Annie Besant was a Victorian radical whose outspoken views included advocacy of women’s rights and atheism. In her mid-forties she went to live in India. Her An Autobiography (1893) charts dramatic political ethical awakenings, up the point where joined Theosophical movement. It describes how unhappily married clergyman, contemplated suicide, embraced atheism, legally separated from husband. Th...

This paper discusses the psychological basis of believ-ability. Story-telling, empathy, historical grounding (autobiography), andècological grounding' in an environment are identiied as factors which are relevant to the way how humans understand the (social) world. It is suggested that applying such criteria to the construction of artiicial lifelike agents is more relevant than trying to achiev...

The bestselling status of the Autobiography of Mark Twain (2010) and the recent controversy over the 2011 NewSouth edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (in which the n-word has been replaced with “slave” throughout) attest to Twain’s unique appeal as an author of popular and formally sophisticated works that satirize US formations of race and empire. For a ...