The tour de force of the Chronographia takes place in the rebel Isaak’s skene, surrounded by an army whose war-cry is an acclamation, filled internally with an army ranked concentrically like a council chamber, with Isaak on a throne, controlling everything by his sheer presence. Psellos heads an embassy to persuade him to institutionalize his power by due process, bringing the complementary resources of the Byzantine State: as a rhetor and philosopher he represents its law, traditions, and cultural capital. Together he and Isaak mount a theatre of ideal rule. It is a magnificent double performance culminating in Isaak’s secret assent. Before being formalized, however, news comes of a coup. Psellos had argued for praxis first, then theory, but Keroularios, who led the coup, has seized praxis and, by an embracing irony, the embassy in the protected space was futile. Isaak is emperor already. Though he promises to rule philosophically with Psellos’ advice, he rules alone. The reign is a bitter disappointment and, from that point, the work loses authenticity. Psellos disguises his loss of influence as success and succumbs to the pressures of imperial oversight.

As the first technique to reach out beyond the visible spectrum, radio astronomy uncovered a wide range of previously unknown phenomena that has transformed astronomy. Quasars, pulsars, radio galaxies, gravitational lensing, solar radio bursts, extra-solar planets, the cosmic microwave background, interstellar molecules, super-luminal motion, dark matter, cosmic evolution, fast radio bursts, electrical storms on Jupiter, the greenhouse effect on Venus, non-thermal radiation, cosmic molecular masers, and many other phenomena were all unknown until they were discovered by radio astronomers using a wide range of innovative new techniques and instrumentation. Mostly, this new breed of astronomers were young, had little or no training in astronomy with backgrounds in physics or radio engineering, and often worked outside of the traditional academic environment. Their discoveries were largely serendipitous; that is, they were accidentally the result of looking for something else or just plain looking. Theory played no role, and sometimes incorrect theory delayed a discovery. The chapter concludes with discussion of the changing sociology of modern astronomical research and speculation on the prospects for new discoveries.

This chapter introduces the reader to the book, describing the aims of the book and the key questions it intends to answer. The book seeks to help English language teachers to understand translanguaging; to raise their awareness of how it may benefit their classrooms; to introduce them to appropriate strategies and practices; and to empower them to explore the ideas presented in their own classrooms to improve the efficacy of their teaching. It provides a brief, initial answer to the question ‘What is translanguaging?’ exploring this question, first, from the point of view of translanguaging theory, and then, from the perspective of translanguaging pedagogy. Initial notes on terminology are provided here. The chapter also describes who the book is for and why, providing introductions to us as the authors. Readers are encouraged to engage critically with the text, and reminded that no two classrooms are alike, hence, different teachers may take away different ideas and implications for their own practice. Readers are also introduced to the first of many reflection tasks, which are present throughout the book to encourage careful thinking and criticality towards the ideas presented.

This chapter takes up the idea of African literature, history, and criticism as part of a larger project of cultural transformation and examines the role of literary criticism and a literary education in the shaping of postcolonial identities. Starting with a personal reflection on the role of English colonial Englishness in the making of an African literature, and originally published as an “Editor’s Column” when the author assumed the editorship of the PMLA, the chapter functions as an overture to the whole book. It opens up the multiple worlds and texts that came to define African literature against the background of decolonization and calls attention to the intimate relationship between reading, writing, and thinking in the making of colonial and postcolonial subjects.

The introduction focuses on how modern African writing has challenged the central categories that have shaped intellectual debates on the nature of literature and criticism in the twentieth century with particular attention to the problem of modernity and the narrative of decolonization. The chapter identifies the key moments and contours of African literature from the early twentieth century to the great period of decolonization in the second half of the century and identifies the critical traditions that have determined the nature of this literature and its relation to global cultural movements. Rejecting the idea of an African literary tradition that is either a prisoner of Euro-American critical traditions or one isolated from global treads, the introduction summarizes the key arguments in the book to show how, at a distinct moment in the twentieth century, African imaginaries were codified into a set of practices that changed theories and histories of modern literature.

A theory of some finding or observation is an explanation of that finding or observation. Further, a good theory is a set of principles that are sufficient to show that the phenomenon is an instance of more general phenomena or principles. But not all explanations help us understand general phenomena because they lack some fundamental characteristics. The necessary characteristics of adequate explanations include explicit definitions and precise and limited scope, that is, they do not attempt to explain everything about a given event or action. Further, they can be tested with empirical data; they do not appeal to supernatural forces or to explanations with claims that testing is not necessary.

