Since the time of Eduard Schwartz, scholars have tended to treat ecclesiastical policy under the influence of Justinian as inconsistent and even capricious. This book argues that such an image of Justinian, although seeming to provide a coherent narrative concerning the emperor’s character, falls apart when the details are scrutinized.

The current volume is an annotated translation of selections from a noteworthy Muslim theologian Said Nursi (1876-1960) on the Quranic theme of oneness of God (tawhid). Given the scarcity of theological themes in Islamic literature in English as well as the lack of studies on Said Nursi, who wrote in Ottoman Turkish, the book is an important contribution to the field. It offers a contemporary peek into the view that faith in God could be profoundly meaningful and fulfilling spiritual path.

A special issue of Chiasmi, the A-class trilingual publication about Merlau-Ponty’s thought, that celebrates the 110th birthday of the French phenomenological philosopher by realising rare or unpublished dialogues and texts.

Trilingual publication concerning Merleau-Ponty's thought. This issue includes an excerpt from the unpublished course on the problem of speech and the philosopher's theories on literature and literary language.

Writing is not just a set of systems for transcribing language and communicating meaning, but an important element of human practice, deeply embedded in the cultures where it is present and fundamentally interconnected with all other aspects of human life. The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Practices explores these relationships in a number of different cultural contexts and from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including archaeological, anthropological and linguistic. It offers new ways of approaching the study of writing and integrating it into wider debates and discussions about culture, history and archaeology.

A mystical masterworkThis book by the great Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite is characteristically sui generis, vatic, and strange, exhibiting ornery bravura. Tonally and typographically frenetic in the 'sycorax video style' he's been employing for decades, the work examines a major theme appropriate to a great poet in the late stages of his career: that of the afterlife. Brathwaite performs a kind of spiritual/aesthetic GPS in his poetry and is is a poet of undeniable stature, writing the final poems of his career. Central to the book is a series of poems outlining the speaker's (the poet's) experiences with what he calls "Cultural Lynching." These poems speak of appropriation, theft, isolation, and exploitation, all within a context of an American hegemony that intensifies the racial politics and ageism underlying the events described. The speaker's pain and outrage are almost overwhelming. Filled with longing, rage, nostalgia, impotence, wisdom, and love, this book is moving in every sense of the word.

By the 13th century BC, the Syrian city of Ugarit hosted an extremely diverse range of writing practices. As well as two main scripts – alphabetic and logographic cuneiform - the site has also produced inscriptions in a wide range of scripts and languages, including Hurrian, Sumerian, Hittite, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Luwian hieroglyphs and Cypro-Minoan. This variety in script and language is accompanied by writing practices that blend influences from Mesopotamian, Anatolian and Levantine traditions together with what seem to be distinctive local innovations. Script and Society: The Social Context of Writing Practices in Late Bronze Age Ugarit explores the social and cultural context of these complex writing traditions from the perspective of writing as a social practice. It combines archaeology, epigraphy, history and anthropology to present a highly interdisciplinary exploration of social questions relating to writing at the site, including matters of gender, ethnicity, status and other forms of identity, the relationship between writing and place, and the complex relationships between inscribed and uninscribed objects. This forms a case- study for a wider discussion of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of writing practices in the ancient world.

