In this paper I discuss Elias Ashmole’s collections and views about John Dee. I consider Dee as an object of collection against the broader background of Ashmole’s collecting practices. I also look at the uses to which Ashmole put some of his collections relating to Dee, as well as those which he envisaged for posterity. I argue that Ashmole’s interest in Dee stemmed from his ideas about the uses of antiquity in the reconstruction and transmission of knowledge. They partly reflected (...) Ashmole’s interpretation of Francis Bacon’s Advancement of learning as well as the influence of William Backhouse and William Oughtred’s ideas about publishing natural philosophy in English. (shrink)

This essay aims to reappraise Agnes Arber's contribution to the history of science with reference to her work in the history of botany and biology. Both her first and her last books are classics: the former in the history of botany, the latter in that of biology. As such, they are still cited today, albeit with increasing criticism. Her very last book was rejected by Cambridge University Press because it did not meet the publisher's academic standards – we shall return (...) to it in due course. Despite Kathryn Packer's two essays about Arber's life in context, much remains to be done toward a just appreciation of her research. We need such a reappraisal in order to avoid anachronistic criticisms of her contributions to the historiography of botany, or, on the other hand, uncritical applause for her studies in plant morphology. (shrink)

Italian Constitutional Justice in Global Context is the first book ever published in English to provide an international examination of the Italian Constitutional Court, offering a comprehensive analysis of its principal lines of jurisprudence, historical origins, organization, procedures, and its current engagement with transnational European law. The ItCC represents one of the strongest and most successful examples of constitutional judicial review, and is distinctive in its structure, institutional dimensions, and well-developed jurisprudence. Moreover, the ItCC has developed a distinctive voice among (...) global constitutional actors in its adjudication of a broad range of topics from fundamental rights and liberties to the allocations of governmental power and regionalism. Nevertheless, in global constitutional dialog, the voice of the ItCC has been almost entirely absent due to a relative lack of both English translations of its decisions and of focused scholarly commentary in English.This book describes the "Italian Style" in global constitutional adjudication, and aims to elevate Italian constitutional jurisprudence to an active participant role in global constitutional discourse. The authors have carefully structured the work to allow the ItCC's own voice to emerge. It presents broad syntheses of major areas of the Court's case law, provides excerpts from notable decisions in a narrative and analytical context, addresses the tension between the ItCC and the Court of Cassation, and positions the development, character, and importance of the ItCC's jurisprudence in the larger arc of global judicial dialog. (shrink)

Ist Geschichtsdarstellung ein transparentes Fenster zu einer faktischen Vergangenheit? Oder verlieren Fakten ihre Verbindlichkeit zugunsten der Repräsentation? Der vorliegende Band weist einen vermittelnden Weg zwischen diesen Extremen. Jenseits der positivistisch verstandenen historischen Fakten sowie der infolge des linguistic turn häufig behaupteten Unzugänglichkeit und Unentscheidbarkeit der faktischen Vergangenheit wird die Geschichtsdarstellung selbst als das eigentlich Greifbare zur Geltung gebracht. Geschichte ist demnach in ihrer Darstellung zu suchen – unabhängig davon, ob es sich um historiographische Quellen, literarische Texte, Gemälde oder um Museen (...) als mediale Darstellungsräume handelt. Die Beiträge gehen einem breiten Spektrum unterschiedlicher Dimensionen von Geschichtsdarstellung nach. Medien, Methoden und Strategien bilden dabei die zentralen Koordinaten, anhand derer Geschichtsdarstellung mit ihren narrativen und bildlichen Ausdrucksformen exemplarisch erörtert wird. Mit Beiträgen von Wolfgang Frühwald, Werner Goez, Thomas Kirchner, Wolfgang Müller-Funk, Otto Gerhard Oexle, Antonios Rengakos, Hermann Schäfer, Jörg Schönert, Howard Weinbrot, Horst Wenzel und Gernot R. Wieland. (shrink)

Die Korrespondenz zwischen körperlichen Merkmalen und dem Charakter eines Menschen, die im 19. Jahrhundert die Matrix für die Naturwissenschaften fungierte, stellt heute die Basis von Lifestyle-Normen oder auch von psychologischer und medizinischer Diagnostik dar. Infolge strukturalistisch-semiotischer Methoden gilt die Physiognomik immer noch als Deutungsdispositiv bei Formen literarischer Personendarstellungen oder philosophischer Deutung menschlichen Antlitzes. In den durch umfangreiche mediale und technische Umwälzungen hervorgebrachten Modellierungen der Sinnlichkeit erweist sich die Physiognomik auch als Paradigma des Enhancements. Der Band untersucht historisch und systematisch die (...) biopolitische Performativität physiognomischer Praktiken der Selbst- und Fremddeutung, ihre Gestaltung sowie ihre Transformationen durch neue Technologien. Er diskutiert ihre materiell-mediale Dynamik, das in der Ästhetik von Texten und Medien implizierte Lebenswissen, Formen der Affektforschung sowie die anthropozentrischen Implikationen der Physiognomik. (shrink)