This theoretical chapter first proposes, within an open dynamic approach, a vocabulary to address the embodied person and their experience, and the material, social and symbolic environments in which they live, which are experienced physically, relationally and interpreted via semiotic processes. Then, it highlights the implications of a regional case study for the theorising of human development, notably, thanks to its attention to the interdependency between socio and microgenetic dynamics and ontogenesis. Further, it proposes a new series of concepts and dynamics to account for development in older age, where people are likely to find new ways to develop in a world whose forces may feel progressively more adverse. Hence, the model of reconfiguration of domains of conduct needs to be completed by an understanding of envelopes that supports centripetal dynamics, borrowed from psychoanalysis. Finally, the chapter examines the implication of this proposition for the theorising development in the lifecourse.

This introductory chapter contextualizes the inquiry and delimits the theoretical, historical, and practical concerns that motivate the study. After discussing key concepts informing the analysis, including the terms ‘religion’ and ‘recognition’, it summarizes the book’s main arguments and contributions and locates them in current International Relations (IR) scholarship as well as in the disciplines of religious studies and colonial history. It introduces the empirical case studies and illustrates how the quest for statehood, the contested question of minorities, political representation, and international border-making shaped and were shaped by the concepts, agents, and identities associated with ‘religion’ that broke through the threshold of political recognition to establish themselves as taken-for-granted political entities on the global stage. The chapter argues that religion is a space, concept, and realm of social and political life rather than separate from it. Consequently, struggles over authority, power, and political order shape the contours and meanings that ‘religion’ can take on. By the same token, analysing changes in such meanings and understandings help us understand the political structures and orders that characterize that particular place and time.

The Framers’ overarching theories for the control of faction included representation as a filter of popular passions, union, and an extended republic to limit the influence of factions by multiplying the number of distinct and competing interests, and divided sovereignty between the state and national governments. The theory of representation was familiar from their British heritage, but their theories of an extended republic and divided sovereignty between the national and state governments diverged from accepted political principles of the eighteenth century.

In theory, major differences separated clergy from laity by the twelfth century, especially regarding violence: clergy were subject only to church courts for violent crimes; they enjoyed special papal protection from violent assault; they were to renounce violent behaviour and even sexual relations; and were subject to a different system of law and clemency from laity regarding homicide. In practice, these differences were fading by the fifteenth century. Increasingly, fewer men charged with crimes before lay courts pleaded clergy and sought transfer before church courts for fear of long detention in episcopal gaols awaiting a church trial. English application of papal protection from anti-clerical violence increasingly stressed reconciliation between clerical victims and lay assailants rather than social division. Clergy became subject to lay violence not for being different from laity but too similar to them, especially in pursuing sex and violence and other deviance from ideal priestly standards. Finally, common law on homicide, especially self-defence, increasingly resembled canon law, which explains why clergy accepted lay justice and clemency when facing homicide charges.

While most sustainability transitions researchers agree on the need for cross-disciplinary collaboration, such collaborations can be difficult in practice. Scholars often disagree on (a) how to understand the world (ontology) and (b) what constitutes important knowledge about transitions (epistemology). From this observation, this chapter explores ontological and epistemological debates in sustainability transitions research. It begins by outlining dominant frameworks, particularly the multi-level perspective (MLP), and their foundational assumptions drawn from evolutionary economics and science and technology studies (STS). The chapter identifies two main criticisms of the MLP: the need for an expanded epistemic focus and ontological critiques from proponents of ‘flat ontologies’ and critical realists. It then discusses new epistemological approaches that challenge the dominant narrative that transitions primarily emerge through innovation journeys. These criticisms focus on capitalism, coloniality, and justice, highlighting how mainstream transition studies tend to externalise such concerns. The chapter concludes by supporting radical theoretical pluralism as key to understanding sustainability transitions’ increasing complexities.

This chapter introduces readers to the subject, and gives a rationale for Strategic Studies as a distinct academic discipline deserving of its own intellectual tradition. From here, the chapter discusses the central role of strategic theory in the discipline, and introduces readers to the most important works in the field. These works include the classics, such as Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, but reference is also made to important modern works, including Gray and Wylie.

This chapter expands upon the key concepts of air power, illustrating its inter-war development and the challenges presented to the theory when exposed to the realities of the Second World War. It explains the importance of joint operations to Allied victory in 1945 and the importance of the use of the atom bomb as a counter to criticism that strategic bombing was perhaps not as important as had been suggested became moot. The chapter examines the ways in which the key air power concepts played out during the Cold War era (1945-circa 1990) and the employment of air power in the thirty years between the 1991 Gulf War and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought about a new line of thinking about air power. The development and growing importance of space power is also considered in detail, leading into the final chapter in this section, which considers the way in which air and space power have become indispensable factors.