In this chapter, I bring attention to how affectively loaded conversations are grounds for interpersonal inquiry and function as sounding boards for self-interpretations. In particular, I argue that receiving empathy often functions as a form of validation of our stories, and that AI-simulated empathy can constitute feedback integrated in our self-narration. Relying on narrative views of self-understanding and on the idea that our self-narratives are socially situated, I claim that technologies meant to simulate human conversation and interactions can potentially change the socio-cultural conditions of our self-narration practices, and that this deserves further scrutiny.

This chapter examines political disagreement as a serious everyday problem, exploring why we struggle to engage with those who think differently about politics. Taking an identity-centered psychological approach, the chapter examines how political positions become tied to our sense of self, transforming policy disagreements into perceived threats. Drawing on research on social identity, motivated reasoning, and meta-perceptions, I explore how these processes create vicious cycles of avoidance in ordinary conversations – at family dinners, in workplaces, and across social media. The chapter then turns to evidence-based interventions, arguing that the solution lies not in eliminating disagreement but in building skills for productive dialogue, from conversational receptiveness to epistemic humility, alongside educational and institutional approaches that can cultivate democratic curiosity.

This chapter shows how Tacitus uses paradiastole throughout his oeuvre to put two different kinds of political language into dialogue: the language of liberty and the language of empire. By using speakers with different standpoints, such as Calgacus, Cerialis, and Otho, Tacitus shows how history-writing can foster dialogue and serve as political theory. The chapter also analyses the collapse of speech-acts at the start of Tiberius’ principate, Maternus’ speech in Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus, and Tacitus’ narrative of civil war in Histories One.

Change isn’t always harmonious – in fact, it rarely is. Chapter 4 explores a tension perspective on change, where conflict, contradiction, and power struggles aren’t problems to be solved but engines that drive transformation. This view reframes conflict not as dysfunction but as a sign of deeper dynamics at play. Drawing on dialectics and dialogic theory, the chapter shows how competing interests and political tensions shape the course of change through friction, negotiation, and narrative. Rather than seeking neat resolutions, it invites readers to embrace tension, plurality, and the messy – but often generative – nature of organisational life. At its core, this perspective reminds us that change is as much about who holds power as it is about where an organisation is going.

This chapter begins with Plato’s account of stasis during the transition to the democratic soul in Republic Book VIII, illustrating the centrality of transvaluations. It then reassesses Thrasymachus’ famous account of justice in Republic I, showing how a sceptical view of language is central to his case. The chapter then addresses the treatments of language and stasis in Plato’s Statesman and Laws, before finishing with his use of paradiastole as a dialogic device in his Philebus. The chapter shows how varied and important Plato’s reflections on language and stasis were, and how deeply they interacted with fifth-century historiography and rhetoric.

In Chapter 6, we build on the analysis from the previous chapter by focusing specifically on negotiations and dialogue. We examine a few Islamist groups in Mali and Syria, highlighting how their transnational or local orientation influences conflict resolution. In Mali, we analyze variations between groups: Ansar Dine, Katiba Macina, and Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). While they all share a radical Islamist ideology, Ansar Dine and Katiba Macina – both with strong local roots and a focus on Mali – have occasionally shown interest in negotiating with the Malian government. The government, in turn, has also been open to negotiations with them at times. In contrast, no such attempts have been made with AQIM, which has an explicitly transnational agenda. In Syria, we trace the development of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and focus on variations over time. Initially one of the most extreme Islamist actors in the Syrian civil war, HTS has gradually demonstrated respect for ceasefires and a willingness to explore dialogue. We demonstrate how these openings for conflict resolution are preceded and driven by localization.

This chapter is interested in the politics of publication and how it shapes what writers are likely to publish. But the chapter is also interested in the role publishers have in promoting a public culture and establishing a genealogy of writing – in this instance a genealogy of African writing in ways that the Heinemann African Writers series has done. tblished his first novel, Weep Not, Child (1964), under the editorship of the then series editor, Chinua Achebe, and would soon follow it with the publication of The River Between (1965). He was part of that inaugural moment and the consolidation of the African Writers Series, in 1962. Ngugi in his collection of essays, In the Name of the Mother, celebrates Heinemann African Writers series for its role in creating what is truly a ‘Pan-African common literary inheritance’ and for ‘enabling a dialogue among readers and writers from the three main colonial traditions: Portuguese, French and English’, and in addition, enabling dialogue between Africans of the continent and the diaspora.

