The historical narrative of water purity tends to chart a process of secularisation with an
increasing importance on cleanliness. We suggest otherwise – that rhetorically at least, water
has never been secularised. Moral impurity and water contamination have a long and
interrelated history. Even before the connection had been made between c…[Read more]

The historical narrative of water purity tends to chart a process of secularisation with an
increasing importance on cleanliness. We suggest otherwise – that rhetorically at least, water
has never been secularised. Moral impurity and water contamination have a long and
interrelated history. Even before the connection had been made between c…[Read more]

What is philosophy? That’s a good question—not because there’s no answer, but because what’s involved in posing it points up something essential to philosophy. In the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, Spinoza sets out what’s required by a definition. A circle, a typical definition might run, is a figure in which all lines drawn fro…[Read more]

As technology enables us to communicate with one another in unpredictable ways that allow for an unprecedented public exchange of diverse ideas, cultivating the philosophical habits of an engaged fallibilistic pluralism gains in urgency. The emergence of the World Wide calls us to consider how an ethics of philosophy might enable us to cultivate…[Read more]

This is a comprehensive reassessment of Aristotle’s concept of tragic hamartia, and its different interpretations from the 1530s to the present day, in the context of Aristotle’s theory of action.

This is a review of the book on visual intelligence written by Prof. Donald D. Hoffman. This review questions the view that we create what we see. It is argued that we rather create a representation of reality. This view is peddled using a discussion around frames of reference.

Review about Elvira Asensi book’s “Música mestre!”, about Valencian wind orchestras at the beginning of the 20th century.

A principis dels anys 90, amb el boom del Rock català, comença formar-se tota una escena musical pròpia dels Països Catalans, amb un model de funcionament diferenciat del de l’escena espanyola. Actualment, aquesta escena ha canviat, s’han obert noves vies: per una banda, l’eco del Rock català segueix vigent, mentre que per l’altra es…[Read more]

El cant de la Sibil·la és una tradició medieval que avui encara es canta a l’illa de Mallorca durant la nit de Nadal. Però existeixen traces que demostren el coneixement popular d’aquesta representació a l’illa de Menorca almenys fins al segle XIX.

The Chant of the Sibyl is a medieval tradition that is still sung in the island of Mallorca duri…[Read more]

The use of water as an expressive trope of spiritual hygiene was widespread among monastic writers of the twelfth century, adapted for different uses in different genres. Aqueous imagery was particularly frequent within allegories or didactic figurae exploring the care of the soul as if it were a material body, with a constitution that could be…[Read more]

This paper proposes that we can reimagine insular literatures and medieval islescapes as commodious seas of cultural and intellectual loci that span time, culture, and text alike. By moving beyond the rhetoric of insular separation or connectivity, we can see that islands connect even when medieval minds saw separation. The essay focuses on the…[Read more]

This article is a discussion of the “discourse on the unthinkable” surrounding potential future democratic engagements with rivers as non-human persons or natural objects. In the context of the Asia–Pacific region, this article suggests that the developments in material philosophy entitled “new materialism” are essential tools in the reconcept…[Read more]

Gathering into lively conversation scholars in medieval, early modern and object studies, Inhuman Nature explores the activity of the things, forces, and relations that enable, sustain and operate indifferently to us. Enamored by fictions of environmental sovereignty, we too often imagine “human” to be a solitary category of being. This col…[Read more]

This article explores the representation of hunger and thirst as faculties within medieval spiritual allegory that existed at two forms. In their bodily form, hunger and thirst represented a feeling of lack indicating the need for sustenance. In their figurative moralised form these needs came to represent a longing for that which was missing…[Read more]

In the context of the global water crisis, we seek an understanding of the histories of water management, their fashioning, and their legacy today. We juxtapose temporally diverse narratives to explore the premodern imaginings that have shaped our inheritance of hydrological thought. Rather than conceptualize their historical influence as a linear…[Read more]

Recent years have seen an infusion of new ideas into material philosophy through the work of the so-called ‘new materialists’. Poignant examples appear within two recent books: the first, Vibrant Matter by Jane Bennett (2010), sets out to “enhance receptivity to the impersonal life that surrounds and infuses us” (2010: 4). The second, Element…[Read more]

The Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity series undertook this translation of a monumental synthetic study of ecclesiology in the Gospel of Matthew by notable German scholar Matthias Konradt. Israel, Church, and the Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew is a meticulously researched and provocative challenge to latent anti-Semitism and…[Read more]

Virginia Tech professor Brian Britt presents this far-reaching study on biblical curses and their reception history. Britt’s introduction clearly sets out his goals for the book, especially the importance of distinguishing between the general power of curses in the ancient world and the general profanity of curses in early modern modern Europe and beyond.

University of Lethbridge professor Kevin McGeough presents a meticulous and thorough three-volume series on the reception of Near Eastern culture, his- tory, and art in nineteenth-century Europe and America. Both in the introduction to the first volume and throughout the series, McGeough makes clear the fascination held by Western entities such as…[Read more]