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The Book of Hours McGill, MS 156 has never been the subject of an exhaustive scientific study apart from some notices placing its production in Franche-Comté or Burgundy after 1450. In fact, this manuscript includes many challenges of identification and interpretation. While pointing toward the east of France, the composite character of these liturgical texts makes it difficult to define its usage; its illumination, partially deteriorated and mutilated, was never linked to a particular workshop, and its hagiography pertains to a seemingly incongruous religious background. We will attempt to remedy these issues by means of a detailed analysis of the codicological, hagiographical, and artistic dimensions of this manuscript, which will lead to a new hypothesis concerning its liturgical usage, the circumstances of its production, and the date of this Book of Hours. Likewise, we will propose to associate the decoration of this manuscript with the workshop of one of the most interesting illuminators of eastern France during the late Middle Ages.

In this article we examine sentencing in 14 Ontario cases of possession of child pornography between 2007 and 2017 with the purpose of understanding the sentencing process in relation to the fundamental principle of proportionality and other principles employed to arrive at a fair, individualizing process as set out in Canadian sentencing law. In all cases the offenders are charged with possession only and have no prior offences. We situate these cases within the context of sentencing reform in general and child pornography law specifically, including the evolution of mandatory minimums, as they have evolved in both legislation and case law. Our cases cover two periods of mandatory minimums, 45 days and six months. Although we consider numerical sentences, probation and ancillary conditions awarded when examining our cases, we are interested in the process of determining the sentencing components.  We analyse this process in two ways: by observing the judicial reasoning in calculating the seriousness of the crime and the blameworthiness of the offender and the balancing of other purposes and principles, particularly rehabilitation and parity; and, by considering three pairings of cases, each with similar quantity and quality of images, to compare the calculation of risk and its effect on determining the blameworthiness of the particular offender. Our findings reveal a polarization in judicial reasoning between a punitive process in which overemphasis of denunciation and deterrence and extreme versions of the reasoned apprehension of harm add weight to the seriousness of the crime on a par with contact abuse, and a more tempered and restrained one in which possession is considered on its own and other purposes and principles are weighed, such as rehabilitation and parity, to arrive at a more individualizing process. Mandatory minimums are no constraint as sentencing is much lengthier, especially under the 45-day mandatory minimum. In pairing like cases in terms of collections of images and videos we find a very subjective process in the calculating of risk in which like offenders are treated differently in terms of assessments of blameworthiness, based on questionable forensic methods and assumptions. Finally, we note the resources involved in investigative time, incarceration and the supervising of probation as well as lengthy ancillary conditions that may last decades after sentencing.

Does a performance-based film as a creative artifact contribute new knowledge on the topics it adresses partly through its practice and outcomes? The focus of this article is on the performance-based film project STRATA. Under the direction of artist duo Verena Stenke and Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage), STRATA brings together artists, performers, scholars, and researchers from the humanities and social sciences through collaborations and interdisciplinary processes. Locations featured in the film include the Swabian Jura caves in Germany, which were used for shelter by Ice Age humans forty thousand years ago. VestAndPage intend to open up a contemporary discourse on the past by engaging performing artists as they confront the concept of deep time and layers of memory in human history. They investigate the human body as a site that exists in continuity with the geological, rather than cut away from it, undertaking site-specific/site-responsive performances within caves and grottos. Working from the a priori assumption that everything in the world is interconnected and coexists with its environment, they take ecological thinking as an entry point to enliven an emerging corporeal epistemology to inform a more holistic and multicultural perspective. In the article, the authors attempt to trace continuities between their research activity on performance, filmmaking, sound and light design practices, and the methodological differences between practice-based research in moving images and academic research in film and image studies. They recount the evolution of their thinking, sensations experienced, practice-based artistic research, and working methods, which draw largely upon phenomenology and heuristic processes.

“Magic” is a term that continues to feature in popular and scholarly circles, yet scholars continue to disagree vehemently about its definition and utility. This article uses the various definitions of magic as lenses through which to compare the ritual texts of the Priestly Pentateuch, ancient Egypt, and ancient Mesopotamia. The results offered illumine both the texts and the scholars who interpret them. Regardless of the definition employed, the biblical and other ANE ritual texts are quite similar, leading to the conclusion that magic should not be used as a dividing line between biblical Priestly and other ANE ritual texts.

Keywords: magic, ritual, bible, ancient near east, priestly source, mesopotamia, egypt