(Im)possible Escape? H. G. Wells, Utopia and the World State

This article reviews the recent monograph by Maxim Shadurski, The Nationality of Utopia. H. G. Wells, England, and the World State (New York: Routledge, 2020) in the context of utopian studies on the one hand, and the political ideas of the nation state vs. world state on the other.

Optimal Control of Mean Field Equations with Monotone Coefficients and Applications in Neuroscience

We are interested in the optimal control problem associated with certain quadratic cost functionals depending on the solution $$X=X^\alpha $$ X = X α of the stochastic mean-field type evolution equation in $${\mathbb {R}}^d$$ R d $$\begin{aligned} dX_t=b(t,X_t,{\mathcal {L}}(X_t),\alpha _t)dt+\sigma (t,X_t,{\mathcal {L}}(X_t),\alpha _t)dW_t\,, \quad X_0\sim \mu (\mu \text { given),}\qquad (1) \end{aligned}$$ d X t = b ( t , X t , L ( X t ) , α t ) d t + σ ( t , X t , L ( X t ) , α t ) d W t , X 0 ∼ μ ( μ given), ( 1 ) under assumptions that enclose a system of FitzHugh–Nagumo neuron networks, and where for practical purposes the control $$\alpha _t$$ α t is deterministic. To do so, we assume that we are given a drift coefficient that satisfies a one-sided Lipschitz condition, and that the dynamics (2) satisfies an almost sure boundedness property of the form $$\pi (X_t)\le 0$$ π ( X t ) ≤ 0 . The mathematical treatment we propose follows the lines of the recent monograph of Carmona and Delarue for similar control problems with Lipschitz coefficients. After addressing the existence of minimizers via a martingale approach, we show a maximum principle for (2), and numerically investigate a gradient algorithm for the approximation of the optimal control.

A scenic walk through Brenner’s New Urban Spaces in Toronto

This article reviews Brenner’s most recent monograph, New Urban Spaces, in which he demonstrates his systematic and decades-long effort into developing new epistemological perspectives, conceptual proposals, and methodological strategie for urban investigation in our so-called global ‘urban age’. We use images taken in the city of Toronto to interpret and visually explain some of Brenner’s key concepts and arguments. In our critical assessment, we point out that Brenner’s abstract theorizing and overgeneralization may have provoked an ignorance of the local variations in effect globally and a failure to tease out specific testable hypotheses for urban investigation. To conclude, we introduce a newly developed scenic approach, one that extends Brenner’s view on the urban by stressing the importance of local variations and testable hypotheses.

Greek Influences on Syriac and Contact-Induced Changes: Reflections on a Recent Book

This paper reviews and comments upon a recent monograph by Aaron M. Butts on linguistic contacts between Greek and Syriac, Language Change in the Wake of Empire: this volume is also used as an opportunity to discuss the expectations for this kind of studies in the future years, and to reflect upon their past. The importance of Butts’ book as a crucial tool for the scholarly community involved in contact-induced studies is here highlighted. Butts offers a most welcome new and thorough analysis of the materials collected by his predecessors and adds his personal new data. This review article also provides a brief recollection of previous studies, that opened the way to Butts’ comprehensive approach.

Gevoel and Illumination: Bavinck, Augustine, and Bonaventure on Awareness of God

This essay offers a reflection that seeks to clarify and complement Steven Duby’s God in Himself, especially on the natural awareness of God. First, in response to Duby’s assessment of Bavinck’s critique of certain forms of natural theology, I draw particularly from Cory Brock’s recent monograph on Bavinck’s critical appropriation of particular strands of post-Kantian romantic philosophy in order to articulate the affective dimensions of general revelation. This explains Bavinck’s preference for the term “general revelation” over “natural theology,” for the former emphasizes humanity’s pre-categorical dependence on God’s revealing work internal to the human psyche, manifesting as the feeling (gevoel) of dependence. Second, then, following Bavinck’s own connection of Schleiermacher to Augustine’s turn to the subject, I provide a retrieval of Augustine’s and Bonaventure’s accounts of illumination, which escalates the agent’s dependence on God’s revelation to a maximal degree.

How does Cultural Transfer in Pedagogics Work? Review of the Book.: Dorena Caroli. De Amicis in Russia. La ricezione nel sistema scolastico zarista e sovietico. Roma: Carocci editore, 2020

The present review analyses a recent monograph "De Amicis in Russia. La ricezione nel sistema scolastico zarista e sovietico" by Dorena Caroli. The book is dedicated to the investigation of how the ideas of humanist school, expressed by the 19 th century Italian writer and educator Edmondo De Amicis, influenced the school system transformations in the pre-revolutionary and in the Soviet Russia. The review consequently puts into light the theoretical basis of the monograph (mostly, the theory of cultural transfer), its structure, the style of the author and the results of the research. The author puts the question of De Amicis’ ideas reception in a broad cultural context, thus the study offers a deep insight into the school system evolution in the czarist Russia and the Soviet state and a broad map of children book market at the end of the 19 th century. The monograph highlights a universal nature of De Amicis’ ideas which for amost a century through a number of translations and adaptations served as a source for the school system renovation in Russia in various social and political contexts.

