Jewish-Christian disputations and the twelfth-century renaissance

An important aspect of the medieval debate between Christians and Jews was Jewish-Christian disputations. These disputations were either records of real discussions or academic treatises written in the form of dialogues. They invariably reflect current intellectual trends in Christian and Jewish circles. The Dialogus inter Christianum et Iudeum de fide Catholica, which has been wrongly attributed to William of Champeaux, is a fictitious Jewish-Christian disputation which has never received the attention it deserves. Previously it has been regarded as either an uninteresting pastiche of Gilbert Crispin's Disputatio Iudei et Christiani or a poor imitation of Anselm of Canterbury's Cur Deus Homo. Far from being as dim-witted as it has been made out to be, this disputation would seem, in fact, to reflect some of the teaching that went on in the school of Anselm of Loan and William of Champeaux. As such it provides us with an opportunity to learn more about how the work of some scholars of the twelfth-century renaissance influenced the form and contents of contemporary Jewish-Christian disputations.     

John Brockington,The Sanskrit Epics

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

On the use of rasa in studies of Sanskrit drama

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

Money talks: banknote iconography and symbolic constructions of Scotland

ABSTRACT. It has become common for scholars of nations and nationalism to use banknotes, coins and postage stamps as passing examples of everyday objects expressive of nationalism. Until recently, however, it has been less common for these objects to form the focus of empirical enquiries that substantiate their contribution to the creation and transmission of national symbolism. This article addresses this lacuna through an empirical investigation of over 300 years of Scottish banknote iconography. In their symbolic content, banknotes are shown to be amenable to the service of both national and non‐national political agendas. To explain this phenomenon, we advance three interrelated arguments. First, we contend that variations in banknote iconography reflect the different political contexts in which notes were produced and the distinctive loyalties and customer constituencies of the banks that issue them. Second, we argue that changes in banknote imagery reflect changes in the scale of their circulation. Third, we argue that Scottish banknotes have always included iconography that constructs the image of the bank and advertises its reliability, often through association with national images. The article concludes by addressing Scotland's place in wider understandings of the iconographic power of banknotes.     

The whistleblower and the canary: rhetorical constructions of climate change

This paper is concerned with the historical dimension of the current debates on climate change, and argues that the history of the understanding of climate change has itself become part of the rhetorical account. Key historic moments of disclosure and revelation have become central to the ways in which climate change is presented as a persuasive narrative today. This paper takes a discursive approach to exploring the background of these signal moments in climate change history, and aims to show how they have helped to shape the terms of the current debate.