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fukurodaze · 4 years

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if i ever get lost

pairing/s: third year!haiba lev x gn!reader genre: fluff, romantic tension aka best and softest tension word count: 3.2k warnings: like, one curse word this was also requested by anon! “3rd year Lev w a reader who’s struggling to pass all their homeworks, projects and quizzes (bc they piled up their works ;;) while thinking of how should they study for college/uni entrance exams?”

special thanks to nat @natszoo and ellie @lcnelyinthesky for beta reading and helping me w this!!

LISTEN TO: somebody loves you - jeremy zucker; glitter - benee

lowercase intended!

you throw your head back when you forget the term written on the flip side of the flash card haiba lev is holding. it’s a friday night, far past anyone’s bedtimes, but final exams for the first semester start on monday and you’re not sure where to start. haiba lev, being the person who has nothing better to do, agreed to come over and flip cards with random kanji, english, and biology terms on it.

lev might also be here because it’s an open secret that he’s liked you since first year, and you’ve never answered to his feelings, but you’re thinking friends for now - until you memorise all of this semester’s kanji, english vocabulary, and biology terms, that is.

“the phospholipid bilayer is made up of...”

lev gives you time to think, his wide eyes going between the answer on the card and your thinking face.

“shit, uh, the phospholipid bilayer is made up of two layers of phospholipids?”

“makes sense, but no.” lev answers, flipping the card to show you.

“the phospholipid bilayer is made up of a polar, hydrophilic area containing a phosphate group bound to glycerol, and a non-polar, lipophilic area containing fatty acids...” you read aloud, trying to memorise what’s currently going out your mouth, in one ear, and out again through another ear.

“you know, your flash cards are pretty comprehensive.”

you raise an eyebrow, “is that... a good thing?”

“i mean, yes and no,” he takes another sip of the tea your mom had insisted to bring to guests, “it’s harder to memorise, but it’s better for details. but-”

“but?” you watch as he takes another sip.

“i think if you really don’t know where to go, just understand the basic concept of everything. for one - what is the function of the bilayer?”

“why do you sound smart?” you question, tilting your head jokingly.

“hey! i am smart! most times! with tests like these that have essay questions, you just gotta learn the basic concept of each term and connect them.” lev advices, recounting his former volleyball captain and nekoma high school alumni, kuroo tetsuro’s, words when lev himself was barely scraping past his first semester finals when he’d just transferred.

“easier said than done in two nights,” you slouch your head on your desk, “plus! it’s not just biology. or exams.”

if memorising all these terms in the span of two days sounds bad enough, you’re still crushed with the supplementary course work and projects due next week as well.

you let out a deep groan. you’re so tired. it’s like biology information only comes up when you’re studying for english, biology only coming up for modern literature, and mathematics somehow being inserted into the little unknown kanji in modern literature. it’s all too much at once.

“it’s all too much at once, huh?” lev places his head on your desk, only a few inches away from your face. normally, you’d push him away, pull your head back up, or maybe even give him a light slap on a bad day, but today you welcome him.

you nod, quiet. you haven’t been able to get a breather. it’s essay this, quiz that, lab report here, test there. your mind is blank.

now, lev sits back up on the extra chair from your dining room, “have you eaten dinner?”

“why are you asking... it’s like, midnight.”

“the question still stands.”

you sigh, “nope.”

lev hums. he takes a pen, then twirls it, like his fingers possessed polar magnets that somehow let the pens never fall from his hands. but it does eventually, and when it falls with a plastic click on your wooden desk, lev visibly takes a big breath and says, “do you want to get ramen?”

you exhale through your nose and smile. “are you asking me out, haiba?”

“is it inappropriate to ask you out now?”

damn this tall dork. come to think of it, he’s never actually asked you out despite the obvious ways he’d vouch for your attention in the past. you’re quite surprised, frankly, as he’s always been so loud in the ways he’s wanted to be with you but never really made it seem like anything was going to happen.

but, hey, it’s late enough for you to put down your doubts about him away. after all, he’s been in your room for four hours, just helping you study. he wasn’t even studying himself - he just sat there, doing almost nothing. and for a guy like him, you wonder how he’s managed to keep there for so long.

“sure.”

lev’s eyes widen. “wait, really?”

“yeah,” you begin to set aside all your study materials, “we can go to a twenty-four hour place in the city, too.”

“alright! let me get you your coat!”

“my coat?” you raise an eyebrow when he hands you the coat you wear the most, feeling both flattered and slightly surprised that he recognises it straight away from your messy room. the boy comes to retreat his coat as well from one of the hangers in your room, and he even offers to get you your socks and boots.

“alright, alright, you don’t have to be that ready to go,” you joke.

he makes sure there is no noise when you two walk out of your house, through the suburbs of tokyo and to the nearest train to the city.

“aren’t you two a bit young to be here so late?” the shopkeeper, an old lady, mutters under her breath. you catch it through her croaky voice when you and lev enter the place together, but you pay no attention because all you care to focus on is the smell of broth and your empty stomach.

“for two, please,” lev says, undoubtedly hearing the woman’s remark, but answering with a smile. she smiles too, and so do you, and it makes you remember all the times he’s smiled and you’ve wanted to either punch him or hold his hand.

today just happens to be one of those days where you want to hold his hand. you shake the thought off.

when you two are seated at the ramen bar, your head falls onto your palm, tilting back to face lev, his chin covered partly by his usual maroon scarf. you had whispered to him earlier on the train what you wanted to order, and lev quickly speaks to the waiter as your tired gaze rises from from the squiggly wooden patterns embedded in the polished wooden table to the boy that’s sitting right next to you.

at first glance, you remember haiba lev’s face to be satisfying to look at. you remember when he had just transferred to your class in the first year, and you developed the annoying habit of looking forty-five degrees to the right every time you were bored in class, as you thought his face was much easier on the eyes than complex quadratic equations or japanese history.

for a while you wondered if it was because he certainly looked different - not only was he practically a giant, but he had eurocentric features that stood out from the majority of the student body as well (it also didn’t help that he quite literally and figuratively filled any room he was in). though, maybe, after a while, when everyone got used to the sight of a new face, you kept your line of sight at a forty-five degree angle, just peering above his cheekbones. the same way you’re looking at him right now.

and really, the only word for it is handsome. dashing. good-looking. you’ve always known that, but now that you put it into words in your head, you notice the chiseled jaw, pointed nose and emerald green eyes feel a bit more-

“what you staring at?” his baritone voice cuts through your thoughts cleanly.

you don’t like where this conversation will go. “haiba, are you doing any college entrance exams?”

lev cocks his head to one side, thinking, before nodding, “i think i am. why?”

“how are you studying for them?”

lev clicks his tongue, and it brings you to surprise, “get your mind away from studying! we’re not here in the city at, like, one in the morning to talk about college entrance exams!”

you sigh, “okay, fine. but, still, answer my question?”

“i just do practice problems for twenty minutes every day,” lev shrugs, “okay, now, can we move away from studying?”

you hum lazily, watching as two bowls of ramen arrive at the bar. he had ordered what you told him you wanted to order, both bowls almost identical in smell, shape, size, and content. almost, because lev didn’t have any spring onions in his bowl.

“haiba,” you call, earning a quick call of your name in response, “do you not like spring onions?”

lev nods so obviously that he seems proud. his chopsticks mix the entire bowl together before picking up the half-boiled egg and eating the slice whole. when he swallows it down, he asks you, “you noticed.”

“i mean, yeah,” you reply, “why do you not like them? they’re like, essential.”

lev takes a slurp of his noodles, and then a spoonful of the broth, “i just never liked their texture - which is funny, since my entire family loves adding spring onions.”

now it’s your turn to slurp into your ramen, one bite turning into two, and two turning into the entire content of the bowl. lev seems to eat twice as fast, seemingly having a strategy to cooling down the hot noodles on his spoon while simultaneously folding a piece of pork charsiu in between the loops of each spoonful of noodles, making sure that the little wrap is bathed in a little bit of broth. you find yourself smiling at his act, almost like he has a system of his own when it came to eating ramen - well, he usually had a system of his own when doing just about anything.

the meal is quiet for the most part, with little mumbles of how your tea needs a refill and the ruffling sounds between sheets of tissue to wipe off the broth around your lips. it’s fulfilling, and the look on lev’s face says he’s happy too.

when you two make it out of the ramen bar, 1am feels the same as 9pm. somehow, you’re no longer the kind of sleepy you were when you were flipping through flashcards on your desk, and instead, you’re almost dreading to go home. you think it might also be the neon lights, but there’s some kind of electricity you’re not yet willing to let rest for the night.

luckily, lev doesn’t feel the need to rush. although his steps are big and his voice is loud, he takes his time when you two make the silent agreement to make the walk to the train station as long-winded as possible. his voice is lower, and softer, this time, and when he speaks to you about his friends from his old school, you convince yourself it’s the most interesting topic in the world - because it is. because it’s lev.

when he stops in his tracks, you stop too, watching him go into a small trinket shop you’ve always seen but never had the means to afford to go in. you reckon you might own something from this store, though.

“haiba, you like little trinkets?” your eyes scroll through the shelves of delicate and virtually useless items, eyes landing on a small lion cub made of clear resin with a small blob of gold floating in the middle of its clear body. you’re not usually drawn to any animal trinkets, as you’ve gotten used to decorative objects like bows or feathers or lace, but today you think about the lion cub. despite it looking severely overpriced, you take it in your hand anyway, not noticing lev’s figure coming right behind you.

“do you want that one?” you yelp in surprise when he says that, turning around to find yourself so close to him you could smell the dried raindrops on his padded coat.

“i’m pretty sure it’s overpriced. trinkets are usually overpriced anyways.”

“wait, let me check it,” you hand lev the trinket, “how much is your keychain?”

you furrow your eyebrows, “what?”

“you know, the keychain on the bag you bring to school.”

“oh,” you try to remember the time you had saved up for that keychain, “i think it was about three thousand yen? it’s overpriced. definitely.”

“well, this one’s only two thousand and five hundred. i’ll get it for you.”

“wha- lev!” you whine, “you’re going to make me feel bad- wait what’s wrong?” you see the boy freeze up in front of you, a big smile creeping onto his cheeky face.

he doesn’t reply for a bit, and you’re faced with raised cheekbones and a wide mouth. you try again, “was it something i did? or said?”

“you called me lev,” oh, you did.

now his smile spreads from ear to ear, and it’s spreading to you. “you never call me lev.”

“huh, well.” you bite the inside of your mouth, “i guess now i do.”

it’s enough for you to let him spend over two thousand yen on a single trinket. you watch as he waits for the trinket to be wrapped neatly in pretty paper and put in a pink cardboard bag, its motif pretty enough to be its own product in the store.

you stand by the doorframe of the store, mouth ready to open with the words ‘i’ll pay you back’. but it seems like lev had heard you from the future, and before you could do anything, he tells you, “don’t pay me back. this is my gift to you.”

“for exams?”

he grins. “you know, lev means lion in russian.”

the bell of the store rings as you two make your way out, this time really going back to the station. you answer with a ‘really?’ at his fun fact but you keep it to yourself that you’ve known ever since he first transferred and everyone had asked him about it.

“yeah, and the thing’s a lion cub, so, it’s like you have me all the time!”

you giggle, walking up the steps to the train platform. “you’re really something, lev.”

lev stretches his arms out, with long limbs you swear ghost your shoulder. you get that feeling again, in your hands, where you just can’t seem to understand why you want to take his hand in yours so bad, so you ask the boy if you can hold onto the bag with your trinket. lev passes it to you, and you hate how you would’ve liked for your thumb to graze over his thumb for longer. you hate it even more when he motions you onto the train, and in a blur, you take his arm, leading him to corner seats on the train. you feel your face heat up.

ah, so that’s how it is.

now you’re conflicted. not that lev had ever made you feel uncomfortable - no, never - but you had never known how to return his obvious feelings. he would act on them, as always, and one day, as you fell asleep one day after final semester exams in the second year, leaning back into the plastic seat of a suburban tokyo metro rail (which lev thought was very dangerous), lev had muttered in the quietest and most subtle manner, ‘what do i do with my feelings?’

then, in a haze, with eyes barely open, you had moved your head from your seat to his shoulder, painting his cheeks red - dumbstruck. he thought you forgot about it the next morning, and you barely remember, so nothing happened afterwards. yet, when you think of him, you think of hues of orange peeling the sky into purple; of freshly washed school uniforms; of heads leaning on shoulders and fingers intertwined. you don’t know how to answer him.

with lev, there is chatter and laughter and blunt remarks that almost get him slapped in the face. still, there is a box, bigger than the bag your trinket is in, that contains words that you don’t think you or lev have ever said in pure daylight and wake.

“hey, lev?”

you want to open that box.

“yeah?”

but you don’t know how to do it yet.

“the phospholipid bilayer is made up of a polar, hydrophilic area containing a phosphate group bound to glycerol, and a non-polar, lipophilic area containing fatty acids.”

lev exclaims a series of ‘oooh!’s in delight.

“was that correct?”

“um,” lev gulps, “i think so? i mean- i think so.”

but you will open it, sooner or later, and it rings in your head when you step off the train and walk into the neighbourhood. right now, nothing is different - the air is not heavier, his eyes do not sparkle like love interests do in the movies, and you do not look through a rose-coloured lens. monday is finals, and the weekend is studying. you tell yourself this.

lev stops at your doorstep, and you almost feel a sear in your chest at the thought of him leaving for the night.

“so, good luck with next week, y/n.”

you nod, trinket bag in your hands, “you too, lev.”

you find that your arms are opening up, a small pout on your face as lev comes to wrap his arms around you, coats shuffling against each other as you hold each other at three in the morning.

when you pull away from the hug, you start to ramble a bit, scrambling for new topics to bring up in hopes of just a few more seconds with him - that, and trying to stop yourself from your newfound want to cup this boy’s face in your hands and kiss him square on the lips. you wonder if he would be good at kissing, and you wonder how much you’ll regret having these thoughts tomorrow.

but even conversation dies when you know it’s getting too cold, so you bid your sweet goodbyes and promise him not to overwork; he reminds you that it’s better to do short but frequent study sessions than fewer and highly intensive ones. you nod, your boots heavy on your doorstep, the hushed sound of keys in doors slowly becoming the only sound you hear as you assume lev’s left already.

until he calls your name.

your head spins fast towards the boy, watching as he makes long strides to stand at your doorway once again, scarf prodding the tip of his nose, so close to your face. he’s red.

“during exams, or tomorrow, or studying for entrance exams- if you ever get lost-” he pants, and unties his scarf from his neck.

“you’ll find me, okay?” the scarf comfortably hangs around your neck now, covering your mouth. he pats your head twice. it’s warm - literally.

you barely get the chance to say anything before he darts out of your house with a quick goodbye. you’re left confused, flustered, and excited at once, and this time, you think you might have the words as to why.

you like to imagine you taste sweetness, see eyes that sparkle, and feel butterflies in your stomach.

“it might not be so bad,” you whisper, looking down at the pretty little bag containing one unnecessarily expensive item lev had bought you.

right; you have feelings for him too.

then you make up your mind: you’ll tell him next friday. and if your finals stand between tonight and next friday, then, all the more motivation to get through them, right?

you make sure to set an alarm for seven in the morning, kanji textbooks lined up for tomorrow.

#haikyuu x reader #lev haiba #lev x reader #haiba x reader #haiba lev imagine #hq x reader #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu scenarios #lev scenarios #haiba scenarios #lev fluff #haiba lev #haiba lev x reader #lev haiba x reader #hq fluff #nekoma x reader #nekoma fluff

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mckyjsn · 4 years

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DOMINANT THEMES AND STYLES LITERATURE

SOUTH EAST ASIA

This area, which embraces the region south of China and east of India, includes the modern nations of Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. The earliest historical influence came from India around the beginnings of the Christian era. At a later period, Buddhism reached mainland Southeast Asia. Its influence was a major source of traditional literature in the Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia. Vietnam, under Chinese rule, was influenced by Chinese and Indian literature. Indonesia and Malaysia were influenced by Islam and its literature. All of the countries, except for Thailand, underwent a colonial experience and each of the countries reflects in its literature and in other aspects of its culture the influence of the colonizing power, including the language of that power. Education in the foreign language was to bring with it an introduction to a foreign literature and this, in turn, was to have considerable impact upon their modern forms of literary expression. One finds, then, all the well-known literary genres of Western literature, the novel, the short story, the play, and the essay. Poetry had been the most popular form of the traditional literature over the centuries but was rigid in form. However, through increased acquaintance with Western poetry, the poets of Southeast Asia broke the bonds of tradition and began to imitate various poetic types. A reading list of books is included.

EAST ASIA

Thinkers of the East is a collection of anecdotes and ‘parables in action’ illustrating the eminently practical and lucid approach of Eastern Dervish teachers.

Distilled from the teachings of more than one hundred sages in three continents, this material stresses the experimental rather than the theoretical – and it is that characteristic of Sufi study which provides its impact and vitality.

The emphasis of Thinkers of the East contrasts sharply with the Western concept of the East as a place of theory without practice, or thought without action. The book’s author, Idries Shah, says ‘Without direct experience of such teaching, or at least a direct recording of it, I cannot see how Eastern thought can ever be understood’.

SOUTH AND WEST ASIA

Chicana/o literature is justly acclaimed for the ways it voices opposition to the dominant Anglo culture, speaking for communities ignored by mainstream American media. Yet the world depicted in these texts is not solely inhabited by Anglos and Chicanos; as this groundbreaking new book shows, Asian characters are cast in peripheral but nonetheless pivotal roles.

Southwest Asia investigates why key Chicana/o writers, including Américo Paredes, Rolando Hinojosa, Oscar Acosta, Miguel Méndez, and Virginia Grise, from the 1950s to the present day, have persistently referenced Asian people and places in the course of articulating their political ideas. Jayson Gonzales Sae-Saue takes our conception of Chicana/o literature as a transnational movement in a new direction, showing that it is not only interested in North-South migrations within the Americas, but is also deeply engaged with East-West interactions across the Pacific. He also raises serious concerns about how these texts invariably marginalize their Asian characters, suggesting that darker legacies of imperialism and exclusion might lurk beneath their utopian visions of a Chicana/o nation.

