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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2022

        Chinese religion in contemporary Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan

        The cult of the Two Grand Elders

        by Fabian Graham

        In Singapore and Malaysia, the inversion of Chinese Underworld traditions has meant that Underworld demons are now amongst the most commonly venerated deities in statue form, channelled through their spirit mediums, tang-ki. The Chinese Underworld and its sub-hells are populated by a bureaucracy drawn from the Buddhist, Taoist and vernacular pantheons. Under the watchful eye of Hell's 'enforcers', the lower echelons of demon soldiers impose post-mortal punishments on the souls of the recently deceased for moral transgressions committed during their prior incarnations. Chinese religion in contemporary Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan offers an ethnography of contemporary Chinese Underworld traditions, where night-time cemetery rituals assist the souls of the dead, exorcised spirits are imprisoned in Guinness bottles, and malicious foetus ghosts are enlisted to strengthen a temple's spirit army. Understanding the religious divergences between Singapore and Malaysia (and their counterparts in Taiwan) through an analysis of socio-political and historical events, Fabian Graham challenges common assumptions about the nature and scope of Chinese vernacular religious beliefs and practices. Graham's innovative approach to alterity allows the reader to listen to first-person dialogues between the author and channelled Underworld deities. Through its alternative methodological and narrative stance, the book intervenes in debates on the interrelation between sociocultural and spiritual worlds, and promotes the destigmatisation of spirit possession and discarnate phenomena in the future study of mystical and religious traditions.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2023

        Rethinking Norman Italy

        Studies in honour of Graham A. Loud

        by Joanna Drell, Paul Oldfield

        This volume on Norman Italy (southern Italy and Sicily, c. 1000-1200) honours and reflects the pioneering scholarship of Graham A. Loud. An international group of scholars reassesses and recasts the paradigm by which Norman Italy has been conventionally understood, addressing varied subjects across four key themes: historiographies, identities and communities, religion and Church, and conquest. The chapters revise and refine our understanding of Norman Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, demonstrating that it was not just a parochial Norman or Mediterranean entity but also an integral player in the medieval mainstream.

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        Fiction
        November 2018

        Beard's Roman Women

        By Anthony Burgess

        by Graham Foster

        Anthony Burgess draws upon an autobiographical episode to create Beard's Roman Women, the story of a man haunted by his first wife, presumed dead. But is she? A marvellously economical book, full-flavoured, funny, and heartfelt, showing its author at the height of his powers. This new edition is the first to be published with David Robinson's photographs for over 40 years. The text of the novel has been restored using the original typescripts, and Graham Foster's new introduction provides valuable insight into the fictional and biographical contexts of the novel. The text is fully annotated with a detailed set of notes and this edition includes the previously unpublished script for Burgess's television film By the Waters of Leman: Byron and Shelley at Geneva, and a rare piece of Burgess's writing about Rome.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2026

        Massacres in Early Modern Drama

        by Georgina Lucas

        Massacres in Early Modern Drama analyses the dynamically ambivalent meanings constructed by the language and action of massacre on the early modern stage. Informed by theories drawn from massacre studies, the monograph challenges orthodoxies about senseless violence, illuminates archaic forms of massacres, and attests to their brutally diverse stage representations. Anchored by the contention that the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris (1572) was instrumental to early modern understandings of massacre, the book uses this atrocity, and its most famous dramatic depiction - Christopher Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris - as a hook to explore larger concerns about massacre in plays by Robert Greene, George Chapman, John Fletcher, and William Shakespeare. Thus, Massacres in Early Modern Drama considers how early modern drama forms part of a continual cultural process of trying to piece together the contentious and traumatic phenomenon of massacre.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        April 2002

        ‘Love me or kill me’

        Sarah Kane and the theatre of extremes

        by Graham Saunders, Maria M. Delgado, Maggie B. Gale, Peter Lichtenfels, Kim Latham

        Blasted brought Sarah Kane to the theatre pages of the broadsheets, the front pages of the tabloids, and to the notice of the nation. Covers all Kane's major plays and productions, contains hitherto unpublished material and reviews, and looks at her continuing influence after her tragic early death. A chapter-by-chapter analysis looks at each play in detail and the appendices carry transcripts of interviews with colleagues and leading theatre practitioners involved with her productions. This book is the first study of the most significant British dramatist in post-war theatre and includes unpublished interview material with Sarah Kane herself. ;

