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Witness Anonymity: "I Want to Look Into The Eyes Of My Son’s Killer And Know His Name"

The screening of witnesses for anonymity in the context of inquests and public inquiries is hugely contentious. Why does putting witnesses behind a screen cause such concern for human rights and civil liberties advocates? What are protective measures? Has there been an increase in such applications?

Theatres of War: Crusade, Colonialism and Chivalry in the Middle Ages

Were the Crusades an early example of European colonialism? What value did the crusading frontier hold for the knights who fought to defend it? What was the relationship between the Crusades and the knightly culture of chivalry?

The Astronomer and the Witch: Kepler’s Mother

In 1615 Katharina Kepler, illiterate mother of the astronomer Johannes Kepler, was accused of being a witch. At that time in Germany, there was a witch ‘craze’. Over half of the c.50,000 executions in Europe for witchcraft between 1500 and 1700 took place in Germany.

Cynics, Stoics, Epicureans

Cynicism, Stoicism and Epicureanism, emerged shortly after Platonism and Aristotelianism in Ancient Greece. Each of these new schools of philosophy offered a moral programme advocating the best way to live and a more abstract physical, scientific model of the workings of the universe.