This article offers an intensive—although still not exhaustive—reading of a letter written to the adolescent Lorenzo de’ Medici by Braccio Martelli, a member of his brigata. It is a document that focuses on the celebrations accompanying the wedding of Lucrezia Donati, the object of Lorenzo's affections, to Niccolò Ardinghelli, an anti-Medicean living in exile. I examine some of the letter's multiple overlapping topics and contexts, including private sociability (wedding practices, music, dance, dress), the trophy status of Lucrezia, sexual and political tensions, and the ties between the letter writer and his addressee in terms of client/patron and homosocial relations.

Judges communicate outside of the courtroom on a regular basis. They give speeches at universities and to societies; appear before select committees; write for a range of publications; and engage in both media and outreach activities. Existing literature has charted the value and perils of such extrajudicial communication. This paper contributes an explanation of what motivates judges towards such communication, and what shapes their discourse. The work draws on 13 semi-structured interviews with senior serving and recently retired judges, along with an extensive range of examples of judicial speech beyond the bench. It argues that extrajudicial communication is shaped by a shared conception amongst the judicial community of what is appropriate. This conception of propriety is principally motivated by a communal pursuit of sustaining public confidence in the judicial office. The conception also informs the limits of appropriate discourse and establishes the ramifications for breach.

The world is going through processes of change that emphasize the role of affect in fueling political mobilization and collective protest. Distinctive geopolitical affects emerge in different territories: Can affect both perform and sustain social change?

The reproductive cycle of Marphysa sanguinea is described for a population at Mount Edgecombe, Plymouth, near the type location in Southwest England, using a data set obtained previously (October 1999 to September 2000). The species is iteroparous without schizogamy, spawning prior to October 1999 and during a short breeding season in 2000 from end August through September. The sexes are separate with a sex ratio of 1:1. Mature oocytes and spawned eggs are 215 μm in diameter and spermatozoa of the ectaqua sperm type. Mature gametes of both sexes are discharged through paired coelomoducts, and the diploid chromosome number is 28. Proliferation of new coelomic gametes from paired gonads began within a month of spawning and continued for 8–9 months but ovulation was suppressed in June and July. Attempts to undertake fertilisation using spawned oocytes and active spermatozoa were unsuccessful. The size of discharged oocytes suggests a short pelagic larval duration of a few days. This is the first publication about the reproduction of this species, and our results suggest that M. sanguinea is restricted to intertidal areas in SW England, NW France and southern North Sea. The highly synchronised pattern of reproduction observed is not compatible with a quasi-cosmopolitan species range indicating that this species has been mistakenly reported from around the world. Future studies of the genus should combine rigorous taxonomy with observations of reproduction to facilitate comparison among Marphysa spp.

The last 15–20 years have seen the emergence of a new trajectory of ‘Muslim feminism’ in India which has grounded Muslim women’s rights discourse both in the direct interpretation of Islamic scriptures and also in principles derived from the Indian Constitution. Examining two prominent Muslim women’s organizations—the All India Muslim Women’s Personal Law Board and the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan—this article examines how this form of Muslim feminism has become a central repository of Islamic modernist thought in India in light of its perceived failure in some other sections of Muslim public life. Based on writings and educational materials produced by these organizations, this article discusses their methods of harnessing the teachings of the Quran, their application of ‘Islamic feminist’ methodology to interpret Islamic family laws, their identification of equivalence between Islamic and constitutional values, and their attempts to engage the state in their efforts to promote the modernization of Muslim Personal Law.