Robert Schumann was brought up in the household of a publisher. Robert was used to editorial processes such as correcting galley proofs. He worked as editor of musical compositions for the musical supplement to his music journal. And he edited his own compositions for publication. Clara Schumann not only prepared her own works for publication, but also edited works by other composers, not least the complete edition of Robert’s works. This latter, though lacking a critical apparatus, still deserves attention, as does the instructive edition of the piano works with performance indications by Clara. Today Urtext editions are complemented by the ongoing New Complete Edition of Robert Schumann’s works.

Carla Bagnoli takes up a worry about Kant’s version of constitutivism about moral norms, which says that the norms of rationality are too abstract to account for the exercise of rational agency and fail to do justice to the significance that the consequences of action have for moral assessment. Bagnoli argues that: (i) the constitutive norms of practical reason are not meant to provide normative reasons for action by themselves. So, the incompleteness of constitutivism about practical reason is not a bug, but an essential feature of the constitutivist agenda; (ii) the full story about determining rational action includes reference to the consequences, which are importantly comprised in the Kantian account of the agent’s description of the action under assessment; (iii) to explain how this works, it is best to deploy a strategy that deserves to be called Aristotelian – that of placing action in its circumstances.

This chapter focuses on a relatively unknown Jewish/German jurist, Dr Walter Schwarz. Schwarz returned to Berlin in the 1950s and practiced as a restitution lawyer. He was one of only a few Jewish lawyers working in Berlin at this time. Schwarz set up a legal journal, where he also published ‘glosses’ under pseudonyms. Found in a library in Berlin, I translate and analyse a selection of these glosses written by Schwarz. Going beyond the legal representation he could offer to his clients, I contend the writing of the glosses is a different method for Schwarz to take responsibility for the conduct of the restitution program. This chapter sets up the way giving an account of restitution can be an ethos – of writing, but also of conduct, of practice.

More than any other of Emerson’s essays, “Experience” shows us a succession of states, moods, and “regions” of human life. It is not a “carpet” essay in Adorno’s sense, in which a set of themes is woven into a core idea, but a journey essay, which moves from region to region, and portrays life as a set of moods through which we pass. Like a piece of music, “Experience” is in motion. It provides an exemplary case of the essay as Montaigne describes the form: “something which cannot be said at once all in one piece.” Chapter 7 considers whether “Experience" is to be seen as what Cavell calls a “journey of ascent” – as in the journey up and out of the cave in Plato’s Republic; as a version of Plato’s myth of Er; or, with its praise of “the midworld,” as a return to the ordinary as Wittgenstein thinks of it.

This chapter emphasises the social dimension of lyric verse, exploring how communities are created between poems, and between the producers and audiences of poetry within anthologies of secular and spiritual verse printed in the second half of the Cinquecento. The chapter charts some of the key stimuli for lyric anthologies, including the commemoration of events, individuals, cities and collective social bodies or institutions such as women poets or academies. It illuminates the ways in which structural arrangements and systems of ordering in the anthologies contribute to the meaning of the poems, the canonisation of poets and publishers, and can provide a space for the discussion of poetics. Changing fashions affect the organisation of lyrics – by author, meter and topic – and the ways in which they cross-pollinate with genres such as dialogues or madrigals. Nonetheless, designing and consuming verse anthologies remains deeply rooted in notions of dialogue and exchange.

Before examining how the regulation of bioethical matters impacts the equal right to live in the world for people with impairments, Chapter 1 elaborates on key concepts relevant for the book’s later chapters: disability, eugenics, ableism, and neoliberalism. It begins with a critical discussion of the medical and social models of disability, the two dominant approaches to understanding disability in disability studies. The chapter also highlights the troubled recent history of eugenics, the concept of ableism and the persistence of ableist policies and practices, as well as the importance and shortcomings of disability rights laws in furthering disability justice and equality.

The conclusion of Invisible Fatherland reviews the book’s findings with a view to the rise of Nazism and the concept of militant democracy. Juxtaposing the republic’s constitutional patriotism with Nazi ideology, the author highlights the clash between two diametrically opposed “ways of life.” While Nazism was a violent political order that dehumanized marginalized groups, Weimar democracy embraced plural and hybrid identifications. Although the republic ultimately fell to the Nazi threat, the study argues that its constitutional patriotism remains a positive legacy of Western-style democracy. By reframing the narrative, Invisible Fatherland provides a forward-looking, “glass-half-full” perspective on one of history’s most misunderstood democratic experiments