Inscribing the Other focuses on great authors who have by birth or choice (or both) found themselves outside the mainstream of their culture but who have still wished to address it: Goethe, Freud, Wilde, Heine, Nietzsche, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, among others. In thirteen probing, provocative essays Sander L. Gilman reinterprets their writing as it reveals their efforts to come to terms with their real or imagined sense of difference. The chapters treat many themes and problems, ranging widely from the romantic notion of the transcendent artist to the twentieth-century artists-in-exile, and employing the perspectives of psychiatry, aesthetics, photography, politics, and the history of mentalities. The fate of Jewish writers in modern Germany, or of Yiddish writers whose language is devalued in European culture, is explored. The theme of difference and its artistic and intellectual manifestations runs throughout the book, which includes discussions of Goethe's and Wilde's homosexuality, Nietzsche's madness, Heine's refusal to be photographed, and Primo Levi's internment at Auschwitz, as well as an interview with Singer. In a frank autobiographical introduction, Gilman attempts to understand his own writing as an exercise in "inscribing the Other," in dealing with is own sense of difference through artistic creation.

This collection of essays examines how the paratextual apparatus of medieval manuscripts both inscribes and expresses power relations between the producers and consumers of knowledge in this important period of intellectual history. It seeks to define which paratextual features – annotations, commentaries, corrections, glosses, images, prologues, rubrics, and titles – are common to manuscripts from different branches of medieval knowledge and how they function in any particular discipline. It reveals how these visual expressions of power that organize and compile thought on the written page are consciously applied, negotiated or resisted by authors, scribes, artists, patrons and readers. This collection, which brings together scholars from the history of the book, law, science, medicine, literature, art, philosophy and music, interrogates the role played by paratexts in establishing authority, constructing bodies of knowledge, promoting education, shaping reader response, and preserving or subverting tradition in medieval manuscript culture.

Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity considers the Greek and Latin texts inscribed in churches and chapels in the late antique Mediterranean (c. 300–800 CE), compares them to similar texts from pagan, Jewish, and Muslim spaces of worship, and explores how they functioned both textually and visually. These texts not only recorded the names and prayers of the faithful, but were powerful verbal and visual statements of cultural values and religious beliefs, conveying meaning through their words as well as through their appearances. In fact, the two were intimately connected. All of these texts – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and pagan – acted visually, embracing their own materiality as mosaic, paint, or carved stone. Colourful and artfully arranged, the inscriptions framed human relationships with the divine, encouraged responses from readers, and made prayers material. In the first in-depth examination of the inscriptions as words and as images, the author reimagines the range of aesthetic, cultural, and religious experiences that were possible in spaces of worship. Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity is essential reading for those interested in Roman, late antique, and Byzantine material and visual culture, inscriptions and other texts, and religious life in the ancient Mediterranean.

This brilliant collection of essays examines the dialogue between Jewish history and historiography in terms of changing national and popular myths, folk memory, and historical consciousness of Jews in modern times. From essays dealing with the origins of Jewish historiography in the nineteenth century, to its contemporary perspectives and methodologies, this book provides a great overview and varied insights into the field.

Emphasising the connection of globalisation to local culture, this collection considers the diversity of modes of reception, reception contexts, uses of media content, and the performative and creative relationships that audiences develop.

In recent decades there has been a rising interest among scholars of Hinduism and Judaism in engaging in the comparative studies of these ancient traditions. Academic interests have also been inspired by the rise of interreligious dialogue by the respective religious leaders. Dharma and Halacha: Comparative Studies in Hindu-Jewish Philosophy and Religion represents a significant contribution to this emerging field, offering an examination of a wide range of topics and a rich diversity of perspectives and methodologies within each tradition, and underscoring significant affinities in textual practices, ritual purity, sacrifice, ethics and theology. Dharma refers to a Hindu term indicating law, duty, religion, morality, justice and order, and the collective body of Dharma is called Dharma-shastra. Halacha is the Hebrew term designating the Jewish spiritual path, comprising the collective body of Jewish religious laws, ethics and rituals. Although there are strong parallels between Hinduism and Judaism in topics such as textual practices and mystical experience, the link between these two religious systems, i.e. Dharma and Halacha, is especially compelling and provides a framework for the comparative study of these two traditions. The book begins with an introduction to Hindu-Jewish comparative studies and recent interreligious encounters. Part I of the book titled “Ritual and Sacrifice,” encompasses the themes of sacrifice, holiness, and worship. Part II titled "Ethics," is devoted to comparing ethical systems in both traditions, highlighting the manifold ways in which the sacred is embodied in the mundane. Part III of the book titled "Theology," addresses common themes and phenomena in spiritual leadership, as well as textual metaphors for mystical and visionary experiences in Hinduism and Judaism. The epilogue offers a retrospective on Hindu-Jewish encounters, mapping historic as well as contemporary academic initiatives and collaborations.

The political context in which historians of India find themselves today, says Sumit Sarkar, is dominated by the advance of the Hindu Right and globalized forms of capitalism, while the historian's intellectual context is dominated by the marginalization of all varieties of Marxism and an academic shift to cultural studies and postmodern critique. In Beyond Nationalist Frames, one of India's foremost contemporary historians offers his view of how the craft of history should be practiced in this complex conjuncture. In studies of colonial time-keeping, Rabindranath Tagore's fiction, and pre-Independence Bengal, Sarkar explores new approaches to the writing of history. Essays on contemporary politics consider the implications of the "Hindu Bomb," the rewriting of national history textbooks by Hindu fundamentalists, and the issue of conversion to Christianity. Scholars in all the fields touched by recent developments in South Asian historiography—anthropology, feminist theory, comparative literature, cultural studies—will find this a stimulating and provocative collection of essays, as will anyone interested in Indian politics.