Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts takes as its starting point an understanding that a medieval book is a whole object at every point of its long history. As such, medieval books can be studied most profitably in a holistic manner as objects-in-the-world. This means readers might profitably account for all aspects of the manuscript in their observations, from the main texts that dominate the codex to the marginal notes, glosses, names, and interventions made through time. This holistic approach allows us to tell the story of the book's life from the moment of its production to its use, collection, breaking-up, and digitization—all aspects of what can be termed 'dynamic architextuality'. The ten chapters include detailed readings of texts that explain the processes of manuscript manufacture and writing, taking in invisible components of the book that show the joy and delight clearly felt by producers and consumers. Chapters investigate the filling of manuscripts' blank spaces, presenting some texts never examined before, and assessing how books were conceived and understood to function. Manuscripts' heft and solidness can be seen, too, in the depictions of miniature books in medieval illustrations. Early manuscripts thus become archives and witnesses to individual and collective memories, best read as 'relics of existence', as Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes things. As such, it is urgent that practices fragmenting the manuscript through book-breaking or digital display are understood in the context of the book's wholeness. Readers of this study will find chapters on multiple aspects of medieval bookness in the distant past, the present, and in the assurance of the future continuity of this most fascinating of cultural artefacts.

Anthony J. Lisska presents a new analysis of Thomas Aquinas's theory of perception. While much work has been undertaken on Aquinas's texts, little has been devoted principally to his theory of perception and less still on a discussion of inner sense. The thesis of intentionality serves as the philosophical backdrop of this analysis while incorporating insights from Brentano and from recent scholarship. The principal thrust is on the importance of inner sense, a much-overlooked area of Aquinas's philosophy of mind, with special reference to the vis cogitativa. Approaching the texts of Aquinas from contemporary analytic philosophy, Lisska suggests a modest 'innate' or 'structured' interpretation for the role of this inner sense faculty. Dorothea Frede suggests that this faculty is an 'embarrassment' for Aquinas; to the contrary, the analysis offered in this book argues that were it not for the vis cogitativa, Aquinas's philosophy of mind would be an embarrassment. By means of this faculty of inner sense, Aquinas offers an account of a direct awareness of individuals of natural kinds--referred to by Aquinas as incidental objects of sense--which comprise the principal ontological categories in Aquinas's metaphysics. By using this awareness of individuals of a natural kind, Aquinas can make better sense out of the process of abstraction using the active intellect (intellectus agens). Were it not for the vis cogitativa, Aquinas would be unable to account for an awareness of the principal ontological category in his metaphysics.

The way people see the past tells us much about their present interests and about their sense of identity. This book examines both what men of the day knew about their past, and in particular about the Roman Empire, and shows how such knowledge was used to authenticate claims and attitudes. These original essays, by distinguished scholars, are wide-ranging both geographically, from Russia to Iberia, and in scope, dealing with legal, ecclesiastical, noble and scholarly attitudes.

The Perception of Illusory Contours is a complete and comprehensive volume on one of the most important phenomena in modern perception research. An illusory contour is a demonstration in which people perceive edges, surfaces, objects and colors that have no physical reality. The international group of distinguished researchers which comprise the contributors to the volume present new theoretical interpretations and data in addition to reviewing the extensive literature on this topic. The volume begins with an introduction to the research on and theories behind illusory contours and their applications to other areas of perception, cognitive science and art. The collection also features English language translations of the seminal papers by Schumann, Ehrenstein, and Kanizsa, the scientists who originally discovered and investigated the phenomenon. The Perception of Illusory Contours contains the most comprehensive set of illusory contour figures ever assembled. The volume is a most significant reference work in an area of research at the critical intersection of perception, cognitive science, visual neurophysiology, and artificial intelligence.

As witnessed by a tremendous upsurge in medieval research, academic meetings, innovative interpretive approaches, enrolment numbers, and public interest, Medieval Studies are proving once again to be a vibrant field of investigations both inside and outside of academia. Nevertheless, there is a tendency among colleagues and administrators in the field of Germanistik/German Studies to exclude the earlier period as an exotic and irrelevant subject matter. The contributors to this volume, all of whom teach at North American universities, make a strong case for the paradigmatic function of medieval German literature for the general field of Germanistik, and argue that many of the most recent changes in our discipline related to the German Studies paradigm have been foreshadowed by Medieval Studies where interdisciplinarity, comparative approaches, the consideration of Mentalitätsgeschichte, theology, history, art history, even gender studies, and the history of everyday life have often constituted the conditio sine qua non. Some of the authors in this volume argue for the relevance of medieval German literature by investigating concrete cases taken from the Middle Ages, others show how modern German literature has been deeply influenced by medieval texts. The purpose of this volume is not to privilege medieval literature over modern literature, but instead to reclaim the premodern period as an important and relevant field of investigation within contemporary German Studies.

An examination of the linguistic and cultural construction of one of the texts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In the twelfth century, a version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was rewritten at Peterborough Abbey, welding local history into an established framework of national events. This text has usually been regarded as an exception, a vernacular Chronicle written in a period dominated by Latin histories. This study, however, breaks new ground by considering the Peterborough Chronicle as much more than just an example of the accidental longevity of the Chronicle tradition. Close analysis reveals unique interpretations of events, and a very strong sense of communal identity, suggesting that the construction of this text was not a marginal activity, but one essential to the articulation of the abbey's image. This text also participates in a vibrant post-Conquest textual culture, in particular at Canterbury, including the writing of the bilingual F version of the Chronicle; its symbiotic relationship witha wider corpus of Latin historiography thus indicates the presence of shared sources. The incorporation of alternative generic types in the text also suggests the presence of formal hybridity, a further testament to a fluid and adaptable textual culture. Dr Malasree Home teaches at Newcastle University.

This collection responds to the critical legacy of Penn R. Szittya. Its contributors investigate how medieval poetic language reflects and shapes social, political, and religious worlds. In addition to new readings of canonical poetic texts, it includes readings of texts that have previously not held a central place in critical attention.

A collection of essays by leading historians of early modern Europe and the U.S., this books explores how merchants, entrepreneurs, and other early modern capitalists viewed themselves.

This volume summarizes the results of a research project organized at Mainz University in Germersheim, Germany. It focused on the Jewish community in Kaifeng in China (12th to 19th century). In recent years, increasing research has been done about the history and culture of the Jews in China, and in the future, more academic interest in all questions connected with it can be expected. Main topics are the perception of Chinese Judaism in European history as well as in Chinese society itself, the self-image of the descendants in Kaifeng and their present status in China, and how China deals with foreign ethnics and religions as part of its own history and identity. These topics were discussed from various interdisciplinary points of view. The authors from Australia, China, Hong Kong, Israel, Great Britain, France, and Germany are prominent sino-judaists who present their latest results of research in the light of new facts and approaches.

I wrote this book for everybody that's interested in the word of God despite which opinion you have or denomination!