This chapter challenges the claim that the first decade of the nineteenth century was a disciplinary moment in which the arts and sciences were separated. It analyzes a publishing phenomenon of that decade: scientific publications for children, women, and artisans produced as conversations, dialogues, or catechisms. A wealth of such publications emerged in the years 1800 to 1810. They offer important insights into the competing scientific cultures of the turn of the century, in which professionalized disciplinarity had by no means eclipsed the amateur, even un disciplined, natural philosophy of the late eighteenth century. This essay focuses on Jeremiah Joyce, a scientific educator and author, analyzing the development of his educational writings and those of his interlocutors in this decade. Though these years produce new models of scientific instruction, experiment, and print communication, there are strong continuities with the natural philosophical and pedagogical practices of the previous century.

This chapter investigates the architecture of belonging by examining how built environments can foster genuine emotional connection and a sense of place. Drawing insights from a Melbourne-based panel hosted by Six Degrees Architects, it explores how planners, developers, and architects can design precincts that nurture a profound sense of belonging. Emphasising the importance of emotional wellbeing and ecological sustainability, the discussion integrates Indigenous perspectives on place and custodianship, contrasting them with human-centric Western planning practices. Case studies, including Melbourne’s Public Office precinct, Canberra’s Dairy Road, and Hobart’s In the Hanging Garden precinct, illustrate creative strategies for revitalising urban spaces through adaptive reuse, community engagement, and landscape-led design. The chapter underscores the need to prioritise values of Country in architectural and urban-planning processes, advocating systemic change in procurement and planning practices, fostering authentic engagement, and promoting reconciliation through the collaborative stewardship of the built environment.

In conversation with Peters’s Law as Performance, I suggest paying closer attention to dialogue as one central element of performance itself. In this contribution, I analyze the configuration of affective spaces based on the characteristics of dialogue in legal settings, from legislation to inquisitorial cases.

The term post-truth refers to circumstances in which objective facts exert less influence on public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. While not new, this phenomenon has intensified with the rapid speed that misinformation and conspiracy theories can spread online, compounded by rising political polarization. This book draws on leading research in psychology and other social sciences to explain how post-truth claims emerge, why they persist despite contrary evidence, and how we might respond to their challenges. My analysis integrates three distinct approaches to human reasoning: Bayesian models, dual-process theories, and social argumentation. I introduce the term wise deliberative spaces to describe forums that pursue truth and the common good through discourse practices that foster deliberative dialogue. These spaces have declined in recent decades due to reduced face-to-face community engagement, shifts in the media landscape, declining trust in knowledge-producing institutions, and deepening political divides. The chapter concludes by summarizing the book’s organization.

Criminal punishment captured the imagination. It was a violent process, staged deliberately by the state to demonstrate certain truths about state power. However, these public scenes were susceptible to rewriting by provincial subjects. These subjects fixated on state attempts to define truth by means of judicial violence. Subjects insisted that violence be conditioned on its respect for provincial logos - rational discussions about the nature of any particular act of state violence. They emphasized that the courtroom (rather than the archive) was the most important locus for determining the content of laws and the boundaries of state power and insisted that the courtroom be a space not just for punishment, but communication. Most prolific on this point are early Christian writings about martyrs, which emphasized what they claimed was the Roman state’s incapacity to rationally defend the persecution of Christians. It is found among Jews and pagans as well.

This chapter takes up a series of popular folktales about radical inequality (Aesop, Gevia ben Psisa/ben Qosem) to argue that provincial communities become increasingly interested in reframing quotidian interactions as legal interactions. Legal dialogue came to be imagined as a register of discourse capable of controlling powerful people. Interestingly, however, all of these stories feature a protagonist somehow marked as physically deformed or otherwise grotesque: Aesop was the ugliest slave imaginable, Geviah a hunchback. The very bizarreness of these characters offers a standing challenge to normative understandings of power: in each case, it is the most degraded members of society who manage to wield legal logos to control their superiors, society’s notional elites.

Chapter 2 presents the theoretical approach of the book. Images are conceptualized as cultural artefacts that are both signs open for meaning making and tools open for social action. They are also dialogical and political artefacts that take part in knowledge production and circulation.