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This volume offers a selected range of writings that explore key themes in the intellectual, literary, social, and political history of modern Iran. Focusing primarily on the transformative periods from the nineteenth century to the present, the book brings together in-depth studies and analytical pieces that illuminate Iran’s evolving literary and political culture and intellectual currents. By placing Iranian thought in broader contexts, this collection offers an informative and insightful resource for scholars, students, and readers interested in modern Iranian history and its broader intellectual landscape.

In The Pechenegs: Nomads in the Political and Cultural Landscape of Medieval Europe, Aleksander Paroń offers a reflection on the history of the Pechenegs, a nomadic people which came to control the Black Sea steppe by the end of the ninth century. Nomadic peoples have often been presented in European historiography as aggressors and destroyers whose appearance led to only chaotic decline and economic stagnation. Making use of historical and archaeological sources along with abundant comparative material, Aleksander Paroń offers here a multifaceted and cogent image of the nomads’ relations with neighboring political and cultural communities in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Petroleum from Coal shows why and how Friedrich Bergius and Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch in 1913-26 invented and developed synthetic fuel processes; explains why and how Matthias Pier at BASF- IG Farben and Otto Roelen at Ruhrchemie successfully industrialized the syntheses during the Nazi-World War II years; and analyzes the pre- and post-World War II vicissitudes of the synthetic fuel industry. The research of Germany’s scientists in the 1920s-40s made them world leaders in synthetic fuel studies. Information on the synthetic fuel processes has come from the Allied teams who went to Germany and Japan during World War II’s closing months and from British, American, and Canadian synthetic fuel investigations.

“Our” world is vegetal. None of it would have been in existence were it not for the life activity of plants. Time, discernible in the rhythms, intervals, logics, articulations, and disarticulations of the world, is the time of plants. Starting from scientific, philosophical, and theological insights into the time of plants, Michael Marder’s new study gently steers readers toward the vegetality of time. Specters and spirits, cosmic trees and phytogenesis, the vegetal apriori and weird chronos, the seeds of events and the branches of divergent chronologies, diachronic phases and symbiotic assemblages join the rich tapestry of this work to proclaim, Time is a plant!"Michael Marder’s Time Is a Plant is philosophy at its most productive. As far as imaginable from the postmodern conundrum, it states its premise openly in its title and elaborates it in a clear way with impeccable logic. The life of a plant in all its alterations, its generation and decay, is treated as more than just a metaphor of time: it renders visible the innermost structure of the deployment of time. What makes Marder’s book unique is the very feature that makes it naïve in the best sense of the term: Marder ignores all the endless self-reflexive precautions that characterize much of contemporary thought and simply plunges into basic ontological considerations. Time Is a Plant is a breath of fresh air in our stale philosophical scene. It proves that a thing can be done by simply doing it."-Slavoj Žižek, author of Surplus-Enjoyment: A Guide for the Non-Perplexed (2022) and Freedom: A Disease without Cure (2023)

This book is a pioneering study of the relationship between management and labour in three key industries, namely, coal, jute and cotton textile, in colonial India from 1900 to 1947. It studies history of labour and enterprise through a Marxian-Gramscian lens. The author builds a narrative of economic history, alongside he pens a social history of working class life. It is a rare blend of economic and social history and an indispensable tract to understand the history of capitalist industrialization and concomitant labour-management relations in colonial India within the broad framework of Marxism.

In Creating the Mediterranean: Maps and the Islamic Imagination Tarek Kahlaoui treats the subject of the Islamic visual representations of the Mediterranean. It tracks the history of the Islamic visualization of the sea from when geography was created by the Islamic state’s bureaucrats of the tenth century C.E. located mainly in the central Islamic lands, to the later men of the field, specifically the sea captains from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries C.E. located in the western Islamic lands. A narrative has emerged from this investigation in which the metamorphosis of the identity of the author or mapmaker seemed to be changing with the rest of the elements that constitute the identity of a map: its reader or viewer, its style and structure, and its textual content.

Selective Empathy: The West Through the Gaze of Gaza takes us to the heart of the greatest moral crisis of our time: the genocide in Gaza. Blending sharp political critique with psychological and global health research, haunting testimonies, and suppressed facts, Roberto De Vogli exposes the moral double standards of mainstream Western leaders, journalists, and intellectuals. The book reveals an international community that extends compassion to some victims while denying it to others. Gaza has become a mirror, a litmus test, and a moral blind spot in the West’s eye. Will our civilization survive this crisis of humanity? De Vogli challenges prevailing narratives and calls for a new solidarity grounded in universal empathy, social justice, and emotional decolonization.