Southwest Asia provides a fresh take on the Chicana/o literary canon, analyzing how these writers have depicted everything from interracial romances to the wars Americans fought in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. As it examines novels, plays, poems, and short stories, the book makes a compelling case that Chicana/o writers have long been at the forefront of theorizing U.S.–Asian relations.

ANGLO -AMERICA AND EUROPE

ANGLO - AMERICA

The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections has considerable holdings in Anglo-American literature from the 17th century onward, with notable strengths in the 18th century, Romanticism, and the Victorian and modern periods. Among the seventeenth-century holdings is a complete set of the Shakespeare folios, and works by John Milton and his contemporaries. Eighteenth-century highlights include near comprehensive printed collections of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, and substantial holdings on John Dryden, Samuel Johnson, Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele, William Cowper, Fanny Burney, and others. Related materials include complete runs of periodicals, such as the Spectator and the Tatler.

EUROPE

The history of European literature and of each of its standard periods can be illuminated by comparative consideration of the different literary languages within Europe and of the relationship of European literature to world literature. The global history of literature from the ancient Near East to the present can be divided into five main, overlapping stages. European literature emerges from world literature before the birth of Europe—during antiquity, whose classical languages are the heirs to the complex heritage of the Old World. That legacy is later transmitted by Latin to the various vernaculars. The distinctiveness of this process lies in the gradual displacement of Latin by a system of intravernacular leadership dominated by the Romance languages. An additional unique feature is the global expansion of Western Europe’s languages and characteristic literary forms, especially the novel, beginning in the Renaissance.This expansion ultimately issues in the reintegration of European literature into world literature, in the creation of today’s global literary system. It is in these interrelated trajectories that the specificity of European literature is to be found. The ongoing relationship of European literature to other parts of the world emerges most clearly at the level not of theme or mimesis but of form. One conclusion is that literary history possesses a certain systematicity. Another is that language and literature are not only the products of major historical change but also its agents. Such claims, finally, depend on rejecting the opposition between the general and the specific, between synthetic and local knowledge.

Africa

African literature has origins dating back thousands of years to Ancient Egypt and hieroglyphs, or writing which uses pictures to represent words. These Ancient Egyptian beginnings led to Arabic poetry, which spread during the Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh century C.E. and through Western Africa in the ninth century C.E. These African and Arabic cultures continued to blend with the European culture and literature to form a unique literary form.

Africa experienced several hardships in its long history which left an impact on the themes of its literature. One hardship which led to many others is that of colonization. Colonization is when people leave their country and settle in another land, often one which is already inhabited. The problem with colonization is when the incoming people exploit the indigenous people and the resources of the inhabited land.

Colonization led to slavery. Millions of African people were enslaved and brought to Western countries around the world from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. This spreading of African people, largely against their will, is called the African Diaspora.

Sub-Saharan Africa developed a written literature during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This development came as a result of missionaries coming to the area. The missionaries came to Africa to build churches and language schools in order to translate religious texts. This led to Africans writing in both European and indigenous languages.

Though African literature's history is as long as it is rich, most of the popular works have come out since 1950, especially the noteworthy Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Looking beyond the most recent works is necessary to understand the complete development of this collection of literature

LATIN AMERICA

Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and the indigenous language of America as well as literature of the United States written in the Spanish language. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the international success of the style known as magical realism. As such, the region's literature is often associated solely with this style, with the 20th Century literary movement known as Latin American Boom, and with its most famous exponent, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Latin American literature has a rich and complex tradition of literary production that dates back many centuries

Bocar, Mark Jason P.

Stem 11- St. Alypius

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eli-kittim · 4 years

Text

How Can Good Exegesis Make Bad Theology?

By Author Eli Kittim

——-

The Canonical Context

This principle suggests that we should read the Books of the Bible not as distinct, individual compositions but rather as parts of a larger *canonical context*, that is, as part of the “canon” of Scripture. In other words, instead of evaluating each book separately in terms of its particular historical, literary, and editorial development, this principle focuses instead on its final canonical format that was legitimized by the various communities of faith. The idea is that since the redacted version or “final cut,” as it were, is considered “authoritative” by the different communities of faith, then this format should hold precedence over all previous versions or drafts.

Moreover, this concept holds that despite the fact that the Biblical Books were written by a number of different authors, at different times, in different places, using different languages, nevertheless the “canonical context” emphasizes the need to read these Books in dialogue with one another, as if they are part of a larger whole. So, the hermeneutical focus is not on the historical but rather on the canonical context. The hermeneutical guidelines of the canon therefore suggest that we might gain a better understanding of the larger message of Scripture by reading these Books as if they were interrelated with all the others, rather than as separate, diverse, and distinct sources. The premise is that the use of this type of context leads to sound Biblical theology.

——-

Theology

Theology is primarily concerned with the synthesis of the diverse voices within Scripture in order to grasp the overarching message of the complete Biblical revelation. It deals with Biblical epistemology and belief, either through systematic analysis and development of passages (systematic theology) or through the running themes of the entire Bible (Biblical theology). It addresses eternity and the transcendent, metaphysical or supernatural world. And it balances individual Scriptural interpretations by placing them within a larger theoretical framework. The premise is that there is a broader theological context in which each and every detailed exegesis coalesces to form a coherent whole! It’s as if the Bible is a single Book that contains a complete and wide-ranging revelation! It is under the auspices of theology, then, that the canonical context comes into play.

——-

Exegesis

The critical interpretation of Scriptural texts is known as “exegesis.” Its task is to use various methods of interpretation so as to arrive at a definitive explanation of Scripture! Exegesis provides the temporal, linguistic, grammatical, and syntactic context, analysis, and meaning of a text. It furnishes us with a critical understanding of the authorial intent, but only in relation to the specific and limited context of the particular text in question. It is the task of theology to further assess it in terms of its relation and compatibility to the overall Biblical revelation! One of the things that exegesis tries to establish is the composition’s historical setting or context, also known as “historical criticism.” This approach inquires about the author and his audience, the occasion and dating of the composition, the unique terms and concepts therein, the meaning of the overall message, and, last but not least, the *style* in which the message is written, otherwise known as the “genre.” While the author’s other writings on the topic are pivotal to understanding what he means, nothing is more important than the *genre* or the form in which his writing is presented.

——-

The Analogy of Scripture

One of the most important hermeneutical principles of exegesis is called “the analogy of Scripture” (Lat. ‘analogia Scripturae’). In short, it means that Scripture should interpret Scripture. This principle requires that the implicit must be explained by the explicit. In other words, the exegesis of unclear or ambiguous parts of Scripture must be explained by clear and didactic ones that address the exact same topic. That means that one Biblical Book could very well explain another. For example, the New Testament (NT) Book of Ephesians 1.9-10 seems to demystify Galatians 4.4. This principle is based on the “revealed” inspiration (Gk. θεόπνευστος) of Scripture:

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful

for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and

for training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3.16

NRSV).

As for those scholars who refuse to take the NT’s alleged “pseudepigrapha” seriously because of their *apparent* false attribution, let me remind them that the most renowned textual scholars of the 20th century, Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, acknowledged that even alleged “forged” works could still be “inspired!” It’s important to realize that just because these works may be written by unknown authors who may have attempted to gain a readership by tacking on the name of famous Biblical characters doesn’t mean that the subject-matter is equally false. The addition of amanuenses (secretaries) further complicates the issue.

So, returning to our subject, the analogy of Scripture allows the Bible to define its own terms, symbols, and phrases. It is via the analogy of Scripture, which defines the many and varied parts, that the broader canonical context is established, namely, the principle that the various Biblical Books form a coherent whole from which a larger theological system can emerge.

And, of course, interdisciplinary studies——such as archaeology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, epistemology, and philosophy——contribute to both systematic and Biblical theology by presenting their particular findings, concepts, and theoretical ideas.

——-

Testing the Legitimacy of these Principles

In explaining how these principles work in tandem, I’d like to put my personal and unique theology to the test. I have raised the following question: “What if the crucifixion of Christ is a future event?” The immediate reaction of Christian apologetics or heresiology would be to revert to “dogmatic theology” (i.e., the dogmas or articles of faith) and the scholarly consensus, which state that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. Really? Let’s consider some historical facts. There are no eyewitnesses! And there are no first-hand accounts! Although the following references were once thought to be multiple attestations or proofs of Jesus’ existence, nevertheless both the Tacitus and Josephus accounts are now considered to be either complete or partial forgeries, and therefore do not shed any light on Jesus’ historicity. One of the staunch proponents of the historical Jesus position is the textual scholar Bart Ehrman, who, surprisingly, said this on his blog:

. . . Paul says almost *NOTHING* about the

events of Jesus’ lifetime. That seems weird

to people, but just read all of his letters.,

Paul never mentions Jesus healing anyone,

casting out a demon, doing any other

miracle, arguing with Pharisees or other

leaders, teaching the multitudes, even

speaking a parable, being baptized, being

transfigured, going to Jerusalem, being

arrested, put on trial, found guilty of

blasphemy, appearing before Pontius Pilate

on charges of calling himself the King of the

Jews, being flogged, etc. etc. etc. It’s a

very, very long list of what he doesn’t tell us

about.

Therefore, there appears to be a literary discrepancy regarding the historicity of Jesus in the canonical context between the gospels and the epistles. And, as I will show in due time, there are many, many passages in the epistles that seem to contradict dogmatic theology’s belief in the historiographical nature of the gospels. So, if they want to have a sound theology, exegetes should give equal attention to the epistles. Why?

First, the epistles precede the gospels by several decades. In fact, they comprise the earliest recorded writings of the NT that circulated among the Christian churches (cf. Col. 4.16).

Second, unlike the gospels——which are essentially *theological* narratives that are largely borrowed from the Old Testament (OT)——the epistles are *expositional* writings that offer real, didactic and practical solutions and discuss spiritual principles and applications within an actual, historical, or eschatological context.

Third, according to Biblical scholarship, the gospels are not historiographical accounts or biographies, even though historical places and figures are sometimes mentioned. That is to say, the gospels are not giving us history proper. For example, the feeding of the 5,000 is a narrative that is borrowed from 2 Kings 4.40-44. The parallels and verbal agreements are virtually identical. And this is a typical example of the rest of the narratives. For instance, when Jesus speaks of the damned and says that “their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched” (Mark 9.48), few people know that this saying is actually derived from Isaiah 66.24. In other words, the gospels demonstrate a literary dependence on the OT that is called, “intertextuality.”

Fourth, the gospels are like watching a Broadway play. They are full of plots, subplots, theatrical devices (e.g. Aristotelian rhetoric; Homeric parallels), literary embellishments, dialogues, characters, and the like. Conversely, the epistles have none of these elements. They are straightforward and matter of fact. That’s why Biblical interpreters are expected to interpret the implicit by the explicit and the narrative by the didactic. In practical terms, the NT epistles——which are the more explicit and didactic portions of Scripture——must clarify the implicit meaning of the gospel literature. As you will see, the epistles are the primary keys to unlocking the actual timeline of Christ’s *one-and-only* visitation!

Fifth, whereas the gospels’ literary genre is mainly •theological•——that is to say, “pseudo-historical”——the genre of the epistolary literature of the NT is chiefly •expositional.• So, the question arises, which of the two genres is giving us the real deal: is it the “theological narrative” or the “expository writing”?

In order to answer this question, we first need to consider some of the differences in both genres. For example, although equally “inspired,” the gospels include certain narratives that are unanimously rejected as “unhistorical” by both Biblical scholars and historians alike. Stories like the slaughter of the innocents, the Magi, the Star of Bethlehem, and so on, are not considered to be historical. By contrast, the epistles never once mention the aforesaid stories, nor is there any mention of the Nativity, the virgin birth, the flight to Egypt, and the like. Why? Because the Epistles are NOT “theological.” They’re expository writings whose intention is to give us the “facts” as they really are!

Bottom line, the epistles give us a far more accurate picture of Jesus’ *visitation* than the gospels.

In conclusion, it appears that the gospels conceal Jesus far more effectively than they reveal him.

——-

Proof-text and Coherence Fallacies

The “proof-text fallacy” comprises the idea of putting together a number of out-of-context passages in order to validate a particular theological point that’s often disparagingly called “a private interpretation.” But, for argument’s sake, let’s turn these principles on their head. Classical Christianity typically determines heresy by assessing the latter’s overall view. If it doesn’t fit within the existing theological schema it is said to be heretical. Thus, dogmatic theology sets the theological standard against which all other theories are measured. They would argue that good exegesis doesn’t necessarily guarantee good theology, and can lead to a “coherence fallacy.” In other words, even if the exegesis of a string of proof-texts is accurate, the conclusion may not be compatible with the overall existing theology. This would be equivalent to a coherence fallacy, that is to say, the illusion of Biblical coherence.

By the same token, I can argue that traditional, historical-Jesus exegesis of certain proof-texts might be accurate but it may not fit the theology of an eschatological Christ, as we find in the epistles (e.g., Heb. 9.26b; 1 Pet. 1.20; Rev. 12.5). That would equally constitute a coherence fallacy. So, these guidelines tend to discourage independent proof-texting apart from a systematic coherency of Scripture. But what if the supposed canonical context is wrong? What if the underlying theological assumption is off? What then? So, the $64,000 question is, who can accurately determine the big picture? And who gets to decide?

For example, I think that we have confused Biblical literature with history, and turned prophecy into biography. In my view, the theological purpose of the gospels is to provide a fitting introduction to the messianic story *beforehand* so that it can be passed down from generation to generation until the time of its fulfillment. It is as though NT history is *written in advance* (cf. מַגִּ֤יד מֵֽרֵאשִׁית֙ אַחֲרִ֔ית [declaring the end from the beginning], Isa. 46.9-10; προεπηγγείλατο [promised beforehand], Rom. 1.2; προγνώσει [foreknowledge], Acts 2.22-23; προκεχειροτονημένοις [to appoint beforehand], Acts 10.40-41; ερχόμενα [things to come], Jn 16.13)!

So, if we exchange the theology of the gospels for that of the epistles we’ll find a completely different theology altogether, one in which the coherence of Scripture revolves around the *end-times*! For example, in 2 Pet. 1.16–21, all the explanations in vv. 16-18 are referring to the future. That’s why verse 19 concludes: “So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed” (cf. 1 Pet. 1.10-11; 1 Jn 2.28).

In response, Dogmatic Theology would probably say that such a conclusion is at odds with the canonical context and that it seems to be based on autonomous proof-texting that is obviously out of touch with the broader theological teaching of Scripture. Really? So the so-called “teaching” of Scripture that Jesus died in Antiquity is a nonnegotiable, foregone conclusion? What if the basis upon which this gospel teaching rests is itself a proof-text fallacy that is out of touch with the teaching of the *epistles*? For example, there are numerous passages in the epistles that place the timeline of Jesus’ life (i.e., his birth, death, and resurrection) in *eschatological* categories (e.g., 2 Thess. 2.1-3; Heb. 1.1-2; 9.26b; 1 Pet. 1.10-11, 20; Rev. 12.5; 19.10d; 22.7). The epistolary authors deviate from the gospel writers in their understanding of the overall importance of •eschatology• in the chronology of Jesus. For them, Scripture comprises revelations and “prophetic writings” (see Rom. 16.25-26; 2 Pet. 1.19-21; Rev. 22.18-19). Therefore, according to the *epistolary literature*, Jesus is not a historical but rather an “eschatological” figure! Given that the NT epistles are part of the Biblical *canon,* their overall message holds equal value with that of the NT gospels, since they, too, are an integral part of the canonical context! To that extent, even the gospels concede that the Son of Man has not yet been revealed (see Lk. 17.30; cf. 1 Cor. 1.7; 1 Pet. 1.7)!

What is more, if the canonical context demands that we coalesce the different Biblical texts as if we’re reading a single Book, then the overall “prophetic” message of Revelation must certainly play an important role therein. The Book of Revelation places not only the timeline (12.5) but also the testimony to Jesus (19.10b) in “prophetic” categories:

I warn everyone who hears the words of the

prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to

them, God will add to that person the

plagues described in this book; if anyone

takes away from the words of the book of

this prophecy, God will take away that

person’s share in the tree of life and in the

holy city, which are described in this book

(Rev. 22.18-19 NRSV).

Incidentally, the Book of Revelation is considered to be an epistle. Thus, it represents, confirms, and validates the overarching *prophetic theme* or eschatological “theology” of the epistolary literature. That is not to say that the •theology• of the epistles stands alone and apart from that of the OT canon. Far from it! Even the *theology* of the OT confirms the earthy, end-time Messiah of the epistles (cf. Job 19.25; Isa. 2.19; Dan. 12.1-2; Zeph. 1.7-9, 15-18; Zech. 12.9-10)! As a matter of fact, mine is the *only* view that appropriately combines the end-time messianic expectations of the Jews with Christian Scripture!

Does this sound like a proof-text or coherence fallacy? If it does, it’s because you’re evaluating it from the theology of the gospels. If, on the other hand, you assess it using the theology of the epistles, it will seem to be in-context or in-sync with it. So, the theological focus and coherency of Scripture will change depending on which angle you view it from.

——-

Visions of the Resurrection

There are quite a few scholars that view the so-called resurrection of Christ not as a historical phenomenon but rather as a visionary experience. And this seems to be the theological message of the NT as well (cf. 2 Tim. 2.17-18; 2 Thess. 2.1-3). For example, Lk. 24.23 explicitly states that the women “had indeed seen a vision.” Lk. 24.31 reads: “he [Jesus] vanished from their sight.” And Lk. 24.37 admits they “thought that they were seeing a ghost.” Here are some of the statements that scholars have made about the resurrection, which do not necessarily disqualify them as believers:

The resurrection itself is not an event of

past history. All that historical criticism can

establish is that the first disciples came to

believe the resurrection (Rudolph

Bultmann, ‘The New Testament and

Mythology,’ in Kerygma and Myth: A

Theological Debate, ed. Hans Werner

Bartsch, trans. Reginald H. Fuller [London:

S.P.C.K, 1953-62], 38, 42).

