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 critiques the risks posed by performative proclamations of positionality and identity in contemporary decolonization debates, particularly when such declarations become substitutes for ethical or political engagement. Drawing on the concepts of dis-enclosure and being-in-common – central to the work of French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy and further developed by Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe – the chapter advances a non-identitarian ontology of decolonization. This framework challenges the binary logics that often structure identitarian thinking (e.g., Western/non-Western, white/non-white), within which positionality statements can become morally stabilizing rather than politically transformative. The chapter argues instead for a conception of decolonization grounded in shared ethical responsibility and collective commitments to reparative futures, rather than individualized claims to moral authority or innocence. In doing so, it offers critical resources for rethinking the role of scholars in higher education, emphasizing how research, writing, and teaching can foreground relational accountability and a shared responsibility for building reparative futures.

This chapter discusses randomized algorithms, which produce correct output with high probability. The chapter covers some classic randomized algorithms, complexity classes, and useful tools from probability theory. It also introduces the topic of efficient derandomization (turning randomized algorithms into non-randomized ones) in the time- and space-bounded settings.

In Chapter 3, human consciousness is discussed, including the need for legal recognition of the capacity of humans to communicate, emote, and perceive. The impact of technology on consciousness and human bonding is noted, such as generative AI that may reduce human literacy and the capacity to communicate.

The Middle East has famously been described as a region ‘dripping with identity politics’. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that constructivism has gained prominence among scholars studying the international relations of the region. Following an introduction to the philosophical and sociological roots of constructivism as a social theory, the chapter discusses various strands among constructivists. It also explores how Middle Eastern scholars employ a constructivist approach holding distinct characteristics compared to those found in the broader debate on constructivism within International Relations. Scholars of Middle Eastern politics have been attentive to challenges to state identity, at supra- and sub-state levels, resulting in puzzling international behaviour. Insights from these debates on constructivism inform the case study, which contrasts the ‘classic’ Arab cold war among Arab states in the 1950s and 1960s with the regional rivalries that emerged following the Arab uprisings, which some observers have characterised as a new (Arab, neo-sectarian, Sunni–Shia) cold war. While supra- and sub-state identities played a crucial role in regional politics during both periods, notable differences existed. The case study examines whether and how identities and ideas matter in the international relations of the region in these two eras of Middle East history.

This chapter explores the transformative impact of poststructuralism on the field of International Relations (IR), interrogating its foundational critiques of structuralist thought and highlighting its emphasis on the discursive construction of power, identity, and global politics. Rooted in the works of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Julia Kristeva, poststructuralism challenges the ontological and epistemological certainties of mainstream IR theories, destabilising rigid binaries and revealing the contingent, fluid nature of meaning and political order. The chapter delineates poststructuralism’s core assumptions – including its rejection of fixed structures, focus on discourse as a site of power, and deconstructive engagement with key IR concepts. By drawing on contributions from Richard K. Ashley, Michael J. Shapiro, James Der Derian, R. B. J. Walker, and David Campbell, the discussion illustrates how poststructuralism reconceptualises security, identity, sovereignty, and the very production of knowledge. A case study examines how the practice of substituting ‘Arab world’ with alternative terms marginalises Arab collective identity, demonstrating how language and representation operate as instruments of power that shape the (in)visibility and (il)legitimacy of regional actors. Ultimately, the chapter highlights poststructuralism’s radical potential to unsettle dominant paradigms, foreground hidden power structures, and contribute to a more critical, reflexive, and globally inclusive IR scholarship.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been heralded as a new revolution, while also being vilified as destroying critical thinking and creativity and dismissed as overhyped technology. Its growing presence in young people’s lives, however, is undeniable. While AI is cutting-edge and its future is uncertain, we can draw on developmental psychology to think more clearly about how it may influence young people’s growth and trajectories. In this chapter, I argue for using developmental theory and integrative methods focused on how young people make meaning as a flexible, ecologically valid, and valuable approach to better understanding these implications.

Building on the common conceptions and clarifying definitions provided in Chapter Two, this chapter surveys conceptions of divine absence common across the ancient Mediterranean basin. The chapter groups the data around six themes: (1) divine conflict; (2) imperial conquest; (3) theodicy; (4) exile; (5) a desire for intimacy with the divine; (6) identity formation. For each of the first five themes, the chapter considers examples from both Jewish and non-Jewish contexts. For the final theme, the chapter provides an extended consideration of Ezekiel, which, it is contended, provides particularly fruitful ground for comparison to John’s Gospel. The chapter concludes by mapping points of commonality and difference in perspectives on divine absence to suggest an outline of the symbolic world which John inhabits and through which his narrative of Jesus’s presence and absence could be understood.

For a group of Spanish Gitano families, who now refer to themselves as American Gitanos, the reproduction of a cosmopolitan habitus has a social and historical basis. Transnational mobility is a key aspect of identity, whereby cosmopolitanism is the translation of internationality as an emic discourse. The migration of this network of families in the late 1950s provides the starting point for an analysis of the cultural mechanisms of this new cultural style and self-identification. The interface of cosmopolitanism, transnational migration and social mobility is shown through the protagonists’ narratives about migratory trajectories and their implantation in America.

Because sainthood requires a renunciation of worldly attachment, it eliminates the need to stabilize relational identity. The saint identifies him or herself in relationship to God, who has no physical form, requires no social context or explanation, and does not change over time. Instability is an essential requirement of relational reiteration; without shifting landmarks and potential mistakes, there is no need to deploy the form. Mary of Egypt is an exception who proves the rule in this respect. When mistaken by Zosimus for a devil, she reiterates the landmarks of her identity to prove her sainthood: not because she needs them but because he does. Similarly, The Seafarer positions the chronological past as integral to the speaker’s rejection of worldly pleasures, and that rejection as equally integral to his ability to arrive at the “hotter” joys of his destination; thus loss itself becomes a crucial social landmark of the speaker’s identity. Rather than trapping the speaker in a state of stasis, it is through the loss of worldly landmarks that the speaker may find his way to a heavenly realm.

The perambulatory boundary clause form entered the English imaginary as a tool of colonization, when the West Saxons began writing charters that claimed British land using the textual forms of the Celtic British people. This relationally oriented landscape description—“from Ida’s creek to the long ridge, and from the long ridge to the wolf pit”—became standard in early medieval English land charters. The landmarks are not in themselves unique, but together, when “walked” by the reader or literally perambulated, combine to produce a unique spatial and legal entity. They were also in flux; over time, landmarks like “Ida’s creek” would have shifted and changed, requiring local, lived experience to navigate the physical, social, and chronological features of the described landscape. As a result, a form designed to stabilize legal boundaries also became a textual and epistemological model for navigating unstable relational identity in the centuries of English literature that followed. Understanding the development of this form in the Old English boundary clauses allows us to see how and why it is operating in Old English literature.