This article investigates marriage as a site for the historical study of time. Focusing on Hindu marriage in South Asia between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, the article studies (a) how the moment of a marriage is made and documented through what the article calls ‘temporal practices’, and (b) how, once this moment is made and documented, it is put to use in and for a marriage ceremony. The article has three sections. In the first section, it discusses the device used to measure the time of the marriage ceremony: the water clock. This section also addresses how the water clock was used, and who used it, within the marriage ceremony; and registers a shift in the nineteenth century from the water clock to the mechanical clock. In the second section, the article discusses documentary practices that record the moment of a marriage and addresses historical changes related to these practices in the nineteenth century. In the third section, the article examines the work that the moment of a marriage does once it has been brought into being and documented. This section argues that the moment of a marriage frames and makes efficacious a certain action through which the bride and groom are transformed. The article concludes by arguing that the moment of a marriage temporally regulates the activities of the marriage ceremony and explores how this moment reconfigures relations to the past and future for the bride and groom.

Luciano Berio's name appears once in the 1,134-page Oxford Handbook of Western Music and Philosophy (2021), yet his poetics sits among the most profound and expansive of the twentieth century. By the mid-1960s Berio was writing lucidly about tensions between synchronic and diachronic meaning. Such works as Sinfonia, the Sequenze and the electroacoustic output are radical applications of these ideas, yet they have been claimed by the proponents of the very structures they challenge and their meanings effectively reduced, notwithstanding Berio's insistence and clarity across his substantial writings. This article characterises Berio's work according to his poetics, demonstrating the ways in which Sinfonia actively stages the mechanisms of musical meaning, before situating Berio's writing in a context of contemporary theories of meaning. Particular comparison is made to the work of Harold Bloom, whose words transformed poetic discourse in the 1970s.

What are epiphanies, and might they be of use in doing philosophy? This essay explores how a great deal of philosophy – and in particular ethics – adopts methods that make no room for epiphanies and the insights they can provide.

Since the emergence of the Thule culture (AD 1200), dog sledding has been perceived as a central means of transportation in traditional Inuit life in the Arctic. However, there is an absence of research concerning Inuit dog-sled technology and the tradition of the craft. This study investigates the Inuit dog-sled technocomplex using enskilment methodologiesby employing experimental and ethno-archaeological observations to explore the relationship between knowledge and technical practice. It involves the reconstruction of a historical West Greenlandic dog sled, shedding light on carpentry techniques and construction processes. This method emphasizes the interaction between humans, technology, and time, providing essential practical data for future archaeological and historical research, particularly for comprehending fragmented archaeological remains. By focusing on process rather than end product, this research provides insight into understanding Inuit dog sled technology and the complexity of the practice. The connection between artifacts and materially situated practice is demonstrated through the reconstruction of a dog sled, which illustrates the value of physicality in enskilment. It highlights how experimental archaeology can improve our insights into the historical and prehistoric Arctic societies’ technologies, economies, and practices.

This article argues that the statement in John 5.2, ‘There is (ἔστιν) in Jerusalem […] a pool […] which has five porticoes’, offers internal evidence for dating the Gospel prior to 70 ce, when Jerusalem was destroyed. Scholars usually discard the use of the present tense ‘is’ as a mere instance of the historic present, but this view is untenable, as I show by discussing the most recent grammatical studies concerning the historic present. Moreover, I argue that the formula ‘There is in …’ (ἔστιν δὲ ἐν) followed by a location (in the dative), with an architectural structure as the subject, is a formula that has been used since Herodotus’ time in geographic and topographic descriptions that assume the existence of this structure at the time of writing. I subsequently demonstrate that the colonnaded pool complex of Bethzatha had likely been destroyed and/or dismantled during the First Jewish Revolt, when the Bezetha area, where the pool was located, was twice destroyed and was also stripped bare of timber to construct the Roman earthworks that were thrown up against the walls of Jerusalem to help the Romans take the city. Archaeological reports on this neighbourhood confirm its desolation after 70 ce, and Eusebius’ description of the pool confirms the disappearance of its porticoes. Finally, I draw attention to the unanimous depiction of Jerusalem in Flavian and post-Flavian literature as a city entirely destroyed, burned down and reduced to ashes. This means that if the Gospel’s author describes the colonnaded Pool of Bethzatha as still standing, then the Gospel must have been written (and edited) prior to 70 ce.

