In an earlier note in this journal, I located a contradiction in On Liberty. On the one hand, Mill describes piecework as a self-regarding “private concern” between employees and employers, one that does not harm other workers. On the other, he says that the competitors in economic markets harm each other. But workers compete in the labor market, and Mill does not deny that for some workers to accept payment by the piece may set back the interests of others. Jonathan Riley’s recent reply fails to demonstrate that Mill does not contradict himself. Riley’s argument depends on showing that in On Liberty Mill is presupposing that employers are employing a very specific model of piecework, one which Riley claims is self-regarding. However, Riley fails to establish that Mill is making this presupposition. Moreover, an employer’s choice to adopt piecework would not be self-regarding even if they did employ Riley’s model.

This article traces the visual culture of human genetic engineering over the past decade, focusing on the CRISPR genome editing technology. We argue that the representations surrounding CRISPR exemplify, and to an extent define, this visual culture. We examine the history of CRISPR, particularly its human applications from 2012 to 2022, through a periodization that includes the CRISPR craze, gene therapy initiatives, the He Jiankui controversy and clinical trials. Employing an expanded interpretation of intermediality within science communication, this work addresses the role of figuration across the relationships between specialist science reporting and the mainstream press and between traditional and social media. Using a mixed-methods approach combining visual and social-media analysis, the article presents an empirical analysis of three key figures – the double helix, the scientist and the human subject – and their roles across the discussed phases. The study concludes by articulating the stabilizing, amplifying and affective functions of intermedial figuration within science communication.

This article analyses the agony column ‘Voi e il cinema’, launched in November 1938 in Cine illustrato, one of the most popular film magazines of the time. ‘Voi e il cinema’ invited readers to share their acting aspirations, but also to send in photographs of themselves that might contain the defining feature of a diva: photogenicity. The magazine was flooded with images of ‘ordinary young Italian women’ that created an intermediate visual grammar. Focusing on both the photographs and the editors’ responses, the article reveals how shared consumption practices redefined the relationship between public and private space. It also highlights the distance of the readers’ self-representations from Fascist models and sheds light on the role of American star culture in creating the ‘modern’ subject. Although they were not politically opposed to Fascist models, the photographs reveal a strong desire for social change and the perception of such change, particularly in relation to traditional female roles.

This article analyses the activities conducted by the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) in Spain between 1936 to 1943 to understand Italian policy towards the Francoist regime during that period. In doing so, this piece argues that it is important to adopt a political economy approach that looks at production, trade and industrial investments, always in relation to politics, diplomacy, law, culture and government. In fact, this article establishes that, for the main actors in Rome at the time, all these considerations were inseparable when it came to the Italian policy towards Franco’s Spain. Furthermore, I argue that the BNL initiatives are better understood when situated within the larger history of the Fascist regime in Italy and its imperialistic policies in the Mediterranean area.

Two months after its premiere in Leipzig, Ernst Krenek’s Leben des Orest (1930) came to the Berlin Kroll Opera, a notorious centre for experimental, modernist productions. Inevitably, critics compared the two productions, much to the Berlin production’s detriment. In particular, critics faulted the Berlin stage designs by Greek-Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico. I argue that this reception reflected a fundamental divergence in Krenek and de Chirico’s neoclassicism, which was only exacerbated by how neither Krenek nor de Chirico’s neoclassicism aligned with pre-existing expectations about the Kroll Opera’s production aesthetic, as exemplified in Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex (staged at the Kroll in 1928). Attending to these differences not only explains the troubled reception of Leben des Orest at the Kroll, but also provides fertile ground to examine the complicated and sometimes contradictory meanings ascribed to neoclassicism in the interwar period, especially as it moved between media and across national borders.

