“Biopolitics” has become a popular concept for interpreting the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the term is often used vaguely, as a buzzword, and therefore loses its specificity and relevance. This article systematically explains what the biopolitical lens offers for analyzing and normatively criticizing the politics of the coronavirus. I argue that…[Read more]

English abstract: ‘Verses of Love’, an Islamic film on the extended couple, features a melodramatic plot in which love triumphs after many difficulties, and the virtuous protagonists Fahri and Aisha are happy in their marriage, having shown the value of their Islamic faith amidst the trials of life—accepting these with sumbission, which is the s…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: Comentarios sobre la guerra desde un punto de vista etológico y evolucionista, sugeridos por el libro de Javier Falgueras ‘Somos Hijos de la Guerra’. _________________________________________________________________________________ English abstract: Disquisitions on war from an ethological and evolutionary perspective, suggested…[Read more]

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]

This essay explores Maimonides’ explanation of the Bible’s rationale behind the ritual sacrifices, namely to help wean the Jews away from idolatrous rites. After clearly elucidating Maimonides’ stance on the topic, this essay examines his view from different angles with various possible precedents in earlier rabbinic literature for such an under…[Read more]

This essay explores Maimonides’ explanation of the Bible’s rationale behind the ritual sacrifices, namely to help wean the Jews away from idolatrous rites. After clearly elucidating Maimonides’ stance on the topic, this essay examines his view from different angles with various possible precedents in earlier rabbinic literature for such an under…[Read more]

This essay explores Maimonides’ explanation of the Bible’s rationale behind the ritual sacrifices, namely to help wean the Jews away from idolatrous rites. After clearly elucidating Maimonides’ stance on the topic, this essay examines his view from different angles with various possible precedents in earlier rabbinic literature for such an under…[Read more]

This book collects papers by many eminent scholars and young researchers on the topic of confrontation and historical, cultural, and economic relationships between East and West, particularly focusing on how the Orient was experienced and interpreted by Western travellers, historians, and scholars (of past and present times) in the light of E.…[Read more]

In this paper I employ social scientific theories that conceptualize space as existing in physical, mental and symbolic fields simultaneously, and combine them with memory studies, in order to offer a new reading of how the authors of Leviticus construed Israel’s cultic origins and what aims they were pursuing with this composition.

‘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]

Presentación del libro “Atomic Surfer” [CANCELADA] Librería Mágica
11 de diciembre de 2021

A bibliographical listing, including audio, video, etc., from the perspective of critical and cultural studies, on the 2020-2021 SARS-CoV-2 pandemic scare (Coronavirus, COVID-19). From ‘A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism, and Philology’, 2021.

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]

In: “Connecting Territories: Exploring People and Nature, 1700-1850,” eds. S. Boscani Leoni, S. Baumgartner and M. Knittel, Leiden, Brill, 2021, pp. 54-57.

This paper aims to disambiguate the proper name “Seth” and its cognates or homonyms – perfect or imperfect – in texts from ancient Egypt, the Near East and the Mediterranean. It considers: (1) the Suteans, West Semitic Amorite/Aramean nomads who feature negatively in Mesopotamian records; (2) S(h)eth in the Hebrew bible, in which a dispara…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: Los paleantropólogos de Atapuerca van descubriendo más datos sobre la alimentación de los Homo heidelbergensis y Homo antecessor que habitaron la Península Ibérica antes del Homo sapiens y de los neandertales. Aquí reflexionamos sobre el componente de canibalismo en la dieta de estos y otros humanos primitivos… así como de alg…[Read more]