When the evangelists spoke about the

resurrection of Jesus, they told stories

about apparitions or visions (John Dominic

Crossan, ‘A Long Way from Tipperary: A

Memoir’ [San Francisco:

HarperSanFransisco, 2000], 164-165).

At the heart of the Christian religion lies a

vision described in Greek by Paul as

ophehe—-“he was seen.” And Paul himself,

who claims to have witnessed an

appearance asserted repeatedly “I have

seen the Lord.” So Paul is the main source

of the thesis that a vision is the origin of the

belief in resurrection ... (Gerd Lüdemann,

‘The Resurrection of Jesus: History,

Experience, Theology.’ Translated by John

Bowden. [London: SCM, 1994], 97,

100).

It is undisputable that some of the followers

of Jesus came to think that he had been

raised from the dead, and that something

had to have happened to make them think

so. Our earliest records are consistent on

this point, and I think they provide us with

the historically reliable information in one

key aspect: the disciples’ belief in the

resurrection was based on visionary

experiences. I should stress it was visions,

and nothing else, that led to the first

disciples to believe in the resurrection (Bart

D. Ehrman, ‘How Jesus Became God: The

Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from

Galilee’ [New York: Harper One, 2014],

183-184).

Ehrman sides with the *visionary language* that Luke, Bultmann, Crossan, and Lüdemann use. In the words of NT textual critic Kurt Aland:

It almost then appears as if Jesus were a

mere PHANTOM . . .

——-

Exegetical Application

I deliberately stay away from theology when I exegete Scripture precisely because it will taint the evidence with presuppositions, assumptions, and speculations that are not in the text. Thus, instead of focusing on the authorial intent hermeneutic, it will inevitably superimpose out-of-context meanings and create an eisegesis. All this, of course, is courtesy of confirmation bias.

So, I think one of the reasons why we’ve done so poorly in understanding, for example, the story of Jesus is because we have mixed-up exegesis with theology. When theology drives the exegesis, then the exegesis becomes blind and erroneous.

My method of exegesis is very simple. I see EXACTLY what the text *says,* EXACTLY *how* it says it. I don’t add or subtract anything, and I don’t speculate, guess, or theorize based on existing philosophies or theologies. The minute we go outside *the analogy of scripture,* that’s when we start to speculate. And that’s how we err. In short, let the Scriptures tell you what it means. Thus, the best interpretation is no interpretation at all!

——-

Conclusion

To find the truth, we must consider all the evidence objectively. Evangelicals, for instance, would be biased if they didn’t consider the academic standpoint even if, at times, it seems to be guided by liberal theology. In this way, they will be in a better position to consider objectively all the possibilities and probabilities regarding the correct interpretation of Scripture. That’s because the truth usually touches all points of view . . .

One of the exegetical stumbling blocks is our inability to view the gospels as “inspired metaphors.” Given their literary dependence on the OT, it appears as if the gospels themselves are “inspired parables.”

So, if the epistolary literature, which is both expositional and explicit, seems to contradict these so-called “theological parables,” then it becomes quite obvious that the “theology” of the gospels fails to meet scholarly and academic parameters. And, therefore, the epistolary literature must be given more serious attention and consideration!

Our exegetical shortcomings often stem from forced or anachronistic interpretations that are based on *theological speculation* and conjecture rather than on detailed exegesis. Even the Biblical translations themselves are not immune to the interpretative process, whether they be of dynamic or formal equivalence.

That’s why I have developed an exegetical system and have demonstrated the effectiveness of its approach to the study of the Biblical Christ. Accordingly, I argue that the epistles are the primary *keys* to unlocking the future timeline of Christ’s ***ONLY*** visitation! Hence, I leave you with one final rhetorical question:

What if the crucifixion of Christ is a future

event?

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skammovistarplus · 5 years

Text

Interview with Estíbaliz Burgaleta

[Note: Because I know it’s coming, this interview was released prior to the premiere of SEASON 2. That note about actors’ availabity has nothing to do with Fernando Lindez.]

Interview with Estíbaliz Burgaleta, head writer for SKAM España

By Ángela Armero

Estíbaliz Burgaleta is a script writer (SKAM España, Cable Girls, Morocco: Love in Times of War, Seis Hermanas, Velvet), writer (The Winner Takes It All, Loser), short film director (Bichos Raros, Mañana, La Leonera), webseries showrunner (Cataclismo), and script writing professor (Gona Estudios in Oviedo, Fiction Script Writing Master’s Degree at ECAM). As prolific as she is versatile, in her career she has alternated between melodrama and comedy, science fiction and teen shows, weekly shows and daily soaps, script pages and literature. If that weren’t enough, she blogs at Bichos Raros. She did Media Studies in Navarra and Script Writing at ECAM. She currenly heads the writer’s room for the Spanish remake of the Norwegian show SKAM, which is produced by Zeppelin and airs on Movistar. We’ve taken this opportunity to talk about this remake and, while we’re at it, try and find out how to do so many things and all of them well.

Estíbaliz, in your career you’ve done many things: television scripts, short films written and directed by you, the webseries Cataclismo, you’ve recently published two novels, you also teach… Is it a way to understand the job?

It’s more a way not to get bored, to try new trades, to pass the time when you’re in “between projects” (that is to say, unemployed), and also, to keep learning. For instance, when you shoot a short film you learn about the many things that can go wrong in the process of turning a script page into images. And writing novels it’s a way for me to do whatever I want, without having to be limited by network interference, or head writer interference, or scheduling problems with the actors, or anything like that. Actually, every project is a result of a specific moment in time because, right now, I wouldn’t direct short films for anything. Although who knows, never say never.

Season two of SKAM España just premiered, and you were also head writer for season one. What was your biggest challenge when you got started, and what was the biggest challenge when it came to season two?

Every time you start a TV show there’s a feeling of starting from zero. When it came to SKAM España, besides, we were a team who didn’t know each other beforehand. And, since it’s a remake, we had to decide to what point we were going to be faithful to the Norwegian show, which features we were going to keep and which ones we weren’t. We decided we couldn’t copy SKAM shot per shot, especially when other remakes were so faithful. We realized there was no sense in offering more of the same. The challenge in season one consisted in not disappointing SKAM fans, to be faithful to the tone of SKAM and to tackle the same topics: bullying, loss of your childhood friends, loneliness and the need to belong somewhere… but adding plot twists that fans of the original series wouldn’t see coming.

SKAM España season two goes down a different path than the original. What made you take this decision?

In addition to knowing from the start that it made no sense to offer a copy of the original show, we also noticed a desire, on the part of teenage audiences, to see a romantic love story, an iconic story, but where the characters were girls. In the Spanish audiovisual landscape, there are many stories that reflect the process of coming out by a boy, but we were missing something like that with a teenage girl, a referent for all these girls who are in the process of figuring themselves out and need to see themselves represented on screen.

What differences do you notice in a show like this, so dependent on real time, its audience and internet use, compared to other more classic offerings, such as Morocco: Love in Times of War, in which you also took part?

SKAM España is very different from other shows, from conception to format. It can be watched like a normal series, in episode format and weekly on Movistar, but it can also be watched on the website in real time and with additional information, such as the characters’ messages and the pictures they upload to their social media. That results in a different way to work, even the format of the scripts is different, because we include the Whatsapp chats and characters’ instagrams. That said, when it comes down to it, I think every show has its own rules, thus that feeling I mentioned earlier about starting from zero every time you come into a new project. When it comes to Morocco: Love in Times of War, we delved into the Rif War and we tried to research not just the era itself, but also medicine, military strategy…

What do you do to capture today’s teen slang? And, in general, to reflect teens properly.

This is one of the aspects in which SKAM España differs from other shows I’ve worked on. I had never in my life gone to rehearsals with the actors and in this show I’ve been able to and it’s super funny. This helps us in the process of reflecting the way they talk. Besides, the series directors [translator note: Begoña Álvarez and Tapi Ayerra] go through the effort of ensuring the cast makes the script theirs and inserts the slang that feels more natural to them during shooting. It ends up being contagious, and everyone in the crew has started saying things like “me renta mazo, tío.” I, personally, love the verb “stalkear” [translator note: from English, stalking] and I already use it daily. It means to look someone up on the internet to find out everything you can about that person, without them knowing, that is. I should also mention that before we wrote the series, there was field work done with psychologists, who interviewed teens aged 15 to 20, to find out what they worry about, their interests, the way they see life. Again, this was something I’d never done before for any other project, and it was really helpful.

Do you think they worry about the same things people of our generation worried about?

Resoundingly yes. They’re worried about their grades, what other people think of them, what they’ll do in the future, what they look like physically, fitting in. The feeling they repeated the most often in the interviews with the psychologists was “feeling overwhelmed.” They’re aware that they live in a crucial time in which they must make huge decisions, and most of them feel lost. What changes the most in this generation compared to ours is the tech. Cellphones, social media and the internet are part of their daily lives, and it’s manifest. But I think my generation, if we’d had today’s tech, would have behaved the same way with their obsession with self image, for instance, or with control and social media “stalking.” Then there are other details, such as fashion or music, that change, clearly for the worse. Because, let’s be real, was it really necessary for the fanny pack to make a comeback? Trap music is also something which escapes me and makes me feel like an old lady. Grunge was so much cooler.

What do you think about the golden age of TV, this boom? Do you think it’s a bubble or a progression that will continue going up?

I’m sorry to be a little fatalistic, but I have the feeling it’s a bubble. When it comes down to it, the number of viewers is what it is, and the budget to produce shows isn’t bottomless. But I hope I’m wrong and this lasts a long, long time. Just in case, I would recommend all the script writers to start saving.

You have also worked a lot as writer or head writer on daily soaps, such as SMS, Ciega a Citas or Seis Hermanas. What did you learn from these shows?

You learn so much on a daily soap, you develop a savage ability to work and savage reflexes. The dialogue team has to come out with five or six scripts per week, the rundown team has to come out with five or six rundowns. The crew works like an assembly line where you can never, ever take a break, or you fall behind airing date. I like that adrenaline rush. Besides, it’s precisely because the schedule is so tight that you get to see your work on screen quickly and with less changes that when you take part on a weekly show where the schedule extends over time, and there are so many edits to the script that in the end what you see on TV has very little to do with what you wrote.

Excluding SKAM España, what is the show you have learned or enjoyed the most from when writing it?

I have a very good time writing Cable Girls, because it’s a show where many genres fit: intrigue, romance, melodrama and even some humor. I enjoyed working on Ciega a Citas a lot because we did some really weird storylines, the vibe of the show allowed us to get even surrealistic and that’s always nice. With Seis Hermanas and Morocco: Love in Times of War, I delved into the early 20th century. And, since I love history, I loved being able to research.

And lastly, what do you think of female representation on TV?

I think we still have a long road ahead when it comes to female representation. I miss more women and, of course, older women and fat women, really ugly women or average ones. I’m a little fed up with all these women under 30 taking their clothes off for no reason. Even in “Love, Death & Robots,” which is an animated show, they have a healthy dose of topless girls. I think this is a result of both there still being more men in TV crews and the dominating gaze still being male. When it comes to “women’s” media, it’s more of a brand to help sell a product than a reality. I’ve found myself working in what were theoretically women’s shows (romantic melodrama, with female protagonists) where I was the only female writer. There won’t be any changes in the audiovisual landscape until there exists more parity in the crew. In addition to that, it’s still commonplace to check the credits of a series or a movie and find they’re a complete dickfest.

#skam españa

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exploringbrazilianculture · 4 years

Text

Exploring Brazilian Culture!

Below excerpts represent a virtual study of Brazilian culture by Columbia College Chicago (CCC) undergraduate students enrolled in the Humanities, History and Social Science (HHSS) Dept. online course: HUMA121 “Latin American Art, Literature and Music” .

This virtual showing on tumblr is hosted by CCC students enrolled in this HHSS Dept. course with its instructor, Jesus Macarena Avila. This investigation began with a study on Tarsila do Amaral and her involvement with the cultural movement: Antropofagia.

Amaral with creative intellectuals like Oswald de Andrade and Anita Malfatti advocated a new ideology, the Manifesto Antropofago.

This investigation was only enhanced by the course's online contributors and guests: Dr. Roberto J. Tejada and Ariani Friedl. Dr. Tejada's expertise of Latin American art history and knowledge on Amaral's cultural production.

Dr. Tejada gave cultural and historic interpretations of Amaral's paintings like "Carnaval em Madureira" (1924, oil on canvas, 76 × 63.5 cm) showing the Afro Brazilian influence on the work.

Below are students' comments on what was learnt from Dr. Tejada's lecture:

"The speaker Dr. Roberto J. Tejada did an amazing job really helping me comprehend what was going on, and the different and creative ways with the European side and the afro American side were trying to solidify the culture and understanding of one another’s history."

"Amaral is also well known for creating the work of 'Anthropofagia', according to Dr. Tejada, in which its 'main intention was to create a mythic space in a language of painting through using bold colors and unusual forms, in order to create a vision specific to Brazilian history and attending to contemporary human geography/landscapes'."

"Dr. Tejada gave a great explanation of Amaral’s painting Anthropofagia. Made in 1929, its intention was to create a mythic space in painting using non-contemporary forms and vanguard themes to connect to Brazil's history of violent colonialism."

"Some background information about that Dr. Tejada touches on the fact where many Brazilians might have come from. The government encouraged immigration for the most part from Europe. Around the year 1888, the population contained many white Brazilians but also as well many black Brazilians.

Brazil was also one of the last countries in Latin America to abolish slavery. So even from then on racism was something that was influencing many policies (specifically Immigration policies), systems created in Brazil, etc."

"Dr. Tejada made a good point when he stated 'the word itself, signifies the Tupi language and enhancement, it seems to serve the undeniable presence of indigenous people. The indigenous culture is elevated and given importance just as any other subject European painters would put forward’."

And Ariani Friedl (above) representing Chicago's annual cinematic program: Mostra Brazilian Film Series gave an insight to this year's film programming.

Friedl was recently interviewed by Illinois Latino Voice's TransLatinx artist, Jesus "Jesse" Iniguez, this is an excerpt:

Jesus "Jesse" Iniguez: Due to the national Shelter in Place order, how has Mostra become more accessible to a wider audience this year?

Arian Friedl: Due to the pandemic and the impossibility for us to have a MOSTRA in person, we decided, as many other organizations, to present our MOSTRA XI virtually. This has been a completely new field for us and we have had to learn a great deal of new techniques and ways of doing a festival.

JJI: As with previous festivals, What film(s) are this year’s highlights? What are the themes or concepts being featured for Mostra Brazilian Film Festival 2020?

AF: As you know, MOSTRA present Brazilian films with social conscience and every year we bring films which address different aspects of Brazilian culture, environment, social issues, history and others. This year we will be featuring films related to our political history, environment, gender and race issues and others.

JJI: Thank you so much for your time during our “new normal”. You can find Mostra’s film listings on their official website: http://mostrafilmfestival.org/xi/

Below are student/instructor film review excerpts:

"Amazônia, o Despertar da Florestania", Dirs: Christiane Torloni & Miguel Przewodowski, Documentary/1h 46min/2018 (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"How has Brazil dealt with nature and its natural resources in the early 20th century? What state is the Amazon Forest in? Based on interviews with specialists from the most diverse areas and the rescue of historical figures, the notion of forestry is discussed: the citizenship of the forest, a term necessary to reflect on Brazilian identity.

Although dramatic, sometimes bordering on desperate romanticism, the questions raised by the documentary Amazônia, the Awakening of Forestry are treated with the necessary urgency and a very welcoming tone by the actress, environmental activist, and now even filmmaker Christiane Torloni.

In her directorial debut, Torloni accesses something profound, mystical, and sacred, but no less concrete or vivacious: the surreal power of the Amazon rainforest – and the risk of its disappearance.A documentary film of a conventional format like this only works with the cast's quality and constitution.

A movie like this is only as good as the level of testimony it collects and makes available to the viewer. Fortunately, there are media personalities of weight, prestige, and intelligence, from the fields of art to sciences. All are coming together to trace and unravel the devastating panorama in which we find ourselves as a society." -- E. Reynaga

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dvm-VH1L8k

"Açúcar", Dirs. Renata Pinheiro & Sérgio Oliveira, Fiction/1h 30min/2020 (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"Açúcar is a surreal but haunting portrait of an aging sugar cane plantation. It centers on the main character, Bethânia Wanderley (played by Maeve Jinkings), a last remaining family member of a historic Brazilian plantation family. She tries to repair the old mansion and thinking of new crops to revive the plantation industry.

Although this is a fictional tale, it does reference actual facts about slavery in Brazil (being the last Latin American country to abolish slave ownership). As the story progresses, Bethânia begins to see or "hallucinate" things around the old mansion, is it the Wanderley's past with slavery? Or is it the local people, descendants of slaves plotting to get the aging land back? Is it this about “revenge” or reclaiming human rights?

It's beautifully photographed against a sugar cane landscape referencing Afro Brazilian beliefs in Orixas and body possession. Directors Renata Pinheiro and Sérgio Oliveira has won awards for their own films and this feature is a collaborative work at re-looking Brazil's slavery and the history of plantation families." -- J. Macarena Avila

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rQBfzNZMags

”Mormaço", Dir: Marina Meliande, Political Drama/1h 36min/ 2018 (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"Mormaço combines different genres, fantasy, political, drama, etc. using visuals to make social commentary about 2016 Rio de Janiero's Olympics. That year, many resident areas were displaced to create attractions for tourism for the Olympics.

This feature is a dazzling, but slow burner story using different genres based on true events surrounding the 2016 Olympics when one of the hottest summers faced Rio de Janiero's area.