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        October 2023

        Post-Mortem

        Autopsy stories: the unusual experiences of a pathologist

        by Roland Sedivy

        — True crime stories from the morgue — Famous deaths and autopsy stories resolved, such as Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and the case of Anne Greene, who survived her execution by hanging The post-mortem examination. A glimpse inside the interior of the human being. Many find the idea fascinating; for others it is creepy or even repugnant. There are still numerous myths and horror stories surrounding the autopsy, many of them associated with primal human fears such as that of being buried alive, which have existed since Antiquity. It is precisely for this reason that it is important to carry out the post-mortem examination with the utmost conscientiousness. Pathologist Roland Sedivy provides an exciting insight into his profession. Profound and with tremendous humour, he tells us about the early days of the autopsy, and shares with us some macabre and some mysterious cases.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2013

        Tyrants of Sicily by Hugo Falcandus

        by Graham Loud, Thomas Wiedemann

        This book is our principal source for the history of the Kingdom of Sicily in the troubled years between the death of its founder, King Roger, in February 1154 and the spring of 1169. It covers the reign of Roger's son, King William I, known to later centuries as 'the Bad', and the minority of the latter's son, William II 'the Good'. The book illustrates the revival of classical learning during the twelfth-century renaissance. It presents a vivid and compelling picture of royal tyranny, rebellion and factional dispute at court. Sicily had historically been ruled by tyrants, and that the rule of the new Norman kings could be seen, for a variety of reasons, as a revival of that classical tyranny. A more balanced view of Sicilian history of the period 1153-1169 has been provided as an appendix to the translation in the section of the contemporary world chronicle ascribed to Archbishop Romuald II of Salerno, who died in April 1181. In particular the chronicle of Romuald enables us to see how the papal schism of 1159 and the simultaneous dispute between the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and the north Italian cities affected the destiny of the kingdom of Sicily. In contrast to the shadowy figure of Hugo Falcandus, the putative author of the principal narrative of mid-twelfth-century Sicilian history, Romuald II, Archbishop of Salerno 1153-1181, is well-documented.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2026

        Afterlives of the Troubles

        Life stories, culture and conflict transformation in Northern Ireland

        by Graham Dawson

        Focusing on experiential life stories across a range of forms and practices, this book investigates subjectivity, culture and the cultural politics of representation as a neglected dimension of conflict transformation in the Northern Irish peace process. Interdisciplinary critical perspectives from historical cultural studies, oral history and popular-memory theory inform close interpretive engagement with life stories in their cultural, historical and geographical contexts. This enables exploration of the complex temporal dynamics of 'post-conflict' subjectivities in the lengthening 'afterlife' of the Troubles, where feelings attached to conflict experiences are not 'past' but haunt the present, and memory-work carries future-oriented desires for truth, justice and reconciliation. Through case studies responding to the evolving peace process through this prism of life-storytelling, Afterlives maps a contested history of legacy policy-making and approaches to 'dealing with the past', from devolution in 2005-7 through to the Legacy and Reconciliation Act of 2023.

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        September 2018

        Der Wind in den Weiden

        Bilderbuchklassiker zum Vorlesen für Kinder ab 4 Jahren

        by Kenneth Grahame, Olga Poljakowa

        Den ganzen Tag war er mit Frühjahrsputz beschäftigt, jetzt will der Maulwurf den wunderbaren Frühlingstag genießen. Mit seinen Freunden, der Ratte, dem Dachs und dem tollkühnen Kröterich erlebt er viele Abenteuer am Fluss, auf der Landstraße, im Wilden Wald und auf dem Landsitz Krötinhall. Die märchenhaften Geschichten von Kenneth Grahame, sprachlich behutsam überarbeitet und mit stimmungsvollen Illustrationen von Olga Poljakowa laden zum Vorlesen ein und begeistern Eltern sowie Kinder ab 4 Jahren mit ihrem Einfallsreichtum und ihren zauberhaften Welten.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2023

        The 1922 Committee

        by Philip Norton

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2026

        Monasticism and renewal in southern Italy

        The Chronicle of Montecassino by Leo Marsicanus, c. 529–1075

        by Graham Loud

        The chronicle of Leo Marsicanus recounts the history of the abbey of Montecassino from its foundation by St. Benedict in the sixth-century up to 1075. It presents a detailed and compelling story of tribulation and renewal, with the abbey twice destroyed and abandoned in the early Middle Ages and then rebuilt. It concludes with an informative account of the building and dedication of the new abbey church by Abbot Desiderius in 1066-71. The chronicle is also a key source for the more general history of southern Italy in the early Middle Ages, and of the conquest of the region by the Normans during the eleventh century. In addition, Montecassino was one of the great intellectual centres of western Christendom and a major contributor to the reform movement within the Church during the later eleventh century. Leo's chronicle is a crucial witness to that role.

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