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Fifteen Eighty Four

Academic perspectives from Cambridge University Press

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Enslaved Poets

Whenever I mention that I’ve just written a book on slavery and literature in Cuba in the nineteenth century, the conversation almost immediately turns to the present. Do I travel to Cuba? How do Cubans...

Víctor Goldgel Carballo | 19 Oct 2026

Circe and Plutarch’s Beasts are Rational

In the recent Christopher Nolan film “The Odyssey” we see a curious depiction of Circe transforming Odysseus’ crew of sailors into pigs. The cinematic representation drips with Circe’s disdain...

Rebecca Kingston, Liz Sawyer | 16 Oct 2026

Excavating the “great moral drama” of St. Augustine

Here in the United States, history is a recent phenomenon. This summer, the U.S. celebrated its 250th birthday. That’s not nothing, of course, but it pales before many sovereign nations in Europe that...

Martin Dobrow | 15 Oct 2026

‘[L]ight summer reading’?: Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World

On the publication of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World in 1762, the British Magazine described it as ‘Light, agreeable summer reading, partly original, partly borrowed’. In his Lectures...

James Watt | 15 Oct 2026

Staying Out of My Lane: Navigating the Souring Seas of Science, Law and Policy

Both climate change and the ocean have always been topics I felt drawn to. Both felt scientific, urgent, and practical, and they somehow involved the outdoors, which, for me, as a lawyer working inside...

Annika Frosch | 14 Oct 2026

Hands up who thinks anarchism is a constitutional theory?

Our guess is that most people’s arms are still bolted tightly to their sides. If so, this book is for you. Constitutionalising Anarchy blows a hole in the conventional claim made by legal and political...

Ruth Kinna, Alex Prichard | 14 Oct 2026

Transnational Repression. A Comparative Perspective Across Autocracies and Democracies

Transnational repression, understood as the extraterritorial repressive actions by states against members of their national community abroad, has become a global phenomenon. One commentator even suggested...

Klaus Brummer, Šumit Ganguly | 14 Oct 2026

Beyond the Cosmopolitan Elite: The Hidden Depth of Pro-Immigration Support in Europe

Every day there is a media story about public opposition to immigration fueling the populist far-right in Europe.  Academic public opinion research has a similar slant, with endless studies about...

Rahsaan Maxwell | 14 Oct 2026

“I Am Now a Little Bit Proud of My Japanese Accent”: Trans-Speakerism in Action

In the summer of 1999, I was studying English at a language center in Canada, one voice among hundreds of accents crowding the poster-lined hallways. A teacher there, Mr. Wilson, was not someone I had...

Takaaki Hiratsuka | 14 Oct 2026

What can we learn from learning together across differences?

In 2015, a group of Danish and Brazilian researchers gathered in Belo Horizonte for what we jokingly called The First International Workshop on Learning in Practice. We chose that title with a certain...

Line Lerche Mørck, Jean Lave, Dorte Kousholt, Ana Maria R. Gomes, Marina V. França | 14 Oct 2026

Why isn’t Romani History Part of the Atlantic World?

When Maria de la Concepción boarded the ship out of Lisbon bound for Brazil, she never could have anticipated her eventual challenges. After providing an enslaved woman in Mexico with a love potion,...

Ann Ostendorf, Martin Fotta | 3 Sep 2026

Why do people kill for their religion?

When Michel de Montaigne asked his famous question, “What do I know? (Qui sçay-je?)” in the longest of his essays, “An Apology for Raymond Sebond,” what he was asking was whether he could know...

Mack P. Holt | 27 Aug 2026