Why are so many nautical words in Danish the same as in Dutch? Who taught the shipwrights in the Royal Danish Shipyard in Copenhagen to build carvel planked ships? How did the first Danish ships find their way to the riches of the East Indies? These questions and many more are meet in this Ph.D. dissertation, which circles around the maritime relationships between especially the seaward provinces of the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. In the early renaissance Dutch maritime technology was imported by the Danish king, who recruited craftsmen and bough ships in the Netherlands and later on the Royal Danish Navy was profoundly influenced by Dutch master shipbuilders and naval officers. But it was not only maritime experts and mariners who travelled to the North, but also ordinary Scandinavian sailors, who migrated the other way and took a part in Dutch shipping to all parts of the world. This labour migration has been known amongst Dutch scholars for some time, but is almost unknown in Scandinavian historical circles.For the first time data from the Amsterdam City archive has made it possible to get closer to the individual sailors, who hailed from the coastal districts of Norway, the Southwest coast of Denmark and for a lesser part the West coast of Sweden and their participation in the Dutch shipping industry has been analysed showing, that they learned important maritime skills onboard. Coming back to Scandinavia these sailors were the backbone of the navies and merchant fleets of the Scandinavian countries especially in the eighteenth century.This study of maritime labour migration will be of interest for scholars of maritime-, migration and technology history but also for anyone, who likes to read about the life’s and work of ordinary sailors in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Why are so many nautical words in Danish the same as in Dutch? Who taught the shipwrights in the Royal Danish Shipyard in Copenhagen to build carvel planked ships? How did the first Danish ships find their way to the riches of the East Indies? These questions and many more are meet in this Ph.D. dissertation, which circles around the maritime relationships between especially the seaward provinces of the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. In the early renaissance Dutch maritime technology was imported by the Danish king, who recruited craftsmen and bough ships in the Netherlands and later on the Royal Danish Navy was profoundly influenced by Dutch master shipbuilders and naval officers. But it was not only maritime experts and mariners who travelled to the North, but also ordinary Scandinavian sailors, who migrated the other way and took a part in Dutch shipping to all parts of the world. This labour migration has been known amongst Dutch scholars for some time, but is almost unknown in Scandinavian historical circles.For the first time data from the Amsterdam City archive has made it possible to get closer to the individual sailors, who hailed from the coastal districts of Norway, the Southwest coast of Denmark and for a lesser part the West coast of Sweden and their participation in the Dutch shipping industry has been analysed showing, that they learned important maritime skills onboard. Coming back to Scandinavia these sailors were the backbone of the navies and merchant fleets of the Scandinavian countries especially in the eighteenth century.This study of maritime labour migration will be of interest for scholars of maritime-, migration and technology history but also for anyone, who likes to read about the life’s and work of ordinary sailors in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Berlin, 1979. When the CIA’s most valuable spy is compromised, the Agency realizes it does not have the capability to bring him to safety. If he cannot evade the dreaded East German security service, the result will be chaos and a cascade of failures throughout the Agency’s worldwide operations. Master Sergeant Kim Becker lived through the hell of Vietnam as a member of the elite Studies and Operations Group. When he lost one of his best men in a pointless operation, he began to question his mission. Now, he is serving with an even more secretive Army Special Forces unit based in Berlin on the front line of the Cold War. The CIA turns to Becker’s team of unconventional warfare specialists to pull their bacon out of the fire. Becker and his men must devise a plan to get him out by whatever means possible. It's a race against time to prepare and execute the plan while, alone in East Berlin, the agent must avoid his nemesis and play for time inside the hostile secret service headquarters he has betrayed. One question remains - is the man worth the risk?

Widely regarded as a premier journal dedicated to the study of Syriac, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies was Established in 1998 as a venue devoted exclusively to the discipline. An organ of Beth Mardutho, the Syriac Institute, the journal appears semi-annually and will be printed in annual editions. A peer-reviewed journal, Hugoye is a respected academic source for up-to-date information about the state of Syriac studies and for discovering what is going on in the field. Contributors include some of the most respected names in the world of Syriac today.

Widely regarded as a premier journal dedicated to the study of Syriac, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies was Established in 1998 as a venue devoted exclusively to the discipline. An organ of Beth Mardutho, the Syriac Institute, the journal appears semi-annually and will be printed in annual editions. A peer-reviewed journal, Hugoye is a respected academic source for up-to-date information about the state of Syriac studies and for discovering what is going on in the field. Contributors include some of the most respected names in the world of Syriac today.

Culture of Defeat is based on a 2017 conference focusing on the impact on, and responses by, the defeated parties in conflicts in the ancient Near East. Shifting the focus of analysis from the conqueror to the vanquished, the (re-)examination of written sources and the archaeological record sheds new light on the consequences and reactions after often traumatic defeats and allows to gain a more nuanced and complete picture of such events.

After the success of the Antioch Bible, this publication is a new translation of the Peshitta English New Testament in a single volume. The English translations of the New Testament Syriac Peshitta were carried out by an international team of scholars. The volume is also available in a beautiful gilded leather edition (ISBN 978-1-4632-4217-6).

After the success of the Antioch Bible, this publication is a new translation of the Peshitta English New Testament in a single volume. The English translations of the New Testament Syriac Peshitta were carried out by an international team of scholars. The volume is also available in a beautiful gilded leather edition.

The proceedings of the fourth PRO ORIENTE Colloquium Syriacum, which focussed on a culture of co-existence in pluralistic societies in the Middle East and in India.