This paper decentres the predominance of statism and deliberation in ecological democracy scholarship. We use insights from eco-anarchism and cosmopolitics to identify democratic configurations beyond capitalism and its entanglement with the nation-state. These configurations are premised on the idea that sustainability transformation not only implies a move beyond capitalism and the nation-state, but might comprise their dismantling. We propose and apply an analytical framework encompassing the dimensions actors, praxis and processes and institution(s) to contrast these three political theories and bring (...) forward a diversity of democratic praxes that revolve around the generation of autonomy and the building of multispecies political communities. Finally, we discuss transformation possibilities from within the capitalist nation-state and propose research directions for post-statist, autonomous and diverse ecological democracies. (shrink)

Different immunotherapeutic approaches are in the pipeline for the treatment of drug dependence. “Drug vaccines” aim to induce the immune system to produce antibodies that bind to drugs and prevent them from inducing rewarding effects in the brain. Drugs of abuse currently being tested using these new approaches are opioids, nicotine, cocaine, and methamphetamine. In human clinical trials, “cocaine and nicotine vaccines” have been shown to induce sufficient antibody levels while producing few side effects. Studies in humans, determining how these (...) vaccines interact in combination with their target drug, are underway. However, although vaccines can become a reasonable treatment option for drugs of abuse, there are several disadvantages that must be considered. These include i) great individual variability in the formation of antibodies, ii) the lack of protection against a structurally dissimilar drug that produces the same effects as the drug of choice, and iii) the lack of an effect on the drug desire that may predispose an addict to relapse. In addition, a comprehensive overview of several crucial ethical issues has not yet been widely discussed in order to have not only a biological approach to immunotherapy of addiction. Overall, immunotherapy offers a range of possible treatment options: the pharmacological treatment of addiction, the treatment of overdoses, the prevention of toxicity to the brain or the heart, and the protection of the fetus during pregnancy. So far, the results obtained from a small-scale experiment using vaccines against cocaine and nicotine suggest that a number of important technical challenges still need to be overcome before such vaccines can be approved for clinical use. (shrink)

This article addresses recent strains of white nationalism rooted within anxieties over demographic replacement. More broadly, the article argues that the contemporary politics of white grievance cannot be reduced to an ahistorical desire for racial supremacy. Rather, these anxieties represent the political reflex to perceptions of loss on the part of historical white majorities—a loss that takes a distinctly melancholic form in both discourse and practice. To understand white nationalism as a melancholic politics is to recognize the pathologies that stem (...) from its underlying psychodynamics. At the affectual level, for instance, the subject of white grievance is constituted as the subject of politicized rage through its organizing narratives. And ultimately, the politics of melancholic whiteness raises significant challenges for a democratic polity. Most fundamentally, the melancholic fixation upon loss forecloses the futurity required by a democratic politics. Upon diagnosing these destructive pathologies, the article goes on to propose alternatives to approach civic change in less destructive, more democratically generative fashion. (shrink)

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) initiatives are spaces where diverse work relations are performed. From a postcapitalist perspective, these initiatives attempt to create alternative-capitalist and non-capitalist work relations next to capitalist ones. While analyses of work relations in CSA abound, it remains uncertain how such diversification is made possible and how it is shaped by the micro-politics of and power relations in these initiatives. This paper addresses this gap by analysing how power shapes transformations to postcapitalist work relations in CSA. It provides (...) substantial empirical evidence of multiple manifestations of power enabling or constraining postcapitalist work relations through a comparative case study of three CSA initiatives in Portugal. Results show that while CSA creates postcapitalist work relations that are non-alienated, non-monetised and full of care, they insufficiently unmake unbalanced power relations established in capitalist work relations. This paper argues that, when establishing postcapitalist work relations, the selected CSA initiatives could benefit from actively deconstructing internal hierarchies, de-centralising decision-making power from farm owners and addressing oppressive power relations that are ossified in their local and cultural context. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno’s interest in magic was not a marginal aspect of his philosophy. In the magical works written in 1589 and 1591, Bruno carried out his project of a cultural reform, which he also conceived as a pratical renovatio. In De magia naturali Bruno undertook a careful theoretical reexamination of Renaissance magic in order to ground its "experimental data" on physical foundation. Some traditional notions , which Bruno found in his sources and made use of, are analyzed in his paper (...) to show the deep change they underwent in the light of Bruno’s new ontology and cosmology. (shrink)

