This paper will deal with the survival of material culture in Late Antique Egypt, focusing on the fourth and fifth centuries AD. I will survey the main issues related to the study of the pagan material world in Late Antique Egypt. These issues relate to the various objects at our disposal, which in some instances have been hard to date. Moreover, even when items have been ordered into temporal categories, it has been difficult to distinguish between “religious” and “neutral” usage of material culture. Then I will examine the state of fourth-century pagan Egyptian religion, arguing that, as a lack of epigraphical material indicates a steady decline of public cult, a particular phenomenon was taking place: the “privatisation” of pagan cults, as demonstrated by the case study of Karanis. In addition, I shall focus on both apotropaic and “neutral” usage, as attested by the development of amuletic objects from the fourth to the fifth century AD. Objects of personal adornment will be analysed in relation to magical practices to verify what role decorative paraphernalia played in the survival of pagan material culture. Finally, I shall examine the syncretic process between paganism and Christianity. In particular, through the influences paganism had on Christianity, it may be possible to infer that pagan objects were still in use in late fifth-century Egypt, though with a different purpose.

El presente trabajo plantea el estudio de la literatura marroquí escrita en las dos lenguas más utilizadas en la Península Ibérica: castellano y catalán. Al emprender este estudio no se pretende solamente recoger una muestra de literatura anecdótica, folclórica o una rara muestra de literatura marginal. Por el contrario, se trata de mostrar un serio corpus literario, de una producción comprometida, exigente, rigurosa, una literatura que puede entablar un diálogo intercultural tanto con la producción literaria surgida en la Península Ibérica como en el resto del mundo hispánico. Como indica Ricci, “estamos ante una literatura que puede hablar de tú a tú a la producción Peninsular, que tiene mucho que decir y que lo hace de manera honesta y a veces brillante” (2010:14) El estudio de esta literatura se estructura en torno a unos ejes temáticos que mantiene una estrecha relación entre ellos. Tras subrayar la historia común entre Marruecos y España, se alude a los eventos y datos que permiten trazar el surgimiento de la literatura marroquí en la lengua de Cervantes. Posteriormente, hay una primer capítulo consagrado a la producción de ensayos y relatos cortos de dos autores, Ahmed Ararou y Ahmed El Gamoun. La segunda parte está reservada a los poemas en castellano de Abderrahman El Fathi, que versan sobre la migración, en su mayoría ilegal, hacia Europa. En la tercera parte, obedeciendo a la misma lógica, se examinan las novelas de dos autores marroquíes que escriben en/desde la intersección de dos culturas, marroquí y catalán, en lengua catalana, así como en castellano. Se trata de Najat El Hachmi y Saïd El Kadaoui Moussaoui. En la formulación de “La literatura marroquí escrita en castellano y catalán” (ensayos, poemas y novelas) se resumen los rasgos característicos de un grupo de escritores marroquíes que se debaten entre el afianzamiento de los valores tradicionales y la apertura o exilio hacia occidente. Por ende, se espera que esta literatura y los estudios que devengan—como es el caso de este trabajo— descubran un nuevo filón a explotar, unas nuevas Minas del Rif, pero en esta ocasión no en manos de Romanones, sino como patrimonio de todos los que compartimos las lenguas castellana y catalana. The present work proposes the study of Moroccan literature written in the two languages most utilized in the Iberian Peninsula, Castilian and Catalan. The undertaking of this study is not intended to collect a sample of anecdotal, folk or a rare display of marginal literature, but instead proposes to show the diversity in this corpus of literature, as one that is engaged, discerning, rigorous and that can establish a critical dialogue between the cultural productions of the so-called Orient with the Hispanic/Latino world. As stated by Ricci, “estamos ante una literatura que puede hablar de tú a tú a la producción Peninsular, que tiene mucho que decir y que lo hace de manera honesta y a veces brillante” (2010:14) The study of this corpus of literature is structured around various themes that maintain a close relationship amongst them. The introduction underlines the history shared by Morocco and Spain, alluding to events and other information that allows for the tracing of the emergence of Moroccan literature written in the language of Cervantes. Subsequently, the first chapter is devoted to the study of essays and short stories of two Moroccan authors, Ahmed Ararou and Ahmed El Gamoun. The second chapter analyzes the poems, in Castilian, of Abderrahman El Fathi, poems that discuss the topic of migration—mostly illegal—to Europe. The third and final part of this project, observing the same pattern established in the previous two sections, discusses the novels of two authors of Moroccan descent that write in and from the intersection of two cultures, Amazigh and Catalan, in both Catalan and Castilian languages; Najat El Hachmi and Saïd El Kadaoui Moussaoui. In the formulation of “Moroccan Literature written in Castilian and Catalan” (essays, poems, and novels) are summarized by the characteristics of a group of Moroccan writers torn between the entrenchment of traditional values and the opening to western values. Therefore, it is expected that this literature and the subsequent studies— as is the case of this work—will discover a new seam or Rif Mines to exploit, but this time not solely at the hands of the Romanones, but as the heritage of all who share the Castilian and Catalan languages.

Philosophical discussions about violence tend to lack conceptual clarity, which makes them confused and often unhelpful. The dissertation aims at bringing about such clarity by analyzing the meaning and scope of the concept of violence. I examine three kinds of views about the ontology of violence (the physicalist, the structural, and the maximalist view) and defend a version of the maximalist view that incorporates elements from the notion of structural violence. In the last chapter, I explore the ethical implications of my view and defend an ecological approach to ethics in order to best deal with such implications.

Ng and Schauenburg proved that the kernel of a $(2+1)$-dimensional topological quantum field theory representation of $\mathrm{SL}(2, \ints)$ is a congruence subgroup. Motivated by their result, we explore when the kernel of an irreducible representation of the braid group $B_3$ with finite image enjoys a congruence subgroup property. In particular, we show that in dimensions two and three, when the projective order of the image of the braid generator $\sigma_1$ is between 2 and 5 the kernel projects onto a congruence subgroup of $\mathrm{PSL}(2,\ints)$ and compute its level. However, for each odd integer $r$ equal to at least 5, we construct a pair of non-congruence subgroups associated with three-dimensional representations. Our techniques use classification results of low dimensional braid group representations and the Fricke-Wohlfarht theorem in number theory, as well as Tim Hsu's work on generating sets for the principal congruence subgroups of $\mathrm{PSL}(2,\ints)$.