Within Iran, the transformation in the Islamic legal understanding of the foreign (ajnabi) into a political concept was accelerated by the encounter with Europe during the 19th century. The classical Iranian understanding of otherness as a domain fully demarcated from the self was replaced by an internalized other, resulting in what we call here…[Read more]

In the summer of 2011, an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov (1887) debuted on the Iranian stage. The director and playwright Amir-Reza Koohestani (b. 1978) created a production that was faithful to the classic status of this text while also maximizing its resonance with a contemporary Iranian audience. I explore how Koohestani achieved this b…[Read more]

A bibliography on public corruption (moral, political, financial, judiciary) especially focusing on contemporary Spain. From ‘A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism, and Philology’ (2021), http://bit.ly/abibliog

Comentamos en este artículo la figura de los cíclopes en Homero y en Vico, leyéndola como un arquetipo cultural y psicológico de la sociedad protohumana. Los dos aspectos complementarios del mito (como tradición cultural que se remonta a la prehistoria, y como estructura psicológica, referida a la socialización y al desarrollo psicológico individ…[Read more]

A bibliography on the Spanish political party Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) – from ‘A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology’ http://bit.ly/abibliog

Over two percent of the Egyptian population perished during World War I due to starvation, malnutrition, and disease. Although technically neutral, Egypt was the staging ground for British and Dominion troops fighting the campaign against the Ottoman Empire. The prioritization of military needs led to government recruitment of civilian…[Read more]

Purportedly in response to a request by his unnamed beloved one, the late 18th-century Ottoman poet Ḥasan-i Yāver wrote Poetry’s Artistry, a 441-verse mathnawī that offers some hands-on advice for trying one’s hand at poetry. As tashbīh, jinās, kināya, taḍādd, taḍmīn, ilmām, iltifāt, tardīd, ishtibāh, tawriya, īhām, takhmīs, tarkīb-band,…[Read more]

In this article we trace the history of Urban Renewal in Lansing through a collaborative research project involving undergraduate students and the course instructor. Looking in fine-grain detail at the block and individual house level, the project reveals the patchwork of discrimination that African Americans faced in accessing housing in the…[Read more]

An overview of taxation in ancient states.

A short story about the pitfals of a new law, the General Act for the Dismantling of Normalising Power and Structures of Privilege, and, more philosophically, about the problems of institutionalizing progressive politics through law. Published in The Cabinat of Imaginary Laws, by Peter Goodrich and Thanos Zartaloudis: Returning to the map of the…[Read more]

One of the main arguments used to legitimise Christian military expansion in medieval Iberia was the location of the origin of the Christian Iberian kingdoms in the ancient Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo (507–711), which established a notion of political continuity between these entities. The legitimacy of the Visigothic Kingdom was reflected in t…[Read more]

One of the main arguments used to legitimise Christian military expansion in medieval Iberia was the location of the origin of the Christian Iberian kingdoms in the ancient Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo (507–711), which established a notion of political continuity between these entities. The legitimacy of the Visigothic Kingdom was reflected in t…[Read more]