Professor Jeremy Howick, University of Leicester, receiving the 2025 Professor Sir Paul Curran award from Lady Curran, at a celebration of authors’ work.

A sultanistic system does not respond to appeals to shared values or long-standing agreements. It responds to leverage, personal relationships with the ruler and transactional incentives.

A teacher described always having to be ready for an inspection as ‘intolerable’.

Rather than existing outside politics, the Venice Biennale has become a site where geopolitical tensions are actively staged and contested.