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Students often see pictures before reading a text. Hence, pictures in the textbooks influence the attitude of students toward a group that were represented with the pictures. The main objective of this research was to investigate the representation and portrayal of old people in 1st and 2nd cycle students' textbooks of Ethiopia with its policy implication. A total of 32 primary school textbooks were analyzed within the scope of this study. Document analysis were used as a major data collection method. It was found out that old people were portrayed with positive character that describe their activity in the society, have normal physical appearance, have minimum wrinkles, and socially cooperative. Parent role and grandparent role was used in the portrayal of old people while describing old people in the text books. All these show that variables associated with parental role like love and care were used as unique character of parents and grandparents indicate positive meaning given for the elderly in these text books. Finally, was recommended that curriculum planners should give due attention to pictures in text books since they have hidden agenda that they message to students. Moreover, since male and female were not equally represented in these text books it was recommended to consider it during textbook preparation.

Cartographic education is seemingly in limbo. Courses are closing, professionally trained cartographers are dwindling in numbers and mapping is often not much more than a self-service activity. And all this against a backdrop of the massive increase in map use, the democratization of mapping and a plethora of online materials to aid the novice map-maker. We see many more maps and there's no doubt that amongst the few gems we see many more very poorly designed maps. But what of the expertise? And what of core competencies in cartography? In a world that now uses Google and Wikipedia as the go-to sage, what of the cartographic textbook? And what of core training? In this presentation I assert that the death of cartographic expertise needs to be staunched. I'll discuss two new mechanisms to approach the problem. First, a new book designed to re-imagine the dissemination of cartographic knowledge; a cartographic text book with a difference. Secondly, a Massive Open Online Course that, to date, has been taught to over 80,000 registrants worldwide. In planning the book, over a number of years, it became obvious that there was a massive unmet need for a new book about thinking about cartography. A book that veers markedly from a traditional textbook yet delivers core concepts and cartographic principles in a new and engaging way. A book whose content is not tied to chapters but is immediately accessible through a unique structure and which keeps the often mystical cartographic vocabulary to a minimum. A book that supports new map-makers in a visually compelling way yet is mature enough to support practiced cartographers as a go-to companion. "Cartography." is that book. Published in July 2018, this major new publication is designed to engage with a modern audience keen to learn how to make better maps (Figure 1). In this presentation I will explore the need for a new book and demonstrate the void that it fills in cartographic education. I'll explain its structure as one that mirrors the map-making process - which is never one that linearly considers projections, colour, typography and so on - but one which supports the interplay of the many simultaneous decisions made in the map-making process. I'll go into detail about the book's design, format and content and link it clearly to modern praxis and learning environments. Running at 550 pages with contributions from over 20 acknowledged cartographic experts and over 300 maps and illustrations, it is bold in scope and the intent is to make this a one-stop-shop for cartography, delivering the essentials in a way that makes sense to those who have never studied cartography but which will enable them to take advantage of the many ideas and approaches that define the discipline of cartography; and for those experienced cartographers that seek a companion in their everyday work. I will explain how the book differs from what has gone before and how it supports cartographic education and practice going forward. Turning attention to other learning realms, I will also discuss the book's companion, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). To date the course has run three times to over 80,000 people. It's free and spans a 6 week period during which time students get access to videos, software, data and exercises, quizzes and access to cartographic experts via a discussion forum. Each week requires around 3–4 hrs of work per week. The idea is simply to expose people to some fundamental cartographic ideas as an antidote to the simple notion that 'anyone can make a map'. While that is true, the ability to think about the map and better understand how to make decisions to make the map better are crucial. While not the first MOOC or online course in cartography, this was developed to be a bit larger in scope than those that have gone before. Figure 2 also demonstrates the international reach of the global classroom and how it has captured the imagination. It's important to note that this is not a talk designed to sell anything other than the idea that we need to rethink cartographic education going forward and for cartographers to reassert their relevance as key players. The two initiatives I present her are one attempt at contributing to repositioning cartographic expertise. Going beyond the cartographic field into data visualisation, visual journalism and democratised mapping is crucial to ensure that people make maps of worth. To do that, we, as a cartographic community must find new and engaging ways, beyond our traditional approaches, to help them see that our ideas resonate and we can add value to their work.

