This essay sketches the lineaments of the relationship between international law and the jurisprudence of Peter Fitzpatrick. It argues that Fitzpatrick was a model ‘transnational jurisprudent’ who accepted responsibility for the ongoing conduct of lawful relations, even as he offered a thoroughgoing critique of occidental law. For the occidentally trained international lawyer, Fitzpatrick's work offers a way to take up that responsibility by reimagining international law through its historical roots as a parochial law of encounter.

Most of the existing literature on inclusion and exclusion among older adults focuses on community-dwelling individuals. In this article, we draw on the results of a comparative case study to explore how older adults in two assisted living settings experience inclusion and exclusion. One site was a low-income facility and the other a higher-end facility in a mid-sized Canadian city. Bridging together geographies of encounter and gerontological approaches on social inclusion, we analyse interviews with tenants and key informants to explore when, where and in what ways these groups experience inclusion and exclusion in these particular settings. Tenants’ narratives reveal how their encounters, and in turn their experiences of exclusion and inclusion are shaped by experiences throughout their lifecourse, the organisation of assisted living spaces, communities beyond the facility, and pervasive discourses of ageism and ‘dementiaism’. We argue that addressing experiences of exclusion for older adults within these settings involves making more time and space for positive encounters and addressing pervasive discourses around ageism and ‘dementiaism’ among tenants and staff.

In 1936, the indigenous Peruvian photographer Martín Chambi travelled to and exhibited his work in Chile. Using a transnational framework of historical analysis, this article explores the multiple meanings of his visit. In particular it underscores the involvement of the Chilean and Peruvian governments in this cultural encounter, and highlights some of the commonalities and connections, as well as differences, between the discourses of race that were circulating in Chile and Peru at the time. This is important because it undermines the dominant historical narratives, which have tended to present Chile as a country that – in contrast to Peru – failed to engage in discussions about the so-called ‘indigenous question’, and which have interpreted relations between Chile and Peru almost exclusively as antagonistic and hostile.

This article addresses questions relating to the ‘Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site’ and seeks to introduce into this initiative some concepts derived from recent writings on contemporary mobilities and bordering, exploring the possibility of creating greater engagement between the two academic fields of ‘border studies’ and ‘Roman Frontier Studies’. By examining the relationship between the Roman Frontiers initiative and the European Union's stated aims of integration and the dissolution of borders, it argues in favour of crossing intellectual borders between the study of the present and the past to promote the value of the Roman frontiers as a means of reflecting on contemporary problems facing Europe. This article considers the potential roles of Roman Frontier Studies in this debate by emphasizing frontiers as places of encounter and transformation.

This reading rewrites the nahḍah, as the other appellation for Arab modernity, and interrogates it through a postcolonial critique. The nahḍah is usually addressed in terms of the encounter with Europe, the indebtedness to and engagement with the Enlightenment discourse at the turn of the last century. I dispute more commonplace negativist readings of the past by nahḍah scholars and direct attention instead to other competing trends that enhanced significant identitarian politics. I also unearth the reasons behind the loudly pronounced negativism, its pitfalls and failure to map out a comprehensive field of an enormous knowledge that unfolded in compendiums, commentaries, lexicons, encyclopedias, along with separate monographs. I apply the term republic of letters to this specifically loaded scholarly interaction, one that preceded and heralded other configurational sites in Europe. A community of scholars over centuries and across the Islamic lands emerged between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries that could have furnished “Enlightened” modernists with some different understanding and critical theoretical approach to the encounter with Europe and the colonial and postcolonial state of affairs.

Based on the theology of Emil Brunner, this article seeks to demonstrate the relevance, even the imperative nature, of personal encounter both for the work of dogmatics and for theological existence. In particular it assesses what impact the personalness of God's self-revelation should have, not just on one's doctrinal conclusions, but also on one's self as a theologian. A range of Brunner's writings forms the backdrop for this focused study of a paradigm which shapes his theology and methodology: personal encounter. I start by introducing the broader context of Brunner's presuppositions about the theological task, including his regard for divine self-communication. With this in mind, attention will be paid to the relationship between revelation and scripture, and in particular to the Christocentric, personal and enduring character of God's unveiling. Brunner's regard for the apostolic witness as the authoritative testimony to God's full disclosure in Christ is high and determines the position that he affords the Bible throughout his work. A summary of Brunner's treatment of the divine-human encounter will follow, with a view to understanding him on this subject in his own terms. His small publication by the same name, The Divine-Human Encounter, serves as the focus of this examination. The term ‘personal correspondence’ requires special consideration for the central position it enjoys in Brunner's conception of divine revelation and its relationship to dogmatics. Further expressions related to this theme will come to light in the process of answering two questions regarding the connection between personal encounter in scripture and the work of theology. First, how true is our doctrine when its expression becomes distanced from the language of divine-human encounter which characterises revelation? Second, what is the relationship between scripture as theology's primary source and the ongoing revelation of God to the believer in personal encounter? The suggestion that theology cannot be restricted to intellectual pursuit will not be universally applauded, but the proposal that God's self-unveiling obliges a change in existence and not just an adjustment in knowledge is one that Brunner deems unavoidable. In this light I conclude by suggesting that the personal encounter of revelation issues an imperative for both individual and communal existence which must be considered by all who undertake the theological task.

At the heart of Hans Urs von Balthasar's oeuvre is his preoccupation with the encounter between finite human freedom and infinite divine freedom. While Balthasar's many interpreters have assayed the meaning and implications of this preoccupation, little attention has been given to his consideration of the experiential dimension of the encounter, especially the psychological implications. This essay will address such implications by relating the experience of the encounter to the particular psychological phenomenon of anxiety. It is my conviction that Balthasar clearly identified a correlation between the increasing presence of existential anxiety in modernity with the failure of modern persons to understand rightly the encounter between God and the person. Balthasar's assessment of the relationship between the encounter and anxiety provides his readers with a stimulating and original reading that complements, indeed completes, the philosophical renderings of anxiety provided by his contemporaries. Since the phenomenon of anxiety has not abated, a retrieval of Balthasar's work on the subject is both warranted and timely.