Time, and how we relate to it, is a persistent theme throughout Kierkegaard’s writings. Particularly striking is the way in which Kierkegaard depicts various pathologies of temporal experience, showing how various strategies for dealing with time are ultimately self-defeating. Either/Or is perhaps the single best example of a text in which Kierkegaard problematizes time and our responses to it. The book is famously presented as staging a clash between two views of life, the aesthetic and the ethical. But it can also be understood as presenting and critiquing two different ways of relating to time: one that tries to evade the responsibility entailed by living in time and one that tries to anchor itself in an eternity that is ultimately a denial of finitude. The text suggests both approaches to time are doomed, and that a different, specifically religious relation to time is required.

This chapter focuses on the everyday. It considers how responsibility for the everyday, quotidian care of cultural heritage is assumed or allocated and the form that this takes. It analyses how care is translated into access, preservation and care of collections and places and how risk is managed when access has the potential to harm the long-term future of cultural heritage. This chapter analyses the ways in which access and preservation are supported, through financial support as well as in statutory provisions; it analyses the duties of care placed on custodians of cultural heritage and the role played by standard-setting.

This chapter discusses Canto III of Childe Harold and Manfred as marking a turning point in Byron’s writing career. Together, these two works detached Byron from the tragic universe of the Tales and pointed him towards the comic world of Don Juan. Childe Harold III turns from exploring the devastating trauma of painful memory – the Byronic Hero’s, the poet’s and post-Napoleonic Europe’s – to a quest for ways of forgetting pain through the imagination and communing with the natural world. Through these it finds a path into renewed, and new forms of, vitality, though these ultimately prove temporary and the return to the memory of pain inevitable. However, Manfred takes up Childe Harold III’s quest to discover the power of memory itself to console, comfort and revitalise. The result is a new, self-conscious, wilful, and appreciative acquiescence in the flow, and contrary flowings, of his own consciousness – indeed, his existence per se – even as he approaches his death. This prepares the way for Don Juan’s wholesale embrace of the spontaneous vitality, but also impermanence, of all human impulse(s) – an embrace that is fundamental to Byron’s comic vision.

This chapter considers the close interrelationship between theatre and cinema during the First World War. As well as looking at key examples of plays which were adapted into films such as The Better ‘Ole (1917) it looks at the relationship between the two modes of popular entertainment, emphasising, for example, how film screenings often incorporated or were incorporated into live performance, and how the two industries shared business practices. The chapter examines the economics and practices of cinema exhibiting, drawing parallels to the regional theatre circuits. It argues for the role of government-endorsed films such as The Battle of the Somme (1916) in establishing the respectability of cinema and demonstrates how from 1917 cinema could shift to being more of a source of entertainment: a shift which threatened the theatre industry. It examines this competition through a focus on the growth of the ‘Super film’ and through attention to the dominance of American films on British screens. The chapter ends with a focus on post-war films. Through discussion the factual war films produced in the 1920s, as well as the fictional dramas, it highlights the ways in which post-war cinema became a means for mediating memory on the war.

The Introduction begins by examining the treatment of First World War theatre in academic scholarship over the last century, and identifies reasons for its neglect and the resurgence of interest in the topic over the last decade. It considers this resurgence in relation to work on popular theatre, the focus on cultural histories of the war, and the centrality of theatre and performance to centenary commemorations. In addressing how theatre contributed to the war effort it considers themes including: recruitment and enlistment, fundraising for war charities, and the value of theatre for servicemen and the wouded. It also considers challenges to theatre production created by the wartime conditions. Drawing on the work of the Great War Theatre project it highlights the large number of war-themed plays produced during the war, arguing that plays did not have to ignore the war to be entertaining or popular. The introduction emphasises the importance of looking at the diversity of theatrical production across the country and in both amateur and professional contexts. As such it provides the framework for the in-depth analyses of these and other topics examined across the volume.

This final chapter focuses on acts of commemoration in the centenary years of 2014-18. It examines the breadth of performance work produced in response to the centenary. It examines large-scale national events and installations including the Tower of London’s Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, Heard’s Shrouds of the Somme, the National Theatre’s were here because were here, National Theatre Wale’s site-specific Mametz and English National Ballet’s Lest We Forget. At the same time it places new and important focus on the small-scale and intimate performance which proliferated during the centenary including the work of community groups. In looking at the form and content of these productions the chapter draws attention to how theatre was used to celebrate local stories; make visible Chinese, South Asian and African contributions to and experiences of the war, and to address women’s role within the conflict, and rethink conscientious objection. Plays considered include Loh’s Forgotten, Cumper’s Chigger Foot Boys, and Shah’s radio play Subterranean Sepoys. Finally the chapter shows how centenary plays often reimagine the war in relation to an institution, historical figure or community, rather than engaging directly with the combat. Examples include Brenton’s Doctor Scroggy’s War, Gill’s Versailles, Porter’s The Christmas Truce and McAndrew’s An August Bank Holiday.

