This first chapter provides an introduction to the book as well as outlining some of its major themes and issues. It provides a general outline of the theory of conscience defended in the book.

This chapter focuses on the domain of the vegetative soul that represents some of the simplest activities that distinguish the organic from the inorganic. It examines the central vegetative system consisting of the liver, the veins and their supporting organs, as well as the vegetative capacities present in all the tissues that are subservient to this system. The chapter not only discusses the relationship between the central parts and capacities in all of the body, but also examines the ways in which these capacities manifest themselves, arguing they represent Galen’s attempts to grapple with the notion of basic vitality. On some occasions, Galen also calls them ‘demiurgic’, implying a creative capacity. A discussion of how he engages with the pre-existing philosophical tradition and the notion of a biological demiurge helps to delineate the scope of these capacities.

The last decade of Hemingway’s life is characterized by the culmination of his recognition as a great writer and, at the same time, by a diminution of his writerly power. During that decade, Hemingway continued to write prolifically and to be recognized for his literary achievements. His thematic preoccupations remained consistent; he continued to write on bullfighting (a substantial article for Life magazine) and on big-game hunting and sport fishing (including The Old Man and the Sea, the Pulitzer Prize–winning novella). The chapter also assesses the novels and nonfiction books published after Hemingway’s death in 1961: A Moveable Feast, Islands in the Stream, and Garden of Eden. With the possible exception of A Moveable Feast, the extent to which these books should be read as “books by Ernest Hemingway” is debatable. The author was famous for the work of condensation and cutting that characterized his revision process absent from the final preparation of their manuscripts. In the strongest passages of all of this work, Hemingway is able to thematize the exhaustion and belatedness that he seems to have been struggling against, so that even the failed work offers rewards to the careful reader.

When thinking about emotional expressions, most would probably envision facial expressions (e.g., smiling, scowling) or vocalizations (e.g., crying, laughter). Here we focus on the emotional postures and movements of the body – an important, but fairly understudied, signal for emotion perception. During emotional episodes, humans often position and move their bodies in consistent ways that may (or may not) signal their underlying feelings and future actions. We briefly review the historical antecedents of this literature, as well as current knowledge on the neural processing, developmental trajectory, and cultural differences in the emotional perception of body language. We continue by examining the role of the body as a contextualizing agent for disambiguating facial expressions, as well as their inverse relationship – from faces to bodies. Future directions and speculations about how this emerging field may evolve are discussed.

The joint centre of this book is Europe and the Middle East, because the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries CE marked what I would call an era of global contact. It was during this time that a series of interlocking conflicts enmeshing the Christian and Islamic civilisations that started with the conquest of Iberia in the eighth century and continued through the Crusades to the Ottoman wars of the early modern period shaped and expanded both Europe and the Middle East. At the same time, Europe and the Middle East explored and expanded into Asia, Africa, and eventually North America. I combine Europe and the Middle East into one cultural entity because for all their differences, the longue durée stresses the shared logocentric tradition of the Abrahamic faiths, the common heritage in science and philosophy, and the centuries of interwoven experiences, often painful and violent, but just as often culturally enriching and mutually beneficial. And while the political entities of medieval Europe play a more significant role in structuring this book than other areas, there are attempts to balance this by foregrounding the role of literatures and writers from other parts of the world.

In this chapter a method of ‘somatic enquiry’ is put forward, which demonstrates ways in which the bodily knowledge of the minuet might inform analytical approaches to this repertoire. Drawing on other contributions to the field of somatic studies by scholars such as Suzanne Ravn and Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, it demonstrates ways in which the sensation of dancing informs my perception of the musical sounds, and conversely how the sounds affect my body’s kinaesthetic sensations. Taking Elisabeth Le Guin’s similar exploration of Boccherini’s body as a model, it considers challenges faced by any attempts to grapple with bodily knowledge. It builds on Christopher Hasty’s notion of projection, or ‘throwing forth’, in his theory of metre, arguing that to dance is a physical throwing forth of one’s body. The method of somatic enquiry is illustrated through detailed accounts of dancing to movements from Haydn’s Minuets Hoboken IX:11, composed in 1792 for the first annual ball of the Gesellschaft bildender Künstler at the Hofburg Redoutensaal. Ultimately, it argues that musical listening (even when seated) is a more active bodily experience than is typically recognised, even when one’s awareness of this activity is limited.

Psychiatric disorders are highly comorbid and are not separated by sharp biological boundaries. Understanding the common mechanisms that explain symptom overlap in mental disorders is therefore clearly needed. Here, we briefly review impaired emotional processing and emotional dysregulation in affective disorders, with a special focus on unipolar depression. Affective disorders are characterized by abnormal emotion intensity, changes in the temporal dynamics of emotion and difficulties to influence the trajectory of emotions. Disruptions in emotion processing and emotional regulation are underlined at the neural level by abnormal interactions between cortical and limbic structures in terms of increased variance in functional connectivity. Emotional processes are also tightly linked to cognitive processes, which constitute main targets for therapeutic interventions in affective disorders.

This chapter explores christological underpinnings to eucharistic theology. It delineates transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and three versions of impanation in the effort to offer an incarnational model of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.

Mediation ends in three distinct ways: achievement of the mandate, for instance in the form of a peace agreement; termination by the mediator, by the term limits given by the mandator, or by the warring parties themselves, in effect undermining the third party; or due to external events such as changes in conflict dynamics or concerns about the mediator’s security (threats or assassination). These possible endings are explored using concrete cases.

Leonard Peltier was convicted in 1977 for the killing of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Despite allegations of governmental misconduct and questionable legal rulings, the conviction was affirmed on appeal by several federal courts. After nearly fifty years in prison, Peltier was granted clemency by President Biden in 2025 and allowed to finish his sentence under home confinement. This chapter recounts Peltier’s background, his involvement with the American Indian Movement, and the events surrounding the incident at Pine Ridge. His memoir, Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance, was published in 1999. The chapter examines the book’s experimental, transgressive form and its subversion of standard memoir style and structure. Prison Writings utilizes a nonlinear structure, multiple voices, surreal elements, and political and legal analyses, as well as the inclusion of poetry and photographs. Peltier also incorporates Native history and social issues as well as a critique of carceral standards in the federal prison system.

This chapter examines the role of Christology in the subfield of political theology. Political theologies examine the structure and logic of worldly power, assessing its relation to religious and theological dimensions of community formation, the cultivation of the citizen (often in contrast to the non-citizen or the enemy), expectations of messianic emergence and progress, and the potential for enacting meaningful political resistance. Christology is a major focus within the field of political theology both because of the historical role played by Christianity in the political development of Europe and Europe’s imperial and colonial footprint and because Christology is deeply invested in these very questions of power. This chapter focuses on key texts from the twentieth century that remain touchstones for the growing discipline of political theology as it exists today.