Cartographic education is seemingly in limbo. Courses are closing, professionally trained cartographers are dwindling in numbers and mapping is often not much more than a self-service activity. And all this against a backdrop of the massive increase in map use, the democratization of mapping and a plethora of online materials to aid the novice map-maker. We see many more maps and there's no doubt that amongst the few gems we see many more very poorly designed maps. But what of the expertise? And what of core competencies in cartography? In a world that now uses Google and Wikipedia as the go-to sage, what of the cartographic textbook? And what of core training? In this presentation I assert that the death of cartographic expertise needs to be staunched. I'll discuss two new mechanisms to approach the problem. First, a new book designed to re-imagine the dissemination of cartographic knowledge; a cartographic text book with a difference. Secondly, a Massive Open Online Course that, to date, has been taught to over 80,000 registrants worldwide. In planning the book, over a number of years, it became obvious that there was a massive unmet need for a new book about thinking about cartography. A book that veers markedly from a traditional textbook yet delivers core concepts and cartographic principles in a new and engaging way. A book whose content is not tied to chapters but is immediately accessible through a unique structure and which keeps the often mystical cartographic vocabulary to a minimum. A book that supports new map-makers in a visually compelling way yet is mature enough to support practiced cartographers as a go-to companion. "Cartography." is that book. Published in July 2018, this major new publication is designed to engage with a modern audience keen to learn how to make better maps (Figure 1). In this presentation I will explore the need for a new book and demonstrate the void that it fills in cartographic education. I'll explain its structure as one that mirrors the map-making process - which is never one that linearly considers projections, colour, typography and so on - but one which supports the interplay of the many simultaneous decisions made in the map-making process. I'll go into detail about the book's design, format and content and link it clearly to modern praxis and learning environments. Running at 550 pages with contributions from over 20 acknowledged cartographic experts and over 300 maps and illustrations, it is bold in scope and the intent is to make this a one-stop-shop for cartography, delivering the essentials in a way that makes sense to those who have never studied cartography but which will enable them to take advantage of the many ideas and approaches that define the discipline of cartography; and for those experienced cartographers that seek a companion in their everyday work. I will explain how the book differs from what has gone before and how it supports cartographic education and practice going forward. Turning attention to other learning realms, I will also discuss the book's companion, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). To date the course has run three times to over 80,000 people. It's free and spans a 6 week period during which time students get access to videos, software, data and exercises, quizzes and access to cartographic experts via a discussion forum. Each week requires around 3–4 hrs of work per week. The idea is simply to expose people to some fundamental cartographic ideas as an antidote to the simple notion that 'anyone can make a map'. While that is true, the ability to think about the map and better understand how to make decisions to make the map better are crucial. While not the first MOOC or online course in cartography, this was developed to be a bit larger in scope than those that have gone before. Figure 2 also demonstrates the international reach of the global classroom and how it has captured the imagination. It's important to note that this is not a talk designed to sell anything other than the idea that we need to rethink cartographic education going forward and for cartographers to reassert their relevance as key players. The two initiatives I present her are one attempt at contributing to repositioning cartographic expertise. Going beyond the cartographic field into data visualisation, visual journalism and democratised mapping is crucial to ensure that people make maps of worth. To do that, we, as a cartographic community must find new and engaging ways, beyond our traditional approaches, to help them see that our ideas resonate and we can add value to their work.