This chapter surveys some of the key themes in epistemology and pedagogy in antique philosophical and classical education and early Christianity that illuminate the rise of Christian catechesis. Critical topics include the role of memory and the use of regula or “canons” of truth and the emergence of teachers and “school churches” in second-century Rome.

This chapter considers changing representations of the First World War on stage after the Second World War and through to the centenary. It examines the significance of Oh What a Lovely War (1963) as a product of the Cold War and fears over a third world, and nuclear, war. Emphasising the importance of understanding theatrical representations of the war in relation to their socio-political contexts, the chapter shows how the changing political context of the 1990s and anxieties over the loss of memory led to shifts in how the war was represented on stage, with Lovely War increasingly being used to ‘teach’ the war. The chapter argues that twenty-first century plays including Morpurgo’s War Horse and Private Peaceful, and Faulks’s Birdsong, are driven by an imperative to remember the war and fill a gap left by the loss of direct memory and experience of the war. It shows how this leads to the privileging of the personal, individual, micro experience of the war over the macro history of the war. It addresses the tension between history and memory in these plays as well as demonstrating their role in shaping commemoration during the centenary.

Harnessing the power of the presidency, Lyndon Baines Johnson required America to wrestle with its past. Together, the powerful social movements of the 1960s and his Great Society catalyzed a cycle of reckoning and discomfort that changed America until the war in Vietnam, and anger and angst about government, identity, and power brought it to an end. We’ve tried to forget LBJ and, in some cases, what his presidency achieved and helped unearth. But we ignore him at our peril. The Johnson years have much to teach us, as America in the 1960s and today’s America have much in common. America today, as in the 1960s, is tumultuous. Armed with our memories and different conceptions of how we got here, we’re struggling to define our problems and the answers appear unknowable and out of reach. But instead of actively looking away from the past, we can choose to learn from it. Remembering Lyndon Johnson and his presidency – the good and the bad – offers us the opportunity to reposition government as an ally, not an enemy, and to acknowledge and confront the historically toxic relationship that binds power, politics, and American identity so we can move closer to our democratic aspirations.

The circadian timing system has pronounced effects on learning and memory, with learning and recall regulated by time of day and the cellular mechanisms underlying learning and memory being under circadian control. Given this influence of the circadian system, studies across species, including humans, reveal that circadian disruption has pronounced negative effects on cognitive functioning. Circadian disruption leads to deficits in learning and memory by negatively affecting neurogenesis, synaptic plasticity, and epigenetic events required for acquisition and recall of memories. The present chapter describes the impact of circadian disruption on learning and memory while considering the mechanisms underlying circadian control of cognitive function. Given that the modern world is rife with temporal disruptions due to work requirements, limited exposure to sunlight during the day, and exposure to artificial lighting and blue light-emitting electronic devices at night, understanding the negative impact of circadian disruption on learning and memory and developing mitigating strategies are vital.

Did the death of Vicente Nogueira in 1654 mark a turning point between a century of improvisation and a new age of absolutism? Scholars have often characterized the mid-seventeenth century as just such a radical change. Yet, when considering the contributions that mercenaries of knowledge made to the intellectual and political life of Late Renaissance and Baroque international relations, characterizing such a transition in stark terms becomes impossible. This final chapter uses three expressions of Nogueira’s memory to tell the story of Nogueira the plotter, who dabbled in scandals at the Roman curia in the early 1650s among Portuguese circles interested in defending oppressed religious minorities and same-sex emotional communities against the Portuguese Inquisition. Like many other mercenaries of knowledge, Nogueira took extreme care throughout his life to present himself as a pious and virtuous man despite being an inveterate nonconformist. Such positions were not incompatible. In fact, ambivalence was the key to navigating an age of improvisation and doubts which was here to stay.

Whether or not the USA has its own fascist tradition is not merely a political but also a cultural question. This chapter examines America’s fascist potential by exploring how it has been depicted in popular alternate history television shows, including The Man in the High Castle (2015–2019), The Plot Against America (2020), Hunters (2019–2023), and Watchmen (2019). Echoing older fears of domestic fascism in American history, the four shows reflect growing concerns about America’s political future in the Trump era, and arrive at a common set of conclusions: they insist that fascism poses a serious threat to the United States; they pessimistically depict Americans passively accepting, or actively collaborating with, fascist rule; they urgently advise the targets of fascism – Jews, African Americans, and other minorities – to combine forces in combating it; and they explore the vexing question of whether using violence against fascism is ethically permitted or is itself “fascist.” These alternate histories show how universalizing the fascist past can foster a sense of political solidarity among groups threatened by fascism in the present.