Judith Butler’s meditations on precarity have received considerable attention in recent years. This article proposes that an undertheorized strain of her argument offers productive resources for theorizing violence. The question extends beyond material acts, to ask how certain groups are rendered eligible for heightened, regularized violence – and, by extension, how liberal subjects are rendered complicit with policies at odds with their universalist commitments. At stake is a politics of sensibility that complicates and enriches juridico-institutionalist models. That said, when Butler’s (...) account is brought to bear on a wider range of cases, it encounters a set of questions it is not prepared to answer on its own terms. Accordingly, I propose some directions the argument would need to be expanded to do justice to its own normative intuitions. (shrink)

In _Historia animalium_ VIII 1.588a18 ff., Aristotle describes the cognitive powers of non-human animals as sketches of human cognitive powers. According to the wording he chooses here, the cognitive powers of non-human animals are “traces” or “footprints” (ἴχνη, 588a19) of human ones. In this paper I explore the conceptual framework that lays behind this image, in order to show that it is much more than a rhetorical figure, and that Aristotle’s wording encompasses a whole articulated theory, whose details are set (...) out in _De anima_ and the _Parva naturalia_. Moreover, I try to clarify some technicalities of the scientific model he devises in order to explain certain features of the sensory-perceptual part of the soul (with particular attention to the perception of the so-called “common” and “incidental” sensory items) that bear a real analogy to the functions of reason and intellect, and that can consequently be considered their precursors. (shrink)

Na educação popular brasileira o termo �conscientização� é de uso muito freqüente. Muito citado nos diálogos cotidianos e nas elaborações escritas, não é sempre problematizado e historiado. Muitas vezes, especialmente nos âmbitos da educação formal, a circulação deste termo perdeu o seu sentido mais profundo e suas implicações políticas de transformação da sociedade. Neste artigo se problematiza o termo �conscientização� a partir da reflexão sobre outra palavra que pertence a filosofia política: a �práxis�. A práxis e seu vínculo com a (...) ação prático-reflexiva provoca o sentido político da conscientização e sua ligação com a experiência transformadora da educação. (shrink)

This article intervenes in recent debates surrounding Adorno’s contribution to critical social theory. Where it is something of a commonplace to argue that Adorno pessimistically withdraws from political concerns, the article argues for a more productive set of normative contributions – based within his utopian gestures towards a ‘difference without fear’. At stake is not only a more sensitive approach to Adorno’s texts, but the broader normative question of difference and its political meaning.

Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Rancière treat speech as the medium for politics and, likewise, both diagnose the pathologies that follow from blockages on civic speech. That said, these broad commonalities give rise to significant divides regarding the social ontology of language, the forms of power that attend linguistic exchange, and how speech informs democratic agency. Ultimately, the essay will argue that Rancière highlights the political deficits within deliberative commitments to democratic values. In doing so, his challenge yields broader insights for (...) a democratic politics of speech and the linguistic resources that facilitate such a politics. (shrink)

Dans mon article, je vais essayer de développer une analyse de deux des plus importants chapitres du De anima d'Aristote : les chapitres 4 et 5 du livre III, où Aristote propose son traitement de la question de l'intellect. Sans entrer dans les détails de l'histoire de l'interprétation de ce texte, je propose d'identifier l'intellect dit ‘passif’ avec quelques traits distinctifs de la puissance de la phantasia ou imagination, et ce que l'on appelle ‘l'intelligence productive’ avec l'environnement cosmique, qui, en (...) vertu de ses régularités, produit les habitats qui vont agir sur la puissance sensorielle de l'être humain et qui, dans la production des expériences sensorielles de l'être humain, fera passer son esprit du statut d'intellect passif à celui d'intellectus in habitu. (shrink)

It is often thought that Hegel’s social philosophy is straightforwardly hostile toward liberal ideals. In this article, I contend that many such suspicions can be dispelled through a more nuanced engagement with his rhetorical and argumentative strategies. To tackle such a broad topic in this space, I focus on the shortcomings of a rights-based individualism within the Philosophy of Right — where Hegel describes civil society as a ‘semblance’ [Schein] of a rational polity. Although such passages might suggest the collectivism (...) that has long haunted his legacy, I propose that he is offering something rather more normatively attractive. More specifically, I argue that his grammar of recognition disinters the suppressed social conditions for those rights (and the individuality they protect) that are often misrecognized as foundational by liberal theorists. (shrink)