It centers on a public lawyer, Ana representing residents being threaten to move. The residents have regular meetings with Ana to prepare to lobby against the city government. Then Ana develops a unknown medical condition that starts a metaphorsis that only complicates her life." -- J. Macarena Avila

"After viewing the film I did some research and learned from an article titled 'Film Mormaço Interweaves Fiction and Reality to Retell Story of Vila Autódromo Evictions' that these events in the film are based on historical events that actually occurred.

The article also states that Mormaço 'makes use of actual footage of these events.' Many of the scenes illustrating war and protest are primary sources that I found very interesting.

Knowing this about the film made me want to watch it a second time to catch all of these primary footages. Mostly because of how seamless the transition from historical footage to current footage. Overall, I felt the film was not only entertaining but also informational." -- J. Heflin

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FwSanEqppds

"Deslembro", Dir: Flávia Castro, Drama /1h 36min / 2018 (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"Quickly summarizing this movie, it’s about a girl named Joanna, who lives with her mom, stepfather, and two stepbrothers in Paris. Her parents announce that they would be moving the family to Brazil and it is very clear at the beginning of the movie how Joanna feels about the decision. Of course, the move is inevitable and the rest of the movie is located in Brazil.

The move to Brazil allows Joanna to be able to explore new things, like the world of literature, her first love, and she awakens politically. Being in Brazil seems to bring up a whole bunch of old disturbing memories from Joanna’s childhood that have something to do with her fathers’ disappearance which then leads Joanna to have a slight hope that her father may be alive.

Leaving this paragraph on a cliff hanger just in case anyone ends up wanting to watch it. I believe that this was a very well written and portrayed movie. It caught my interest because it just seemed relatable. Something realistic, unlike this other movie that I was interested in watching which seemed more fiction based." -- Y. Contreras

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4qFP5cbmyEg

"Mulher Que Sou" (15m), Dir: Nathalia Thereza (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"The film 'The Woman Who I Am' follows a single mother who is in search of a new beginning away from what appears to be the rural lifestyle she once lived. We immediately begin the story following our main character, Marta, who is traveling alongside a mountain by bus before abruptly switching to a highway where she continues her travel into the city. Later, as she is searching for apartments we are introduced to her daughter who she consults with during this process.

This establishes for the audience their relationship with one another but also theimportance of and emphasis placed on the value of listening to her daughter and including her in this journey. While the prevailing theme of this film, I contend, was identity, we also can identify themes of femininity, single motherhood, modernity, and beauty all woven into the dynamic of Marta’s character.

These intersections help us to understand and even challenge the ways in which we often place mothers in society, especially those that are single or value women past a certain age, questioning their worthiness to be called beautiful" -- G. Paredes

"Oddly enough, the Woman I am was probably my least favorite out of all the films I watched at Mostra. Don’t get me wrong I still enjoyed the film and thought it was pretty good, but it had a lot of potentials that was wasted. There were scenes where the dialogue was too rushed and others where nothing was happening for a particularly long time.

One thing I don’t like is that they didn’t show you some things. For example, the characters would be talking about something off-screen, and the way they were talking about it, you would think it would be some, what of a big deal. They didn’t show the thing in that scene and I thought they were leaving it to be some sort of reveal later on in the film.

But it never gets mentioned again and the audience never gets to see what the characters were talking about. In my opinion, it would’ve been fine not to show it if it was a quick mention but the character made it seemed like it was kinda important.

A reason I did like the film’s 'secretness' is that it captured what the film was supposed to be about: a mom and daughter moving on from their past to a new beginning." -- K. Williams

View this short here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=05-F8PDvxdY

"Azougue Nazaré", Dir: Tiago Melo, Fiction/1h 22min/2018 (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"The film Azougue Nazaré was a drama film released in 2018 directed and written by Tiago Melo. The film is about the start of a new destructive supernatural phenomenon and different spiritual ideologies that collide within this community.

The film touches on religious topics and events in Latin American and was very informational and entertaining. I felt that this film was well put together and although I was not used to many of the different rituals and traditions are shown in the film.

It was very easy to follow along and even relate some of these traditions to ones in my culture. I usually would never go for a film that has to do with religious topics but the film’s artistic values and images caught my eye." - J. Heflin

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NFxE51n0IQo

"Quebramar", (27m), Dir: Cris Lyra (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"Going off of Mostra Festival’s description of the film, Breakwater (Quebramar) is a movie about a group of girls from São Paulo who takes a vacation to a remote island for the New Years. While on this vacation, the girls hang out, form a connection, build a safe space, and discuss with each other their experiences being in a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

The things that caught my attention most about this movie and made me want to watch it were the categories 'LGBT' and 'black perspective' because those both relate to me. The movie was filmed in the style of a documentary, though I couldn’t really find any proof it was.

If the film was scripted, then I have to give a huge round of applause to the actresses because they delivered them seamlessly and made it feel natural.One of my favorite things about the film is how casual it was. It was a feel-good film where everyone was having fun, bonding, and really supporting each other." -- K. Williams

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xNDquFNV9dQ

"Sem Asas", (20m), Dir: Renata Martins

"Sem Asas, or Wingless in its English translation, is a short film about a boy with a longtime interest in flying discovering he 'can'. I watched this movie because it was under the category 'black perspective' but I enjoyed it so much because it broke a lot of basic representation the media gives us.

The film mainly centers around the boy but also features his parents. I mention this because the movie really focuses on this family’s strong bond. That’s one thing media rarely gives movies, films, T.V, and etc that focuses on black representation. There’s always one parent (usually the dad) missing or dead and if both parents are there, the marriage is toxic and on the verge of breaking.

This family however is very close and from what the movie showed us very healthy. They help each other out when asked, joke around, lightheartedly tease each other, and were overall worried for each other. Another thing this film didn’t do that most media does was only make it about struggle.

I won’t lie the Black community does have a lot of struggles and situations it has to deal with but those things are usually the only thing media recognizes us for. While the representation of that is important, it starts to build an image in your head when that’s pretty much the ONLY time you see yourself and your community focused on in media.

Yes, there is black on black violence, broken family, major poverty, and many other things but that’s not all the black community is. I think Wingless did a good job of portraying this."-- K. Williams

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPkWmJvC-Tc

This for educational purposes and co-hosted by

Friedl's video introduction (created/produced by Sara Vianni) to enrolled students in the HUMA 121 course, "Latin American Art, Literature and Music".

youtube

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manshibansal-blog · 4 years

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How did Literary Theory came to shape?

Comprehension of literary theory many a times begets a question that what was the body of theory about literature that has existed from centuries as an underpinning for the study of literature? The answer to this question can be traced from 4th century BC when Aristotle had set the ball rolling to study literature through his Poetics. In this piece of work, Aristotle renders a defining word for the genre ‘tragedy’ while maintaining that literature is about character and the curtain that hides ‘what a character is’ is removed through his actions. Tragedy, as he puts it, should stimulate the emotions of pity and fear, which can be put as sympathy for and empathy with the scrape of the protagonist, which cause a resultant factor by dint of amalgamation of these emotions, namely ‘catharsis’ whereby these emotions are exercised as the audience identify themselves with the predicament of the central character.

Now, the second milestone in the track so instigated was embedded by Sir Philip Sydney. He belonged to a religious age which was chary of accepting any kind of fiction and poetry, and it had so framed its beliefs that it would identify these practices of writing as evil, the work of the devil. In such an age he took a valorous step by letting his work Apology for Poetry (1580) see the light of the day. He was bent to stretch the horizons of the definition of literature that was first rendered by the Latin poet Ovid (43 BC- AD 17), which is docere delictendo – to teach by delighting. Sydney also quotes Horace (65 – 8 BC) to the effect that a poem is ‘a speaking picture, with this end, to teach and delight’. The study of literature, here, renders a central position to receiving of pleasure unlike philosophy which is uplifting but do not allow space for fun. Sydney’s aim was trailblazing; he wanted to distinguish literature from other forms of writing on the rationale that literature’s primary purport is rendering pleasure to the reader, and any moral or didactic element is either subordinate to it or at least unlikely to succeed without it.

Now, here comes the time for the third milestone to be cognised. This step towards the evolution of theory had been taken by Samuel Johnson way down in time, in the eighteenth century. He marks the commencement of the tradition of practical criticism in English, since he is the first one to offer a detailed commentary on the work of a single author. His Lives of the Poets and Prefaces to Shakespeare can be viewed as majorly contributing to his idea stated above. Prior to Johnson it was only the Bible and equivalent books of other religions that were subjected to such an intense scrutiny.

The fourth milestone on this road was embedded by the major thriving of critical theory in the works of the romantic poets, namely William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge, John Keats and P. B. Shelley. One of the indispensible contributions in this regard is Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads which blends high literature and popular literature, as it encapsulates literary ballads constructed on the model of the popular oral ballads of ordinary country people. It renders space for the new idea that poetic language should be much like the language of prose avoiding the conventions of diction and verbal structure that had held dominion for so long. It also drags attention to the issue of the relationship between ‘literature’ and other kinds of writing.

The other essential work from the Romantic era was Coleridge’s “Biographia Literaria”. Much of the space that it occupies explicitly addresses the idea contained in Wordsworth’s Preface. He gainsaid the notion that the language of poetry must strive to become like the language of prose, and the major way to entertain the readers, according to Coleridge, is through the language in which the text is written; it entertains via its fictive qualities which become the source of aesthetic effect.

P. B. Shelley’s A Defence of Poetry (1821) reckons that poetry is essentially engaged with ‘defamiliarisation’, since, according to him, poetry purges from within us the view of familiarity and compels us to feel what we perceive and imagine what we already know. This phenomenal critical document foretells T. S. Eliot’s notion of impersonality put forward in his essay, ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ (1919). It also gives a hint of Freud’s idea of mind as made up of conscious and unconscious.

The concept of unconscious is very often found in Romanticism and is implicit in everything written about poetry by another key figure, John Keats. He did not formally write about literary theory but reflects on poetry in his letters, for instance in a letter to Bailey of 22 November, 1817, he writes that the simple imaginative mind may have its awards in the repetition of its own silent working coming continually on the spirit with a fine suddenness. Here, the silent working of the mind is the unconscious and the spirit into which it erupts is the conscious. Keats’ notion of negative capability also records unconscious as paramount.

After the Romantics the next milestone was embedded by the work of mid and late Victorians: George Eliot, Matthew Arnold and Henry James.

The focus on the concept of ‘close-reading’ in the 1920s had partly popped up from the works of Matthew Arnold. He remained a crucial figure in the history of English criticism.

He feared that the atrophy of religion would leave a cleaved society with no common system of beliefs and values, and this would be a potentially disastrous consequence. Thus, he came up with a solution that literature can be a possible replacement for religion in this regard and also weened that the middle classes on whom the responsibility of democracy majorly fell, had been debased by materialism and philistinism. So this became the apt timing for the critic to jump in and help people in cognising the best that has been known and thought in the world and therefore, it enlarged their capacities to identify and approbate the canon of great works that had been carved out of the wisdom of the ages. Arnold seems to be bringing to sunshine the advocacy that he had for the amateur. According to him, if one has not read everything but have read the best and is able to pen down its qualities, then he can have the confidence to write and reach a true judgement on it. This veering change announced a direct relationship between the reader and the great literary works/writers.

His momentous thoughts are found in the essay titled The Function of Criticism at the Present Time and The Study of Poetry. He has brought to prominence the conviction that literature must remain disinterested that is, politically detached and uncommitted to any specific action, and the motive behind literary criticism is to attain pure and disinterested knowledge which in his terms is to see the object as in itself it really is.

His key literary-critical device is the idea of ‘touchstone’ where he advocates that there must always be in mind the lines and expressions of the great masters and they must be applied as a touchstone in framing critical appreciations of other literary works in order to render a ‘real’ rather than a ‘historic’ or a ‘personal’ stance.

The next salient contribution in the canon of critical ideas has been made by T. S. Eliot, and his prime formulations are:

1. Dissociation of Sensibility – Eliot coined this term in his review article on Herbert Grierson’s edition of The Metaphysical Poets in the seventeenth century where he backed the idea that thought and feeling must be separate.

2. Poetic Impersonality – Eliot developed this term in his two-part essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent. This term can be viewed as his way of deflecting the contemporary thinking about poetry from the ideas of originality and self-expression which were raised to prominence by Romanticism. More than perceiving poetry as a mere outflow of emotions and personal experience, he saw it as transcending of the individual by a sense of tradition which spoke through, and is transmitted by, the individual poet. Hence, there is a fine line of distinction between the mind of the individual, the experiencing human being and the voice which speaks to the readers.

3. Objective Correlative – This is a notion developed in the essay On Hamlet, which is the encapsulation of English empiricist attitudes. According to objective correlative, the best way to show emotions the doors in art is through gesture, action or concrete symbolism rather than approaching it implicitly. This runs, perhaps, parallel with the ancient distinction made by Plato between mimesis and diegesis.

Finally comes in the last name on the list which is F. R. Leavis, the most influential British critic prior to the theory movement. He also, like Arnold, saw that the study and appreciation of literature is a pre-condition to the health of society. For him, the abstract thoughts were insignificant and he wanted to look for a system which would by-pass fixed criteria. Like Arnold, he turned down attempts to politicise either literature or criticism implicitly. But, he differed from Arnold too as he took the past great writers more or less for granted. He composed essays, radiating the essence of his method, which hit the reputation of some major established figures.

Leavis began as an admirer of T. S. Eliot’s critical works but he steered clear of shaping out critical vocabulary and deployed terms and phrases which already had set meanings. For him, what makes a work worthy is its conduciveness to life and vitality. In 1932 he founded an important journal called Scrutiny along with his wife, Q. D. Leavis, which they produced together for twenty-one years. As the title itself suggests, it extended the ‘close-reading’ method beyond poetry to novels and other materials. He can be reckoned as a combination of Samuel Johnson and Matthew Arnold because he offered former’s moralism and the latter’s thoughts concerning society.

#literary theory #tragedy #formation of literary theory #impersonality sensibility corelative

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zynita · 5 years

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My Decade in Books

I was tagged by the lovely @brightbeautifulthings and her blog is filled with exactly that, so please jump over and give her a follow.

The 2010's were good years - they weren't perfect by any means and they involved a lot of growing up/learning what it means to be an adult, but I think that I came out of them a much better person and better prepared for what the world has in store for me. Looking back, I read a lot of amazing books! When I went back to make my choices for this post I was surprised to find that I read 333 books from 2012 through 2019! 2012 was the year that I created my Goodreads account and since then I have used it to track my reading progress over the years, so looking back at 2010 and 2011 may be a bit hazy, but there are a couple of special reading moments near and dear to my heart that I can share. So let's get into this~

The Rules: Respond to the prompt “My Decade in Books” however you want and then tag some people! I decided to share a book and/or series which defined the year along with some of my memories/reasons as to for doing so. You can do that or make up a response that is entirely your own, there is no wrong way to go about it.

2010: Yep, like many I got caught up in the Twilight craze and while I still find sparkly vampires a bit odd/silly, this series did motivate me to start reading again on a regular basis. Prior to that, I had been in a car accident in the late fall/early winter of 2006 and then my daughter was born April 2007. Unfortunately, my mental health was not the greatest as I was dealing with post-partum depression in combination with my pre-existing depression and possible/slight post-concussive changes. In 2010 I was given a boxed set of the series as a birthday gift and reading it ultimately helped spark my interest in books again - this was one of the first steps to breaking out of my apathetic depression. I will always be thankful for Twilight because it showed me that I was still capable of feeling real living breathing changing emotions.

2011: This year was marked by the completion of my Associate's Degree in Accounting/Business Administration that spring and acceptance to continue studying accounting at the local state university. My daughter was 4 years old and about to start preschool. We were able to get a place of our own moving in with my wife (then girlfriend) into a cute 2-bedroom apartment - we became a family. One of the best memories I have from our time living there was how at night I would read the story of the boy wizard who lived in a closet under the stairs to our daughter. This series would go on to define so much of our lives as it became her favorite for a number of years - the first major book series she read entirely on her own, eventually going on to do so in Spanish as well. We became a small flock of Ravenclaws and she has bloomed into quite the reader herself. I will always have a soft spot in my heart and memory for this series because of the story it tells and for the part it played in our story.

2012: I previously read King's Dark Tower in the mid 2000's and the story deeply resonated with me. When I found out that King was planning to release a new Dark Tower book, The Wind Through the Keyhole, I knew that I had to reread the series. The series' story feels dark and gritty, the tale of a knight from a world that has moved on fulfilling his quest to reach the Tower, revered as the center of all worlds. There is a certain tragic nostalgic romance to the story of an old knight in a dying world haunted by his past questing with what initially seems to be an unlikely group, only to eventually come together as something more - as ka-tet. This is a series that I know I will return to in the future.

2013: If you go through my Tumblr history, specifically on my book blog, you will come across my reviews and a large portion of my reviews written in 2013 dealt with my read through of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series - 22 books and 1 novella (Guilty Pleasures through Affliction). I first picked up Guilty Pleasures during a book sale in ~2011 and I recall reading it and a couple of the subsequent books (maybe 3 of them at most). At first, I was drawn in by Anita herself but when I came back to the books in 2013 and read the entire series I found myself intrigued by the many characters around Anita and her relationships with them. The series started as one thing and developed into something different - changing focus from a supernatural police procedural to being more character driven. This doesn't mean that Anita doesn't still go out and hunt the bad guys, but it is no longer the absolute main focus of the story and I am okay with that. Anita and her relationship struggles helped me to understand/come to terms with the concept that love isn't the same across all relationships, that people love differently and that is okay. It helped me to become comfortable in the knowledge that I can love others and it doesn't compromise/lessen the love that I have for my wife. For that reason alone, I will always have a strong admiration/fondness for Anita Blake. I plan on reading the two most recent releases (Crimson Death and Serpentine) some time this year!~

2014: This year was a very very difficult year for me and my wife and I spiraled into a deep depression. Due to my mental health difficulties I failed to complete my bachelor's degree program and had to leave school. I ultimately wound up doing nothing more than sleeping, playing video games, and attempting to read when I could. I remember that I was scrolling through Tumblr and I saw a post praising The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - I was immediately enamoured with the cover, the starkness of the black/white/red, a circus, magic, and intrigue, I had to read it. My first read through took me 4 days because I never wanted it to end. This book helped me break a major reading slump through its beautiful lyrical prose of opponents turned lovers forged and bound within the fire locked behind the blackened gates of the traveling Les Cirques des Reves. I have read this book a total of 4 times and each time has only further deepened my love and appreciation for it - this book is my ultimate comfort read (though it may now have strong competition from her sophomore novel, The Starless Sea).

