Convivia is a journal that is interested in thinking what architectonics is or could be in the twenty-first century. Pre-specific to architecture, architectonics deals with the real in an abstract, yet edifying manner. Under architectonics, the indeterminacy brought by contemporary science is assumed as a liberation from ontological and epistemological principles, and welcomed as a fortunate occasion to understand and embrace the stating of any principle as an ‘art’ in itself—autonomous, yet not automatic or autarkic. Architectonic deals with the real in terms of a communicational physics, through articulations that are concrete yet reasoned in abstractive and projective manners. The journal aims to set the table for a series of banquets—of convivia—in which courses do not respond to mere needs or inconsequential delights of ‘consumption’. We focus on architectonic alloys of necessities and contingencies: necessities are bounded by contingencies, and contingencies are engendered through ‘figuring out’ what is necessary. Convivia’s interest is to ‘make cases’.

Drawing on diverse theoretical perspectives on conviviality, this book considers the ways in which Latin America, a continent marked by deep inequalities, has managed to afford, create, sustain, and contest forms of living together with difference across time and space. Interdisciplinary in approach and presenting studies from various nations across the continent – from the medieval period to the present day – it considers the ways in which Latin America might contribute to our understanding of the relationship between inequality, difference, diversity, and sociability. As such, it will appeal to scholars of history, sociology, geography, anthropology, development studies, postcolonial and social theory with interests in Latin American studies, and in the contingencies and contradictions of living together in profoundly unequal societies.

Christmas crimes hit close to home for Boston’s favorite art sleuths. “Charlotte MacLeod’s mysteries are witty and full of humor” (Maine Crime Writers). The angry old men of the Comrades of the Convivial Codfish club celebrate yuletide doing what they do best: eating, drinking, and greeting the season of giving with a spirited “bah, humbug!” Though well past sixty, Jem Kelling is a relative infant compared to some of the club’s elder statesmen, and he has waited decades to host their annual Christmas scowl. And during his first evening as Exalted Chowderhead, he is thrilled to find the wine abundant, the chowder superb, and the humbugs as lusty as ever. But as the night winds down, Jem is horrified to find that the ceremonial Codfish necklace has vanished—right off of his neck! His nephew-in-law, art investigator Max Bittersohn, is convinced his new uncle was the victim of a practical joke. But when the old man takes a hip-snapping tumble, Max is forced to conclude that one of the scrooges is trying to perpetrate a deadly Christmas jeer.

A full-length account of the drinks and drinking customs of the Victorian era, keyed to the innumerable scenes of imbibing in the life, works, and times of Charles Dickens.

By the Antebellum period, rice had dominated the local economic, political, and social patterns of South Carolina's Lowcountry for nearly two hundred years. This book explores the purpose of the social organizations as well as the moral, economic, cultural, and political challenges of the Georgetown rice planters. Within the protected confines of their organizations, planters felt safe discussing local and national politics, advancements to their educational system, and agricultural and livestock improvements to better compete with the Industrial North. The alliance of "brothers of the soil" helped solidify South Carolina's Lowcountry politically. The agricultural alliances of the region promoted Southern Nationalism and provided one pillar for Southerners to the American Civil War.