Browse Items (72 total)

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The Classic Maya of the southern lowlands were one with world rather than one with nature, a view that promoted the conservation of their world for millennia, what I term a cosmology of conservation. I explore how their cosmocentric…

The term qing 情 (emotion) has lain at the core of Chinese thinking about literature from antiquity through modern times. It is of profound paradigmatic significance because each major reconceptualization of qing by literary writers and scholars…

The pursuit of truth is universal; so is the demand for evidence. But the method or system whereby truth is recognized, obtained, and transmitted is not. It is important to distinguish “the will to truth” and “the truth claim”—the specific manners…

This study, through focusing on the development of Buddhist rainmaking rites in the Heian era (794-1185), analyzes the efforts of esoteric Buddhist monks to improve their relations with the sovereign and aristocrats of the Japanese court through…

Mesoamerica covers a vast geographic area with its deserts, semi-arid upland, and tropical highlands and lowlands, and includes Mexico, Central America, and parts of the Southwest United States. This chapter discusses the impact of climate change in…

“Shukaku Hosshinnō (1150–1202), pronounced Shūkaku at Ninnaji, the second son of cloistered sovereign Go-Shirakawa (r. 1155–1158), was one of the most influential masters in the history of Shingon lineages. Along with the Tendai abbot Jien…

“Didymus the Blind was a celebrated Christian instructor in the second half of the fourth century. He was, according to Evagrius of Pontus, the “great and gnostic teacher.” Out of respect for the blind exegete’s interior vision, Jerome dubbed Didymus…

Medieval teachers inherited the grammatical and rhetorical pedagogy of antiquity and adapted it to their own needs. Letters came to replace speeches as the predominant target genre for composition instruction, and the model letters found in most…

“This chapter review gender in the Middle East from a number of perspectives: Western and Muslim discourses about Muslim women, women’s rights in traditional interpretations of Islamic law, other cultural norms that impact women’s status,…

This volume asks whether there was a common structure, ideology, and image of the household in the medieval Christian West. In the period under examination, noble households often exercised great power in their own right, while even quite humble…

Illuminating their breadth and diversity, this book presents a comprehensive and multidisciplinary view of legal documents and their manifold forms, uses, materialities and meanings. In 1951, Suzanne Briet, a librarian at the Bibliotheque Nationale…

Trade, Travel, and Exploration: An Encyclopedia is a reference book that covers the peoples, places, technologies, and intellectual concepts that contributed to trade, travel and exploration during the Middle Ages, from the years A.D. 525 to 1492.

Since the earliest reception of the Orlando Furioso, the episodes Ariosto set in and around the British Isles have fascinated readers and inspired iconic artistic depictions. This chapter explores these episodes, focusing on Ariosto’s manipulation of…

This fascinating volume brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including literary studies, history, geography, and archaeology, to investigate questions of space, place, and identity in the medieval city. Using medieval Chester as…

Odd that fiction would be yet another invention claimed for modernity. Yes, that's the way modernity's game is played; and still I marvel that our modernist colleagues never seem tired of playing it, or insisting on the ontology of their favorite…

One of the greatest scourges of the later medieval period was plague. While there is a considerable scholarly literature tracing the impact of the dread disease on literature and art, the impermanence of performance has rendered the extension of such…

Sustainable practices in the present are typically designed to mitigate immediate concerns over decadal timespans. In the face of exponential population growth, overuse of resources, and global climate change, this time span is inadequate; longer,…

For over two millennia, Jewish and Christian theologians have grappled with the biblical notion that God punishes children for the “sins of [their] parents” (Exod. 20:5).1 This doctrine, found in the Decalogue, has posed an obvious question for many…

As water availability, management and conservation become global challenges, there is now wide consensus that historical knowledge can provide crucial information to address present crises, offering unique opportunities to appreciate the solutions…