If much has been written of the forms of bodiliness reinforced by hospitals, less attention has been paid to the medicalization of the soul. The medical management of death institutionalizes divisions between body and soul, and matter and spirit, infusing end-of-life care with latent Christian theological presumptions. The invisibility of these presumptions is partly sustained by projecting rel...

Pedagogical and didactic efforts are usually based on the premise that learning takes place under favourable conditions.However, these conditions already presuppose what is supposed to take place: learning. This article deals with basic mechanisms oflearning, identifying, so speak, foundation of any pedagogical endeavour. For this, one earliest texts in pedagogy used,Plato’s Allegory Cave. On t...

‘Like all artists of his period, Poussin placed great weight on the clarity and legibility of an allegory.’1 Thus the verdict of Otto Grautoff, in his 1914 monograph on Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), describing speci!cally the artist’s portrayal of earthly transience and vanity, ‘The Dance of Human Life’. Clarity was already a catchphrase in Poussin scholarship in Grautoff’s day, used most often ...