In recent years, the question of naturalism in the study of religions has been increasingly debated. Primarily, these discussions converge in the widely held view that naturalism is the only way for religious studies as an academic enterprise to exclude supernaturalist assumptions from its methodology. While I fully agree with this view, I argue that naturalism is usually formulated with the help of metaphysical assumptions, which are problematically embodied in the location problem, that is, the problem of how to locate certain phenomena, such as meanings and values, in the order of nature. By unfolding the dynamic between the elements of the location problem, I show that the kind of naturalism based on Wittgenstein’s thought prevents the location problem from arising and can serve as a balanced version of naturalism for use in the study of religion. While metaphysical naturalism often leads to dilemmas, within Wittgenstein’s kind of naturalism, it seems possible both to maintain anti-supernaturalism in the study of religion and to resist the metaphysical temptations hidden in our assumptions about language. These two features make Wittgenstein’s naturalism truly methodological.

In the past decade, there has been increasing scholarly interest in language teachers’ emotional experiences, how they regulate and manage their emotions, and how their experiences and emotion-related practices are related to their cognition, practice, well-being, and professional development. A systematic and critical review is needed to help language teaching professionals to benefit from the insights generated by these studies. This review aims to explore this growing body of research on the emotions of language teachers published between 2015 and 2024 by outlining four major research themes: 1) emotional experience; 2) emotion labour; 3) emotion regulation; and 4) emerging emotion-related concepts. This review critically discusses these themes and draws on relevant research findings to visualise the results in an emotion-focused map of language teachers’ professional development. It concludes by proposing a research agenda to stimulate further inquiry into the emotions of language teachers.

This article combines book history and urban history to examine the spread of the print trade and facilities for reading in Scotland by the 1820s, using a Scotland-wide trade directory as its main source. The article demonstrates how support for reading, including printers, bookshops and venues for reading, extended far and wide within the Scottish urban hierarchy – from the largest cities to the smallest towns and villages. Variations between different types of towns are discussed, and local case studies provide further insights. The article provides fresh perspectives on Scottish urbanization, through its snapshot view of Scotland’s towns in the mid-1820s.

This article presents the results of archaeological research of the post-Second World War mass grave site of Jama pod Macesnovo gorico in Slovenia. The surroundings of the killing site and the mass grave have been the subject of various investigations, including the exhumation of human remains in 2022. In addition to the human remains of approximately 3450 individuals, the results of metal detector surveys, and the excavation of the grave itself have yielded thousands of artefacts associated with the victims and perpetrators, shedding light on the events of the post-Second World War period and mass murder of opponents of the communist-oriented national liberation movement and new Yugoslavian regime. The study represents the results of the most extensive exhumation of war victims’ remains in Slovenia and demonstrates the significant role of archaeology in the reconstruction of historically poorly documented events in modern conflicts.

Milícias are mafia-style organizations, often composed of current and former state agents, that have rapidly expanded in areas with limited state presence and weak legal oversight. In Rio de Janeiro, their territorial control is not maintained by coercion alone, but also through strategic political alliances. This article theorizes and tests a mechanism linking milícia expansion to electoral politics: milícias deliver concentrated electoral support to specific politicians, who in return shield their operations by influencing bureaucratic appointments and law enforcement priorities. Using original geospatial and electoral data, we show that milícia entry into a new area increases electoral concentration and disproportionately benefits milícia-aligned candidates in adjacent territories. We further demonstrate that this electoral capital is converted into political power through key bureaucratic appointments that facilitate further expansion and institutional impunity. Our findings support a theoretical framework in which elections reinforce, rather than constrain, criminal governance in democratic settings.

This article concerns the economy of one of the few fortified settlements of the Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age on the northern coast of the Black Sea, the Uch-Bash settlement, and its satellite settlement, Sakharna Holovka, in the Inkerman Valley in south-western Crimea. Archaeological excavations from the 1950s onwards have yielded much information on the cultivation of plants from the settlement, including charred grains and their impressions on pottery, tools for harvesting and processing the crops, storage containers, and other objects. Data were also obtained on the crops that were grown in the Inkerman Valley. Together, this evidence shows that the production of cereals was a major aspect of its economy at the turn of the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.