James by Percival EverettUnderground Empire by Farrell & Newman[Oops, an unfinished version of this post went online December 30 just before midnight.]This is my annual post listing and briefly discussing books I read in the most recent year. It seems kind of hard to believe, but I have produced such a post every year since 2005. This is a link to the 2023 list if blog readers want to work backwards. You will find that the books are loosely ranked within categories. Also, I posted short reviews of almost all of these books at Goodreads. Non-FictionHenry Farrell and Abraham Newman, Underground
EmpireLaura Neack, National, International, and Human
SecurityMichael Doyle, The Cold PeaceMost of the non-fiction I read this year was related to baseball (see below), but I did manage to complete a few other books. The Neack volume was the text in my spring 2024 Security Studies course and it worked very well. I would use it again, though I'm on sabbatical 2025-26 and don't teach Security in 2024-25. Doyle's book is interesting and offers some thoughtful comparison chapters thinking about autocracy today (especially in China and Russia) versus Mussolini's fascism and Japan's imperial period before World War II. As an international relations liberal, Doyle is concerned about how the domestic characteristics of states shapes their foreign policy behavior. He offers some insights about US competition with China and Russia and thinks about how to avoid disastrous outcomes that are plausible in a new Cold War.The outstanding non-fiction book of the year for me was Farrell and Newman's Underground Empire. They make a convincing case that the US has exploited widely unknown economic and technical advantages for its own ends. Basically, they describe centralized chokepoints relating to the internet, banking, microchips, etc. The list of examples when the US exploited its leverage includes the nuclear deal with Iran and the Trump administration's sanctioning of an ICC prosecutor and another official. With Trump returning to power,  I would urge everyone to think seriously about this almost hidden ("underground") but potent US power that seems quite vulnerable to abuse. The authors dream about using the tool to stop climate change or corruption, but I'm skeptical that those will be priority items on the US agenda 2025-2028. Baseball non-fictionRoger Angell,  A Pitcher's StoryLucas Mann,  Class A Tyler Kepner, K: A  History of the Game in Ten PitchersJohn Sickels, Bob Feller Keith Law, The Inside GameBarry Svrluga, The Grind: Inside Baseball's
Endless SeasonRon Backer, Baseball Goes to the MoviesDenny Matthews with Matt Fulks, Tales From the
RoyalsYes, I read quite a number of baseball books this year and the list above does not even include the annual Baseball Prospectus that I consumed as well. Angell's book is about David Cone who struggled during the 2000 season even as his NY Yankees won another World Series. It's good and I'm not just saying that because Cone was drafted by the KC Royals as a local athlete who later returned to the team and excelled. I much enjoyed the books by Mann, Kepner, and Sickels and would recommend all of them. Mann writes about professional baseball in small town Iowa and it speaks to many political issues too -- working conditions for labor, immigrant labor, globalization, the consequences of corn subsidies, etc. Since I read Angell at the beginning of the year and the Sickels bio of Bob Feller at the end, I essentially bookended my reading year with 2 interesting stories about very talented pitchers. Feller pitched in the 1930s, when he was a teenage sensation and young star player, then lost multiple years to his voluntary service in WW II, and returned as one of the best pitchers in the game before his fastball lost its heat. He'd probably be very famous if his career had not been interrupted. The Kepner book is about pitching too, focusing on 10 different kinds of pitches used by athletes in the highest level of the professional game. I'm a big admirer of Keith Law's work but I did not learn that much from this book. Most likely, this is because I've previously already learned a great deal about the game from Law and other similarly analysts. The Backer book is OK though I disagreed with the author about the quality of many movies he discusses. The Matthews/Fulks book is really only for KC baseball fans and even then is not great. Too many stories are undeveloped or even untold. Literature and Genre FictionPercival Everett, JamesMatt Haig, The HumansJ.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians John Updike, The Witches of EastwickCharles Portis, The Dog of the SouthColson Whitehead, Zone One Norman Mailer, Armies of the NightDon DeLillo, Falling Man The best fiction I read this year is appearing on many "best of" lists -- James, by Percival Everett. I don't often read new books, but I'm glad I read this one as it is outstanding. You probably already know that is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the runaway male slave that helps Huck.  I really liked the satirical film American Fiction last year, which was based on another of Everett's novels. Haig's book made me laugh out loud and Coetzee's novel provided valuable insights about colonialism. Both are fairly quick reads. The Portis book is also good and worth reading, though it is a bit dated in parts. If you look at the Goodreads page for Witches of Eastwick, you'll find many reviewers who consider this an offensive book by a misogynist. I honestly do not think it is that bad and feminist author Margaret Atwood wrote a glowing review in the NY Times decades ago.  Would she still like it?I was a bit disappointed in the Whitehead zombie book because I have had far better experiences with some of his other novels. Mailer was worth reading as history, but is obviously dated. There are other flaws too. It had been a few years since I read a book by DeLillo and this post-9/11 work is not one of his stronger novels, unfortunately. Genre FictionI.S. Berry,  The Peacock and the SparrowKate Atkinson,  When Will There Be Good News?Eric Ambler, The Dark Frontier Philip Kerr,  The One From the OtherRichard Dean Rosen, Saturday Night DeadDonald E. Westlake, ,Plunder Squad (as Richard Stark)David Goodis, The Burglar Duane Swierczynski, Fun & GamesDonald E. Westlake, Don't AskPD James, Cover Her Face Lawrence Block, Hit ManThe above books are a cut above the ones listed below. The I.S. Berry spy novel is really good and I urge people to read it. I had read a favorable piece about the author in the Washington Post and am glad that I followed up. It won many awards, including an Edgar, and appeared on many "best of" lists in 2023.Many of these books are parts of series that I am reading. The Atkinson book is an entertaining entry in the Jackson Brodie series, though he's arguably not the most interesting character in the story. Kerr's Bernie Gunther has survived WW II and the Nazis, but still finds plenty of corruption and crime. Rosen's former major league baseball player-turned-detective Harvey Blissberg starts the story with a vague baseball connection, but this is really about a murder involving a TV show similar to Saturday Night Live. The title is thus a play on words. Unsurprisingly, since I do virtually every year, I read the next books in sequence in the Parker and Dortmunder series by Donald Westlake (he wrote Parker books as Richard Stark) and these examples were entertaining. I'm having trouble finding the next Parker book but hope to read it soon. I had never read the first PD James book featuring Adam Dalgliesh, but now I have.  It was fine, but not outstanding. Obviously I am reading that series out of order, but I am trying to correct that error. I didn't mean to start a new series by Block since I have not finished his Matthew Scudder books, but the work was on my shelf and seemed interesting. It is though the chapters seem more like short stories. Some apparently were originally published that way in magazines.The books by Ambler, Goodis, and Swierczynski are standalone books worth reading. You will find crime and/or intrigue. Or both. Peter Schilling, The End of BaseballAgatha Christie, ABC MurdersJason Matthews, Kremlin's Candidate Sara Paretsky, Bitter MedicineRobert Parker, Pale Kings & PrincesChuck Palahnuik, ChokeIan Fleming, You Only Live TwiceRoss Macdonald,  Trouble Follows Me Sue Grafton, N is for Noose Derek Raymond, The Devil's Home on LeaveI'm not going to say much about the remainder. Most I gave 3 stars on Goodreads, so they are not terrible, but they all lack something. The bottom 2 books here were especially disappointing as I have enjoyed a number of Grafton's earlier books in the Kinsey Milhone detective series and had been recommended Raymond's work. As you can see, there are some mediocre efforts here in series involving Christie's Hercule Poirot, Paretsky's VI Warshawski, Parker's Spencer, and Fleming's James Bond. I wanted to like the Schilling book, and enjoyed much of it, but in the end I felt it needed both tighter editing and fewer major characters. The Red Sparrow series ended in a somewhat disappointing way as far as I'm concerned though I enjoyed the first book quite a bit more and probably liked Kremlin's Candidate more than book #2 Palace of Treason.
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We have updated Ferree and Hall's (1990) study of the way gender and race are constructed through pictures in introductory sociology textbooks. Ferree and Hall looked at 33 textbooks published between 1982 and 1988. We replicated their study by examining 3,085 illustrations in a sample of 27 textbooks, most of which were published between 2002 and 2006. We found important areas of progress in the presentation of both gender and race as well as significant areas of stasis. The face of society we found depicted in contemporary textbooks was distinctly less likely to be that of a white man, very prominent in the 1980s texts, and much more likely to be that of a minority woman. Thus, while only 34 percent of the pictures of identifiable individuals in the textbooks examined by Ferree and Hall were of women, almost 50 percent of such pictures were of women in the recent texts. Moreover, while the percentage of white men portrayed dropped from about 45 percent to 30 percent, the percentage of portrayals of minority women rose from about 11 percent to 22 percent. Another sign of progress has been the decreasing likelihood of textbooks to depict race and gender as being nonover-lapping categories: while women of color apparently "had" only race in the sample examined by Ferree and Hall, they "had" both gender and race in the sample we studied. Still, our examination of pictures as a whole as a unit of analysis found that blacks continue to be more likely than any other racial group to be depicted in the presence of other racial groups and, thus, to idealize the degree of social integration in American society. We also still see non-white women enjoying very little (in fact, no) visibility in sections devoted to theory, despite developments in feminist theory, generally, and multicultural feminist, specifically. In general, though, our analysis suggests that the various criticisms of introductory texts that have appeared in this forum and others can have an impact on the content of those texts and, by extension, the sociology we teach.

