\n", "\n", "\n", "\n", " \n", "Analysis
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\n", "- The Purest Example of Shakespeareâs Poetic Drama
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\n", " Unlike later histories, which balance action with introspection, Richard II is almost entirely verseâno prose, no comic relief, no distracting subplots. It is Shakespeare at his most elevated, refining blank verse into a lyrical, almost incantatory mode of expression. Richardâs speeches, in particular, are some of the most exquisite poetry in the canon. The play is saturated with metaphor, imagery, and symbolismâso much so that it can feel like a ritualistic meditation on kingship, time, and fate rather than a conventional drama.\n", "
\n", " Consider Richardâs speech in Act 3, Scene 2:\n", "\n", " \"For Godâs sake, let us sit upon the ground\n", "
\n", " And tell sad stories of the death of kings.\"\n", "- The Most Complex Portrait of Kingship Before Hamlet
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\n", " Shakespeare builds Richard II around a fundamental political and philosophical question: What makes a king? Richard begins as the divinely ordained ruler, steeped in the medieval belief that kingship is sacred, but by the end of the play, he has been reduced to a mere man. This transition is agonizing and profound, as Shakespeare stages not just a political coup but an existential unraveling.\n", "- Psychological and Political Modernity
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\n", " Richard II dramatizes the performance of power better than any other Shakespearean history. Richard initially appears untouchable, but his rule is exposed as a carefully maintained illusionâhis fall from grace is not just a loss of political power but of identity itself. In an age when political legitimacy was shifting from divine right to realpolitik, Shakespeare captures the anxiety of a world in transition.\n", "- Richard and Bolingbroke: One of Shakespeareâs Most Fascinating Power Struggles
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\n", " Unlike the later Henriad plays, where power struggles often play out through military action, Richard II is a battle of words and personas. Bolingbroke represents the practical, Machiavellian future of kingshipâheâs adaptable, pragmatic, and understands that power is taken, not given. Richard, by contrast, clings to a fading medieval world of divine rule, seeing himself as a Christlike figure rather than a man who must govern effectively.\n", "- The Deposition Scene (Act 4, Scene 1)
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\n", " This scene alone earns Richard II a place among Shakespeareâs greatest works. Richardâs forced abdication is an extraordinary moment of self-awarenessâhe plays his own tragedy, turning the deposition into a dramatic performance that both humiliates him and elevates him into something greater than a mere mortal king. His use of mirrors, his obsessive focus on the image of himself as a fallen ruler, and his hypnotic self-destruction are all elements that would later define Shakespeareâs greatest tragic heroes.\n", "
\n", " Conclusion: A Play of Tragic Majesty
\n", " If Richard III is the most theatrical of Shakespeareâs histories, Henry V the most heroic, and Hamlet the most philosophical, Richard II is the most poetic and self-aware. It lacks the battlefield drama of Henry IV and Henry V, but what it offers instead is a devastating meditation on power, identity, and the transformation of political reality. Itâs Shakespeare at his most lyrical and his most profoundâless a straightforward history than an existential tragedy in disguise.\n", "
![\"Eco-Green](\"figures/procuito.jpeg\")
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" Semaglutide, a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist, has been shown to reduce the risk of adverse cardiovascular events in patients with diabetes. Whether semaglutide can reduce cardiovascular risk associated with overweight and obesity in the absence of diabetes is unknown.
\n", "![\"Eco-Green](\"figures/west-ham.PNG\")
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" With 40 beer taps, Fells Point is centrally located half a block from the water on the south side of the square. We offer outdoor seating with views of the water. Fellâs Point has more than 20 televisions and can show most sporting events. Fells Point pledges allegiance to local sports teams, specifically the Capitals, Ravens, and Orioles. Additionally, Fells Point is the home for West Ham Soccer and Browns football. (upstairs)
\n", "\n", " Truth (Riba)\n", "\n", "The Fells Point paragraph, incongruous and commercial, is a Ship shouting its loyaltiesâtwenty televisions, forty beer taps, and a smattering of sports nationalism. It reads like the epitaph of the American middle class, clinging to teams while the economic floor collapses. Compare that with the Baganda model: no screens, but a thousand eyes watching your debt behavior. No declared loyalties, but lifelong kinship obligations. No QR codes, but a reputation that survives your death. It is a different ontology altogether. One plays with simulation; the other with consequence.\n", "\n", "Under our symbolic framework, then, Baganda Islamic finance is not merely a cultural relicâit is a form of epistemic resistance. It reasserts a pre-colonial economic logic that survived the missionary classroom and the IMF spreadsheet. It is Pirate đ´ââ ď¸ in the highest senseânot looting the Ship but refusing to board it. It is Tinker đŞ as theologian, engineering a system that doesnât need to be optimized because it already accounts for death, judgment, and interdependence. In a world where even religion has been financialized, the Baganda system offers a glimmer of theological sobriety.\n", "\n", "What remains is the question of the Island đď¸: is this model a destination, a sustainable alternative, or just a beautiful mirage amid the capitalist sea? Can the Baganda trust-networks be mapped onto app-based platforms, gamified for a global south, or are they irreducibly localâtied to language, memory, gossip, and burial rites? Perhaps the most ethical thing would be not to scale them, but to protect them. Like coral reefs, they are vulnerable to the oil spill of progress.\n", "\n", "Ultimately, Islamic finance in Uganda, as embodied by the Baganda Muslim community, is less a technical system than a worldview. It sees money not as a neutral tool but as a moral vector. It sees credit as a form of covenant. It sees speculation as sin. And in a global economy increasingly addicted to illusion, that may be the most revolutionary theology of all.\n", " " ] } ], "metadata": { "kernelspec": { "display_name": "myenv", "language": "python", "name": "python3" }, "language_info": { "codemirror_mode": { "name": "ipython", "version": 3 }, "file_extension": ".py", "mimetype": "text/x-python", "name": "python", "nbconvert_exporter": "python", "pygments_lexer": "ipython3", "version": "3.11.11" }, "widgets": { "application/vnd.jupyter.widget-state+json": { "state": {}, "version_major": 2, "version_minor": 0 } } }, "nbformat": 4, "nbformat_minor": 4 }
\n", " Speculate (Gharar)
\n", " Unnegotiable (Haram) vs. Negotiable (Credit Swisse)
\n", " Nonself (Murabaha), Negotiable (Musharaka), Self (Mudaraba)
\n", " Harmonious Brotherhood (Sukuk)
\n", " â WSJ\n", "