Nondimeno. Una nota sul linguaggio dell’eccezione e della circostanza nel Carteggio sforzesco

On the basis of the recent monograph by C. Ginzburg and G. Pedullà’s review, it is possible to identify the word nondimanco/nondimeno (nonetheless) as an important element in Renaissance political writing. However, it does not only appear in the work of Machiavelli or Guicciardini and in the more conscious reflections by the intellectuals, but also in the huge amount of letters that constitute the government correspondence of the time. In these kinds of pragmatic texts, referring to the state of Milan in the Sforza age, it recurs as a key word of a dilemma: the friction between law and transgression (or exception considered legitimate) and also between law and practice. On one hand, it expresses an assumption invested in value: the duke must honor his promises and the contents of the chapters agreed on with his subjects; custom demands respect; factional divisions must be overcome. At the same time it reveals the concern that this principle could be trampled upon, or instead the will, if not the need, to attenuate the more general rule. This conjunction thus summarized the requirement to nuance the law, to adapt it to circumstance, and to conciliate potentially conflicting rights or reasons. In short, it stands as an indicator of one of the main causes of open tensions in the late medieval state, debated by a long tradition of scholars ranging from O. Brunner to R. Fubini: the opposition between the authority of the prince, as arbiter of the exception requested from time to time from the same variety of concrete situations, and the legalistic culture of the territorial bodies, which, referring to law and custom, tempted to stem the “extraordinary” powers that the duke was attributing to himself.

What Is the Subject of Principle 2 in Maimonides's Book of the Commandments? Towards a New Understanding of Maimonides's Approach to Extrascriptural Law

Among Maimonides's many statements about extrascriptural laws in rabbinic literature, none has attracted as much attention as principle 2 in his Book of the Commandments. Modern scholars have largely understood this text to claim that very few of the laws found in rabbinic literature are Sinaitic in origin and of biblical status. Yet, until the twentieth century, principle 2 was primarily read as distinguishing between revealed laws that constitute enumerated commandments and revealed laws that do not. In fact, neither reading is consistent with other Maimonidean statements. By contextualizing principle 2 within the Book of the Commandments, this essay reconsiders Maimonides's enumeration of the commandments and argues that many of the problems that principle 2 was designed to address, and that it also generated, resulted from the incongruity of his project of enumerating precisely 613 commandments alongside his understanding of revelation as a corpus that included not only the Written Torah but innumerable extrascriptural traditions as well. An appendix evaluates pertinent aspects of the most recent monograph dedicated to Maimonides's scriptural hermeneutics.

Schulzowska „teoria obrazu” w interpretacji Anny Juraschek

The article is a review of and a discussion with the recent monograph by Anna Juraschek, Die Rettung des Bildes im Wort. Bruno Schulz’ Bild-Idee in seinem prosaischen und bildnerischen Werk, Göttingen 2016. Juraschek has put forward the following thesis: alongside his own specific philosophy of language expressed in his narrative works and essays, Bruno Schulz also suggests a particular philosophy of image/picture, which he develops in his visual art. This “program” is not specified and may be reconstructed only by interpreting his graphic works; it is, however, corroborated by the poetics of Schulz’ stories. Juraschek regards the “word” and the “image” in Schulz as artistic entities, and emphasizes the visual nature of his fiction and the narrative qualities of his graphic works. She points at Schulz’s crossing of the boundaries between different arts and claims that the writer criticizes the very notion of mimesis (a statement that, according to the reviewer, may be questioned). Juraschek tries to reconstruct the main sources inspiring Schulz’s idea of image/picture: the classic European painting, German literature (i.e. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Joseph von Eichendorff), as well as German philosophers and cultural critics such as Walter Benjamin. According to the reviewer, there are three points that Juraschek’s study can contribute to Schulz studies. First, the German scholar succeeds in systematizing different kinds of verbo-visual relations and interactions in Schulz’s oeuvre. Second, she fully appreciates his graphic work which thus far seems to have been undervalued, especially by Polish scholars. Last but not least, Juraschek brings to the fore some striking affinities between the ideas of Schulz and those of Walter Benjamin. As a possible background of interpreting Schulz, the philosophical writings of Benjamin are a context which certainly deserves more investigation.

Rediscovery and taxonomic placement of Solanum polyphyllum Phil. (Solanaceae), a narrow endemic from the Chilean Atacama Desert

Although the original description of Solanum polyphyllum Phil. was made in 1891, this species was not seen until it was re-discovered 128 years later in 2019 in the Atacama Desert. Fruits and seeds were previously unknown and a complete description is provided here. This species was not treated in the most recent monograph of Solanum sect. Regmandra, but it should be incorporated in this section due to its glabrous, sessile and entire leaves, which are decurrent onto the stem. Morphologically, S. polyphyllum is similar to S. paposanum, also of section Regmandra, but differs in the entire leaves (against margins with 4–5 acute lobes in S. paposanum) and glabrous leaves (moderately pubescent adaxially and velutinous abaxially in S. paposanum). The rediscovery of S. polyphyllum at a new locality at the same altitudinal belt as the type, re-affirms its restricted distribution and endemism and supports a potential conservation status as an endangered species.