The Fallacy of “Fallacy” and Its Implications for Contemporary Literary Theory

2017 ◽  
Vol 140 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-193
Author(s):  
Charles Altieri
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Plausible Account ◽  
The World

“The Fallacy of ‘Fallacy’” concentrates on the limitations of logical binaries in constructing arguments for literary theory. My test case is claims about intention. Theorists argue either that intentions can and must be determined or that intention is a psychological entity that cannot be determined simply from textual evidence, even when buttressed by biographical contexts. But such debates center on intentions to mean. This essay argues that literary texts are makings and not statements, so they display a relation to the world rather than assert it. It follows that when dealing with makings we usually have to look not for a specific psychological intention to mean but a way of clarifying how the display works. Therefore it may be best to equate intention with the taking of responsibility that the author assumes when deciding to publish or present materials. What is a plausible account of a series of decisions that led the author to want to make something public?

Does Literature Matter Today? Thoughts of the Outside

CounterText ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-113
Author(s):  
Shaobo Xie
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Education ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Lost Cause ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
The World

The paper celebrates the publication of Ranjan Ghosh and J. Hillis Miller's Thinking Literature across Continents as a significant event in the age of neoliberalism. It argues that, in spite of the different premises and the resulting interpretative procedures respectively championed by the two co-authors, both of them anchor their readings of literary texts in a concept of literature that is diametrically opposed to neoliberal rationality, and both impassionedly safeguard human values and experiences that resist the technologisation and marketisation of the humanities and aesthetic education. While Ghosh's readings of literature offer lightning flashes of thought from the outside of the Western tradition, signalling a new culture of reading as well as a new manner of appreciation of the other, Miller dedicatedly speaks and thinks against the hegemony of neoliberal reason, opening our eyes to the kind of change our teaching or reading of literature can trigger in the world, and the role aesthetic education should and can play at a time when the humanities are considered ‘a lost cause’.

Boatmen, Wastrels, and Demons: Figures of Literature

CounterText ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Sawhney
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Sanskrit Text ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The World ◽  
National Literatures

Engaging some of the questions opened by Ranjan Ghosh's and J. Hillis Miller's book Thinking Literature Across Continents (2016), this essay begins by returning to Aijaz Ahmad's earlier invocation of World Literature as a project that, like the proletariat itself, must stand in an antithetical relation to the capitalism that produced it. It asks: is there an essential link between a certain idea of literature and a figure of the world? If we try to broach this link through Derrida's enigmatic and repeated reflections on the secret – a secret ‘shared’ by both literature and democracy – how would we grasp Derrida's insistence on the ‘Latinity’ of literature? The groundlessness of reading that we confront most vividly in our encounter with fictional texts is both intensified, and in a way, clarified, by new readings and questions posed by the emergence of new reading publics. The essay contends that rather than being taught as representatives of national literatures, literary texts in ‘World Literature’ courses should be read as sites where serious historical and political debates are staged – debates which, while being local, are the bearers of universal significance. Such readings can only take place if World Literature strengthens its connections with the disciplines Miller calls, in the book, Social Studies. Paying particular attention to the Hindi writer Premchand's last story ‘Kafan’, and a brief section from the Sanskrit text the Natyashastra, it argues that struggles over representation, over the staging of minoritised figures, are integral to fiction and precede the thinking of modern democracy.

Text Prophetism

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Elvira Lumi ◽  
Lediona Lumi
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Greek Mythology ◽  
Divine Inspiration ◽  
Religious Doctrine ◽  
The World ◽  
Poetic Text ◽  
Poetic Diction ◽  
Life On Earth

"Utterance universalism" as a phrase is unclear, but it is enough to include the term "prophetism". As a metaphysical concept, it refers to a text written with inspiration which confirms visions of a "divine inspiration", "poetic" - "legal", that contains trace, revelation or interpretation of the origin of the creation of the world and life on earth but it warns and prospects their future in the form of a projection, literary paradigm, religious doctrine and law. Prophetic texts reformulate "toll-telling" with messages, ideas, which put forth (lat. "Utters Forth" gr. "Forthteller") hidden facts from fiction and imagination. Prometheus, gr. Prometheus (/ prəmiθprə-mee-mo means "forethought") is a Titan in Greek mythology, best known as the deity in Greek mythology who was the creator of humanity and charity of its largest, who stole fire from the mount Olympus and gave it to the mankind. Prophetic texts derive from a range of artifacts and prophetic elements, as the creative magic or the miracle of literary texts, symbolism, musicality, rhythm, images, poetic rhetoric, valence of meaning of the text, code of poetic diction that refers to either a singer in a trance or a person inspired in delirium, who believes he is sent by his God with a message to tell about events and figures that have existed, or the imaginary ancient and modern world. Text Prophetism is a combination of artifacts and platonic idealism. Key words: text Prophetism, holy text, poetic text, law text, vision, image, figure

Bleibende Aufgaben einer phänomenologischen Literaturtheorie

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 265-273
Author(s):  
Eckhard Lobsien
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Radical Theory ◽  
Theory Of Reading ◽  
Phenomenological Point

Abstract What sort of object is a literary text? From a phenomenological point of view - phenomenology considered as both a radical theory of reading and a theory of radical reading - a range of answers arise, many of them tinged with deconstructive momentum. This paper aims at pointing out some basic issues in reading literary texts, offering ten theses on the enduring tasks of phenomenological literary theory.

