In the Arabic-speaking mahjar (diaspora), the plight of the working poor was the focus of women’s philanthropy. Scholarship on welfare relief in the interwar Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian diaspora currently situates it within a gendered politics of benevolence. This article reconsiders that frame and argues for a class-centered reassessment o…[Read more]

First translated into Persian in 1949, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is among the most popular works of American fiction in Iran. Although the anti-US policy of the post-1979 political system has tried to erase the manifestations of the previous period’s American influence, Iranian interest in Huckleberry Finn has been inc…[Read more]

نوگرایی شعری در کشورهای مختلف با پذیرش والت ویتمن، پدر شعر آزاد امریکا همراه بوده‌است. روندی مشابه در شعر فارسی نیز مشاهده می‌شود. آشنایی فارسی‌زبانان با ویتمن به زمانی برمی‌گردد که شعر فارسی در آستانة تحول بود. نخست یوسف اعتصام‌الملک در سال ۱۳۰۱ بخش کوتاهی از شعر ویتمن را ترجمه و در مجلة بهار منتشر کرد. بعدها پروین اعتصامی در شعر «جولای خ…[Read more]

Among the monuments of Brazilian modernist architecture, the Catetinho, built in 1956 near the construction site of Brasília, is one of a kind. The only surviving work by Oscar Niemeyer built out of wood, it was intended to be a temporary office for the President of the Republic during the construction of the new capital city. This work discusses…[Read more]

‘Independence’ for bantustans was universally rejected by the international community in
the late 1970s and early 1980s. How the status of Lesotho and Swaziland as
internationally recognised states deeply embedded in South Africa’s economic and
political orbit differed from that of the bantustans was clear in some cases, murky in
others. The a…[Read more]

The Irish Sea which separates Great Britain and Ireland has often been written about in terms of divisions, threats, and hazards. Facing each other across that sea, the coast of Wales and Ireland’s eastern seaboard have a more complex story to tell, one characterised by intimate if troubled lines of connection. A place of passage for centuries, t…[Read more]

Two sections of a book comparing creation myths from ancient Greece and Rome with their Japanese counterparts from the early 8th Century Kojiki (古事記, “Records of Ancient Matters”). These fusion essays are summations of previous book sections by Greek and Japanese authors on the elements of fire and air, respectively, and, drawing from Plato and J…[Read more]

How could the ideal of a universal brotherhood of mankind be realized in an age of nationalism, colonialism and culture wars? “With God, for fatherland and humanity?” is the first comprehensive study of masonic internationalism. It explores, with a focus on England, France, Germany, and Italy, how European masonic associations promoted or opposed…[Read more]

The “Spanish influenza” pandemic that struck Egypt in fall 1918 resulted in the death of eleven out of every one thousand people. Despite the mass suffering caused by the pandemic, it has been largely ignored by historians. I describe how the Egyptian public health service was unprepared for a major health crisis because resources were red…[Read more]

Musical celebrations of the feast of St Cecilia were common in Europe since the fifteenth century and throughout the sixteenth century. Of the many composers who wrote music for this festivity we find four mid-sixteenth-century compositions by French composers. Two motets Cantantibus orgnis and Cecilia virgo gloriosa – by Pierre Certon which…[Read more]

The first section of the text of the unusual 1533 volume published by both Giovanni Battista and Teofilo Folengo: dialogues and prose pieces, inclduing the first of the Psalms commentaries published, together with a translation into English and annotations.

Surprising volume of what looks like biblical commentary but is parody and erotica

Oversized volume of biblical commentary published in 1543 (and again in 1549, 1557, 1585, 1594) that is actually a parody which features the erotic lexicon popular in its day

Glossary of approximately 11,800 Latin words with English translations from GB Folengo’s works (1543-1559)

Hindu religious continuity among Buddhists: 2056 The Challenges

Mahatma Gandhi-led untouchability movement in Wardha district

Die Debatte um die politische Differenz stellt Kontingenz und Konfliktualität als fundamentale Eigenschaften des Politischen heraus. Dies birgt ein Problem für die postfundamentalistische Demokratietheorie, die auf Augenhöhe mit dieser Debatte argumentieren will: Durch die Kontingentsetzung aller normativen Begründungen ist zunächst unklar, welc…[Read more]

Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) wrote and published in an era in which a highly developed erotic code was adopted by dozens and dozens of writers in Italy, and presumably understood by tens of thousands of readers in Europe. A most helpful text for decoding the erotic lexicon was written by Jean Toscan: Le carnaval du langage: le lexique érotique des…[Read more]

In 1525, Pietro Bembo in his Prose della volgar lingua published a condemnation of Dante’s Comedy that has often passed for linguistic and cultural criticism, yet might be better understood as satire.