This chapter uses the Romantic novel as a case study to consider the problem of genre in world literature studies. Examining different frameworks for thinking about the category of Romanticism in a global context, it suggests that the historical novel provides a clear illustration of how the boundaries of genre expand and contract in order to conform to reigning paradigms of literary history. After demonstrating how Sophia Lee’s The Recess problematizes the idea of historical fiction that it is said to inaugurate, the chapter briefly compares it to Heinrich von Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas and Alexander Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter in order to illuminate the criteria that come into play when positing whether these three texts should be considered as being of the same genre.

Army chaplaincy was prone to provoke controversy. In the increasingly secular, pacifistic and multimedia context of the late twentieth century it was particularly vulnerable to hostile criticism, not least in the sending Churches. Even in the 1950s, though, it had its detractors. These were years in which the RAChD was laden with starchy veterans of the Second World War (who could relate poorly to National Servicemen); notably preoccupied with sex; and hampered by the Churches’ tendency to offload their delinquent clergy onto the Army. If National Service coloured negative stereotypes of chaplaincy over subsequent decades, media power and the dramatic circumstances of the Falklands War created a national celebrity in the form of David Cooper, chaplain of 2 PARA. In the 1990s, however, and lacking an equivalent stage, chaplaincy faded into the background, returning to the fore in the War on Terror, during which media portrayals of chaplaincy were once again usually favourable. Nevertheless, the findings of the Baha Mousa Inquiry of 2011 proved a serious embarrassment, reigniting charges of ‘role tension’ and ‘role conflict’ and highlighting the precarious nature of chaplaincy’s wider image.

‘Graph theory’ is a relatively recent addition to the mathematical canon. Some date its origins to the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler’s (1708–83) work on the bridges of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) in 1736. The city was at the junction of two rivers forming an island, and seven bridges connected the four regions of the city (Fig. 2.1). According to legend, the citizens asked Euler whether it was possible to take a walk, crossing each of the bridges just once and returning to the starting point. Euler showed that this was not possible.

(The picture shows the layout of the bridges in Euler’s time. Since then, destruction in war and new construction have changed the layout.

The British Army evolved from being a large citizen army reliant on conscripts to being a small, all-professional army consisting of volunteers. This was accompanied by its transition from being a force primarily composed of young, unmarried men to one mainly comprising married soldiers. As the Army shrank and the nature and dynamics of Army life evolved, a growing gulf emerged (or re-emerged) between civilian society and Britain’s small professional Army. British society underwent a cultural and religious transformation. In the early 1950s, it was governed by conservative Christian values and norms, and the great majority of Britons identified as Christian. By the early 2020s, this was no longer true, and the salient characteristics of British ‘Christendom’ had largely disappeared. While Britain became an increasingly secular and multi-religious society from the 1960s, the legacy of two world wars and the threat of nuclear Armageddon propelled mainstream Christian opinion towards a position of ‘functional pacifism’. This chapter highlights the implications of these developments for religion in the Army and considers the sources on which a study of this kind can be based.

Chapter 3 continues to explore young women’s engagement with Pentecostalism by focusing on the advice given out by pastors about dating and marriage. Complicating analyses that suggest Pentecostalism’s popularity with young women across Africa is attributed to how the religious movement equips them with clear guidance on relationships, the chapter shows that this new ethical counsel only contributes to the uncertainties this group encounter in daily life in urban Nigeria. As the chapter’s ethnographic material details, against pastors’ very straightforward and frank advice, young women find that their relationships with men are often ambiguous. Not only are young women aware of the possibilities that the men they date might have other girlfriends, but they are also shown to participate in less than transparent activity as they engage in intimate relationships that are not intended to lead to marriage. Examining how young women engage in gossip and rumour to conceal their actions, which often take place in plain sight on the streets of Calabar, the chapter shows how young women use unverifiable information to forge their own image of respectability.

This chapter presents the actors involved in terror criminal trials in France. Through a detailed exploration of each actor, the chapter highlights not only their roles but also the criminal procedure and their interactions within the courtroom setting. Aiming to explore civil law criminal systems in depth, it examines the roles of trial judges, investigating judges, prosecutors, civil parties and their lawyers, defense lawyers, and defendants, considering both their professional and social contexts. By situating these actors not only within the courtroom but also within the broader framework of France’s counter-terrorism judicial system, the chapter introduces the reader to the structure, procedures, and key players involved in counter-terrorism trials in France.

This chapter examines the legacy of the two world wars and the tenacity of the professional wisdom that linked religious conviction with strong military morale throughout the Cold War. It also examines how, in the face of a rapidly secularising society, guided by the nature of its prospective, post-Cold War operations and by the advent of a reformist New Labour government, the Army’s inherent (if implicit) Christian ethos was re-articulated in more ambivalent terms in the 1990s. This process of re-formulation gave rise to the Army’s ‘Values and Standards’, to the ‘Service Test’ and supplied the vocabulary for the much-touted ‘Military Covenant’. This chapter also considers the origins, content, and far-reaching significance of the Army’s ‘Spiritual Needs Study’ (or McGill Report) of 1999 and the connection that continued to be drawn between religion and morale – especially in high intensity conflicts – well into the twenty-first century.

The ‘first generation’ of jihadist trials took place before the 16th Chamber in the Lower Criminal Court in Paris, which centralised all terrorism offences with sentences of up to ten years imprisonment.This Chamber operated as a judicial laboratory, modulating the judicial response to jihadism, while experimenting the application of vague notions such as “dangerousness” and “radicalization”. This was developed during the ‘State of Emergency’ in close collaboration between investigating judges and the prosecution, who were given increased authority and resources, alongside the specialisation of the judges. The Chamber developed significant expertise in handling such cases and established a repeated ritual, designing the boundaries of the law and the narratives, setting the level of punishment. Various actors contributed to the co-construction of the first generation of jihadist trials, including the defendants and their lawyers. This chapter examines these structures and practices from the inner perspective of the courtroom, highlighting the role of this first generation of trials in shaping the contours of the judicial respond to the war on terror in France.