As Chapter 5 details, the theatrical promise of courtliness, prestige, and technological innovation attracted talented men and women who sought careers as dramatists. The duopoly, however, severely limited their opportunities, as did the ever growing backlog of old plays. After 1682, only one company remained to which they could sell their product, and overburdened payrolls consumed budgets that could otherwise be spent on new play development. Dramatists thus found themselves in the contradictory position of, on the one hand, affecting the gentility necessary for belonging to this exclusive cultural enterprise, and, on the other, chasing after diminishing opportunities like any common hack. And, finally, the theatre’s embrace of luxury and innovation made scarce another limited resource over which dramatists now competed: sumptuous scenic effects to adorn their scripts. By the end of the century, so deeply felt was disaffection with working conditions that few literary-minded writers took up drama as a profession, thereby establishing a pattern that would continue well into the eighteenth century.

Planned actions, as prescribed in protocols and trained in exercises, help frontline responders take action under enormous pressure. Yet, these same actions are often hard, if not impossible, to implement during crises, either because the specific situation was not anticipated and there are no plans in place or because prepared plans do not produce the desired results. As a consequence, frontline responders will need to improvise and adapt their activities to crisis situations. Yet, improvisation under extreme stress is very difficult and may be inefficient or even dangerous to responders. The resulting dilemma for responders is how to choose the right course of action. This requires a view of both action patterns as complementary and even mutually conducive, as most crises will demand a combination of plans and improvisation. Reflective acting helps frontline responders to find the right balance and define adequate response activities.

The use of local languages is sometimes considered a marker of resistance to Roman power or culture. However, we show that continued use of local languages cannot necessarily be equated with resistance, nor is it easy to identify the use of language or script in particular inscriptions as driven by a desire to express resistance. This chapter discusses how (and whether) it is possible to know when resistance is involved in language use in the Roman Empire and examines case studies of inscriptional evidence pertaining to the use of Faliscan, Oscan, Paelignian, Venetic, Celtiberian, and Hebrew. We propose that many of them were written to present a ‘non-Roman’ rather than an ‘anti-Roman’ identity, and that ‘non-Roman’ identity could stand alongside both acceptance of Rome and violence resistance to its political hegemony.

In current English, the term ‘narrative’ covers a lot of conceptual ground – from an overarching position on some big issue, to all kinds of storytelling, to a general attention to language or metaphor. This chapter argues for narrowing our conception of ‘narrative’ to add value to scholarship in the history and philosophy of science (HPS). This narrower Narrative Science Approach treats narrative as a distinct and complex discursive form, subject to careful technical theorizing in its own right. By using analytical categories from narrative theory, we can identify in rigorous detail how scientific narratives are put together, what might distinguish them from other narrative forms, and the questions they raise for HPS and narrative enquiry. Similarly, when scientists use narrative ways of reasoning, tools from cognitive narratology enable us to reconstruct their imaginative activity. As a reciprocal movement, our Narrative Science Approach promises to enrich narrative studies.

Mathematical proofs and narratives may seem to be opposites. Indeed, deductive arguments have been highlighted as clear examples of non-narrative sequences by narrative theorists. I claim that there are important similarities between mathematical proofs and narrative texts. Narrative texts are read in a quite distinct way, and I argue that mathematical proofs are often read like narrative texts by research mathematicians. In this way, narratives play an important role in mathematical knowledge-making. My argument draws on recent empirical data on how mathematicians read proofs. Furthermore, my examination of mathematical proofs and narratives provides an account of what it means for research mathematicians to understand mathematical proofs.

Rejecting the notion, endorsed by John Searle, of an “individual institution,” this chapter treats them as inherently social, and expresses no surprise that institutions have formed a central focus of sociological analysis since the discipline's founding. Engaging especially with work in the area of organizational theory and, beyond sociology, organizational and management studies, this chapter identifies an underlying dimension along which the literature can be arrayed, running from (macro, structural) scripts to (more micro, agentic) skills, as embodied in work by John Meyer and Neil Fligstein, respectively. Between these endpoints, this chapter identifies not only a similarly well-known Scandinavian institutionalism associated with March and Olsen and focusing on the microfoundation of bounded rationality, but also literature on institutional logics and institutional work emerging from business and management programs and only now starting to impact the broader social sciences. Beyond traditional strengths in explaining institutional maintenance, work in these idioms is making real progress in accounting for institutional origins and change.

Cultural knowledge is a fundamental part of participating in intercultural communication. Our knowledge of the world – such as history, current issues, belief systems, and values – helps us navigate both the surface-level meaning of language and its cultural significance. Cultural knowledge allows us to participate in practices in social/cultural groups (e.g., knowing how to participate in the educational system or attending prayers). Without adequate or appropriate knowledge of the context, the message of our interlocutors remains incomplete, even if we comprehend the lexicon, grammar, or pragmatics accurately. This chapter explores different ways to organize knowledge that we need to learn for successful intercultural communication and how we develop this knowledge (i.e., sources of knowledge). At the end of the chapter, key concepts pertaining to cultural knowledge are connected to an intercultural communication-oriented pedagogy, with sample language-teaching activities.