2015: At the behest of my love and my pseudo brother (I basically adopted him as the younger brother I never had) I picked up/started reading Robert Jordan's epic fantasy saga Wheel of Time which was ultimately completed by Brandon Sanderson following the death of Jordan. The series made up a great deal of my 2015 reading though I did make time for other books as well. What I particularly loved about the series was a combination of the richness of the world and the complexity of the characters. We witness these characters as they mature and grow into themselves ultimately becoming worthy of the title of ta'veren placed upon them by the Wheel. With the Amazon TV show on the horizon, I will likely pick up the series again and with subsequent readthroughs comes the opportunity to pick up on little things/foreshadowing that may have been missed before.

2016: This was another year where I didn't read a lot of books (only 38), but the majority of the ones I read were ones that I really enjoyed and Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate Series was a notable favorite. While I was working on my bachelor's degree I had the opportunity to take an upper division English course focused on Victorian Era literature and what started as a spark of interest became a warm comforting fire. Parasol Protectorate combined two genres which I had enjoyed on their own (historical fiction and paranormal/fantasy[?]) into something which felt entirely unique. I fell in love with the characters and thoroughly enjoyed the series - so much so that I have returned to Carriger's Victorian Era with my current read through of her Finishing School Series, an upcoming re-read of Parasol Protectorate, and a first time read through of the sequel series The Custard Protocol.

2017: So much of 2017 is honestly a blur... I was hired in July 2015 as a medical transcriptionist but over the following years would continue to gain increased responsibilities (with associated pay increases) allowing for some pretty notable things to occur leading up to my girlfriend and I getting married!~ We had been dating/living together in addition to having been friends for so much time before that it just made sense for us to get married and I can't picture my life without her in it. My favorite read that year was E.K. Johnston's That Inevitable Victorian Thing for so many reasons. The novel plays with history as we know it and speculates on what would have occurred had colonialism never taken root and instead a utopia was formed under the British Empire - an empire without racism, homophobia, and classism built upon mutual respect and harmony. This book is full of diversity/representation/LGBTQIA+/etc. while exploring identity, orientation, and relationships in a respectful/open-minded manner. I have already slated this book for a re-read as soon as I finish my current read through of Carriger's works.

2018: This book is probably one of the most important books I have ever read. I can't remember how exactly I came across it but I knew that I had to read it as soon as I read the synopsis. I then shared it with my daughter (who was then 11 years old) and we decided to buddy read it. This book...this is the book that I wish I had had the opportunity to read when I was that same age attempting to learn about and understand my own sexuality. This book has also allowed my wife and me to have a continuing, open dialogue with our daughter (now turning 13 in April). I actually Tweeted this basic sentiment to Ms. Blake upon finishing the book and she actually replied to me!~

Since then my daughter has read the book multiple times and we bought her a hardback copy for Christmas. Maybe one day we can attend a signing and thank Ms. Blake for Ivy's story personally.

2019: My favorite of read of 2019 was Elizabeth Wein's Code Name Verity. ((I know, I could have easily posted and gushed about Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea which I absolutely love but given that I had previously mentioned The Night Circus I felt it prudent to discuss something else.)) When I was book blogging in 2013-2014 I remember seeing a lot of posts talking about it and its unique approach to storytelling. I remember picking up the ebook but I was so caught up in reading other things at the time that it sat on my TBR shelf. Fast forward to last year and I finally decided to take the time and read it. Color me 100% floored and angry at myself for waiting so long to read it! I fell absolutely in love with Verity/Julie, with the story that she wove, with the friendship between her and Maddie. The synopsis describes the book as "harrowing" and "beautifully written," descriptors that I wholeheartedly agree with. My wife knew how much I enjoyed it and I received a copy of the hardback edition which will eventually grace my bookshelf (sort of kind of need to buy one first).

So that is My Decade in Books! I am very bad about tagging people in things, but if you saw the post and feel so inclined to make one of your own please do and tag me in it to check out. If you stuck through this post to the end, I greatly appreciate it and wish you well in the new reading decade.

*Zyn/Melanie*

#mine #zynita #brightbeautifulthings #my decade in books #books #booklr #bookish #novels #reading

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reomanet · 6 years

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Remembering the Howard University Librarian Who Decolonized the Way Books Were Catalogued

Remembering the Howard University Librarian Who Decolonized the Way Books Were Catalogued Dorothy Porter challenged the racial bias in the Dewey Decimal System, putting black scholars alongside white colleagues Dorothy Porter in 1939, at her desk in the Carnegie Library at Howard University. (Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Manuscript Division, Howard University) smithsonian.com November 26, 2018 In a 1995 interview with Linton Weeks of the Washington Post , the Howard University librarian, collector and self-described “bibliomaniac” Dorothy Porter reflected on the focus of her 43-year career: “The only rewarding thing for me is to bring to light information that no one knows. What’s the point of rehashing the same old thing?” For Porter, this mission involved not only collecting and preserving a wide range of materials related to the global black experience, but also addressing how these works demanded new and specific qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to collect, assess, and catalog them. As some librarians today contemplate ways to decolonize libraries—for example, to make them less reflective of Eurocentric ways of organizing knowledge—it is instructive to look to Porter as a progenitor of the movement. Starting with little, she used her tenacious curiosity to build one of the world’s leading repositories for black history and culture: Howard’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center . But she also brought critical acumen to bear on the way the center’s materials were cataloged, rejecting commonly taught methods as too reflective of the way whites thought of the world. Working without a large budget, Porter used unconventional means to build the research center. She developed relationships with other book lovers and remained alert to any opportunity to acquire material. As Porter told Avril Johnson Madison in an oral history interview, “I think one of the best things I could have done was to become friends with book dealers… . I had no money, but I became friendly with them. I got their catalogs, and I remember many of them giving me books, you see. I appealed to publishers, ‘We have no money, but will you give us this book?’” Porter’s network extended to Brazil, England, France, Mexico—anywhere that she or one of her friends, including Alain Locke, Rayford Logan, Dorothy Peterson, Langston Hughes and Amy Spingarn, would travel. She also introduced to Howard leading figures like the historian Edison Carneiro of Brazil and pan-Africanist philosophers and statesmen Kwame Nkrumah and Eric Williams. As early as 1930, when she was appointed, Porter insisted that bringing Africana scholars and their works to campus was crucial not only to counter Eurocentric notions about blacks but also because, as she told Madison, “at that time . . . students weren’t interested in their African heritage. They weren’t interested in Africa or the Caribbean. They were really more interested in being like the white person.” Howard’s initial collections, which focused mainly on slavery and abolitionism, were substantially expanded through the 1915 gift of over 3,000 items from the personal library of the Reverend Jesse E. Moorland, a Howard alumnus and secretary of the Washington, DC, branch of the YMCA. In 1946, the university acquired the private library of Arthur B. Spingarn, a lawyer and longtime chair of the NAACP’s legal committee, as well as a confirmed bibliophile. He was particularly interested in the global black experience, and his collection included works by and about Black people in the Caribbean and South and Central America; rare materials in Latin from the early modern period; and works in Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, and many African languages, including Swahili, Kikuyu, Zulu, Yoruba, Vai, Ewe, Luganda, Ga, Sotho, Amharic, Hausa, Xhosa, and Luo. These two acquisitions formed the backbone of the Moorland-Spingarn collections. Porter was concerned about assigning value to the materials she collected—their intellectual and political value, certainly, but also their monetary value, since at the time other libraries had no expertise in pricing works by black authors. When Spingarn agreed to sell his collection to Howard, the university’s treasurer insisted that it be appraised externally. Since he did not want to rely on her assessment, Porter explained in her oral history, she turned to the Library of Congress’s appraiser. The appraiser took one look and said, “I cannot evaluate the collection. I do not know anything about black books. Will you write the report? . . . I’ll send it back to the treasurer.” The treasurer, thinking it the work of a white colleague, accepted it. This was not the only time that Porter had to create a workaround for a collection so as not to re-impose stereotyped ideas of black culture and Black scholarship. As Thomas C. Battle writes in a 1988 essay on the history of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, the breadth of the two collections showed the Howard librarians that “no American library had a suitable classification scheme for Black materials.” An “initial development of a satisfactory classification scheme,” writes Battle, was first undertaken by four women on the staff of the Howard University Library: Lula V. Allen, Edith Brown, Lula E. Conner and Rosa C. Hershaw. The idea was to prioritize the scholarly and intellectual significance and coherence of materials that had been marginalized by Eurocentric conceptions of knowledge and knowledge production. These women paved the way for Dorothy Porter’s new system, which departed from the prevailing catalog classifications in important ways. All of the libraries that Porter consulted for guidance relied on the Dewey Decimal Classification. “Now in [that] system, they had one number—326—that meant slavery, and they had one other number—325, as I recall it—that meant colonization,” she explained in her oral history. In many “white libraries,” she continued, “every book, whether it was a book of poems by James Weldon Johnson, who everyone knew was a black poet, went under 325. And that was stupid to me.” Consequently, instead of using the Dewey system, Porter classified works by genre and author to highlight the foundational role of black people in all subject areas, which she identified as art, anthropology, communications, demography, economics, education, geography, history, health, international relations, linguistics, literature, medicine, music, political science, sociology, sports, and religion. This Africana approach to cataloging was very much in line with the priorities of the Harlem Renaissance, as described by Howard University professor Alain Locke in his period-defining essay of 1925, “ Enter the New Negro .” Heralding the death of the “Old Negro” as an object of study and a problem for whites to manage, Locke proclaimed, “It is time to scrap the fictions, garret the bogeys and settle down to a realistic facing of facts.” Scholarship from a black perspective, Locke argued, would combat racist stereotypes and false narratives while celebrating the advent of black self-representation in art and politics. Porter’s classification system challenged racism where it was produced by centering work by and about black people within scholarly conversations around the world. The multi-lingual Porter, furthermore, anticipated an important current direction in African-American and African Diaspora studies: analyzing global circuits and historical entanglements and seeking to recover understudied archives throughout the world. In Porter’s spirit, this current work combats the effects of segmenting research on Black people along lines of nation and language, and it fights the gatekeeping function of many colonial archives. The results of Porter’s ambitions include rare and unusual items. The Howard music collections contain compositions by the likes of Antônio Carlos Gomes and José Mauricio Nunes Garcia of Brazil; Justin Elie of Haiti; Amadeo Roldán of Cuba; and Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges of Guadeloupe. The linguistics subject area includes a character chart created by Thomas Narven Lewis, a Liberian medical doctor, who adapted the basic script of the Bassa language into one that could be accommodated by a printing machine. (This project threatened British authorities in Liberia, who had authorized only the English language to be taught in an attempt to quell anti-colonial activism.) Among the works available in African languages is the rare Otieno Jarieko , an illustrated book on sustainable agriculture by Barack H. Obama, father of the former U.S. president. Porter must be acknowledged for her efforts to address the marginalization of writing by and about black people through her revision of the Dewey system as well as for her promotion of those writings though a collection at an institution dedicated to highlighting its value by showing the centrality of that knowledge to all fields. Porter’s groundbreaking work provides a crucial backdrop for the work of contemporary scholars who explore the aftereffects of the segregation of knowledge through projects that decolonize, repatriate and redefine historical archives.

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blognoraliah-blog · 6 years

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HOW TO PRESERVE TRADITIONAL MUSIC IN MALAYSIA

Introduction

First of all, I would like to introduce myself. My Nama is Noraliah Sabrina Binti Ahmad Jefry. I am 20 years old and I was born in 27 may 1998. I live in Bandar Baru Sungai Buaya, Rawang, Selangor. I entrolled in music field when I was 11 years old and my first instrument that I played was Piano. Now I am pursuing my studies at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UITM) Shah Alam in Diploma of music majoring in Classical Piano.

Malaysia's multi-cultural and multi-racial heritage is most prominently exhibited in its diverse music and dance forms. Middle Eastern music is popular with Muslim Malays. Malay music is influenced by Islamic prayers and Middle Eastern and Arab music as well as music from Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Europe. Traditional Islamic-style music endures mainly in Kelantan. Most Malays like pan -Asian pop. Instruments used in traditional Malay music include the rebab, gendang, rebana, Chinese-style tawak gongs, the harmonium from India and Western-style violins. The tong is a Kayan instrument similar to a Jew’s harp. Malaysia has two traditional orchestras: the gamelan and the nobat. Originally from Indonesia, the gamelan is a traditional orchestra that plays ethereal lilting melodies using an ensemble of gong percussion and stringed instruments. The Nobat is a royal orchestra that plays more solemn music for the courts using serunai and nafiriwind instruments.

The more recent major influence on the performing arts of Malaysia, was effected by the Portuguese are credited with the introduction of the violin and the guitar, while British cultural influence in Malaysia has been much more generalized. (Ghouse Nasuruddin 1992). In addition to popularizing western music, dance, and theatre, the Europeans have also directly influenced the development of semi-modern syncretic musical forms such as the asli, keroncong, ghazal and bangsawan, which combine both western and traditional musical elements.

As a conclusion of these influences, traditional Malaysian music exhibits multi-faceted musical styles which combine regional as well western and West Asian elements. For example, the musical styles and instruments of northern Peninsula Malaysia resemble those of the Thais, while those in the southern part of the Peninsula have incorporated Indonesian musical elements. Furthermore, all over Malaysia western musical influences are glaringly evident.

How to preserve traditional music in Malaysia

Nowadays, whenever we asked people about these particular things, it is not be surprised that most of them do not know about these traditional instruments or worse haven not heard about it. Therefor it is expected if they do not know on how to play with the instrument. This scenario is worsen the society. It reflects how ungrateful we are toward our ancestor heritage.

As a traditional music lover, we have to preserve traditional music in Malaysia. Making a Traditional Music Festival is the best way to expose to people especially young people about music traditional. Such Gamelan Festival that was approved by the FOBISIA Heads of Schools during the November 2015 meeting that the Gamelan Festival will be broadened to the World Music Festival to be more inclusive of a wider range of music and to give wider opportunities for cultural enrichment.

As we can see, many people are not care about traditional because they are not being into traditional music vibe since kids and they are not familiar of sound traditional then pop music. Due of these reason, the traditional music industry are not being taken seriously by the people now. For me, we have to take seriously about our culture especially our traditional music because symbolizes the identity of a culture in our country.

Fortunately, there are still many musicians are fighting for our music traditional. For example Monoloque the new singer in industry music that try to make a new and fresh music. As we can know the new song of Monoloque that tittle “Chinta” has put sound of gamelan in his song. This is really amazing for me because not everyone will think to do such things. With that, people can see that sound of gamelan are not only used in official functions. I think Monoloque is the genius Composer. He knows what people now want to heard. The ideas in making music are so fresh and according to trend now. So with this, I believe our industry of music traditional will be more upbeat and not forgotten young people.

Next, to maintain and uphold the traditional Malay music art especially among the younger generation, efforts must be initiated early, for example, at primary level so that the desire can be achieved effectively. The Ministry of Education, for example, should introduce the traditional Malay music in Musical subjects or at least in co-curricular activities at national schools. Musical subject teaching in schools should not focus on modern music alone, but it is time for traditional Malay music to be taken seriously. The approach is very important to ensure that traditional Malay music is not only extinct, but it is also able to continue its survival in tandem with the rapid evolution of Western music that has now hit. If Tamil-Chinese or Chinese-style schools find much emphasis on the arts and cultural aspects of their respective races, the majority of schools in the Malay nation should also be left behind in the matter. Music is an essential element that must be emphasized in addition to the History and Literature subjects, where it is able to build thought, identity and awareness about the fate of the struggle of the Malays. During this time, traditional Malay music seemed to be less noticeable at earlier levels. Otherwise it is more significant at the level of study at public institutions of higher learning (IPTA). As we can see, there are also the most talented lecturer that are trying hard to introduce our traditional music to our young generations in school. Kamrul Hussein or more familiar we call it “Cik kam” is one of lecturer that are expose to our younger people about traditional music in school. Mohd. Kamrulbahri has been teaching and lectured many places such the National Arts Academy of Malaysia (Akademi Seni Kebangsaan) A.S.K or ASWARA (2001-2008), the National University of Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia-UKM- 1997-2003), University Of Malaya (U.M), University of Technology Mara (U.i.T.M), University Of Putra Malaysia-UPM, The International College Of Music-ICOM, Sunway University College (2009), full time Contract base lecturer at Music Faculty, Akademi Seni Budaya Dan Warisan Kebangsaan (ASWARA) 2008-2012. Distinguished Creative Scholar at the Faculty of Music, University Technology MARA (UiTM) 2012-2014. He really hope that our generation are not forget our culture music and hopping they are more musician in tradition were born.

In order to achieve the syllabus of Malay Traditional Music subjects at the school, the Ministry of Education may work with the Ministry of Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage to achieve that goal. Application of artistic and cultural values base on through the teaching of traditional music at the children's stage may warn them of their origins as well as forming their identity when they become adults. Traditional music lessons that are leisurely taught are among the channels that are easy to live with by the children as well as being able to apply side-by-side elements such as Malay language and customs. The fragility of the identity and weaknesses of the Malays at the present time, among others, is due to the lack of application of cultural values and Islamic teachings as fortresses and practices in daily life.