Among the comments of the Church Fathers on the Book of Revelation, an important place is occupied by the comment of Oecumenius. It is considered to be the earliest Greek commentary on the Apocalypse. The article deals with the analysis of the interpretation of the passage of the "Seven Trumpets" (Rev 8:7–9:21; 11:15–19), by byzantine theologian Oecumenius. It was found that Oecumenius used a symbolic and allegorical method of interpretation. There some negative aspects of the excessive allegorization of biblical symbols were established. Oecumenius also puts sometimes into the biblical notions a meaning that is not present in the text itself. Oecumenius interprets the vision of the seven trumpets in the context of the doctrine of eternal torment and the doctrine of apocatastasis. It has been found that this understanding of the vision of the Seven Trumpets is inconsistent with the general teaching of Scripture about the fate of sinners and the salvation of the faithful. There are no texts in the Bible that support the doctrine of the salvation of the devil and demons. It is revealed that the Byzantine exegete sees the fulfilment of the vision of the Seven Trumpets in the distant future, after the general resurrection and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It was found that the futuristic interpretation of Oecumenius does not correspond to the biblical context and structure of the book of Revelation. Nothing in the text of the Seven Trumpets says that events will be after the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Interpretation of the concept of the "third part" by Oecumenius corresponds to the context of seven trumpets representing God's partial judgments mixed with mercy and expectation of repentance. Also important for Oecumenius is the doctrine of the Trinity, and therefore, when interpreting the seven trumpets, he refers to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Although the text does not explicitly mention the Three Persons of the Deity, the context of the Book of Revelation confirms that the words of Oecumenius about the worship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are correct. Analyzing the interpretation of Oecumenius, we can conclude that its interpretation is filled with references to other Old Testament and New Testament texts. We see further consideration of the indicated scientific problems in clarifying the connection between the interpretation of the passage "Seven Trumpets" of Oecumenius and other commentators of his time; a detailed analysis of the interpretation of Seven Trumpets in connection with the vision of Seven Churches, Seals and plages.

