half of the fifteenth century. In various roles, Crux contributed to several dozen manuscripts, which present an extraordinarily broad range of contents in various genres. This study analyses items with musical notation and the texts of sacred and secular songs in manuscripts copied or used by Crux. These are chiefly notated records of monophonic and polyphonic cantiones with texts in Latin and Czech, and to a lesser extent plainchant melodies belonging to the realm of Latin liturgical repertoire. Yet one of Crux’s manuscripts (Třeboň A 4) also bears witness to an early use of white mensural notation in Bohemia. In recent years, it has been possible to refine Crux’s biography substantially, with the result that most of his musical copying activities can be shown to have been made in the period while he was active as a teacher. His manuscripts thus offer important insights into ways in which sacred songs and new polyphonic works were disseminated in the fifteenth century, chiefly within literate and pedagogical circles.

Which international obligations are characterised as obligations owed erga omnes or erga omnes partes is today a crucial question for the enforcement of international law, particularly through adjudication before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ, however, has not given sufficiently clear indication as to how it understands and identifies obligations erga omnes and erga omnes partes. This lack of clarity and consistency permits varied approaches to the articulation of such obligations, ultimately leaving uncertain the enforceability, through adjudication and otherwise, of a wide variety of obligations.

Ableist culture stigmatises psychiatric and psychological conditions, which perpetuates misconceptions about them and can discourage people from seeking appropriate treatment for mental conditions. This editorial examines how pejorative use of diagnostic terms contributes to stigmatisation, identifies its discriminatory impact and explores its connection to fears about becoming disabled.