Hence, the inclusion of traditional Malay musical elements at the early stages of the school will hopefully contribute to maintaining the identity and identity of the nation to be more competitive in the future. When our young generation has been expose in traditional music so our industry music will be more developing. After that, to preserve our Traditional music the government have to creating more broadcasts on television about traditional music. As we can see the people are most often watch television to entertain themselves. The influence on television can attract attention people. So with that we can show audience about our culture music. The example shown on TV that we have right now is Sistem Televisyen Malaysia Berhad (STMB) or TV3 was established in 1983 as Malaysia's first private TV, and began broadcasting in the Klang Valley on June 1, 1984. With the presence of this TV station the music industry could grow further along with music programs such as Lagu Juara (1986) which until now became one of the recognized awards in the music industry. At present there are six stations of TV broadcaster and nearly 40 stations radio (including RTM stations) all of which provide a lot of opportunities and incentives which is strong for the development of the music industry in Malaysia. This is proved that we also can create channel on TV about our Traditional Music. So the young generation can watch and know about their traditional music. This same on what broadcasts on Indonesian do. One of example of show on TV attract people's attention this tradition music is Konsert Orkestra Tradisional Malaysia (OTM). seen as a catalyst for the Malaysian music revolution in the 21st century. It is based on various ethnic and ethnic music such as Malay, Chinese, Indian, Aboriginal, Sabah and Sarawak. The combination of this variety of music genres is hoped to be a platform to a new concept of Malaysian music in the coming century.

Lastly, many origin has produced diverse traditional musical instruments, thus generating rich and complex music artistic heritage. Despite being culturally diverse, however, music has succeeded in establishing its own identity and highlighting the characteristics of equality that can be shared by various races across the country. So we can create a connecting between our traditional music Malaysia with all ASEAN. Musical instruments of membranophon, cordon, idiofon and erofon are played through a similar match, thus giving soul and aspiration towards the formation of a united nation within ASEAN member states. This are example concert that connecting with other country, The ASEAN Consonant Concert C held at Tengku Abdul Rahman, Matic, Kuala Lumpur for two days has recently been seen gaining the attention of local communities. This concert is a form of appreciation at the same time can be regarded as the uniformity and richness of the traditional culture, especially the music in ASEAN member countries. We can see that the traditional is really important and we have to make sure our generation know the tarditional sound. Cultural media, institutions and industries can also play a crucial role in ensuring the viability of traditional forms of performing arts by developing audiences and raising awareness amongst the general public. Audiences can be informed about the various aspects of a form of expression, allowing it to gain a new and broader popularity, while also promoting connoisseurship which, in turn, encourages interest in local variations of an art form and may result in active participation in the performance itself. Malaysia's Ministry of Tourism and Culture Secretary-General, Tan Sri Dr. Ong Hong Peng described the ASEAN Consulate C Concert as an initiative to combine experts from ASEAN member states through art and culture. "By featuring traditional musical instruments from the 10 ASEAN countries, this concert has basically promoted unique melodies from the respective country's musical traditions and most importantly showcase new talents among young ASEAN children," he said.

As conclusion, it important for us to keep the traditional music industry in Malaysia because Symbol of a national culture. There are many reason why our tradition music getting forgotten especially on our young generation. Many parties should play a role to ensure that these traditional music is not extinct. When we into in this traditional music we will be able to get new experiences and extensive knowledge. We can also see how it feels like to play traditional instrument in an ensemble. When played in Ensemble automatic you will discipline yourself and learn how communications between the teammate. I hope this Traditional music will keep continue to be seen by the upcoming generation so that our grandma will be more proud of us and they will be more appreciated.

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itraininginchandigarh · 3 years

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Distance Education in Zirakpur

Distance learning in Zirakpur or Distance Education in Zirakpur is the mode of study through which a student can increase education and knowledge even without being present at a school or an institute. In Distance Education in Zirakpur, it is not always necessary for the learners to be physically present at the classes; which means that the students can take the classes being at the comfort of their home or some other place. A large number of online courses are available by various reputed universities and institutes that help the students gain expertise and knowledge in a distinct subject or stream of study. Modern-day technologies are evolving at a rapid pace with each passing day and thanks to that, Distance Education in Zirakpur has become a very easily accessible mode of effective learning through its various segments such as e-learning, online learning, correspondence learning, and accordingly on.

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Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)

The bachelor of business administration is a bachelor’s degree course in commerce and business administration. The BBA course regularly covers general business courses and advanced courses for particular concentrations. The degree is intended to give a broad knowledge of the functional aspects of a business and their interconnection, while also providing for specialization in a particular area. BBA programs present students with a variety of "core subjects" and allow students to specialize in a particular academic area. The degree also amplifies the student's practical, managerial skills, communication skills and business decision-making ability.

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B.Sc. Information Technology (B.Sc IT)

BSc information technology is also known as Bachelor of Science in Information Technology is a bachelor's degree course that is designated to a student who does the program in Information Technology. In Distance Education in Zirakpur, this course is considered to be the most popular since a bulk of students are doing it. The course is completely divided into 3 years and in some cases, it is 4. The years are further divided into semesters. In this process, a total of 6 semesters are there in Bsc information technology B Sc it Distance Education in Zirakpur. The course is designed in such a way that it gives knowledge about how computer problems are resolved in information and technology

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Distance PG Courses:

Master of Commerce (M.Com)

Master of Commerce (M.Com) is a 2 (two) year postgraduate degree course and is awarded on completion of the program by an accredited University. An aspirant can pursue this postgraduate degree only after completing a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com). An aspirant by opting for M.Com can pursue Masters's in the disciplines such as Marketing, Accounting, Banking, E-Commerce, Computer Application in Business, Finance, Micro and Macroeconomics, Insurance, Law Taxation, Corporate Tax Planning etc. Having a postgraduate degree can help you to grab some good job opportunities in managerial positions in various corporate or government organizations. Apart from this on completion of M.Com, students can even choose to pursue M.Phil or Ph.D. degree which is a higher academic degree.

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Master of English (M.A. English) is a postgraduate degree program in English Literature. It is a two-year postgraduate course that deals with the study of Literature and Language in English all over the world. The programme would raise fundamental literary concepts tendencies and trends across periods, genres and cultures in English literature literary theory and advances composition and composition.

Master of Science (M.Sc)

Learners who are not interested in attempting a regular Master of Science (MSc) degree, can opt to pursue the course as a correspondence or distance course. Various colleges offer distance/correspondence education in Zirakpur. The unique programme emphasis the courses which have vast potential for candidates in the area of Science and who want to pursue the course online as well. It is the new trend where learners, who cannot attend full-time regular courses, opt for a further course.

Master of Business Administration (MBA)

The Master of Business Administration is a master's degree in business administration (management) The focus courses in an MBA course cover several areas of business such as accounting, finance, marketing, human resources, and operations in a manner most suitable to management analysis and strategy. Most programs also include elective courses in Distance education in Zirakpur.

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MCA Distance Education is a 6-semester program. The time limit ranges from 3 years to 6 years. This course is designed for learners who want to gain knowledge staying far from the location of teaching. Distance Education in Zirakpur is one of the most significant distance education providers in the country and the eligibility criteria are necessary like completing graduation in required subjects and having mathematics in class 12.

MCA Distance Education in Zirakpur is a planned education that takes place in a different location from teaching. Over the year's distance education has been opted for by millions of students across India who have limited time, distance or physical ability.

Master of Science in Information Technology(M.Sc IT)

Master of Science or MSc in information technology IT is a two years long postgraduate level master's degree course. It aims to offer theoretical as well as practical knowledge on topics like software development, data drilling, computer systems, analytics etc. The aspirants willing to join the MSc IT course should possess a Bachelor’s degree in relevant disciplines like BSc in IT/ CS, BCA, BE/ BTech in IT or CS from a recognized university. They must also score a minimum of 50% percent marks in graduation to be available for the course.

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Distance Education

Distance Education in Zirakpur helps to update the knowledge base of professionals at their working places. So it always needs special techniques of course design, instructional techniques & arrangements of communication as well as organizational and administrative arrangements. In this mode, students are granted to study material. The learners can also attend the class at regular intervals which is optional. Due to the constant increase in the population and scarcity of infrastructure, financial, and personnel resources, distance education systems helps million of learners to full fill their educational aspiration. But amongst the various method of education, this model has inherent potentialities to curb our national problem of illiteracy. Getting education through Distance learning in Ziakpur is Economical and less time-consuming. Distance Education mode paves way for access to the latest technologically-rich environment. Students can decide the place and time of class in this Distance mode of Education. Students in Distance Education in Zirakpur are always at the advantage of getting exposed to the latest study material developed in a high academic atmosphere. Correspondence Education in Zirakpur offers lots of flexibility, now a person can design his/her own schedule to learn and simultaneously work. They can also study at their own pace since the books and study material, lecture videos are all saved online. One of the advantages is, it also offers you the chance to choose from various colleges that offer various courses. These colleges not only add in the country but also almost all Ivy League colleges across the world. This gives an individual the possibility to study from a college that he/she could not get into for regular courses.

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Get your degrees & certifications done from Distance Education in Zirakpur and match up your goals with the skills which you develop by being with us! We are a distance educational trust where you can get online help anytime. We provide the best distance education courses in Zirakpur. Our students can simply obtain their degrees from our degree one sitting colleges.

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perennialessays · 3 years

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Theories of Literature and Culture

This is the Core Module for the Pathway in Critical Theory, MA in Literary Studies.

1) MODULE DESCRIPTION AND INFORMATION

General scope of the module. This core module for the ‘Comparative Literature & Criticism’ pathway of the MA in Comparative Literary Studies will introduce you to the main concepts of comparative literary theory and practice and its principal debates, complementing these with textual analyses and the opportunity to engage in comparative readings. We will examine key aspects of the development of the discipline of “comparative literature”, and study the theoretical frameworks elaborated to describe the ways texts relate to, derive from, or influence other texts (such as influence, imitation and intertextuality, translation, and reception). Historical relationships and how these are constructed will be examined, focussing on the idea of tradition, the concept of the canon and its revisions, as well as the importance of literary history in our understanding of literature. The literary texts and films studied will enable you to study “in action” central concepts of comparative critical practice, focussing for instance on genre; topoi; thematic approaches; textual rewritings; “translations” of texts to different genres (e.g. poetry to prose) or media (e.g. written text to film). The course will ask questions such as: what happens to a text and its meaning when it is adapted to or referenced in a new geographical, historical, or social context? What does this mean for the concept of meaning itself? What is the relationship between genre, theme and story? Between a historically situated national identity and the crossing of linguistic, cultural and historical boundaries?

Module Convenor and seminar tutor: Dr Sophie Corser ([email protected])

Consultation times during term time: Mondays 1-2, WT 221.

Teaching mode. Weekly three-hour seminars on Mondays 10am-1pm (Room DTH G4 [TBC]), with lecture-type input from tutor as necessary

Aims: The module aims to develop your critical sense of the evolution of comparative literature as a discipline and of the ideological and political implications of different comparative practices and theories. It will enhance your critical understanding of relationships between texts, both historically and across cultures, as well as your knowledge of and ability to handle and reflect on different theoretical models through which we study relations between texts.

Learning Outcomes: By the end of the module you will be able to:

- Describe, compare and critically evaluate different theories of comparative critical practice, to identify the different concepts of author, reader and text that underpins them

- Explain the conceptual models that express historical relationships between texts, and analyse the ways in which literary topoi, genres and traditions evolve, identifying continuities and differences

- Deploy the techniques and interpretative models of comparative literature to analyse the representation of individual and collective identities in texts, and evaluate the relationship between trans-historical and/or trans-national literary forms and the expression of identity

- Compare the different uses to which different texts from different linguistic or cultural contexts put the same literary structures or themes

- Interpret analogies and differences between texts belonging to the same movement or period but within different cultural or national contexts

Mode of Assessment: 1 essay of 5-6,000 words, combining the discussion of the theoretical contexts for comparative criticism with the comparative analysis of literary texts.

Students taking “Studies in Comparative Literature and Criticism” as their core module (i.e., students on the Comparative Literature and Criticism Pathway) must submit their essay on the Monday of the first week of the Spring Term (14 January 2019).

Students on other Pathways taking the module as an option must submit their essay by the Friday of week 7 of the Spring Term (1 March 2019).

Assessment Criteria: You will be assessed according to your ability to:

- Demonstrate detailed knowledge of a range of comparative literary theories and ability to evaluate them critically, testing their validity for the understanding of literary texts;

- Display appropriate interpretative strategies to analyse the dynamics of literary transmission and to evaluate continuities, transformations and ruptures within traditions or genres

- Describe and assess, through appropriate comparative textual analyses, the links between textual citation or inscription within a literary tradition and the expression of a historically or culturally situated identity

- Demonstrate critical awareness of the ways in which historical, linguistic and cultural boundaries are crossed and/or remain at the centre of comparative literary theory and practice

- Analyse the formal and thematic continuities and differences between texts belonging to the same movement or period

- Assess the theoretical, ideological or political implications of comparative practices

- Appraise the aesthetic and/or ideological implications of rewritings of previous texts or forms

- Command an adequate and relevant critical language

- Implement professional standards of referencing and presentation.

Required Reading

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wh8rwvb21y9ridm/AACMGXo_gnC-y6b1C9H8UrdNa?dl=0

#Theories of Literature and Culture #goldsmiths

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actualbiggestidiot · 4 years

Text

The discussion about “literature” in Asia Minor has received new impulses in recent years, in that questions have been raised about the transmission history, origin and compilation, but also about the purpose and sponsorship of such texts. For some time now, literary theories have also been given greater consideration in the development of texts from Asia Minor. Such questions were therefore - in the casual connection to two conferences held in 2003 and 2005, which primarily focused on religious topics of Anatolian tradition - at the center of a symposium in February 2010 in the Department of Religious Studies of the Institute for Oriental and Asian Studies from the University of Bonn. The reference to the two earlier conferences is not only established by the same place of publication, but also, in terms of content, there are undoubtedly points of contact between the history of religion and the history of literature in Hittite Asia Minor; for a considerable part of the written tradition of the Hittites is related to rituals, mythologies and the transmission of religious ideas.

As a pragmatic basis, “literature” was understood as a culture worthy of handing down written material for the symposium's question, without making this description too narrow for the symposium. This made it possible in the context of the contributions to raise a number of questions that could focus on different aspects of the literary tradition of Hittite culture depending on the interests. Some of the questions discussed during the symposium focused on literary theories, and some of the processes of literary production and dissemination were outlined, whereby stylistic forms of expression and motifs in this function were also considered.

Despite the different approaches of the authors, it is not difficult to see thematic similarities in the present volume. Questions of literary theory and literary genres are mainly in the center of the contributions by Birgit Christiansen, Paola Dardano, Amir Gilan, Manfred Hutter, Maria Lepši and Jared L. Miller; Complementary to this literary block are the contributions by Silvia Alaura, José L. García Ramón, Alwin Kloekhorst, Elisabeth Rieken and Zsolt Simon, who examine motifs and linguistic forms of expression in Anatolian texts. How understanding of literature - be it with regard to the statements of a literary work or be it with regard to the conception of such a work - is also promoted by the comparison of texts can be seen in the present volume in the contributions by Sylvia Hutter-Braunsar, Michel Mazoyer, Ian Rutherford, Karl Strobel and Joan Goodnick Westenholz. Finally, the last - no less important - group is the contributions by Gary Beckman, Carlo Corti, Magdalena Kapełuś and Piotr Taracha, who focus on the reconstruction and compilation of individual texts - as the basis for future literary analyzes of these texts.

For the present volume, the individual contributions have been editorially standardized as far as possible, but spellings of names and sometimes also transcriptions of Anatolian words, for which the authors have good reasons, have been left in different forms within the texts. The editorial standardization therefore primarily concerned citation methods and abbreviations, the latter can be broken down using the attached list of abbreviations.

1. The Illuyanka text is undoubtedly one of the best-known Hittite stories. The text was presented by Archibald Sayce in the 1920s. Shortly thereafter, the linguist Walter Porzig drew attention to parallels to the ancient Greek traditions, especially to the Typhon myth. The first "modern" editing of the text was done by Gary Beckman. In the meantime, numerous translations and studies have appeared that illuminate the text from different perspectives. The fascination that the Illuyanka text exudes is partly due to the fact that the myth has been handed down in two different versions - on one and the same board. The text also owes its popularity to the numerous parallels to other narratives of the type "snake dragon slayer". Tales of this kind about a hero who defeats and kills a serpentine dragon have been widespread throughout history in many parts of the world and continue to be so today. They are as good as universal. History can fulfill numerous functions - etiologies of extraordinary natural phenomena, ideological claims to rule, cosmological considerations about the beginnings of the world, religious symbolism or literary entertainment - which often show fairly constant plot structures and are subject to their own narratological logic. As Calvert Watkins (1995) was able to show, many of these narratives also share poetic formulas which are documented for the first time in the Hittite Illuyanka text. It is noticeable that many kite snakes have an affinity for water in common - an ambivalent and conflicting element in itself. "The fundamental element in the dragon’s power is the control of water. Both in its beneficent and destructive aspects water was regarded as animated by the dragon ”, stated G. Elliot Smith (1919: 103). Also Illuyanka, the (eel) snake, if one follows Joshua Katz (1998) and favors the old etymology of Illuyanka as illi / u (eel, English eel) and -anka (snake, cf. Latin anguis) (see now also Melchert, in press), is closely associated with water in both stories. In addition, in many cultures dragons have a special affinity for water sources (Zhao 1992: 113-114), which also play a role in the Illuyanka text. In the ancient Orient, the role of this hero is in most cases a weather god in one of his characters. The role of the enemy is occupied in different epochs and regions of the Ancient Orient by the (primordial) sea and a number of eerie creatures that inhabit it or originate from it. In the Syrian region, the battle of the weather god against têmtum is already mentioned in ancient Babylonian times; in a letter from the ambassador Maris in Aleppo, the weather god of Aleppo traces the kingship back to the investiture of his weapons with which he fought against têmtum (Durand 1993: 41-61; Schwemer 2001, 226-232). The weapons of the weather god from this fight, as well as the mountains Namni and Ḫazzi, are mentioned in the Hittite Bišaiša text (CTH 350), a mythological story that has unfortunately only survived fragmentarily. There the mountain god Bišaisa tells the goddess Ištar - after he raped the sleeping goddess, but was caught by her and begged for his life - about the weapons of the weather god with which he defeated the sea (Schwemer 2001: 233; Haas 2006: 212f .). The famous passage in the Puḫānu text, which is often interpreted as the “crossing of the Taurus”, is in my opinion linked. to this mythologist (Gilan 2004: 277-279). The fight of the weather god against the sea is also a theme of the Hurrian-Hittite Kumarbi cycle. In order to regain control over the world of gods, Kumarbi creates several terrible adversaries who are supposed to defeat the weather god Teššop. Three of these adversaries are closely related to water. At first the sea god himself was an opponent of the weather god. The song from the sea, which is mentioned in Hurrian and Hittite fragmentary myth and ritual fragments as well as in table catalogs, was probably made during a festival for Mount Ḫazzi (Zaphon, Kasion, today Keldağ on the Bay of İskenderun, the scene of many war and dragon stories ) presented.

