analysis of social relations emphasizing communications and evolutionary psychology
Ali ibn al-Shah’s “scholars are fundamental to society” introduction to Kalilah and Dimnah fantasizes a scholar justly achieving great public acclaim. … Read the post Ali ibn al-Shah's introduction to Kalilah and Dimnah
Borzuya’s autobiography describes an inner struggle like the “contest of self and against self” in Augustine’s famous fourth-century Confessions. … Read the post Borzuya's autobiography compared to Augustine's Confessions
Public assemblies in 10th-century Baghdad are a model of deliberative democracy. They included the views of a wide range of religious groups. … Read the post deliberative democracy in tenth-century Baghdad
In Judah Ibn Shabbetai’s Minhat Yehudah Sone ha-Nashim, men fail to win peace in a way far beyond the imagination of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. … Read the post men fail: Shabbetai’s Zerah is no Lysistrata
In the Old French fabliau La Saineresse, a wife cuckolds her husband and then ingeniously describes that intimate affair to him in equivocal language. … Read the post La Saineresse displays malice toward cuckolded men