Whereas in late medieval Italy, Ireland was viewed positively, Renaissance writers had little time for it. This changed attitude is ascribable to the rediscovery of ancient geographers, especially Strabo, for whom Ireland marked the end of the known world and was thus of no concern to theoikoumene, whilst at the same time guaranteeing, by its very position and savagery, the integrity of that Rome-centered world. This view continued to hold sway even after the discovery of the New World, which it also in fact helped to make sense of: the savages of the New World being “Irish-like,” the edge of theoikoumene had not moved further out but simply got thicker, and its center was thus still in Rome. Only for a while in the mid-sixteenth century did Italians take any real interest in Ireland, producing two original descriptions of the country, both, however, in the name of that sameoikoumene: one (negative) to prove the inevitability of Ireland's papally ordained submission to England, the other (positive) to depict the Irish as potential allies against the “anti-ecumenical” menace of Henry VIII. But the Irish were soon of little interest again, except for the (Horatian) entertainment value they provided.

Cherie Moraga’s play, Heroes and Saints, and Helena Maria Viramontes’ novel, Under the Feet of Jesus, offer readers perspectives on the lives of migrant farm workers in California that challenge the moral imagination and conscience. Both focus on health hazards of pesticides and on the often prohibitive difficulty of getting health care for those who fall ill as a result of exposure. This paper offers a reflection on the direct political and moral appeal these works present to readers who may not see or acknowledge the sacrifices sustained by those whose undercompensated labors are an integral part of our food systems.

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Der Text sammelt Notizen, die sich alle an eine Frage heften. Wie viel Geschichte braucht die Moderne? Und Geschichte sollte heißen Geschichtsschreibung. Wie viel „Geschichte“ muss man heute schreiben, wenn es sich um die Moderne dreht? Die Frage nach der Geschichte stellt sich, folgt man der Spur, in der die Moderne zeitlich verortet wird. Es gibt weniger ausgetretene Pfade, aber der ausgezeichnete Weg der Moderne führt ins 18. Jahrhundert. Die Moderne beginnt philosophisch mit der Durchsetzung der rationalen Methode und den empirischen Naturwissenschaften, politisch mit der Durchsetzung parlamentarischer Demokratien, ökonomisch mit der Industrialisierung, kulturtheoretisch mit der Autonomieästhetik, technisch mit einer publizistisch geschaffenen Öffentlichkeit, demographisch mit der Urbanisierung, die Moderne beginnt in Europa um 1800, plus minus.¹

The renowned Greek actor Polus (fl. c. 300 b.c.) is said, when acting the title-role of a revival of sophocles' Electra, to have made his performance more moving by using the urn containing his late son's ashes to represent that supposed to hold the remains of Orestes. In this article I consider the use made of the anecdote by theorists of acting and of rhetoric from the Renaissance onwards; I notice a change during the eighteenth century from approval to disapprobation, a loss of interest in the nineteenth century, and a revival—both for praise and for blame—in the twentieth, and attempt to correlate the judgments made of it, positive and negative, respectively with empathetic and imitative theories of acting. I conclude by considering the metatheatrical exploitation of the story made by Thomas Goffe in the early seventeenth century.

Despite the expansion of research on the subject of Jewish apostates in Iberia, or conversos as they are more commonly known, we still know distressingly little about the history of Jews converted to Christianity prior to the riots of 1391. Focusing on the royal registers of King Pere III (Pedro IV of Aragon, 1336–1387) and his son Joan I (1387–1396), this article explores the issue of Jewish apostasy in the Crown of Aragon between 1378 and 1391. While Jewish conversion to Christianity is often described as the result of Christian violence, a closer look at Jewish apostates shows that reasons for conversion varied greatly in the late fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon. Jews sought conversion not only as a way out of economic and legal troubles but also in exchange for specific rewards from the king. Conversion led to much conflict between Jews and conversos and records suggest that the period experienced a rise in conversions. Yet rather than being the product of Christian harassment, which is entirely absent from the records, conversion may have been one of the few avenues left for marginal Jews to weather the declining economic conditions of the late fourteenth century.

An egalitarian approach to patient selection should afford equal concern and respect to the lives of transplant candidates. This means giving them fair chances for an organ. I see two types of grounds upon which fair chances of final selection could be afforded to candidates: grounds for special consideration and grounds for common concern.

The grounds for special consideration might aim to compensate for natural disadvantages that drastically reduce certain candidates’ chances for Resources. For instance, democratic deliberators may wish to uphold a long tradition of prioritizing candidates at death’s door who meet a criterion of imminent death. This prioritization could meet an egalitarian demand for justice by either selecting the sickest candidates first or by giving them weighted chances for Resources that other candidates do not have. There might be other factors, such as blood type or the need for multi-organ transplants, that place some candidates within these grounds.