Ullikummi was also closely associated with water. Another adversary was Ḫedammu, a snake-like monster (André-Salvini / Salvini 1998: 9-10; Dijkstra 2005). Ḫedammu was conceived by Kumarbi with the gigantic daughter of the sea and because of his voracity caused a famine that threatened to destroy mankind. Help was provided by Ištar, who went to the beach for nude bathing, seduced Ḫedammu there, who crawled excitedly out of the water to land, where he met his end. The Ḫedammu story shows many similarities to the first Illuyanka story (most recently Hoffner 2007: 125), while the "Anatolian" myth of "Telipinu and the daughter of the sea" (Hoffner 1998: 26-28; Haas 2006: 115-117) has a lot in common with the second Illuyanka story. In both narratives, a marriage - and the obligation associated with it - served to prevent danger. 2. The great importance of the Illuyanka text for the history of religion, however, is primarily due to the fact that the mythical narratives seem to be embedded in the ritual - an assumption that has strongly influenced the interpretation of the narratives in research. It is precisely this supposed connection between myth and ritual that will occupy me in the following. Before I get into that, however, I would like to briefly outline the scientific discussion about the relationship between myth and ritual, as the discussion is of crucial importance in interpreting the Illuyanka narrative (s). The question of the relationship between myth and ritual has shaped myth and ritual theory like no other since the end of the 19th century. It is associated with scholars such as the Old Testament scholar William Robertson Smith, who was the first to point out "the dependence of myth on ritual". The theory was further developed by Sir James Frazer in his monumental masterpiece "The Golden Bough", which grew from edition to edition. Frazer examined various ancient gods, which he interpreted as vegetation gods - including Adonis, Attis, Demeter, Tammuz, Osiris and Dionysus. The myth of death and resurrection of these deities was ritually performed annually during the New Year celebrations to guarantee the revitalization of the vegetation (Versnel 1990: 29f.). “Under the names of Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, and Attis, the people of Egypt and Western Asia represented the yearly decay and revival of life, especially of vegetable life, which they personified as a god who died annually and rose again from the dead . In name and detail the rites varied from place to place: in substance they were the same ”(Frazer 1961: 164). Segal (2004: 66) describes the meaning of the myth for Frazer as follows: “Myth gives ritual its original and soul meaning. Without the myth of the death and rebirth of that god, the death and rebirth of the god of vegetation would scarcely be ritualistically enacted. ”In the second, more influential Frazerian myth-ritual theory, the deified king is at the center. To end the winter and to guarantee the food supply, the king is killed by the community as soon as he shows weakness but still has strength. The weak phase of the king is equated with winter. His premature killing is to ensure that the soul of the deity who dwells in him can be transferred to his successor (Segal 2004: 66). The "Cambridge Ritual School" around Gilbert Murray, F.M. Cornford and Jane Ellen Harrison took Frazer's theories further. They transferred Frazer's story of the ritual royal drama - his death and resurrection - to Greek society and saw in this basic ritual structure the origins of Greek mythology and Greek drama (Versnel 1990: 30-35; Bell 1997: 5f.). The ritual was considered the source of the myth. Myths originally emerged only as a textual accompaniment to a ritual: "The primary meaning of myth ... is the spoken correlative of the acted rite, the thing done" (Jane Ellen Harri-son, quoted in Segal 1998: 7). However, myths could live on in literary forms after the rituals from which they arose have long since disappeared (Bell 1997: 6). The Old Testament scholar Samuel Henry Hooke turned to the ancient oriental religions (Versnel 1990: 35-38) and was able to reconstruct a ritual scheme (cult pattern) that is reminiscent of Frazer's ritual royal drama (Segal 1998; 2004: 70-72). Here too, the focus is on the deified king, who represents the deity in the festive ritual. According to Hooke, the following elements belong to the great New Year celebrations - the climax of the cult calendar year - as well as to other rituals (Hooke [1933] in Segal 1998: 88-89):

(1) The dramatic representation of the death and resurrection of the god.

(2) The recitation or symbolic representation of the myth of creation.

(3) The ritual combat, in which the triumph of the god over his enemies was depicted.

(4) The sacred marriage.

(5) The triumphal procession, in which the king played the part of the god followed by a train of lesser gods or visiting deities.

The Babylonian Akītu festival was of central importance for the development of the cult pattern as well as other theories of the myth and ritual school. Scenes such as the humiliation of the king in Esagila on the 5th of Nissanu, the recitation of Enūma eliš in the festival and the so-called Marduk Ordal offered the myth ritualists perfect parallels between king and deity, myth and ritual. For them, the ritual treatment of the king, his humiliation and possible re-enthronement reflected exactly the original mythological event in illo tempore - the fight of Marduk against Ti’amat and her troop of demonic monsters in enūma eliš (Versnel 1990: 36f.). Hooke's ritual narrative was further developed and modified by Theodor Gaster. For Gaster (1954: 198) too, myths are only myths if they are used or used in the ritual. Myths supplement the practical, functional level of the rituals with an eternal, ideal component. The myth "stands in fact in the same relationship to Ritual as God stands to the king, the 'heavenly‘ to the earthly city and so forth "(Gaster 1954: 197f.). With the simultaneous performance of myth and ritual, a cultic drama arises in which the myth is brought to mind (Gaster 1950: 17). The focus of his ritual theory is the seasonal pattern. "Seasonal rituals are functional in character. Their purpose is periodically to revive the topocosm, that is, the entire complex of any given locality conceived as a living organism. They fall into the two clear divisions of Kenosis, or Emptying, and Plerosis, or Filling, the former representing the evacuation of life, the latter its replenishment. Rites of Kenosis include the observance of fasts, lents, and similar austerities, all designed to indicate that the topocosm is in a state of suspended animation. Rites of Plerosis include mock combats against the forces of drought or evil, mass mating, the performance of rain charms and the like, all designed to effect the reinvigoration of the topocosm "(Gaster 1961: 17). In Thespis Gaster (1950: 315-380) offers a selection of ancient oriental mythological texts, partly also in translation, in which he discovered the traces of this seasonal cult scheme, including a number of Hittite texts, myths that are even still in their "original" ritual packaging are handed down. These include the Telipinu myth, the myth of the frost Ḫaḫḫima, the myth of the disappearance and return of the sun deity and The snaring of the Dragon, i.e. the Illuyanka text embedded in the Purulli festival. The myth ritualists gained great influence in many areas of the humanities, especially in literary studies. However, criticism has increased over time. This is why Clyde Kluckhohn (1942: 54) writes in his influential essay: “The whole question of the Primacy of ceremony and Mythology is as meaningless as all questions of the hen or the egg form”, a quote that also inspired the title of this article . Kluckhohn pointed out that myths often appear in connection with rituals, but just as often they do not. Rites and myths can stand in the most varied of relationships to one another, and can also arise in total independence from one another. A myth can contain motifs from other myths; these can be transferred between different cult contexts (Bremmer 1998: 74). Many other critics followed who pointed to errors and misunderstandings in myth and ritual literature and thus shook its foundations. E.g. Kirk (1974: 31-37) comes to the conclusion, based on the Greek material, that the vast majority of Greek myths arose without any special relation to rituals (1974: 253). The mytho-ritualistic interpretation of the Akītu festival was also decidedly rejected (von Soden 1955; Black1981). From today's point of view, the seasonal scheme of parallel mythical and ritual death and resurrection is considered outdated (Smith 1982: 91; Versnel 1990: 44). The works of the myth ritualists have themselves become myths and are particularly interesting from a research historical perspective: "The Study of Ritual arose in an age of Unbounded Confidence in its ability to explain everything fully and scientifically and the construction of Ritual as a category is part of this worldview "(Bell 1997: 21). However, Frazer's great narrative of ritual drama - battle, death, and resurrection - still enjoys popularity. One good reason to deal with Frazer's ritual drama here is above all that this concept shapes the Hittite literature on the Illuyanka text to this day.

3. Volkert Haas undertakes a decidedly Frazerian interpretation of the Illuyanka story, who sees Ḫupašiya as a “kind of priest and year king” who, after a hieros gamos with the goddess, “from a priestess of the Inar (a) to a limited, perhaps even annual, rule cycle would have been killed ”(Haas1982: 45f.). The characterization of the text in its Hittite literary history also has Frazerian roots (Haas 2006: 97): “With the Illuyanka text, there is a seasonal myth in which the order and forces of the cosmos are renewed in the cultic reconstruction of prehistoric events. The myth has been handed down in two versions. At the end of the agricultural year in the autumn after the harvest, the Hittite python Illuyanka, the personification of winter, defeats the weather god Tarhunta, who embodies the forces of spring and who has now ceased to function and is in the power of the Illuyanka during the winter months. At the beginning of spring, with the awakening of the forces of growth, a second battle follows, in which the weather god defeats the Illuyanka with the help of his son or the human Ḫupašiya. The myth that is part of the Old Hittite New Year ritual ends with the etiology of sacred royalty. He was probably also represented by miming. ”- The elements of the Frazerian story cannot be overlooked: ritual drama of primeval times, renewal of the cosmos, order and chaos, revitalization of the forces of nature, the close connection to royalty and the performance in ritual. Some elements of this interpretation have meanwhile been strongly questioned, such as the suggestion to view Ḫupašiya as the king of the year or the cohabitation with Inara as hieros gamos (Hoffner 1998: 11). The identification of the Purulli festival as the Old Ethite New Year festival could not establish itself either (CHD P, 392b; Taracha 2009: 136). Other “mythos-ritualistic” elements are still the state of research. 3.1 This includes embedding the Illuyanka myth in the Purulli festival. In a fundamental essay on Hittite mythology, Hans G. Güterbock set himself the research task of tracing the origins of the various myths and their ways of transmission (Güterbock 1961: 143). "In doing so we immediately make an observation concerning the literary form in which mythological tales have been handed down: only the myths of foreign origin were written as real literary compositions - we may call them epics - whereas those of local Anatolian origin were committed to writing only in connection with rituals. " This distinction between local mythological material embedded in a ritual context and “more literary”, imported mythological narratives of “foreign” origin has since established itself in Hittitology (most recently Lorenz / Rieken 2010). For research in this context, the Illuyanka text represents the prime example of the embedding of myth in the Anatolian cult. As Güterbock (1961: 150f.) Notes: “The text states expressly that the story was recited at the purulli festival of the Storm-god, one of the great yearly cult ceremonies ”. This assessment, too, has practically established itself in Hittitology and has a major impact on the religious-historical interpretation of the two Illuyanka stories. There is far less agreement on the question of whether the myths in the festival were also represented by facial expressions, as Gaster suspected at the time (1950). In his review, Goetze was skeptical about this. The idea came back to life with Pecchioli Daddi's proposal (1987: 361-379; 2010: 261; but see Taracha 2009: 136) to identify the festival ritual for the deity Tetešḫabi (CTH 738) as part of the Purulli festival. She observes (Pecchioli Daddi 1987: 378) that the “daughter of the poor man” functions in the cult of the Teteš “abi, a figure who also plays a role in the second Illuyanka story and leads to the assumption that the myth is in the cult facial expressions (Haas 1988: 286). In addition, the connections between myth and ritual in the Illuyanka text are varied and complex. The Illuyanka stories were recorded on a board along with "ritual descriptions" which may, but not necessarily, represent parts of the Purulli festival. In addition, the first Illuyanka story also provides the aetiology for the Purulli festival celebrated in spring (Goetze 1952: 99; Neu 1990: 103; Klinger 2007: 72).

3.2 The Illuyanka stories are often interpreted as seasonal myths which symbolically represent the regeneration of nature, if not even magically bring it about. According to this interpretation, the defeat of the weather god, who is the lord of rain, endangers nature and agriculture (Hoffner 2007: 124). The eventual victory of the weather god symbolizes the revival of the vegetation in spring (Schwemer 2008: 24). Illuyanka's role is interpreted differently as the personification of winter (Neu 1990: 103; Haas 2006: 97), the Kaškäer (Gonnet 1987: 93-95) or, in my opinion, true as the master of underground water (Hoffner 2007: 124). 3.3 A close relationship between the narratives and the Hittite kingdom is postulated. "The mythic story about the dragon Illuyanka could be interpreted as an aetiological legitimation of the invention of kingship ... very secure are the close ties between the Hittite kings and the festival respectively the place where the mythological drama is located - namely the city of Nerik "(Klinger 2009: 99). The close connection to royalty is primarily based on the identification of Ḫupašiya as an archaic, mythological king as well as on the role of the goddess Inara as the protective deity of Ḫattuša with close connections to the Hittite kingdom. But can the Illuyanka text meet all of these expectations? 4. The text (CTH 321) has survived in eight or nine Young Hittite copies - the affiliation of duplicate J (KUB 36.53) in Košak's Concordance has meanwhile been disputed - but the text contains linguistic archaisms that could refer to an older model. Hoffner (2007: 122) notes the small number of archaisms which for Klinger (2009: 100) show “the characteristic features of a moderately modernized text typical of the process of copying an older tablet”. The text itself is introduced as the speech of Kella, the GUDU priest of the weather god of Nerik. The GUDU priest was part of the basic equipment of Hittite temples and was mainly anchored in the northern and central Anatolian, Hittite-Hittite cult tradition. He served in traditional Anatolian cult centers such as Nerik, Zipplanda or Arinna and was primarily active as an incantation priest and as a reciter in festive events (most recently Taggar-Cohen 2006: 229-278; Taracha 2009: 66). As the report of a GUDU priest, however, the Illuyanka text is quite singular. In reality, the text is unique in itself, a property that unfortunately went relatively uncommented in research. In contrast to other mythological texts of Anatolian tradition, the Illuyanka text does not represent a mūgawar "invocation" and did not serve to appease and bring about disappeared deities (Lepši 2009: 23). The text is not a festive ritual text and does not contain any magical practices (but now see Lorenz / Rieken 2010: 219). I will come back to the genre definition of the text, but first we will deal with the question of how myth and ritual are embedded. The text is presented in the words of Kella (KBo 3.7 i 1-11 with duplicate KBo 12.83): [U]MMA mKell[a LÚGUDU12] ŠA d10 URUNerik nepišaš dI[ŠKUR-ḫ]u-[n]a? purulliyaš uttar nu mān kiššan taranzi utne=wa māu šešdu nu=wa utnē paḫšanuwan ēšdu nu mān māi šešzi nu EZEN4 purulliyaš iyanzi mān dIŠKUR-aš MUŠIlluyankašš=a INA URUKiškilušša arga(-)tiēr nu=za MUŠIlluyankaš dIŠKUR-an taraḫta

As follows Kell [a, the GUDU12 priest of the] weather god of Nerik: This (is) the word / matter of the purulli [...] of the weather god of heaven. When one says in this way: “Let the land prosper and multiply! - The land should be protected! ”And as soon as / so that it flourishes and multiplies, the purulli festival is celebrated. When the weather god and the snake fought in Kiškilušša, the snake defeated the weather god. The rest of the story should be known. The weather god begs all gods for help, the goddess Inara prepares a festival and brings Ḫupašiya to help. Ḫupašiya shows himself to be helpful, but demands in return to sleep with the goddess. The snake and its children are lured out of their hole in the ground; they eat and drink too much; The story, however, follows Inara, the actual heroine of the story (Pecchioli Daddi / Polvani 1990: 42), who builds a house for herself on a rock in the country of Tarukka and lets Ḫupašiya quarter there on the condition that he never looks out the window . But the relationship does not last longer than 20 days, because aupašiya does what he is not allowed to do. It is unclear whether Inara Ḫupašiya ultimately kills, but it is often suspected. For our question, the last paragraph in history is of particular interest (KBo 3.7 ii 15'-20'):

Inaraš INA URUKiškil[ušša wit] É-ŠU ḫunḫuwanašš[=a ÍD ANA] QATI LUGAL mān dāi[š] ḫa[nt]ezziyan purull[iyan] kuit iyaueni Ù QAT [LUGAL É-ir] dInaraš ḫunḫuwanašš=a ÍD […]

Inara [came] to Kiškil [ušša]. And when she put her house and [the river] of underground water [in] the hand of the king [...] - that's why / since then we celebrate the first purull [i] festival - and the hand [of the The king is said to be the house] of the Inara and the [river] of the underground water [...] So much for the first and longer mythical story. However, it cannot be overlooked that nowhere does the text suggest that the snake narrative is recited in the Purulli festival itself, as is so often assumed. At the beginning (lines 4-8), Kella explains to his addressees what Purulli actually means: A spring festival that is celebrated as soon as the land flourishes and multiplies (with Hoffner 2007: 131) or so that it flourishes and multiplies, as it did recently Melchert (in press), who revived Stefanini's suggestion (Pecchioli Daddi / Polvani 1990: 50) that it should be read here as a final conjugation, exceptionally and depending on the context. The cited speech "from the cult event" is clearly limited to the short blessing. Immediately afterwards, Kella begins to tell the first snake story. As the end of the story (lines 15-20) makes clear, with his first myth, Kella provides an etiology for what he believes was the first / original Purulli festival. The addressees of this speech are not the festival participants in Nerik / Kiškilušša, but the recipients of the text in Ḫattuša, who are informed by Kella about the meaning of the festival and its history. The widespread assumption that the myth was presented at the Purulli festival itself cannot be confirmed in the Illuyanka text itself. The brevity and the unadorned style of the narrative - epithets are missing e.g. completely - speak against the assumption that the story, at least in this form, was ever presented in a festive manner (Lepši 2009: 23). Can the presumption of recitation be explained as a projection of myth and ritual theory, originating in analogy to the Babylonian Akītu festival? Kiškilušša, however, is far from Babylon in many ways. If the Illuyanka myth was not recited during cult events, as is so often assumed, the assumption that the story symbolized the regeneration of the forces of nature, even magically and creatively caused it, becomes all the more improbable. The substance of the story itself speaks against this assumption; Hoffner (2007: 129) rightly remarks: "Unlike the so-called Disappearing Deity Myths the text does not elaborate the natural catastrophes that must have followed from the Storm-god’s disablement." Nor does he describe the healing states afterwards. The narrator's interest is obviously elsewhere. Kella only wants to explain how it came about that Inara placed her house and the river of underground water in the hands of the king (KBo 3.7 ii 15-19), an event that founded the first Purulli festival for him. As Gary Beckman (1982: 24) rightly remarked, the handover is the etiology for a royal cult in Kiškilušša, a scarcely occupied village not far from Tarukka, which, however, claims to be the site of a large one primeval struggle, the traces of which could still be seen in cultural legacies (the house on a rock in the Tarukka country) and in local, extraordinary natural phenomena (the flow of underground water) (Hoffner 2007: 126-127). Only the victory over the snake made the handover by Inara possible, who in turn founded the first / original Purulli festival for the weather god of the sky (KBo 3.7 i 2).

