The Soldier's Life: Martial Virtues and Manly Romanitas in the Early Byzantine Empire

This monograph examines the various ways martial virtues and images of the soldier’s life shaped early Byzantine cultural ideals of masculinity. It contends that in many of the visual and literary sources from the fourth to the seventh centuries CE, conceptualisations of the soldier’s life and the ideal manly life were often the same. By taking this stance, the book challenges the view found in many recent studies on Late Roman and early Byzantine masculinity that suggest a Christian ideal of manliness based on extreme ascetic virtues and pacifism had superseded militarism and courage as the dominant component of hegemonic masculine ideology. Though the monograph does not reject the relevance of Christian constructions of masculinity for helping one understand early Byzantine society and its diverse representations of masculinity, it seeks to balance these modern studies’ often heavy emphasis on “rigorist” Christian sources with the more customary attitudes we find in the secular, and indeed some Christian texts, praising military virtues as an essential aspect of Byzantine manliness. The connection between martial virtues and “true” manliness remained a powerful cultural force in the period covered in this study. Indeed, the reader of this work will find that the “manliness of war” is on display in much of the surviving early Byzantine literature, secular and Christian.

History

Stewart, Michael Edward

Ancient Civilizations

Kismet Press LLP

This book introduces the underlying ideas which have created the constellation of thought commonly referred to as Speculative Realism (SR). In a non-technical style Speculative Realism: An Epitome explores the thought of three contemporary philosophers: Quentin Meillassoux, Ray Brassier, and Iain Hamilton Grant. The book characterizes the milieu in which SR was born and charts how the tendencies of thought created from its birth have diverged into contemporary metaphysics. Readers will gain from the book an understanding how the evolving motion of concepts created by the brief life of SR continue to change speculative philosophy in the contemporary Continental philosophical landscape today.
Contents: Introduction | Chapter I: Dead on Arrival | Chapter II: Heirs of Kantian Finitude | Chapter III: After Finitude | Chapter IV: After Nature | Interview with Ray Brassier | Interview with Iain Hamilton Grant
About the author: Dr. Leon Niemoczynski is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States. His research focuses mainly on the philosophy of nature, especially within the Continental philosophical tradition. He also maintains interests in a diverse range of topics including philosophical ecology, logic and metaphysics, German idealism, aesthetics, animal ethics, and the philosophy of religion. Philosophers most relevant to his current research include Plato, Hegel, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Deleuze, and Merleau-Ponty. Niemoczynski is the author of Speculative Naturalism (forthcoming 2018); as co-editor, Animal Experience: Consciousness and Emotions in the Natural World (Open Humanities Press, 2014) and A Philosophy of Sacred Nature: Prospects for Ecstatic Naturalism (Lexington Books, 2014); and Charles Sanders Peirce and a Religious Metaphysics of Nature (Lexington Books, 2011). He currently resides in the Pocono Mountains of Northeastern, Pennsylvania with his wife, Nalina.

Speculative Realism: An Epitome (Epitomes)

Politics & Social Sciences

Niemoczynski, Leon

Philosophy

This sweeping yet succinct new survey introduces readers to the history of the crusades from the eleventh to the twenty-first century. By synthesizing a variety of historical perspectives, the book deliberately locates crusading in the broader history of the Mediterranean, moving away from approaches focused primarily on narrating the deeds of a small section of the Latin Christian elite to explore the rich and contested complexity of crusade history.
Table of Contents
Introduction: What Were the Crusades? 1) Connections and Conflicts in the Eleventh-Century Mediterranean 2) Constructing the First Crusade: Contexts, Events, and Reactions 3) Shifting Ground: Crusading and the Twelfth-Century Mediterranean 4) Allies and Adversaries: Crusading Culture and Intra-Christian Crusades 5) Changing Circumstances: Crusading in the Thirteenth Century 6) Towards Christian Nationalism: Crusading into the Early Modern Period 7) Conclusion: Have the Crusades Ended?

The Crusades: An Epitome (Epitomes)

Throop, Susanna A.

Religion & Spirituality

Res, artes et religio is a collection of thirty-nine essays in honour of Rudolf Simek, professor at the Department of German, Comparative Literature and Culture at the University of Bonn. The terms res, artes and religio describe the wide-ranging interests of Rudolf Simek, which centre around but are by no means limited to the area of Viking Age and medieval Scandinavia. The chapters gathered here, written by his friends, colleagues and students, match these interests and show the influence of his work in the fields of mythology, religious studies, runology, saga studies, archaeology and more.

Res, Artes et Religio: Essays in Honour of Rudolf Simek (Literature and Culture)

Europe

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