Late Medieval Irish Law Manuscripts: A Reappraisal of Methodology and Context challenges the long-held view that Irish law manuscripts produced in the secular law schools of the late medieval period are only the work of antiquarians. This book examines the texts in their political, social and cultural contexts, particularly in relation to the Irish revival of the fourteenth century onwards. Finnane’s examination of the manuscripts includes: legal interpretation and the role of glossing and commenting on older ‘canonical texts’ in establishing the authority of those texts in the present the use of the manuscripts in legal education the use of the past in providing legitimacy and authority, particularly in a legal context. Finnane argues that the manuscripts are the work of jurists authorising a revived legal system connected to a re-emergent Irish political elite, after more than a century of Anglo Norman invasion and rule.

Prophecy, Fate and Memory in the Early and Medieval Celtic World brings together a collection of studies that closely explore aspects of culture and history of Celtic-speaking nations. Non-narrative sources and cross-disciplinary approaches shed new light on traditional questions concerning commemoration,sources of political authority, and the nature of religious identity. Leading scholars and early-career researchers bring to bear hermeneutics from studies of religion and literary criticism alongside more traditional philological and historical methodologies. All the studies in this book bring to their particular tasks an acknowledgement of the importance of religion in the worldview of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Their approaches reflect a critical turn in Celtic studies that has proved immensely productive across the last two decades.

The study of family and inheritance systems is a traditionally anthropological one. Dr Davis has examined a South Italian town with records from 1814 and concludes that the present 'typical' European system is of recent adoption, a response to the gradual and peculiar integration of Pisticci into a nation-state and national economy. The account of landholding distinguishes carefully between legal rights and informal cessions of land, and agriculture is put into the context of other economic activities. Dr Davis emphasises the structural importance of kin, family and neighbourhood relationships as bases for the creation of more ephemeral ties of friendship, clientage and network.

Memory and Foresight in the Celtic World delves deep into the experience of Celtic communities and individuals in the late medieval period through to the modern age. Its thirteen essays range widely, from Scottish soldiers in France in the fifteenth century to Gaelic-speaking communities in rural New South Wales in the twentieth, and expatriate Irish dancers in the twenty-first. Connecting them are the recurring themes of memory and foresight: how have Celtic communities maintained connections to the past while keeping an eye on the future? Chapters explore language loss and preservation in Celtic countries and among Celtic migrant communities, and the influence of Celtic culture on writers such as Dylan Thomas and James Joyce. In Australia, how have Irish, Welsh and Scottish migrants engaged with the politics and culture of their home countries, and how has the idea of a Celtic identity changed over time? Drawing on anthropology, architecture, history, linguistics, literature and philosophy, Memory and Foresight in the Celtic World offers diverse, thought-provoking insights into Celtic culture and identity.

The issue of patronage-clientelism has long been of interest in the social sciences. Based on long-term ethnographic research in southern Italy, this book examines the concept and practice of raccomandazione: the omnipresent social institution of using connections to get things done. Viewing the practice both from an indigenous perspective – as a morally ambivalent social fact – and considering it in light of the power relations that position southern Italy within the nesting relations of global Norths and Souths, it builds on and extends past scholarship to consider the nature of patronage in a contemporary society and its relationship to corruption.

Karen Tintori thought she knew her family tree. Her grandmother Josie had emigrated from Sicily with her parents at the turn of the century. They settled in Detroit, and with Josie's nine siblings, worked to create a home for themselves away from the poverty and servitude of the old country. Their descendants were proud Italian-Americans. But Josie had a sister nobody spoke of. Her name was Frances, and at age sixteen she fell in love with a young barber. Her father wanted her to marry an older don in the neighborhood mafia---a marriage that would give his sons a leg up in the mob. But Frances eloped with her barber, and when she returned home a married woman, her fate was sealed. Even eighty years and two generations later, Frances was not spoken of, and her memory was suppressed. Unto the Daughters is a historical mystery and family story that unwraps the many layers of family, honor, memory, and fear to find an honor killing in turn-of-the-century Detroit. Tracing the history and insular world of Italian immigrants back to the old country, Karen Tintori shows what they came from, what they hoped for, and how the hopes and dreams of America fell far short for her great-aunt Frances. "Nearly every family has a skeleton in its closet, an ancestor who "sins" against custom and tradition and pays a double price -- ostracism or worse at the time, and obliteration from the memory of succeeding generations. Few of these transgressors paid a higher price than Frances Costa, who was brutally murdered by her own brothers in a 1919 Sicilian honor killing in Detroit. And fewer yet have had a more tenacious successor than Frances's great-niece, Karen Tintori, who refused to allow the truth to remain forgotten. This is a book for anyone who shares the convinction that all history, in the end, is family history." -Frank Viviano, author of Blood Washes Blood and Dispatches from the Pacific Century "Switching back and forth between rural Sicily and early 20th century Detroit, Unto the Daughters reads like a nonfiction version of the film Godfather II--if it had been told from the point of view of a female Corleone. In exploring her own family's secret history, Karen Tintori gives voice not just to her victimized aunt but to all Italian-American daughters and wives silenced by the power of omerta. Half gripping true-crime story, half moving family memoir, Unto the Daughters is both fascinating and frightening, packed with telling details and obscure folklore that help bring the suffocating world of a Mafia family to life." --Eleni N. Gage, author of North of Ithaka

Culture and Political Economy in Western Sicily presents the relationship between the early colonial period, a time when Sicily exported wheat and animal products, and a later neocolonial period, during which manpower is the principal energy loss. The book discusses the rise and development of the Mafia; cultural codes that are important to contemporary social Sicilian organization; and the origins of these codes in early adaptations of the Sicilian people to externally generated political and economic forces. The text will be of value to sociologists, economists, historians, and people who want a deeper understanding of the Mafia.

Phonosymbolism, or sound symbolism (Lautsymbolik), is a vital ingredient of language growth. Many serious scholars, however, have regarded it with embarrassment or indifference. A cautious reintroduction of phonosymbolism as a factor responsible for changes undergone, in varying degrees, by most languages would now seem to be in order. The present volume brings together a number of recent articles on this subject, focusing mostly on problems from Romance languages, especially Spanish; but English also figures prominently.