Abstract
As reading formats have become more varied, the moment of encounter between a reader and a text has also shifted. Readers of printed matter might take notes in margins, underline passages, or leave other handwritten traces of their interaction with a text. Electronic devices, however, tend to lend themselves less easily to mark making, and despite options for making digital notations and comments, the visual record of the moment of reading is lost more often than not. The PDF is a form of electronic text that can bear interesting traces and point to a text's past life as a printed object through visual cues like page dimensions and typographic layout. We often see traces of the life of a text during that period after it has been authored, but before it reaches a reader, as it passed through the hands of designers, computers, printers, scanners, librarians and other 'file sharers'. This is especially true for texts that were first published in print before the advent of digital publishing, and were scanned in and converted to PDF. This visual essay examines two kinds of marks – those made by readers and those made by the 'intermediaries' who handled a text before it was converted to PDF: first, examples of marks made by students reading printed copies of a 1976 essay entitled 'Notes on the index, part 1', by art historian Rosalind Krauss; second, traces left on a PDF of the 1970 essay 'Type design in the computer age', by graphic designer Wim Crouwel, which was acquired through a university library system.

A review essay on books by (1) Fred D. Miller, Jr., Nature, Justice and Rights in Aristotle's Politics (Oxford, UK: Oxford U Press, 1995); (2) Aristotle, Politics, Books One and Two (Saunders, Trevor J. [Tr & Commentary] Oxford, UK: Oxford U Press, 1995); (3) Michael Davis, The Politics of Philosophy: A Commentary on Aristotle's Politics (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996); & (4) Aristide Tessitore, Reading Aristotle's Ethics (Albany: State U New York Press, 1996). Renewed interest in Aristotelian moral & political philosophy in the last decade has spawned a number of new texts that view Aristotle's political theory as a potential contributor to a realistic analysis of democratic institutions & a balanced assessment of democracy's potential. The four books here view Aristotle's approach less positively. They see in Aristotle a moral & political theory that is disconnected from contemporary democratic theory & challenges its priorities. Miller & Saunders approach Aristotle as analytic historians of philosophy & interpret his theory as a broad system to teach about political purpose & institutions. Davis & Tessitore view Aristotle's works as more complex in rhetoric & more esoteric. For these two authors, Aristotle confronts democratic theory & practice as a philosopher, not a statesman. The difference between these texts point out that three areas of inquiry into Aristotelian theory -- genre, theoretization, & pragmatics -- deserve further consideration. M. Pflum

