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Civilisational Melancholy and Temporalised Space in Contemplative Science Fiction Cinema: A Phenomenological Study of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Last and First Men
Full text linkDefying Kuwaiti Censorship and Addressing the Crisis of Intellectualism: Ḥāris saṭḥ al-ʿālam as a Subversive Feminine Dystopian Fairy Tale
Full text linkThe “Arab Spring” posed a significant challenge to entrenched authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), disrupting the pursuit of freedom and democracy while exacerbating existing social and political crises. In its aftermath, contemporary Arabic literature saw a marked rise in dystopian novels that reflect on past revolutions and project a bleak future. This widespread revolutionary spirit also inspired marginalised groups in Kuwait, including censored writers. Against this backdrop, Kuwaiti author Buthayna al-ʿĪsa, in her 2019 work Ḥāris saṭḥ al-ʿālam (Guardian of the World Surface), weaves well-known Western fairy tale figures into a dystopian narrative set in a Middle Eastern context. Her use of estrangement – now a survival strategy for activists and intellectuals in Kuwait and across the Arab world post-“Arab Spring” – enables her to critique book censorship and the growing totalitarianism in Kuwait while skilfully avoiding censorship herself. Framing the narrative through a bookstore proprietress who both writes and participates in the story, Ḥāris saṭḥ al-ʿālam offers a nuanced portrayal of female characters, both within the narrative and as the storyteller, emphasising the subversive potential of Arab women to confront the Symbolic order and the crisis of intellectualism in the post-revolutionary era
Editorial: Language and Faith
Full text linkThis issue of Theology in Scotland explores how language shapes, challenges, and sometimes constrains faith, especially within the historical and contemporary Scottish context. 
To restore a light unto the nations: Israel, Palestine, Scotland and the charter of the land
Full text linkThis paper extends but retains its original form as a verbal delivery to a conference, ‘Land, Nature, Justice’, convened by the solidarity group ‘Highland-Palestine’, at which the author shared a platform with the Palestinian natural historian, Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh of Bethlehem University. It compares the historical loss of biodiversity and culture (including linguistic) in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland with biblical prophetic exposition from the Holy Land. It treasures how, ranging from Gaelic bardic laments of the Highland Clearances to modern Scottish land reform, a biblically-inspired indigenous liberation theology has widened the aperture of imagination and strengthened political legitimacy. And it asks whether, in discipleship to the Jewish ethos of tikkun olam, the same theology might minister as ‘a light to the nations’ in such as Gaza too
Wild Waters: Community and Nature in the Depths of Cold-water Swimming
Full text linkThis ethnographic study examines the practice of cold-water wild swimming among university students in St. Andrews, Scotland, to explore the activity’s social, affective, and ecological dimensions. Drawing on participant observation and semi-structured interviews, my research looks at how swimmers construct meaning around their experiences beyond commonly cited health benefits. Through employing theoretical frameworks including embodied mutuality, indigenous epistemologies, and critiques of the nature–culture binary, the study highlights how cold-water immersion fosters community, environmental consciousness, and reorients participants\u27 perceptions of self and nature. My findings suggest that the shared physical and emotional intensity of wild swimming generates social bonds and a sense of spiritual renewal, while also challenging dominant Western paradigms that separate humans from the natural world. The research also highlights how wild swimming acts as a site of ecological attunement and grassroots environmental activism. Overall, this study contributes to anthropological understandings of embodiment, relationality, and human-environment interdependence in contemporary leisure practices
Revolution or Familial War: : Revolutionary Failures in Khaled Khalifa’s Death is Hard Work
