What sort of thing are the narratives of the life of Jesus, literarily speaking? (History? Biography? Fiction? Myth?) And what bearing does their genre have on the manner of interpretation proper to them? This chapter attends to Origen’s account of the Gospels’ genre, literary precedents, and relationship to other forms of ancient literature in order to establish why he believes the Gospels cannot be read as transparently historical narratives. Here, I propose that the kind of narratives Origen believes the Evangelists compose is directly comparable to the stories one finds throughout the scriptures of Israel. Furthermore, Origen also relates the Gospels’ literary similarity to Jewish biblical narrative to the way they both share a similarly complex relationship to facticity. The Gospels, in sum, all narrate the deeds, sufferings, and words of Jesus “under the form of history”; these historical narratives are of a mixed character, interweaving things that happened with things that didn’t and even couldn’t, with an eye toward presenting the events recorded to have happened to Jesus figuratively.

The signing of the instrument popularly known as the ‘Anglo Irish Treaty’ in December 1921 paved the way for the creation of the Irish Free State in December 1922. The draft constitution of the Irish Free State, created in Dublin in early 1922, was taken to London for a confidential preview in May of that year. The British government insisted that the draft constitution had effectively ignored the provisions of the 1921 Treaty and demanded major revisions. For a brief period, the collapse of the entire settlement agreed in 1921 appeared to be a real possibility. This disaster was only averted when both sides agreed to redraft substantial portions of the draft constitution in early June 1922. This chapter examines the negotiating strategies developed in Dublin and London before and during the radical redrafting of the future constitution of the Irish Free State.

Chapter 3 focuses on Hegel’s critique of liberalism. It starts by discussing the preface to the Philosophy of Right in order to challenge the widespread assumption that Hegel is averse to robust social criticism. Afterwards, the chapter considers two main causes for the limited recognition of his work’s critical dimension. The first is the tendency to read Hegel’s book as a horizontal progression, fuelled by the accumulation of different aspects or layers of freedom. This kind of approach misrepresents the qualitative transformation that is at stake in the transition from civil society to the state, which only a vertical reading can adequately convey. Second, the Philosophy of Right’s critical import has also been obfuscated by some of Hegel’s own philosophical positions. Despite his intended sublation of the stage of civil society, his account of the state remains wedded, in important ways, to the former’s underlying logic. As the chapter seeks to show, if we accept Hegel’s claim that a rational state must synthesize the particular and the universal dimensions of human freedom, we must reject some of his political options as partly or wholly un-Hegelian.

Cyril of Alexandria was a central figure in many of the theological developments and religious conflicts that challenged the stability of the fifth-century eastern Roman Empire. Crucial moments during his episcopacy (412–44) marking wider and more complex developments may be seen with sharp clarity in the outbreaks of overt violence between Christians and Jews and between Christians and “pagans” in the metropolis of Alexandria during the first years of his episcopal career. Moreover, roughly halfway through his tenure as bishop, he would involve himself in a doctrinal dispute underway in the eastern capital of Constantinople, opposing its bishop Nestorius because he believed the truth of the gospel was dangerously undermined by what he took to be Nestorius’ errant Christology. Through the savvy manipulation of ecclesiastical and imperial politics, Cyril succeeded in having Nestorius deposed by the Council of Ephesus in 431, though it took eighteenth months of negotiations to restore communion between the warring factions.

This article explores the role that notions of plot play in Shakespeare source study. Drawing on three moments of scholarly engagement with the sources for Romeo and Juliet, the article shows how plot structures critical inquiry by enabling some kinds of questions while precluding others.

It is the winter of 2021. Like many parents around the world, I have donned the new hat of home-school administrator. My children are high-school age, so they resist oversight (as expected), but I have come to see that they do not need much (who knew?). My role is simply to find suitable remote-learning resources. Again, I am pleasantly surprised, and relieved: high-school level art history, for example, seems to be an especially engaging subject online, given the potential for abundant accurately coloured images, flexible user interfaces, and up-to-date critical content. This happy realisation hits me as I notice that the unfamiliar hat has slipped off the side of my head: I am no longer surveying the resources for the kids’ sakes, but rather I am absorbed, of my own accord, in a lesson on Fauvism.

The chapter is concerned with ego documents, that is sources like autobiographies, diaries and letters, as a data source for historians of the English language. First, the term ego documents is defined and its merits for historical sociolinguistic research are outlined. Thereafter, literacy and education opportunities, and the availability of and approaches to ego documents, are traced from the later Middle Ages to the Modern English period, followed by an illustration of language use across social layers, and a comparison to another contemporary text type. A particular focus is put on ego documents as a source of vernacular speech, for example as data for varieties of English for which there is no other contemporary documentation. The examples given illustrate the sometimes more speech-like and informal nature of ego documents and highlight the value of the text category for historical linguistics.

There is growing awareness of the role that multinational corporations (MNCs) play in contributing to modern slavery down their supply chains (8.7 Alliance, 2023). According to Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, published by the International Labour Organization (ILO), in 2021 there were 27.6 million people trapped in situations of forced labour around the world, with 17.3 million individuals being exploited in the private sector (ILO, 2022). Sectoral analysis of this finding suggests that a third of exploited workers are employed in export-related sectors and are, presumably, part of global value chains (GVCs) (ILO, 2022). The increasing realization, in the last decade or so, that MNCs’ profits are linked to modern slavery has driven workers, their representatives, global and local activists, consumer organizations, and unions, as well as legislators and policymakers at various levels (local, national, regional, and international), to seek innovative and effective ways to hold MNCs accountable and assign them responsibility (LeBaron, 2020; ITUC, 2020; Trautrims et al., 2021).

This trend suggests a shift in policy responses to modern slavery. Since the adoption of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Trafficking Protocol in 2000,1 there has been a predominant view that human trafficking and modern slavery primarily result from the operation of organized crime (H. Shamir, 2012). The expansion of the anti-trafficking and modern slavery policy response towards addressing the role of mainstream business entities, and particularly MNCs, raises multiple complex questions for scholars, policymakers, and activists. These relate to the exact role of MNCs in modern slavery and the practices they adopt, and MNC and supplier compliance (Han et al., 2022); the causes and drivers of modern slavery; the reality of work on the factory floor (and wherever work takes place); and effective policy solutions to change corporate patterns of purchasing, supply chain management, and engagement with suppliers, as well as with workers and their communities.