A is for Ability, B is for Belief, C is for Class. All people have the right to be treated fairly, no matter who they are, what they look like or where they come from. An ABC of Equality introduces complicated concepts surrounding social justice to the youngest of children. From A to Z, simple explanations accompanied by engaging artwork teach children about the world we live in and how to navigate our way through it. Each right-hand page includes a brightly decorated letter with the word it stands for and an encouraging slogan. On the left, a colourful illustration and bite-size text sum up the concept. Cheerful people from a range of backgrounds, ethnicities and abilities lead the way through the alphabet. L is for LGBTQIA. Find the words that make you, you. N is for No. No means no. P is for Privilege. Be aware of your advantages. X is for Xenophobia. Ask questions and you'll see there's nothing to be afraid of. Celebrate your Differences, ask more Questions, share your kindness and learn to understand the world

Abstract
Using Gérard Genette''s seminal work on 'paratexts' (defined by Genette (1997) as extratextual items which fundamentally influence a reader's reception of a text, such as, for example, blurbs, jacket designs, prefaces, etc.), this article undertakes a practical enquiry into the ways in which digital media have been used to render the paratexts of medieval manuscripts. Reference to an existing project, Christine de Pizan: the Making of the Queen's Manuscript, is made so as to form a case study on this area, one that acts representatively, due to its use of software features, methods and tools that have been applied in a number of digital/medieval projects. This case study will constitute a lens for exploring how successfully manuscriptural paratexts are represented by completed digitization projects by applying Genette's theory of paratextual spaces. The article will then consider some of the latest developments in digital tools for medievalists under the same light so as to see how differently such projects can now be approached. Ultimately, the article will explore how the broader application of publishing theory could move manuscript digitization projects forward because, just as book publishing actually constitutes an exercise in content packaging – which is traditionally the realm of publishing professionals – the process of creating digital manuscripts, and digital editions of medieval texts, represents a closely related undertaking.

"In this book, young readers will enjoy reading about the helpful police officers they see every day in their community. Using colorful, full-page photographs that connect to simple text and relevant key words, this book is perfectly designed to teach young readers about police officers in their community while building confidence in their reading skills. This book also includes a page for caregivers and teachers that suggest guiding questions to help aid in reading comprehension"--

The article deals with the last book of the well-known English writer A. S. Byatt Peacock & Vine (2016) in the context of her oeuvre (novels, stories, essays). It is proved that the controversial reviews by British critics are caused by the character of the genre and the author's mythology. The book combines biographies of two artists and an essay on design of the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. It is concluded that A. S. Byatt uses her particular method of analogy at different levels of poetics. She juxtaposes biographies and oeuvres of William Morris and Mariano Fortuny with the help of such universals as the North and the South, which acquire a complicated character due to their being represented through national (or more specifically, cultural) images and symbols. The emphasis is not so much on the life as on the oeuvre of the designers – first and foremost, their houses and fabrics as seen by Byatt herself and through her biography and oeuvre. Her main principle lies in conceiving something of her own through something of the other's, and vice versa. While the figure of Morris in Byatt's novel The Children's Book (2009) was fitted in the social, political, and psychoanalytical contexts of the epoch, the book Peacock & Vine 'illuminates' the artist's life both with his own works and Fortuny's experiments with colors and light. The main evaluation criteria are color (light) and proportion (contexture), distinctive for both the artists' design and Byatt's style. However, in verbal interpretation of floral and animalistic ornaments (vines and pomegranates, peacocks and phoenixes, lions and dragons), one can see a comprehensive dialogue between paganism and Christianity, past days and modernity, a man and a woman, two famous designers, ars nouveau and ars deco. Illustrations (photographs, drawings, reproductions) together with the verbal text of the biographical essay make an organic whole of the book, which emphasizes a special role of paratext in Byatt's works. Searching for words to represent visual images is a special task for an author of a biographical essay that she was conscious about in her works. In the book Peacock & Vine, Byatt acquires the accuracy and clarity of the language she was dreaming of when working over the novel Still Life (1985). At the same time, simplicity and complexity of her style have become an integral part of her own mythology. The Englishman Morris, being passionate about the Middle Ages and the North, travelled to Iceland and conceived of the Scandinavian saga as a real history. In the Byatt's book he is compared with the Spaniard Fortuny, who had a penchant for Classical Antiquity and the Mediterranean world, lived in Paris and Venice, and conceived of the Scandinavian saga only through the prism of the Wagner Theatre. As to the Byatt's love to Scandinavian mythology, it goes back to her war-time childhood, which is reflected in her book Ragnarok: The End of the Gods (2011).

