This chapter discusses a multiplicity of Arthurs, all mirroring the complexity of contemporary Africa and the Middle East. Arthur is a familiar presence here in advertisements, video games, children’s books and popular films, but he is rarely found elsewhere. Interestingly, both Chaka and Saladin are sometimes positioned as local counters to Arthur, but later Arthurian references are more likely to be comic or satirical, except for allusions to the Grail legend. References to the latter are characteristic of Nashid Uruk, for instance, and it has been argued that Doris Lessing’s work also reveals a sustained pattern of Grail imagery. Other representations of Arthur are almost entirely negative, linking him to autocratic rule, class elitism, gender imbalance and armed violence; however, awareness of Sir Moriaen, the Moorish knight, seems to be resurging and this may at last allow the tales to move out of the oppressive shadow cast by European imperialism.

The paradox Works of Love approaches is that love is commanded. Taking up the description of love as fulfilling the law, Kierkegaard presents an account of law that is never actualized except in the decision that is love, and an account of love that is continuously called or goaded into becoming by the law. The ambivalence of this temporal “sequence” is of the kind that Kafka would later portray in his story “Before the Law.” This chapter argues that Kierkegaard’s law cannot appear for us except through a political reading in which I ask in my specific historical context, “what is justice”? Works of Love thus opens a reading of the paradoxical Christian commandment which would allow philosophers like Levinas to articulate a radical ethics of response. To read Kierkegaard’s Works of Love faithfully is to be charged to love.

Saciid, a seventy-one-year-old Somali man, collapsed at home. His family began CPR, and he was admitted to our ICU where he was intubated and sedated. He underwent surgical embolization for a large liver hematoma. His GI bleeding continued; he had a large open wound and was septic. Intubated and extubated several times, his family was told there were no restorative options. However, he rallied such that he was extubated and discharged to a skilled nursing facility. A month later he was readmitted with pulmonary complications, sepsis, and a nonhealing wound. Family was told he would not survive, but they pressed for all possible medical treatments. Distrustful of our medical prognoses, they micromanaged his care, disregarding his grave condition. Systemic inconsistencies, including rotating doctors and nurses, terminology differences, and communication challenges between different services created confusion. Told more than once he would not survive the night, his family found him alive the next morning. As long as they could pray with him, it was worthwhile to do everything to prolong his life. Ethics was consulted for multiple issues including the family’s frustration with communication, their expectation of aggressive treatment, and Saciid’s caregivers’ distress with providing care they considered harmful and futile.

Although Clara Schumann pursued a career primarily as a concert pianist, she composed some fifty works that, taken together, illustrate a two-pronged interest found also in the output of her husband, Robert Schumann. On the one hand, Clara and Robert adopted compositional styles and genres in vogue during their day. On the other hand, both deeply appreciated the traditions of their largely Germanic forebears, and they paid tribute by grounding their music in historical methods inherited from their predecessors. This chapter considers their output from each perspective and then concludes with examples that illustrate a productive dialogue between the two.

The far right has become a hugely popular area of research, yet there has been limited engagement with the specific ethical implications posed by studying these groups. With the way that academia can contribute to the political dynamics for which it offers interpretations, there is an urgent need to deal with these questions and reflect on our practices. Such considerations take on particular significance in the context of the mainstreaming of the far right that we see today. Not only have some far-right parties enjoyed greater electoral success, but there are many examples of far-right discourse becoming normalised in mainstream circles. It is not simply far-right groups that are responsible for such shifts but those at the heart of what is considered ‘mainstream’, whether that be prominent politicians, media outlets, or other popular figures such as authors, sportspeople, and celebrities defending exclusionary positions. Academia too is implicated in these processes, with different levels of consciousness and reflection in this regard. This chapter focuses on developing an ethics of talking ‘about’ the far right, whereby the way that we disseminate our findings forms a key area of reflection. The lens of mainstreaming offers a way for us to visualise the role that academia may play when talking ‘about’ the far right, using the case of the populist hype to evidence some potential pitfalls. By engaging with these questions, it is hoped that we can start to build towards a more comprehensive ethics of talking ‘about’ the far right within academia.

The Sea Adventure formed part of the English Parliament’s response to the Irish rebellion, and involved raising an amphibious force to challenge the Catholic rebels in areas far from the reach of the Dublin government. David Brown’s chapter reconstructs the events of the summer of 1642 as the Sea Adventurers’ fleet pillaged the south and west coasts. He reveals the importance of existing mercantile networks, especially in Munster, and the way in which ‘piratical’ colonial practices could easily be transferred to the Irish coast, with destabilising consequences, not least for loyal Catholics such as the earl of Clanricarde.

In the wake of the execution of Charles I, the Adventurers gained control over the Council of State’s external trade policy, culminating in the adoption of the Navigation Act of 1651. In swift succession, they arranged finance and logistics for Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland and parliament’s reducing of the Atlantic colonies. The Caribbean plantations were converted to sugar production and the Adventurers took a leading role in adapting these plantations to the African slave trade. This chapter demonstrates that a core group of merchants dominated the greater part of England’s foreign trade, state finance and state expenditure. They had developed an integrated fiscal state and were thus able to project considerable political influence as well as profiting enormously from these activities.

The Atlantic oligarchy reacted in a coordinated way to the upheavals which engulfed Scotland, Ireland and finally England, 1638–42. It made the financial arrangements that ended the Bishops’ Wars while securing the calling of the Long Parliament and then took the lead in reinforcing Protestant Ireland following the outbreak of the 1641 revolt. The colonial merchants emerged as a powerful force in London politics at the outbreak of the city’s rebellion against Charles I in January 1642. The central argument of this chapter is that the merchant networks that supported parliament’s opposition to the king were not operating independently, but were contractors to or under the patronage of specific peers. The key role of colonial sponsors and returned migrants from the colonies in the upheavals of the winter of 1641–42 is made clear. Alliances forged in the Atlantic world between 1620 and 1640 finally coalesced as a pivotal political and military force at the forefront of parliament’s ousting of Charles I from London in January 1642.