Full text link In Death is Hard Work, Khaled Khalifa attempts to understand what it means to have a حرب أهلية, ḥarb ahlīyah, a civil war. Khalifa’s novel partially describes the war as a family or familial war, as the word أهل, ahl, is commonly used in spoken Arabic to refer to immediate family members and relatives. Khalifa elaborates on this notion through the Arabic metaphor and draws a comparison between Abdel Latif Al Salim’s family crisis and dysfunctions, on the one hand, and the ongoing war in Syria, on the other one. As he does that, he observes that in both cases a “revolutionary” mentality underlies the conflictual scene in the country. As such, the strenuous journey Abdel Latif’s children take to bury their father is an attempt to bury the very “revolutionary” mindset he stands to signify; for “revolutionary” masks incompetence, escapism and cowardice. Abdel Latif is a revolutionary figure inasmuch as he wants to effect major changes in Syrian society and win the larger war without fighting and winning the smaller battles in his family and immediate circles. Abdel Latif’s son Bolbol, the protagonist of the novel, represents an attempt to break away from his father’s legacy of sloganeering and big but failed causes. Bolbol’s actions advocate a humanist commitment to family as a potential way forward and away from a defeatist, destructive family, cultural, and political ideological heritage that goes back to the 1950s and 1960s. Outdated revolutions of this type are obsolete, leading to backward looking conflicts that double down on nationalist and nativist ideologies
Visual Narratives and Lens of the Youth Collective: : Framing the Revolution and its Afterlives
No full textThis essay posits that the Lens of the Youth [collective] (‘adsat al-shābb, hereafter LYC) Facebook sites mark a turn in the visual language coming out of Syria in the aftermath of the uprisings there in 2011. Reacting to the urgency to create and disseminate, i.e. to produce culture from the frontlines, LYC’s visual language was not the language of war photography, but rather a vernacular expression of visual communication. As much as this essay is an attempt to read the images connectively, as chapters of a long narrative in a protracted war, it also argues that these images both contributed initially and continue to contribute to the active work of community-making that is one of the outcomes of the revolution
Evaluating the Role of International Humanitarian Law in Protecting Women and Girls from Sexual Violence in the Boko Haram Conflict in Northeast Nigeria
Full text linkThe Boko Haram conflict in Northeast Nigeria has caused widespread devastation, with women and girls disproportionately affected by sexual violence. This violence—including abductions, forced marriages, and sexual enslavement—has been well-documented as part of Boko Haram’s strategy to destabilize communities and instil fear according to Amnesty International, 2015. International Humanitarian Law establishes protections for civilians and vulnerable groups during armed conflicts. However, its enforcement in the Boko Haram insurgency, remains limited. Traditional international law frameworks have often been critiqued for their failure to fully account for the lived experiences of marginalized groups, particularly women, in conflict. A feminist approach challenges these traditional priorities by highlighting how gendered harms—are often inadequately addressed in legal discourse. I adopt a critical feminist methodology to critique the gendered dimensions of violence in the Boko Haram conflict and the limitations of IHL in addressing these harms. The feminist perspective argue that traditional legal frameworks often reinforce patriarchal structures, whereas feminist approaches seek to ensure that legal protections reflect the realities of women’s experiences in conflict. Furthermore, while feminist approaches to human rights advocate for more inclusive framework, they may also face challenges when engaging with deeply rooted cultural norms that resist interventions. I structure the paper in three key sections. The first section provides an overview of the Boko Haram insurgency and the forms of gender-based violence used as a weapon of war. The second section critically examines provisions of IHL and traditional human rights framework and evaluates their effectiveness in protecting women and girls in conflict zones through a feminist lens, it highlights the limitations of IHL and human rights in cultural contexts. The last section proposes solutions based on successful strategies implemented in similar conflict-affected regions. This paper will contribute to feminist approaches to international law to provide a more nuanced understanding of gendered harms in conflict and show that addressing sexual violence in conflict requires a gender-sensitive localized approach while navigating the cultural and legal complexities of conflict zones like Northeast Nigeria
“Scottish Religious Poetry: From the Sixth Century to the Present: An Anthology; second edition” edited by Linden Bicket, Emma Dymock and Alison Jack
No full textReview ofLinden Bicket, Emma Dymock and Alison Jack, eds., Scottish Religious Poetry: From the Sixth Century to the Present: An Anthology, 2nd edn. (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2024), pp. xxv + 326 pages, ISBN 978-1800830479. £25.0
“Science-engaged Theology” by John Perry and Joanna Leidenhag
No full textReview ofJohn Perry and Joanna Leidenhag, Science-engaged Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), pp. 79, ISBN 978-1009094054. £18.00; available online at https://doi.org/10.1017/978100909135