Studies into the activity of the Congregation of the Index and of the Holy Office have examined extensively the history of Vatican's practices of book censorship. While up until the sixteenth century the Church imposed substantial modifications to literary texts, mainly in order to moralise them, in the seventeenth and eighteenth century it used book censorship to preserve ecclesiastical doctrine and its own power. In the nineteenth century the Roman Inquisition aimed to discredit noxious literature – and the dangerous ideas it contained – through its inclusion in the Index of Prohibited Books. In the twentieth century, when the Church's secular power was fading, the Holy Office reacted against modernism thus intensifying its campaign against pernicious literature, seen as the main medium through which modernist ideas could infiltrate public opinion. During the papacy of Pius XI, in particular, the policies of the Holy Office mainly aimed to support the interventionism of the Holy See and its attempts to 'catholicise' public opinion and society. The Italian case renders a clear picture of a transformed Roman Inquisition: analysing the proceedings against Gabriele d'Annunzio (Opera omnia, 1928) and Mario Missiroli (Date a Cesare, 1929) this paper will demonstrate how the Roman Index and literary censorship stood out as the core of the Church's relentless attempt to forge a 'catholicised' society between the two wars and to regain – through the forbiddance of authors and books closely linked to fascism – the political and social influence that Mussolini threatened to take-over before and in the aftermath of the Concordate of 1929.

AbstractAs a primary source for the early ages, picture books guide preschool children's gender perception through stories and illustrations. However, previous studies have criticised an overall gender inequality in children's picture books. Compared to the increasing attention on gender diversity in the UK picture book industry, there has been little concern shown about gender diversity in the Chinese picture book market (which has only developed in the 21st Century). This article compares gender representation and gender stereotypes within 200 UK and Chinese bestselling picture books published between 2011 and 2020. It examines a range of aspects including authors' gender, and gendered aspects of book texts and illustrations via content analysis and text mining. Results show (1) there is male dominance in bestselling Chinese authorship, while titles from female authors are more prevalent in the UK list; (2) there is a predominance of male central characters in both bestselling UK and Chinese titles; (3) the narratives in bestselling picture books, especially in Chinese book texts, promote gender essentialism and gender biases in picture books from both markets; (4) that UK titles in translation, as well as other foreign titles, become an essential means of promoting gender equality in the mainstream Chinese picture book market. This study stresses that gender inequality is an international issue and aims to remind all parties in two different picture book industries to work on gender equality in future publishing practice, while showing that translation studies allow us to see how different markets intersect.

In the history of Islam, Muslim-Jewish polemics have been documented from the earliest times and studies on this subject abound. The present work is a case in point. In the spring of the year 1211/1796, the famous Shīʿī scholar Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdī al-Ḥusaynī al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (d. 1212/1797) was on his way from Mashhad to visit the holy shrine of Imam Ḥusayn in Karbala, accompanied by a flock of his senior students. When they reached the town of al-Kifl, less than 20 km north of Najaf and home to a community of over 3.000 Jews, a delegation of the latter came to see Ṭabāṭabāʾī in the caravanserai where was staying, wishing to engage in a debate with him. The text presented here is an account of Ṭabāṭabāʾīʾs detailed listing of the contradictions and errors in Judaism as seen by him, a listing that remained largely unanswered. Arabic text, with a Persian translation from before 1238/1822-3