This collection of essays offers a comprehensive examination of texts that traditionally have been excluded from the main corpus of the ancient Greek novel and confined to the margins of the genre, such as the Life of Aesop, the Life of Alexander the Great, and the Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Through comparison and contrast, intertextual analysis and close examination, the boundaries of the dichotomy between the “fringe” vs. the “canonical” or “erotic” novel are explored, and so the generic identity of the texts in each group is more clearly outlined. The collective outcome brings the “fringe” from the periphery of scholarly research to the centre of critical attention, and provides methodological tools for the exploration of other “fringe” texts.

Johan David Åkerblad (1763–1819) contributed to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Demotic and is known as a predecessor of Jean-François Champollion. This intellectual biography offers a new and less heroic interpretation of the first reading of the Egyptian scripts. Åkerblad, an exceptional linguist, was a diplomat and orientalist who spent several decades living in the Ottoman Empire, France and Italy. Of humble birth, he was a supporter of the French Revolution – something that stymied his career. His life cannot be understood in a purely Swedish national framework, and this study firmly situates him as an international scholar. The book discusses European expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean during the tumultuous decades around the year 1800, and traces Åkerblad’s momentous life in relation to the debates on ‘orientalism,’ the tradition of classical studies and the history of science.

Few Roman emperors enjoy such fame as Flavius Claudius Iulianus – although he was sole ruler of the Roman Empire for only eighteen months (361-363). Since his early death he has been known as Julian the Apostate – the nephew of Constantine the Great who in vain tried to reverse the transformation of the Imperium Romanum into a Christian Empire. This companion synthesizes research on Julian conducted in many languages over the last decades and develops new perspectives. The authors scrutinize the voluminous and variegated sources for Julian's life and rule and reflect on the perceptions of modern research. Since Julian is the subject of scholarly discussion in various fields, this companion offers an interdisciplinary dialogue in which experts from many countries participate.Contributors are Bruno Bleckmann, Scott Bradbury, Peter Heather, Arnaldo Marcone, Neil McLynn, Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, Stefan Rebenich, Christoph Riedweg, Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner, Peter van Nuffelen, Konrad Vössing, Hans-Ulrich Wiemer.

Today, a majority of asylum cases are arguably decided on the basis of evidentiary assessment rather than issues of material law. Although the EU-wide Common European Asylum System purports to harmonise domestic practices at a minimum level, it fails to offer remedies for this crucial issue, which poses challenges for practitioners and academics alike. Without a coherent approach to evidentiary assessment, asylum law will remain fragmented and open to discretionary excess.Up to now, academic research has not addressed issues of proof and credibility in the asylum procedure to an extent reflecting its practical importance. This edited volume attempts to fill the void. Academic experts on the theory of evidence, international criminal law, human rights law, refugee law, sociology of law and psychology have contributed chapters exploring both empirical and normative dimensions of evidentiary assessment. Drawing on the results of a 12-month research project within the framework of the Refugee Research Programme and of three interdisciplinary expert conferences held at the Danish Centre for Human Rights, Copenhagen, the Institute for International Integration Studies, Dublin, and the Faculty of Law, Lund, this volume sets new parameters for an informed debate on evidence in asylum cases.

In Renewing Royal Imagery: Akhenaten and Family in the Amarna Tombs, Arlette David offers a systematic, in-depth analysis of the visual presentation of ancient Egyptian kingship during Akhenaten's reign (circa 1350 B.C.) in the elite tombs of his new capital, domain of his god Aten, and attempts to answer two basic questions: how can Amarna imagery look so blatantly Egyptian and yet be intrinsically different? And why did it need to be so?

Theoretical Discussions of Biography: Approaches from History, Microhistory, and Life Writing offers comprehensive overviews by 14 academic scholars of the actual state of the field of Biography Studies. In the volume, edited by biography scholars Hans Renders and Binne de Haan, specifically the connections between biography and the fields of microhistory, journalism, and Life Writing illuminate key challenges and problems in studying individual lives. Different perspectives are provided on the ways in which biography contributes to scholarship in the humanities in general and academic historiography in particular. The contributing authors are academic experts in these fields and include Richard D. Brown, Carlo Ginzburg, Nigel Hamilton, Marlene Kadar, Giovanni Levi, Sabina Loriga, Matti Peltonen, and James Walter.

This lexicon is a contribution to the study of Turkic language varieties and to historical research on Central Asian civilization. What is here called Eastern Turki is a corpus of non-standardized, mostly oral Uyghur language items elicited from people who lived in southern Xinjiang in the late 1800's and early 1900's. With its abundance of designations of tools and utensils, vehicles, professions, food, customs and beliefs, animals and plants, soils and terrains, etc., it will help us envision a bygone local Uyghur mode of life and its physical prerequisites.

