No other Neoplatonic text has sparked as much debate as Ennead V. 7 [18] of Plotinus, ‘On the question of whether there are also Forms of individuals’. In this text, Plotinus is believed to postulate the existence of Forms of individuals alongside the traditional Platonic Forms of genera and species. If so, Plotinus stands as the sole figure in Platonism to advocate this problematic theory. Regrettably, most research on V. 7 [18] has focused solely on the Forms of individuals, overlooking...

“In groups the most contradictory ideas can exist side by side and tolerate each other, without any conflict arising from the logical contradiction between them”, wrote Freud in his 1921 book Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. One hundred years later, in an age of war, social networks, and ubiquitous threats to democracy, the questions raised by Freud are as relevant as ever. In today’s mass and group formations, psychological processes and mechanisms can be recognized as the...

The many preserved collections of student notes from the early modern period – ranging from neatly maintained notebooks to barely legible scribbles crammed between lines of printed text – hold considerable but largely untapped potential as an historical source. At the same time, the analysis of these notes poses significant challenges for scholars. This book aims to be a concise and accessible companion for scholars interested in engaging with this young and burgeoning research field. Wri...

The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the rise of modernist architects. Brokers of Modernity reveals how East Central Europe turned into one of the pre-eminent testing grounds of the new belief system of modernism. By combining the internationalism of the CIAM organization and the modernising aspirations of the new states built after 1918, the reach of modernist architects extended far beyond their established fields. Yet, these architects paid a price when Europe’s age of extre...

The Annals of the War in the Low Countries is one of Hugo Grotius' lesser-known works. Grotius expresses a wayward view of the early revolt, which he presents not as a united battle for the true faith and the ancient liberties of the land but as a protracted and painful struggle, not only with the great power of Spain, but also with discord, selfishness and religious fanaticism among the Dutch. To convey this complex and controversial vision of the foundational years of the Dutch Republic, Gr...

Plutarch’s Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata (Sayings of Kings and Commanders) holds a peculiar position in his oeuvre. This collection of almost 500 anecdotes of barbarian, Greek, and Roman rulers and generals is introduced by a dedicatory letter to Trajan as a summary of the author’s well known and widely read Parallel Lives. The work is therefore Plutarch’s only text that explicitly addresses a Roman emperor and is likely to shed light on his biographical technique. Yet the collecti...

To perform a musical score implies the transformation of a symbolically coded text into vibrant sound. In Performing by the Book? a carefully selected cadre of artist-researchers dissects this delicate act in critical ways. Offering first-hand insights into the notational, structural and interpretative challenges faced by musicians in dealing with texts of all kinds, the chapters traverse the spectrum between the Middle Ages and the age of Stockhausen. In a harmonious blend of scholarly allur...

Little is known about the African women who came to Europe from the 1870s onwards, nor do we dare to imagine them as wealthy, elegantly dressed individuals with refined tastes and fluent in several languages. The Krio Fernandino represented a multisited, multilocal, transnational, transcontinental and Afropolitan community that lived between Africa and Europe from the late 19th century onwards. This book explains how the Krio Fernandino, and particularly their women, transcended the barriers ...