The book looks to the creative potential of experiences of failure, haunting, estrangement, impasse, or dream in Shakespeare. The focus is not just on what the plays represent but on what they do and how they inspire and unsettle the political imaginations of their audiences. The Introduction sets out the intellectual heritage underpinning this approach, including the tradition of negative theology and subsequent philosophies of the negative (Hegel, Kierkegaard, Benjamin, Adorno, Derrida, Badiou). It thereby establishes a negative political theology that challenges the official (or positive) political theology that sacralises power. By outlining “the disruptive spirit of negativity”, it shifts critical focus from the mimetic to the affective and opens new and more nuanced readings. The approach builds on the work of critics such as Annabel Patterson, Andrew Hadfield, and Chris Fitter, who have highlighted the anti-monarchical or popular political forces at play during the period. In the via negativia, however, it explores a very different origin and mode of egalitarianism. It focuses on the way negativity and unsettlement imaginatively transform political thought and relations. Shakespeare’s drama opens up visions of something other, including radical experiences of the “perhaps” or “what if”, that deepen the audience’s political thought.

The gross injustice of environmental change, with those who have polluted the least suffering the biggest consequences, is becoming more apparent. Society is not responding at the scale and pace required to avoid catastrophic loss of life, but from courtrooms to the streets changes are emerging. In this context, public health is now practised. Public health skills, knowledge and attitudes are essential to creating a more sustainable and fairer world.

This chapter defines key terms, describes some of the most important environmental transitions, challenges and opportunities, and considers what our public health response to these can be. It seeks to equip the reader with some basic knowledge and all-important motivation for becoming a more effective agent for change at a time when planetary health must become everyone’s business.

Clark Kerr, President of the University of California, famously coined the term the “multiversity” to capture the expansion of universities in mid twentieth-century America to the point that they contained multiple and often competing (and indeed conflicting) goals, interests, and trajectories. While Kerr waxed eloquent about the value of the multiversity, he worried about the loss of community and purpose he associated with the smaller undergraduate college – especially in relation to undergraduate education. In particular, he worried that incentive structures for faculty led them to focus on narrow research as well as their own entrepreneurial opportunities outside the university, while they became more detached from undergraduate teaching on the one side, and more resistant to administrative leadership and guidance on the other. I follow up on the tensions between administrators and faculty and the ways in which disciplinary structures impede both intellectual openness and institutional experimentation.

Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) or superintelligence promises great disruption in the law, economy, and society. The world is close to reaching an inflection point; the so-called existential threat of superintelligence with the potential of replacing human control and decision-making with its creation. The focus should be on mitigating the negative effects of disruption and using smart design to prevent AI from ever becoming an existential threat to humankind.

The past few years have seen a rapid global scramble of governments developing strategic plans for Artificial Intelligence (AI). We focus in this chapter on four of the largest global economies and what their AI plans mean for higher education. Since 2016, China, the EU, the US, and the UK have all published strategic plans for AI (Fa, 2017; Hall and Pesenti, 2017; USA Government, 2019; European Commission, 2020). These plans’ speed appears to indicate a matter of urgency and a sense of high governmental priority. This chapter discusses how these plans differ, what we might look out for and the likely developments ahead for higher education. Higher education is of central importance to meet the coming AI economy’s demands, and embracing AI is broadly considered a transformative existential requirement for many universities’ survival (Aoun, 2017). How governments and their higher learning institutions are planning this transformation is of the utmost importance to us all.

Herbert Simon noted that it is the duty of people who study a new technology to offer their interpretations regarding its likely effects on society.1

Industry is a major contributor to climate change. Many industrial sites, supply chains and customers are vulnerable to climate change and policy and consumer responses to climate change. Profits from industrial production depend on consumer demand, and how products are provided. Powerful forces such as digitalisation, dematerialisation, decentralisation, electrification, efficiency improvement and circular economies influence production and emissions Industrial firms face pressure from regulators, investors and customers. However, there is enormous potential to capture multiple benefits through aggressive, innovative decarbonisation strategies that target growth markets and involve cooperation along supply chains. Economic productivity and business competitiveness improvement can cut business costs and reduce extreme weather risk exposure, whilst positioning manufacturing companies for fast-growing markets in low-carbon resilient products and services. The chapter overviews policies national and subnational government policymakers can consider to support transition to a zero-carbon resilient industrial sector.

This chapter introduces three cross-cutting themes that illustrate the relationship between artificial intelligence and international economic law (IEL): disruption, regulation, and reconfiguration. We explore the theme of disruption along the trifecta of AI-related technological, economic, and legal change. In this context, the impact of AI triggers political and economic pressures, as evidenced by intensive lobbying and engagement in different governance venues for and against various regulatory choices, including what will be regulated, how to regulate it, and whom should be regulated. Along these lines, we assess the extent to which IEL has already been reconfigured and examine the need for further reconfiguration. We conclude this introduction chapter by bringing the contributions we assembled in this volume into conversation with one another and identify topics that warrant further research. Taken as a whole, this book portrays the interaction between AI and IEL. We have collectively explored and evaluated the impact of AI disruption, the need for AI regulation, and directions for IEL reconfiguration.

This chapter introduces three cross-cutting themes that illustrate the relationship between artificial intelligence and international economic law (IEL): disruption, regulation, and reconfiguration. We explore the theme of disruption along the trifecta of AI-related technological, economic, and legal change. In this context, the impact of AI triggers political and economic pressures, as evidenced by intensive lobbying and engagement in different governance venues for and against various regulatory choices, including what will be regulated, how to regulate it, and whom should be regulated. Along these lines, we assess the extent to which IEL has already been reconfigured and examine the need for further reconfiguration. We conclude this introduction chapter by bringing the contributions we assembled in this volume into conversation with one another and identify topics that warrant further research. Taken as a whole, this book portrays the interaction between AI and IEL. We have collectively explored and evaluated the impact of AI disruption, the need for AI regulation, and directions for IEL reconfiguration.

Chapter 10 continues the theme of royal inaugurations as a process, covering the events immediately following on from a ruler’s enthronement to his first few years on the throne. Having been awarded a royal title did not inure a king against challenges and rivals. It normally took about 3–4 years before a ruler’s grip on power was secure. Successful rulers were those who overcame challenges during these years, while those who failed might either be disposed or replaced, or struggle to assert their authority fully across the realm. Key to success was a new king’s ability to demonstrate that he abided by the normative framework of royal power. He ruled for the common good, not for private gain. Yet what did this mean in practice? How could he win over those opposed to his kingship, erstwhile competitors and disappointed nobles? What was the role of the his subjects during these first few years? How could they seek to shape the governance of the realm? What was the role of force, and how did it relate to the doing of justice? How could generosity be balanced with equity? How did rulers deal with acts of disruption and dispute?

This chapter examines questions of governance in colonial contexts, noting important similarities between colonial governance and governance approaches in corporations.