This volume introduces an important concept which hitherto has not gotten the recognition it deserves. The concept simul, the idea of a both-and in theology, is primarily associated with the Lutheran understanding of justification. The formula simul iustus et peccator is a shorthand for the nucleus and heart of the Reformation. But the concept, which implies a tension or even a paradox, appears to play a significant role in other areas of theological reflection. This volume highlights a number of areas in which this idea historically has played an important role, as well as its potential in the contemporary conversation. The aim of the work is to provide an informed and readable introduction to the simul concept in various areas of systematical theology and Biblical exegesis.

This book presents case studies and empirical data of a phenomenon which increasingly gains popularity in Western societies: deconversion. There is, the authors argue, no better word than deconversion to describe processes of disengagement from religious orientations because these have much in common with conversion. Termination of membership may eventually be the final step of deconversion, but it involves biographical and psychological dynamics which can and need to be reconstructed by qualitative approaches and analyzed by quantitative instruments.In the Bielefeld-based Cross-Cultural Study on Deconversion disengagement processes from a variety of religious backgrounds in the USA and in Germany were examined, ranging from well-established religious organizations to new religious and fundamentalist groups. Nearly 1,200 persons participated in thestudy and were interviewed from 2002 to 2005. In the focus of the study are 100 deconverts from the USA and from Germany who were examined with narrative interviews, faith development interviews and an extensive questionnaire. For case study elaboration, the study followed a research design with an innovative triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data. Four chapters, corresponding to four types of deconversion, present 21 case studies. The highlights of the research project are new data on spirituality – the deconverts in particular appear to prefer a »more spiritual than religious« self-identification – and in-depth analyses of a variety of deconversion narratives with special focus on personality factors, motivation, attitudes, religious development, psychological well-being and growth, religious fundamentalism and right-wing authoritarianism. The results of this project which was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft are of special relevance for counselling and pastoral care, for religious education and for people concerned with administration and management of religious groups and churches, but also for a wider audience interested in contemporary changes in the religious fields in the USA and Germany.

Sennacherib and his ill-fated siege of Jerusalem fascinated the ancient world. Twelve scholars—in Hebrew Bible, Assyriology, archaeology, Egyptology, Classics, Aramaic, Rabbinic and Christian literatures—examine how and why the Sennacherib story was told and re-told in more than a dozen cultures for over a thousand years. From Akkadian to Arabic, stories and legends about Sennacherib became the first vernacular tales of the imperial world. These essays address outstanding historical issues of the campaign and the sources, and press on to expose the stories’ theological and cultural roles in inner-cultural dialogues, ethnic origin stories, and morality tales. This book is the first of its kind for readers seeking out historical and historiographic bridges between the ancient and late antique worlds. "This work will undoubtedly serve as an important resource on the Assyrian attack on Jerusalem in 701..." Song-Mi Suzie Park, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Horizons in Biblical Theology

The notion of the ''spirit'' is dazzling: it has manifold meanings and plays a crucial role in Early Modern medicine, psychology, religion, natural philosophy and cosmology. This book explores how those disciplines conceived of the spirits and shows that knowledge of the spirits is an essential prerequisite for the understanding of Renaissance literature and music. The volume focusses on the way in which the spirits act upon the soul''s perception, imagination and cognition, and on the cultural practices which aim to use or to purge or to ban the spirits.

“The most important of all things sought.” Thus the Syriac Orthodox monk Rabban Daniel Ibn al-Ḥaṭṭāb describes the subject of The Principles of Religion, written in the 13th century, probably in South-East Anatolia. In this treatise, Rabban Daniel Ibn al-Ḥaṭṭāb systematically explained and defended fundamental commitments of Syriac Orthodox theology.This volume provides an introduction, a critical edition of the Arabic text, an English translation, and extensive commentary on the influences on The Principles of Religion, particularly from Syriac sources. This editio princeps offers the reader a new window into the literary culture of the Syriac Orthodox Church during the years of the Syriac Renaissance.

Dionysius bar Salībī, a prominent 12th-century Syriac Orthodox bishop and scholar, played a key role in shaping Syriac Christian theology during a period of significant political upheaval in the eastern Mediterranean. His vast intellectual contributions spanned all major ecclesiastical disciplines of his time, including numerous theological works and scriptural commentaries. This volume brings together nine scholarly essays that explore his writings, theological insights, and his active role in both interreligious and intra-Christian debates. By examining his legacy, these studies highlight how Bar Ṣalībī both consolidated and reshaped Syriac traditions to address the challenges of his era. The volume offers a wide range of perspectives on his enduring influence, underlining the significance of his multi-faceted contributions to Syriac Christianity.