The widespread use of artificial intelligence technologies in border management throughout the European Union has significant human rights implications that extend beyond the commonly examined issues of privacy, non-discrimination and data protection. This article explores these overlooked impacts through three critical frameworks: the erosion of freedom of thought, the disempowerment of individuals and the politicization of human dignity. In uncovering these dynamics, the article argues for a broader conception of human rights to prevent their gradual erosion and safeguard the core principle of protecting human dignity.

This compact book offers a closely researched account of the early years of the Qajar dynasty and state, whose political development was permanently marked by the territorial struggle with the Russian Empire in the South Caucasus in its first three decades. Behrooz's work builds on Muriel Atkin's classic Russia and Iran 1780–1928 (1980), and although unlike Atkin he does not make use of any sources in Russian, the range of Persian-language material he draws upon is much greater, and the two books complement each other well. The first two chapters effectively set the political scene, providing a review of the circumstances of Aqa Muhammad Khan's rise to power, his struggle with the Zand rulers of Shiraz, and the extensive preparations he made to secure the succession of his nephew, Baba Khan Jahanbani, the future Fath Ali Shah. These bore fruit when Aqa Muhammad Shah was murdered by his own servants in Shusha in 1797. Significantly, this took place during a campaign to subdue Qarabagh. The central figure of the book, and of the wars against Russia, is Fath Ali's son Abbas Mirza, but a particular strength of Behrooz's account is his close understanding of the family and intertribal relationships among the Qajar elite, as well as of the petty dynasties that ruled in Qarabagh, Iravan, Badkubeh (Baku), and Derbent in this period.

One of the world's most enduring and successful cultural diplomacy organizations, the British Council (BC) has played a prominent role in promoting and exporting British theatre, literature, and language across the globe since its founding in 1934. A key component of the BC's self-proclaimed remit of “forging links between Britain and other countries through cultural exchange,” the organization's Drama Division has over its lifetime worked to sponsor and facilitate the overseas touring of a significant number of British theatrical enterprises, exporting both large-scale national company productions with substantial casts and a repertoire of shows, as well as individual actors, directors, and academics embarking on speaking tours. From the stage, renowned actors and star names such as Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Vivien Leigh, Peggy Ashcroft, and John Gielgud were routinely chosen by the BC to appear in series of “theatrical manifestations,” serving in dual capacities both as actors in productions and ambassadors for a nation—the word “manifestation” being the BC's own preferred terminology used to refer to the export of a cultural event during the middle of the past century. Yet unlike comparable accounts of the relationship between the Arts Council and theatre, we possess no systematic study of the BC's involvement in this field, meaning that fundamental questions about the nature, range, and impact of the BC's cultural activity remain unanswered. Indeed, until comparatively recently, the history of the BC has failed to generate much scholarly interest at all, but the nature of its imbrication within British theatrical culture in particular remains severely occluded.

Ceremonies, such as weddings, funerals, graduations, coronations, presidential inaugurations, and many other celebratory occasions play a central role in human life and society. But while their importance is emphasised in sociology and anthropology, as well as in Chinese, African and other philosophical traditions, ceremonies have received far less attention in Western philosophy, and when discussed are often, though not universally, dismissed as over-elaborate, or expressions of superstition. In this paper I will consider the nature and value of ceremonies, exploring both the positive and negative roles of ceremonies in human life, as well as considering how ceremonies can help us think about individual and group values.

A new Philippine foliicolous species, Porina dolichoepiphylla, was discovered from the central part of Mindanao Island, and is described and illustrated here. This new species is characterized by conspicuously longer ascospores, a feature shared only with P. virescens within the Porina epiphylla subgroup but can be distinguished from the latter by its hairless surface, as well as rough thalli with primordia of perithecia. Porina dolichoepiphylla sp. nov. is known only from the type locality on Mt Kitanglad, growing along the frond of Asplenium vittaeforme in a shady lower montane forest. An updated checklist of Porina species in the Philippines with a taxonomic key to the foliicolous species of the Porina epiphylla subgroup is also provided. The discovery of the new lichen species highlights the importance of continued exploration and documentation efforts within the Philippine archipelago.