This study explores the language of the Histories of Agathias Scholasticus, the sixth-century poet and historian. Through two case studies – the syntagm πλὴν ἀλλά and the optative future – and their synchronic and diachronic contexts, it argues that Agathias’ classicizing prose should not be seen as a flawed version of Classical Greek. Rather, his usage reveals a stylistic negotiation between inherited literary models and contemporary linguistic developments. Agathias’ case demonstrates how the choices of individual authors – often hidden behind modern labels like ‘linguistic classicism’ or ‘highbrow literature’ – illustrate the evolution of high-register Byzantine Greek and challenge previous assumptions about its rigidity.

The International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda Akayesu trial, which led to the precedent-setting conviction for rape as a constituent act of genocide, offers guidance for scholars uncovering “hints” of sexual violence in armed conflict (SVAC) in legal archives. This includes consideration of: the strategic importance of SVAC testimony within the overall archive, indictment or mandate of a proceeding; euphemisms related to SVAC and how they intersect with societal attitudes toward SVAC and its victims; question framing, follow-ups, and interventions by judges or other stakeholders. Review of SVAC evidence should be attentive to the following indicators of potentially more widespread sexual atrocities: recurring acts of SVAC committed across official, public, and private spaces; the absence of areas of refuge; acts of public sexual violence, including those that have a performative dimension; occurrence of SVAC in the context of pervasive physical insecurity and fear for survival within a climate of impunity for the perpetrators; commission of SVAC as part of a sequence of crimes leading up to, and including, the death of the victim; targeting of SVAC victims based on their ethnicity or identity; experience of SVAC within a maelstrom of ethnically or identity-based violence; and the existence of supplementary sources documenting SVAC that are external to the trial record.

This article contributes new knowledge on the insertion of Spain into the European integration project and shows how European Investment Bank (EIB) policy, in the form of loans, helped boost the Spanish economy. EIB loans to Spain promoted both the Trans-European Networks (TENs) and the funding of enterprises. We argue that the funding of TENs encouraged the integration of Spain into the European space, whilst the funding of enterprises helped consolidate their competitive position, facilitating their expansion abroad.

This article analyzes the medicalisation strategies deployed by Peruvian alienists in the daily life of the Lima Asylum during the last third of the 19th century. Special attention is given to the process of hospitalisation of the insane in the psychiatric hospital, since this administrative procedure reveals the dialogue, confrontation, and negotiation between the asylum staff and the state and social bodies in the public management of insanity. Through the support of the civil authorities in charge of the psychiatric hospital administration, we argued that the local alienists sought to impose medical knowledge in the asylum space as the legitimate criterion for the confinement of the insane in Peru. This process was not without tensions, setbacks, and disputes, especially with the families and the state agencies of control and social defence seeking to preserve their former prerogatives over the fate of their insane.However, we propose that these medicalisation strategies promoted by the alienists in the daily space of the Lima Asylum managed to situate psychiatric care as a state problem and these actors as experts in the public management of insanity.

Northwestern Iberia was inhabited by communities whose only settlement model was the hillfort throughout the Iron Age. In archaeological terms, these people are included in the so-called ‘Castro Culture’. These communities experienced social and material changes at the end of the Iron Age. From the second century bc onwards, a more hierarchical and complex social system, together with a process of monumentalization and sophistication of the architecture of the settlements, was adopted. More specifically, in the region between the Douro and Miño rivers, a series of highly original subterranean constructions have been documented. Unique in the archaeological record of the European Iron Age, the function of sites has been much debated, with the most accepted use as steam bath. In this article, these buildings are analysed from a performative approach, to understand their meaning and function in the context of the landscape of the hillforts.

Earlier this year a Swedish archaeologist based at Gothenburg University’s Centre for Critical Heritage Studies published an unfounded ad hominem attack on me in the pages of the International Journal of Cultural Property. I am grateful to the editors for this right to reply to Staffan Lundén’s wholly spurious claims, and order to correct the record. Despite its provocative, “clickbait” title, not one substantive mistake or incorrect fact was identified in Lundén’s article in my book “The Brutish Museums”. The motivation for Lundén’s serial accusations against colleagues with whose scholarship on the history of the Benin Expedition he disagrees - from curators at the British Museum to members of the Royal Court of Benin - is discussed. In conclusion, the allegation that my book The Brutish Museums is “part of a trend away from pro-British perspectives” is contextualised and refuted. On the contrary, this reply argues, openness and transparency about the colonial past and present is a key element of the reclamation and reimagining of Britishness that is unfolding in the 2020s – this unfinished period that the book calls “the decade of returns”.

In times of crisis, the role of the mayor encompasses not only political and administrative functions but also ethical and identity-oriented aspects, with the aim of strengthening relations with the community. This dual profile offers the opportunity to reassert their institutional role. In this context, our research analyses the leadership style of mayors during the Covid-19 pandemic through case studies of five mayors in Sicily, a region of Italy characterised by significant structural economic deficits. The research makes an original contribution to the study of crisis leadership by integrating two areas of analysis: communication and political strategies. These reveal different attempts to reconcile operational responses to crises with the need for communication to encourage the community’s acceptance of strict rules and compliance. In particular, this research highlights crisis response strategies that reflect different ways of relating to the community, suggesting new avenues of analysis that can guide future research.

This article examines how Black business directories from the Jim Crow era provide insight into Black communal life and urban citizenship. These directories offered guidance and legibility to inhabitants of the USA’s new ‘Negro main streets’, while also inscribing Black urban identities into the spatial syntax of modernizing American cities. An analysis of over 200 directories across four eras shows how these publications created a space for Black urban citizenship to develop by including practical information; by highlighting community leaders, property ownership and contributions to local taxes; and by urging voter registration and government lobbying. This research suggests that Black business directories are a rich resource for understanding Black urban history.

This article examines the role played by Serbian demographers in the lead-up to the Yugoslav Wars. I argue that demographic research contributed to nationalist narratives and territorial claims. Demographers propagated concepts such as the ‘demographic threat’ posed by non-Serb populations, particularly Albanians and Bosnian Muslims, and the notion of ‘genocide’ against Serbs. They linked fertility, ethnicity and territory. By focusing on the most prominent Yugoslav/Serbian demographer, Miloš Macura, and the research institutions he set up, the article traces the radicalisation of demography during the 1980s. I argue that demographers used nationalism to reframe demographic processes in ethnic terms and thereby increase their status. The work of these demographers influenced political leaders and was widely disseminated to the public, shaping collective consciousness and preparing the ground for conflict. The analysis is based on contemporaneous expert literature, policy documents and archival information. It also highlights the role of international debates about the connection between demography and development.

This brief paper aims to consider the impact of Israel’s settler-colonial measures on workers in the West Bank of the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) after October 2023. Although the ongoing war has been waged on the Gaza Strip, with devastating repercussions for lives and livelihoods in the Strip, Israeli colonial measures in the West Bank have had a grave impact on all segments of Palestinian society, including workers. These measures include: First; closure of the Israeli labor market in the face of tens of thousands of Palestinian workers. Second, broadening the system of movement restrictions within the West Bank which led to disruptions in local production and trade thus damaging private sector operations. Third; Israel’s continued withholding of Palestinian custom duty revenues with adverse impacts on workers in general but particularly public sector workers. To assess the impact of these measures, the paper utilizes a number of indices to assess the situation of these workers; including labor supply, unemployment, wage levels, distribution across sectors, informality, and workers’ rights. The paper finds a grave deterioration in the situation of workers in the labor market at all levels, with dire repercussions for workers and their families.