This book takes a fresh look at the relationship between aspect, tense and mood in Early Vedic, the language of the Rigveda. Although numerous studies have examined the functional range of individual verbal categories in this language, this work is the first attempt to approach this problem from an overall, systemic perspective. With insights from formal semantics and linguistic typology, the author demonstrates that aspect represents a grammatically relevant semantic dimension on a par with tense in the Early Vedic verbal system, thereby indicating that the language has preserved an aspectual opposition similar to the one found in Homeric Greek. Apart from these general findings, the book provides a theoretical framework designed for exploring inflectional semantics in dead languages.

Proto-Slavic, the reconstructed ancestor of the Slavic languages, presents a rich inflectional system inherited from Proto-Indo-European. In this handbook all the inflectional endings of Proto-Slavic are traced back to Proto-Indo-European through a systematic comparison with the corresponding forms in related languages.Applying a redefinition of Proto-Slavic based on prehistoric loanword relations with neighbouring non-Slavic languages, Thomas Olander provides a new look at the Proto-Slavic inflectional system. The systematic, coherent and exhaustive approach laid out in the handbook paves the way for new solutions to long-standing problems of Slavic historical grammar.

This book offers no less than a radically different view of the Koryŏ state. Until now scholarship failed to recognize the complicated historical descent, byzantine international relations and multiple incommensurable worldviews of the early Korean Koryŏ state (918-1170). Instead, it subjected these to reductionist categories favouring reified particulars over broader views. Asking how Koryŏ meaningfully dealt with its environment, Remco Breuker rejects the reduction of Koryŏ intellectual abundance to analytical categories, and emphasizes the functional importance of Koryŏ’s pluralism in allowing the notion that realities were scattered, inconsistent and plural. Here is a convincing argument that Koryŏ’s pluralism decisively contributed to the formation of a region-transcending communal identity that enabled Koryŏ to engage in a civilizational competition with neighbouring Chinese and Manchurian states, while maintaining a dynamic but stable society domestically.

This book presents a synchronic and diachronic study of all verbal classes and categories of the Tocharian branch of Indo-European. It lists all attested Tocharian verbal forms, together with semantic and etymological information. The material has been subject to careful philological evaluation and incorporates unedited or unpublished texts of the Berlin, London, and Paris collections. In addition, this study consistently takes into account the linguistic variation within the Tocharian B language and the relative chronology of texts. Moreover, Tocharian offers crucial evidence for the reconstruction of the PIE verbal system, and is also of interest to the general linguist for the interaction of voice and valency.

Intertwined with the histories of Arab migration to the Americas from the nineteenth century until now, the emergence of competing nationalist narratives within Arab communities in Latin America, and the birth of anti-imperialist and anticolonial struggles, the history of cultural entanglements between the Arab world and Latin America spans over a hundred years––and reveals the vital role of art in creating bridges between the two regions. This book, the first of its kind, gathers interventions that showcase the twentieth century as a period of intense redefinitions and cultural effervescence across the whole of Latin America and the Arab world. The result is a polished image of the twentieth century as a period whose shifting categories of affiliation were tied to events and movements that connected the two regions in ever deepening ways, and to forms of artful experimentation through which political ideologies, alternative collective identities, and aesthetic movements could be contested or embraced.Contributors are Diogo Bercito, Kevin Funk, Silvina Schammah Gesser, Laure Guirguis, Olivier Hadouchi, Julia Solana Jáuregui, John Tofik Karam, Edgardo Manero, Mariano Mestman, Gabriella Nugent, Maru Pabón, Laura Reali and Juan José Vagni.

Mapping South–South Connections during the Decolonization Process and Cold War (1810–1990): The Islamicate and Ibero-American Worlds offers a groundbreaking exploration of the period's historical, political, and cultural networks. Through interdisciplinary approaches—from diplomacy and visual culture to women’s studies and political science—this volume highlights state and non-state actors who shaped international relations beyond Euro-American paradigms. Rooted in a research project and major international conference, and enriched by additional contributions, it introduces original studies on underexplored connections between Ibero-America and the Islamicate world, often drawing on primary sources difficult to access due to geographic, linguistic, or political barriers.Contributors are Martín Bergel, Fernando Camacho Padilla, Eudald Cortina Orero, Fernando Escribano Martín, Alberto García Molinero, Mario Matus González, Raffaele Mauriello, Reinaldo M. Sánchez Porro, Juan José Vagni, and Barış Ahmet Yörümez.