The Purulli festival has, as is well known, archaic, northern and central Anatolian roots and was celebrated in spring in several localities for several deities (see CHD P: 392a for the evidence). As is well known, spring festivals were an integral part of the cult in countless Anatolian towns. With his aetiology of the Purulli festival in Kiškilušša, Kella tries to “sell” the importance of the royal cult foundation in Kiškilušša, and he is certainly interested in the fact that this cult foundation will continue to exist in Kiškilušša. Thus a rather profane reading suggests itself for the last, very fragmentary sentence of the first story (KBo 3.7 ii 19'-20 '): “and the hand [of the king shall be the house] of the Inara and the [river] of the underground water [hold?] ”(additions from Beckman 1982: 19). This interpretation is supported by the second mention of the king at the end of the Illuyanka text (KBo 3.7 iv 24'-26 ’with duplicate KUB 17.6 iv 20-21). There is talk of a royal foundation, which regulates the supply of the three deities - Zaliyanu, Zašḫapuna and Tazzuwašši - or their priests in Tanipiya. As the etiology for this foundation in Tanipiya, which is described in detail, Kella tells of the throwing ceremony, which decides on the seat and hierarchy of the gods and makes it necessary to care for Zaliyanu and his companions in Tanipiya. This foundation is also a local affair, as its relatively modest size suggests. The parallel between the two cases cannot be overlooked. In both of them it is up to Kella to explain the importance of local cult institutions. This local dimension of the first Illuyanka story may in my opinion not be overlooked. The historian Paul Veyne (1987: 28) writes about the Greek mythographer Pausanias, albeit a bit pointedly: “If you read Pausanias, you understand what mythology was: the most insignificant spot that our scholar describes has its legend, fitting to a natural or cultural attraction of the place. ”With the elimination of the mytho-ritualistic interpretation scheme, the often suspected close relationship with the Hittite kingship began to falter. Compared to most of the Hittite texts that refer to the cult, the king plays an astonishingly minor role in the Illuyanka text. In the passages we have received, it is only mentioned twice in the entire text, both times in connection with cult foundations. A comparison to the numerous invocations and blessings embedded in the Anatolian cult, such as IBoT 1.30, according to which the gods gave the whole land to the king to administer, can only relativize the theological significance of Inara's gift to the king, which "only" consisted of her house and the river of underground water in Kišškiluša. But the thesis that the Ḫupašiya story is the aetiology of the Hittite kingship can, in my opinion, also be valid. not convince. The story itself offers no clue points for any connection between Ḫupašiya and the king, and as far as I know, the entire Hittite tradition provides just as few arguments that a Hittite audience viewed Ḫupašiya as the original king or associated him with the king in any other way. 5. The question now remains, however, as to what connects the mythical stories with the other text sections, the so-called ritual descriptions. Immediately after the first snake narrative there follows a text passage, unfortunately only fragmentarily preserved, which is usually considered a ritual description in secondary literature and relates to Mount Zaliyanu and the city of Nerik (KBo 3.7 ii 21'-25 '): The mountain Zaliyanu (is ) the first [ranked] among all. When it has rained in Nerik, the herald brings thick bread from Nerik. And he asked for rain from Mount Za [liyan] u. After a large gap, we are already in the middle of the second mythical story (KBo 34.33 + KUB 12.66 iii 1’-10 ’; KBo 3.7 iii 1’-33’ brings the story to an end). The second snake story is structurally very similar to the first - with the son of the weather god in the role of Ḫupašiya - and also shows the weather god in a negative light. He sacrifices his son for the "bridegroom price" and his own salvation. However, geographical information is missing here, except that this time the snake is connected to the sea. The function of this narrative is, however, not apparent, nor is Kella's motivation to report it.

Immediately afterwards follows the introduction of a new speech by Kella (KBo 3.7 iii34’f.), Which probably introduces the new topic - the procession of the gods to Nerik. After another gap, the delivery is better, but the content all the more puzzling (KBo 34.33 + KUB 12.66 iv 1'-18 ’; with KBo 3.7 iv 1’-17’ and KUB 17.6 iv 1-14): [And] before / for the GUDU priest they made the [first] gods the [last], and meanwhile they made the last gods the first. The Zaliyanu's cultivation (is) great. But Zalinui's wife, Zašḫapuna, (cultivation) is greater than the weather god of Nerik. As follows the gods to the GUDU priest Taḫpurili: “When we go to Nerik (in KBo 3.7 iv 5: to the weather god of Nerik), where do we sit down? Taḫpurili, the GUDU priest: “When you sit on the diorite / basalt throne, the GUDU priests will cast the lot. The GUDU priest holding Zaliyanu - a diorite / basalt throne stands over the spring - he will sit there. And all the gods arrive and they cast the lot and of all gods Zašḫapuna of Kaštama is the greatest. This scene is also about the mountain god Zaliyanu (Taracha 2009: 44f., 104). His wife Zašḫapuna von Kaštama, who played a very important role in the cult of Nerik and the surrounding area (Haas 1994: 598; Taracha 2009: 44, 104), and his lover Tazzuwašši are also mentioned. Here, too, as in the first section on Zaliyanu, the question of the hierarchy of the gods is concerned, which was reversed at the beginning. This text passage is also characterized in secondary literature as a description of rituals. However, as Maria Lepši (2009: 21) rightly points out, the gods are involved in a dialogue with the GUDU priest and are informed by Taḫpurili of the ceremony of throwing away (Taggar-Cohen 2002) - elements that are discussed in Genuine ritual descriptions are rarely to be expected. There is presumably another mythological tale that tells of a ceremony involving Zaliyanu, Zašḫapuna and Tazzuwašši, which restores the true hierarchy of the gods and thus illustrates their great importance in the cult of Nerik. Thus, Kella also provides the justification for the subsequent cult foundation in Tanipiya. After the detailed and exact presentation of the royal foundation in Tanipiya for the supply of the three deities or their priests, Kella asserts the truth of his report. The text comes to an end. However, we return to our opening question. How do the mythical narratives correspond to the “ritual” passages in which they are embedded? On closer inspection, the answer is sobering - they probably don't, not least because, at least in part, they are not genuine fixed descriptions. The suspicion arises that we are actually dealing with a text compilation (as already Taracha 2009: 137 note 803) that combines different excerpts from different "reports" of the Kella, or text sections with different content: The Etiology of Purulli -Festes in Kiškilušša, the second Illuyanka story, the function of which unfortunately can no longer be reconstructed, and another story about Zaliyanu and his companions as the etiology for the foundation in Tanipiya.

This interpretation is also supported by the new introduction to Kella's speech after the second Illuyanka story and the fact that the colophon only speaks of Kella's words and no longer of the Purulli festival as in Incipit. The matter of the Purulli festival was possibly only a topic in the first part of the text. However, the different sections of text have a lot in common. First and foremost, the water, an element that flows through the entire text like a red thread in many facets (rain, subterranean flood, the sea, springs). Pecchioli Daddi / Polvani (1990: 47-48) offer an ingenious explanation for the outstanding role that Zaliyanu, the rain giver, and his two companions in life, Zaš Tapuna and Tazzuwašši, who are also deified as sources (Haas1994: 446) with the Water connected, enjoy in the text. The ritual parts celebrate this troika, while the actual lord of the rain and head of the pantheon, the weather god, was temporarily incapacitated by Illuyanka. However, we are dealing here with two generations of weather gods: In both stories Illuyanka fights against the passive weather god of the sky, while Zaliyanu, Zašḫapuna and Tazzuwašši dispute the hierarchy of his dynamic son, the weather god of Nerik. The two weather gods are also differentiated, with one exception (KBo 3.7 iv 5 ’), by their sumerograms: the weather god of the sky is written as dIŠKUR, his son from Nerik with d10. Instead of myths embedded in descriptions of rituals, we are dealing with narratives on two different mythological levels, which, however, have a similar function. As we have seen, all parts of the text deal with hierarchies. At the end of the first Illuyanka story, Kella explains why the first / original Purulli festival was celebrated, then he notices the high ranking of the Zaliyanu, and later he also deals with the hierarchy of the gods, reaffirming the importance of Zaliyanu and Zašḫapuna24 through the story about throwing away and thus establishes the royal cult foundation in Tanipiya. It appears that this compilation of texts tries to make religious claims. This probably did not happen within the framework of the Great Empire's cult organization - the obvious option, which, however, is probably ruled out because of the archaisms of the text. But the long history of the city of Nerik certainly also offered other contexts for the composition / compilation of a text that I can only describe as a “mythological cult inventory” (for cult inventories see Hazenbos 2003). It is almost certain, however, that this compilation owes its popularity - evidenced by eight or nine text copies - to the interest in Nerik during the reign of Hattusili "III." (Hoffner 2007: 122). But maybe it was also the fascination, then as now, that the stories of dragons and their conquerors radiate.

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howardstudent · 4 years

Text

Second College Essay

A little preface is that this was my second ever college essay. I received a 19.5/20 on it. There are some grammatical and citation errors that maybe I will fix if I ever have the time, and/or feel it is worth it. I could post the prompt but I don’t want my prof to copyright me or anything. Essentially, in this class we are studying prominent African American Literature until 1940, and this, the first essay of the course, listed three prompts from which were to choose one. I chose a prompt about how literacy was utilized by black authors and how the deprivation of literacy was weaponized by white supremacists. My professor did criticize my underutilization of Frederick Douglass’ autobiography, but besides that I mainly received positive feedback.

English 054/African American Literature 1

7 October 2020

Literacy: Through the Eyes of the Oppressed and the Oppressor

In this, the twenty-first century, it can be argued that everyone understands the importance of written tradition. Within and beyond the 400 years of African American bondage, literacy can be observed as being a gift to the oppressed that grants agency, education, and expression while simultaneously, access to said literacy is intentionally denied by the oppressor to maintain a status quo. Early African American authors and their collective works exemplify the power but perceived threat of permitting literacy among oppressed people. Namely, that African Americans, like Phyllis Wheatley, are able to compete with white people when it comes to intelligence and crafting beautiful works of art. The other primary flaw is that an educated black man, like Frederick Douglass, will develop a thirst for knowledge and justice which knows no bounds. To the oppressor, black literacy destroys their white supremacist ideologies about black people, while also encouraging the oppressed to think critically and fight back against their oppressors. Furthermore, this narrative exceeds physical subjugation; the education of the Negro is still the most powerful and threatening instrument to white supremacy in this modern age.

White supremacy relies on the basis that white people are superior to all other races, and it entices people to subscribe to this thought through demonstrable measures. In the eighteenth century, literacy was one of the primary measures used to perpetuate white supremacy. It is interesting to note how the goalpost of “superiority” shifted as black people would surpass these arbitrarily placed expectations. It seems that literacy was chosen because Europeans did not know of any black Africans who were distinguished in written literacy (Gates 137). This is not by coincidence though, as “Europeans ignored the fact that African literatures tended to be oral rather than written (Gates 137).” Initially, the concept was that black people are incapable of reading and writing, then it was black people cannot read and write in the languages the white man values, and then it was well, even if black people can learn, that doesn’t mean they can possess the same finesse and mastery of literature as white people. This belief was shattered when Poem on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phyllis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley of Boston, in New England was published. The work was “stunning news to whites” in London in 1773, because Wheatley was an African-born slave woman who was able to write in English (Gates 137). Wheatley was purchased from Africa to be a slave when she was between the ages of seven and eight, and after a mere four years of being exposed to the English language, she began to write poetry (Gates 138). She was no more than twelve years old when she first published her poem, and by twenty she had achieved international recognition (Gates 138). Even to the educated white elites, the beliefs that black people were incapable of feats such poetic expression and mathematics, which were considered to be “the highest forms of civilization,” were held in great esteem (Gates 137). Wheatley challenged these notions and she alone proved “the capacity of the African's intellect for improvement (Gates 139).” White supremacy served to rationalize the enslavement of a race of people. If black people were dehumanized, by falsely claiming that they were unable to reason and think critically, and furthermore were unable to be compete with Europeans, then their enslavement was justified.

Literacy was withheld from slaves to not only prevent the dismantling of white supremacist ideologies, but also to keep the oppressed disenfranchised. Outlawing the education of black people was done intentionally, but not exclusively, to further dehumanize the Negro. When the access to literacy is restricted, it is much easier to convince the general white population that black people cannot possibly be literate, before ever given the opportunity to prove otherwise. The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself references white men’s uninhibited thoughts on these subjects. For example, in defense of slaughtering a disobedient slave, Mr. Austin Gore said:

Demby had become unmanageable. He was setting a dangerous example to the other slaves,—one which, if suffered to pass without some such demonstration on his part, would finally lead to the total subversion of all rule and order upon the plantation. He argued that if one slave refused to be corrected, and escaped with his life, the other slaves would soon copy the example; the result of which would be, the freedom of the slaves, and the enslavement of the whites. (Douglass 20)

He uses two primary white supremacist tropes. Mr. Gore plays off the idea that treating slaves, and furthermore any oppressed class, as if they possess human dignity, will humanize them and lead them to seek rebellion. He also utilized the fear tactic that oppressed people will surpass the desire for equality, and will seek the same dominant position the oppressor currently holds. These ideas are also echoed by Mr. Auld’s words to his wife after discovering she had been teaching Frederick Douglass the alphabet:

To use his own words, further, he said, “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger

(speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.” (Douglass 29)

As Douglass became more educated, he began to agree with Mr. Auld. The white man understands that, to keep the Negro ignorant, is to keep him subdued. Literacy exposed slaves to the rights they were denied, to the treatment they were denied, and to the lives they deserved to have. It was this access to literacy that allowed Douglass to see how utterly abhorrently slaves were treated, it motivated him to write, it is what granted him the agency to voice his thoughts, and it gave him the platform to discuss the matter of abolition with Abraham Lincoln.

When the oppressed is kept denied enlightenment, they know not what they don’t know. This is why the United States has continued to suppress black literacy. “The Role of Parent Education and Parenting Knowledge in Children’s Language and Literacy Skills among White, Black, and Latino Families” found that “one way to eliminate socioeconomic status achievement gaps in children’s early language and literacy skills may be to focus on parents’ knowledge of child development (Rowe 1).” One way to improve minority literacy would be to implement programs that educate parents on child development. However, Jeffrey Shulman argues that:

What slave masters knew firsthand—that, in Douglass’s phrase, “knowledge makes a [person] unfit to be a slave”—was no secret to their nineteenth- and twentieth-century successors: They fought the efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau to establish public schools during Reconstruction; they closed their own public schools after Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), prohibited de jure public school segregation. Having denied access to literacy on racial grounds, they then made literacy a prerequisite to full participation in the political life of our nation. (A Right)

He points out that basing school funding on property taxes intentionally creates educational disparities, and is de facto segregation (Shulman). Thus, another approach to bridging the literacy gap would be to increase funding to black schools. However, this serves to uphold white standards of literacy.

Black literacy can be understood in two ways: literacy as utilized by black people and as black people’s ability to conform to “white literacy.” The history of black literacy is rooted in oral traditions. Black literacy involves Negro Spirituals and Hip-hop, primarily genres that are not held in high regard by white people. Navigating white literacy is an important skill to possess in America; it signals to the majority white population that one is intelligent, educated, and worthy of being listened to.

Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave: Written by Himself. Newcastle Group, 2014.

Gates, Henry Louis, and Valerie Smith. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 3rd ed., vol. 1 2, W.W. Norton & Company, 2014.

Rowe, Meredith L., et al. “The Role of Parent Education and Parenting Knowledge in Childrens Language and Literacy Skills among White, Black, and Latino Families.” Infant and Child Development, vol. 25, no. 2, 2015, pp. 198–220., doi:10.1002/icd.1924.

Shulman , Jeffrey. “A Right to Literacy as the ‘Pathway from Slavery to Freedom’?” National Constitution Center – Constitutioncenter.org, 3 Aug. 2018, constitutioncenter.org/blog/a-right-to-literacy-as-the-pathway-from-slavery-to-freedom.

#frederick douglass #phillis wheatley

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