The Introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Kazuo Ishiguro offers a brief overview of Ishiguro’s remarkable oeuvre. The Introduction touches on the key themes and concerns of Ishiguro’s work as well as on the deceptively innovative formal narrative and linguistic qualities of his works; it offers a brief survey of the author’s career by following the successive ‘turning points’ that he adduces in his 2017 Nobel Lecture; and it considers the ways in which, in focusing so often on the ethics of professionalism, the novels also reflect on the profession of authorship itself – a role that Ishiguro has both embodied and performed with such adroitness and style, and with such admirable literary inventiveness and integrity, for more than forty years.

Freemasonry was one of the major conduits through which new ideas and political strategies spread during the Age of Revolution, connecting movements in Latin American regions not just with each other but with like-minded people throughout the Atlantic World. Nearly every major figure of the era has been named as a Freemason: emperors, viceroys, state ministers, archbishops, parish priests, royalist soldiers, insurgent generals, local politicians across the spectrum, women, urban workers, slaves and regular folk all could have been – and in many cases were – affiliated with Masonic Lodges or para-Masonic clubs. This chapter highlights the personal friendships and Masonic connections among this generation, bridging nationality, language and geographic space; discusses membership in a Masonic lodge as an open-ended, fluid experience that shifted and changed along with political conditions; and offers a new emphasis on the importance of Freemasonry as a vector for business, trade, and enterprise, including foreign investment, banking and the emergence of various national publishing industries – all of which were dominated by people with transatlantic Masonic connections.

This chapter analyzes the formation and expansion of social spaces for political debate and their impact on the formation of political identities as well as its entanglements with an increasing militarization of society. This chapter studies how the military quarters, the camps, and the campaign regiments transformed themselves into privileged spaces for public debate. During the process of Independence, the military forces engaged more in political debates, and members of these forces expressed their political opinions and affiliations in broadsides, manifestos, and printed proclaims. By bringing these often separated social and political spaces, we seek to analyze the impact and relevance that public opinion had in the processes of independence, paying particular attention to the formation of political identities, the emergence of a new political languages, as well as the diverse discursive strategies that leaders in different regions used to mobilize people militarily or to raise political awareness on soldiers. In this way, this chapter seeks to create original analytical connection between political knowledge and debate, and military mobilization in Latin America during the wars of independence.

This chapter offers readings of Kazuo Ishiguro’s screenplays, paying particular attention to two films commissioned by Channel 4, A Profile of Arthur J. Mason (1984) and The Gourmet (1986), and to his collaboration with Merchant Ivory, The White Countess (2005). In these rarely discussed works, Ishiguro interrogates the form of film itself by drawing attention to ‘unfilmable’ aspects of experience such as memory and imagination, which also feature prominently in his novels and short stories. While often overlooked in critical examinations of his work, these films provide insights into Ishiguro’s creative process and the evolution of his recurrent themes more generally. Like his most renowned novels, the subjects of these screenplays are service, sacrifice, and self-deception.

The Council of Trent defended matrimony as a sacrament, reaffirming traditional Catholic teachings, butalso putting an end to future clandestinemarriages by imposing conditions for the marriage contract to be valid, assuring the free consent of the spouses, making it public, bringing the rite under the control of the clergy, and keeping an official record of the ceremony. It forbade divorce while not condemning the practices of the Orthodox.

The chapter on sacraments in general and baptism and confirmation in particular, follows the formulation of the decree of the seventh session, from the list of heretical propositions idenifying their authors and meanings, to the conciliar discussions of them, to the draft decrees, and their final wording. It points to misunderstanidngs and polemical stances that ecumenical dialogue can help to bridge.

In the late medieval and early modern period, pastoral care was mostly provided outside of the parochial setting, through organizations like confraternities and under the spiritual guidance of mendicant clergy. The Council of Trent did not seek to change what constituted pastoral care, but rather to center devotion in the parish, return control to the secular clergy, and standardize the pastoral care available to all Catholics.

The introductory chapter surveys the events that led to the convocation of the Council of Trent and summarizes what was accomplished at each of its twenty-five sessions. It also recounts how its was formally approved, its decrees published, their interpretation and implementation entrusted to the Congregation of the Council, and its legislation promulgated by provincial councils. How the council has been remembered by historians and its records made available is also traced.

The council both followed precedents and created new ways of managing its affairs. It abandoned the “nations” and deputation structures of Konstanz and Basel in favor of classes, particular congregations of “minor theologians,” and congregations of prelate-theologians and of prelate-canonists, while retaining the general congregatons andformal sessions. Papal legates, whose powers increased with time, determined the agenda and presided over the proceedings. An effort is made to determine the numbers and nationalities of the participants for each of the three periods. The reasons for the failed participation of Protestants and Eastern Christians are explored.

The essay chronicles the Protestant objections to images and the Catholic response in the decree “On the invocation, veneration, and relics, of salnts, and on sacred images” of the Council of Trent. Paintings created as ecclesiastical decoration in the wake of the decree in Italy and in the Netherlands are examined.