The ruins of church-mosques, museums, and ancient cities inform material culture as allegories inform spiritual life, invoking transcendence amidst desacralization. Drawing on Benjamin, Jameson, and Koselleck to advance our understanding of the functioning of ruins across time, this ethnography of ruins engages with the paradoxes generated by…[Read more]

While the cosmopolitan turn in political and literary theory encourages us to move beyond national frameworks, the Caucasus remains mired in ethno-national categories from the Soviet past. This essay examines how these categories are being mobilized in the service of a nominally cosmopolitan agenda in the contemporary memorialization of the writer…[Read more]

How does colonial violence generate anticolonial resistance? Is violence ever justified, whether as an end or as a means? What aesthetic strategies do writers deploy to legitimate the exercise of violence? What is the relationship between militant insurgency and literary form? Posing these and other questions, this course offers an introduction to…[Read more]

In the summer of 1704, Antonio Vallisneri (1661–1730), the preeminent Italian physician and natural philosopher of his time, traveled with a “daring soul” and “trembling feet” across the “silent horrors” of the northern Apennines: down the hills south of Reggio Emilia to northern Tuscany and the western edge of his native land, the Province of G…[Read more]

Entry on Senagelese filmmaker and writer Ousmane Sembène.

Es bien conocido que la Relación sumaria de la Historia verdadera del Rey Don Pedro (PhiloBiblon BETA Texid 3377) es una de las obras de mayor complejidad analítica en toda la literatura hispánica de finales de la Edad Media y comienzo del Renacimiento. No solo en lo que concierne a su laberíntico entramado ecdótico, del que se han ocupado inve…[Read more]

Since its first attempts to understand natural phenomena, early modern science devoted great attention to the problematic issue of the origin of springs. This essay examines the lively debate that emerged from the studies on fresh water during the years spanning from the mid-sixteenth century to the early eighteenth. By focusing on the…[Read more]

In 1687, after he graduated in Medicine, young Antonio Vallisneri (1661-1730) returned in the Duchy of Modena and Reggio. In those years he mainly served as general practitioner; nevertheless, he also devoted many studies to various aspects of the natural sciences. He performed many observations, accurately reporting them in seven “Quaderni”…[Read more]

This paper deals with the identification of the microscope used by the Italian physician and naturalist Antonio Vallisneri (1661-1730) during his research activity. The investigation was structured in three phases: a) a first text analysis on published and manuscript sources, looking for information about the microscope(s) used by Vallisneri; b)…[Read more]

Nigerian authors have consistently and effectively critiqued insidious connections between
masculinity, political power, religious fundamentalism, and capitalist interests. The unstable
political structures in Nigeria since the 1970s have led to such critiques. This essay deploys the
idea of polygamy in Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the S…[Read more]

Los estudios lexicográficos medievales siempre son muy bien recibidos por la comunidad
académica, pues, al fin y al cabo, tanto la reconstrucción de las sociedades del pasado como la reproducción y edición de textos de aquellos tiempos han de nutrirse de las correctas acepciones semánticas de los vocablos contenidos en los textos que nos sirve…[Read more]

Los estudios lexicográficos medievales siempre son muy bien recibidos por la comunidad
académica, pues, al fin y al cabo, tanto la reconstrucción de las sociedades del pasado como la reproducción y edición de textos de aquellos tiempos han de nutrirse de las correctas acepciones semánticas de los vocablos contenidos en los textos que nos sirve…[Read more]

Los estudios lexicográficos medievales siempre son muy bien recibidos por la comunidad
académica, pues, al fin y al cabo, tanto la reconstrucción de las sociedades del pasado como la reproducción y edición de textos de aquellos tiempos han de nutrirse de las correctas acepciones semánticas de los vocablos contenidos en los textos que nos sirve…[Read more]

Spaniards often feel surprised when they visualise the renowned drawing reproduced below, ascribed (erroneously as it seems, but that is another story) to Lucas Cornelisz van Kunst, the successful Dutch painter of the Tudor era. A brief glance to John of Gaunt’s portrait suffices to notice the distinctive coat of arms of the English members of t…[Read more]

Depuis 1912, innombrables textes – romans, radio shows, bandes dessinées, séries de télévision, films – ont produit et articulé représentations de l’Afrique dans histoires dont le protagoniste est Tarzan, créé par l’étasunien Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). En prenant le nom « Afrique » comme référence, les textes qui orbitent et habitent…[Read more]

Speculation about how the social history of early-modern England could be made more sophisticated by including animals.

Com base na hipótese de que a emergência histórica dos cinemas africanos e sua contemporaneidade são indissociáveis de uma reivindicação do direito de olhar, de narrar e de imaginar o mundo, este artigo busca estabelecer um quadro conceitual para uma história das formas de imaginação do comum nos cinemas africanos. Nessa história ainda a escrever…[Read more]

The central topic of João Botelho’s “Um adeus português” (1986), is memory in 1980s Portuguese society. The film alternates scenes from 1973, during the colonial war in Africa, with scenes set in 1985, in rural and urban areas of Portugal. In the present essay, I argue that the film enacts the need for a conversation among the Portuguese by opti…[Read more]