This essay engages an undertheorized form of democratic agency: the embodied spectacle that characterizes a strain of activist politics. Where an existing literature addresses “the spectacle” as a tactic of power, it does not do justice to how marginal groups have used radical bodily acts in order to intervene within the image-world of democratic politics. The essay argues that such performances represent a standing challenge to democratic theory and demand a more richly sensuous approach to how political claims are made. (...) Such forms of bodily theatre do not only “speak” in ways that exceed official civic discourses but, in so doing, they unsettle the space of citizenship. Ultimately, these bodies do something in being undone. (shrink)

Adorno: aesthetic rescue and reparative justice -- Foucault: arts of the self, questions of the common -- A machine of vision: Rancière and the politics of sensibility -- Bringing the threads together: toward an aesthetics of democratic agency.

We study ultimatum and dictator variants of the generosity game. In this game, the first mover chooses the amount of money to be distributed between the players within a given interval, knowing that her own share is fixed. Thus, the first mover is not confronted with the typical trade-off between her own and the other’s payoff. For each variant of the game, we study three treatments that vary the range of potential pie sizes so as to assess the influence of (...) these changes on the first movers’ generosity. We find that removing the trade-off inspires significant generosity, which is not always affected by the second mover’s veto power. Moreover, the manipulation of the choice set indicates that choices are influenced by the available alternatives. (shrink)

This study examines the strategies developed by Italian Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiatives to de-commodify, de-instrumentalise and de-monetise labour in their attempt to prefigure alternatives to dominant capitalist agri-food systems. To do so we answer the following research questions: What type of strategies do these CSA initiatives employ to that end? What insights can be gained as regards the potential and barriers to fuller and more accomplished post-capitalist labour management within CSA initiatives? Data were collected through a participatory action research (...) project involving 16 Italian CSAs, participant observation in meetings of CSA initiatives and the Italian CSA Network, and official documents collection. Across the three crucial moments considered in this study, we observe substantial difficulties in realising post-capitalist labour management as the initiatives are constrained by external requirements (e.g., legislation) and also internally by members’ weakness in implementing the CSA model due to their remaining integrated in the capitalist system. These findings point to the importance for CSA initiatives of deepening the collective process of deliberate deconstruction of valuation logics and predefined roles, as well as legal frameworks to find ways to enable the realisation of post-capitalist labour management. In this regard, we also suggest that the Italian CSA Network could play a more active role in addressing some of the internal and external factors hindering the consolidation of CSA initiatives and the manifestation of their transformative role. (shrink)

In a series of one-shot linear public goods game, we ask subjects to report their contributions, their contribution plans for the next period, and their first-order beliefs about their present and future partner. We estimate subjects’ preferences from plan data by a finite mixture approach and compare the results with those obtained from contribution data. Controlling for beliefs, which incorporate the information about the others’ decisions, we are able to show that plans convey accurate information about subjects’ preferences and, consequently, (...) are good predictors of their future behavior. (shrink)

In its literal meaning, the term ἔκστασις (ekstasis) indicates a displacement, ‘being out of immobility’, and ultimately being outside oneself. To some extent, this term takes on a mystical connotation in late Antiquity, notably in book VI.9.11.24 of Plotinus’ Enneads, where ekstasis is described as a non-ordinary way of seeing. The notion of ecstasy, often inseparable from the concept of vision, would keep its mystical role, though altered in some ways, over the centuries, conceptualizing a specific kind of knowledge, which (...) goes beyond the subject-object opposition, addressing the epistemological issues of perceiving and knowing the divine, and often challenging the nature of the self. This issue offers some attempts to track the constant reshaping and migration of the notions of ecstasy and intellectual or spiritual vision over the history of Western thought, unearthing their structural and constant persistence, from the Middle Ages to the contemporary ages, recurrently in many different non-ultimately-dialectical metaphysical systems. The papers in this volume provide some illustrative examples of the tangled history of the divergent meanings that the notions of ecstasy and vision have taken on, and their considerable reassessments and adaptations to constantly evolving conceptual frameworks, often redefining further notions such as those of rapture, prophecy, sleep, dream, and death. -/- . (shrink)

Wasteland -- Improvement -- Swamp -- Mountain -- Forest -- Wilderness, wasteland, garden.

