the heart is an iconic symbol in the medieval and early modern european world. in addition to being a physical organ, it is a key conceptual device related to emotions, cognition, the self and identity, and the body. the heart is read as a metaphor for human desire and will, and situated in opposition to or alongside reason and cognition. in medieval and early modern europe, the "feeling heart" - the heart as the site of emotion and emotional practices - informed a broad range of art, literature, music, heraldry, medical texts, and devotional and ritual practices. this multidisciplinary collection brings together art historians, literary scholars, historians, theologians, and musicologists to highlight the range of meanings attached to the symbol of the heart, the relationship between physical and metaphorical representations of the heart, and the uses of the heart in the production of identities and communities in medieval and early modern europe.

reimagining how we understand and write about the indigenous listening experience?

hungry listening is the first book to consider listening from both indigenous and settler colonial perspectives. a critical response to what has been called the “whiteness of sound studies,” dylan robinson evaluates how decolonial practices of listening emerge from increasing awareness of our listening positionality. this, he argues, involves identifying habits of settler colonial perception and contending with settler colonialism’s “tin ear” that renders silent the epistemic foundations of indigenous song as history, law, and medicine. 

with case studies on indigenous participation in classical music, musicals, and popular music, hungry listening examines structures of inclusion that reinforce western musical values. alongside this inquiry on the unmarked terms of inclusion in performing arts organizations and compositional practice, hungry listening offers examples of “doing sovereignty” in indigenous performance art, museum exhibition, and gatherings that support an indigenous listening resurgence.

throughout the book, robinson shows how decolonial and resurgent forms of listening might be affirmed by writing otherwise about musical experience. through event scores, dialogic improvisation, and forms of poetic response and refusal, he demands a reorientation toward the act of reading as a way of listening. indigenous relationships to the life of song are here sustained in writing that finds resonance in the intersubjective experience between listener, sound, and space. 

free-roaming killer drones stalk the battlespace looking for organic targets. human combatants are programmed to feel no pain. highpower microwave beams detonate munitions, jam communications, and cook internal organs.

is this vision of future war possible, or even inevitable? in this timely new book, everett carl dolman examines the relationship between science and war. historically, science has played an important role in ending wars - think of the part played by tanks in breaching trench warfare in the first world war, or atom bombs in hastening the japanese surrender in the second world war - but to date this has only increased the danger and destructiveness of future conflicts. could science ever create the con-ditions of a permanent peace, either by making wars impossible to win, or so horrific that no one would ever fight? ultimately, dolman argues that science cannot, on its own, end war without also ending what it means to be human.