Contemporarily, higher education workplaces are characterised by collaboration, transitions, fluidity and the crossing of boundaries, where individuals are involved in ongoing negotiation of multilayered identities and simultaneous membership to various groups. These conditions impact the negotiation of professional identities, work and work relationships. One group of professionals affected by the impetus to fluidly operate within institutions are academic language and learning advisors. In this article, we explore the identity negotiation of a novice ALL advisor through a positioning lens, focusing on (...) small stories conveyed during an interview. We highlight the ways in which she constructs identities vis-à-vis interactions with students and within the ideological and institutional structures of the contemporary university. This article contributes an important new perspective to existing depictions of ALL advisors as a marginalised group of professionals, making space for the study of advisory agency alongside structural analyses. While continuing to negotiate structural challenges, we argue that the participant’s sense of agency needs to be garnered to strengthen group identity and allow for professionals to transition to the role. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ECHIC—The European Consortium for Humanities Institutes and Centres 2023 Annual ConferenceIlenia Vittoria CasmiriEcological Mindedness and Sustainable Wellbeing, ECHIC—The European Consortium for Humanities Institutes and Centres 2023 Annual Conference, May 25–27, 2023, University of Ferrara, ItalyThis year’s annual conference of the European Consortium for Humanities Institutes and Centres (ECHIC) invited international scholars with diverse backgrounds to explore visions of a desirable future world that is both environmentally sustainable and (...) socially just. In stressing the social and political relevance of the humanities in Europe today, the main goal of the Consortium, as it is articulated on the conference website, is the pursuit of the highest international standards of excellence with a spirit of innovation and exploration of new research areas:Since the World Commission on Environment and Development published Our Common Future (1987) [commonly known as the Brundtland Report], the notion of... sustainability has been expanded to incorporate environmental, cultural, legal, and economic features of a low-carbon future and to encompass the wellbeing of all living species, which involves material aspects such as the social acceptance of resource-efficient transitions and immaterial ones such as flourishing human capabilities. [End Page 625]The participants of the 2023 ECHIC conference on Ecological Mindedness and Sustainable Wellbeing presented original, multidisciplinary perspectives, and offered valuable opportunities to develop holistic approaches to the prismatic issue of environmental sustainability. Bringing together cultural diversity as well as local and global perspectives, keynoters and panelists addressed the vast array of challenges imposed by the perpetuation of anthropocentric worldviews. Their challenge to traditional demarcations between the humanities, the social sciences, economy, law, architecture, engineering, and the life and medical sciences, generated synergies for exploring interconnections between life forms, resources, and heritage. While the theoretical frameworks varied considerably, they all advocated for the need to overcome ideological, cultural, and spatial barriers in favor of broader, more inclusive approaches to other disciplines, other cultures, other humans, other species. Overall, the conference not only exposed the cultural and economic roots of social inequality and of uneven distribution of resources, thanks to unsustainable modes of capitalist production and consumption, but also highlighted the media’s positive effect in eliciting pro-environmental behaviors.Toward More Sustainable FuturesThe prismatic nature of the concept of sustainability inspired keynote speakers Alexa Weik von Mossner (University of Klagenfurt), Adrian Ivakhiv (University of Vermont), Tim Waterman (University College London), and Antonio López (John Cabot University) to address climate apocalypse impacts on the human physical and psychological well-being from diverse personal and academic backgrounds.In the opening keynote lecture, “Growing Hope: Narratives of Food Justice and Sustainability,” Weik von Mossner explores the psychological implications of affect and emotion in the communication of environmental issues. Her diachronic account illustrates the rise and fall of the South Central Farm in Los Angeles, a sanctuary for locals by providing fresh produce, stimulating a sense of community, and representing a symbol of resilience against systemic inequalities. Weik Von Mossner elucidates the psychological benefits accruing from exposure to such a sustainably inhabited space. Her analysis of Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s documentary, The Garden (2008), affirms that climate change narratives across media may prompt food justice activism (Retzinger 2011, 337) by eliciting the emotional engagement of its audience. [End Page 626]However, observes von Mossner, the greater the popularity of the Farm, the greater the threat posed to its existence. Through documentaries, news articles, and online campaigns, the South Central Farm has received national and international attention. At the same time, media have shed light on the struggles faced by marginalized communities and provided a solid basis for discussions on social justice, environmental activism, and the value of communal spaces. She explains that activists used social media to voice their concerns about the potential eviction and the loss of a vital resource for the local community, leading to an outpouring of support from environmentalists and celebrities who had realized to what extent the predominantly low-income, minority community was affected by limited access to fresh food and green spaces.Adrian Ivakhiv, delivering his keynote “How to Face the Angel of History: A Call to Anthropocenic Conscience” the following day, suggests that a pervasive lack of an emotional... (shrink)