A NEW VERSION OF MISKAWAYH’S BOOK OF TRIUMPH: AN ALTERNATIVE RECENSION OF AL-FAWZ AL-AṢGHAR OR THE LOST FAWZ AL-AKBAR?

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELVIRA WAKELNIG
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Arabic Text ◽  
Additional Material ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Standard Version ◽  
The World ◽  
Alternative Version ◽  
The One ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts

Textual evidence preserved in two still unpublished manuscripts strongly suggests that there once existed an alternative version of Miskawayh’s Fawz al-aṣghar, the Minor Book of Triumph. The article discusses possible explanations for why Miskawayh may have composed two recensions of his Fawz and compares structure and content of the alternative version with the edited standard version. The one passage which is contained in the alternative Fawz only is presented in Arabic with an English translation. Part of this additional material is parallel to al-Fārābī’s Iḥṣā’ al-‘ulūm, namely its division of natural sciences, and may ultimately derive from a no longer extant treatise by Paul the Persian. An appendix provides the Arabic text and English translation of a hitherto unknown fragment of al-Balkhī in which he discusses Plato’s saying that the world has a causative, but no temporal beginning.

Hopes for Reading in the Era of Globalization

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 505-520
Author(s):  
Cassandra Falke
Keyword(s):  
Effective Teaching ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Language Ideology ◽  
Literary Texts

Abstract This article identifies in contemporary literary theory a new optimism about the power of literary texts. The medium of this power is not language, ideology, or form but readers open to being changed. Drawing on phenomenology, the article discusses methods for making literary theory students open to and aware of such change, suggesting that hope is the grounding condition for any effective teaching act as well as an effective ground for reading in an era of globalization.

Teaching How Language Reveals Character

2007 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARGARET METZGER
Keyword(s):  
Entry Point ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Veteran Teacher ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
The World ◽  
Literary Characters ◽  
Analytic Skills ◽  
Additional Reading

In this Voices Inside Schools essay, a veteran teacher shares her reflections on a classroom unit entitled "How Language Reveals Character." The goal of the unit is to help adolescents read and write critically through an exploration of literary characters' language. Beginning by drawing on adolescents' fascination with one another, Metzger first asks students to analyze the language of their peers as an entry point to thinking about how language and character may be connected. The unit then moves on to ask students to transfer their analytic skills to the world of fiction and how language reveals character in literary texts. Metzger focuses on life inside her classroom, how the unit is taught, how students respond, and how teachers can expand on the concepts of language and character through additional reading and writing activities.

scholarly journals RUSSIAN PROSE OF KAZAKHSTAN: EURASIANITY AND DIALOGUE OF CULTURES

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (5(74)) ◽  
pp. 6-9
Author(s):  
S.V. Ananeva
Keyword(s):  
Literary Work ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Aesthetic Perception ◽  
The World

The poetry of the large genre form –the story and the novel includes «openness» as a fundamental opportunity that is endowed with the author and the reader. The poetics of works «in motion» creates a new mechanism of aesthetic perception, expanding the national picture of the writer's world. The concept as a focus of knowledge about the world expands the boundaries of the study of prose by I. Schegolikhin, T. Frolovskaya and K. Keshin. The concepts of the Motherland, memory, oblivion in the literary texts of Russian writers of Kazakhstan are extremely important. A literary work enters into complex non-textual relations with the surrounding reality, expanding the spiritual horizon of society, while preserving traditions and continuity

scholarly journals THE SYMBOLISM OF COLORS IN THE ETHNIC PICTURE OF THE WORLD OF THE ARABS

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-107
Author(s):  
E. V. Kuhareva
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Moral Code ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Color Palette ◽  
The World ◽  
Symbolic Meanings ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Practical Life

Te article studies symbolic meanings of colors in the Arab on the material of Arabic sacred, literary texts, dictionary editions, and folklore. Tere is considered the place of each element of the color palette in the Arab ethnic picture of the world, which expresses moral and ethical values and worldview of the Arab ethnic group, and the importance and influence of colors on the Arab mentality. Te analysis reveals the similarities and differences in the perception of colors and their symbolic meanings in the Arab and Russian languages. Arabs’ perception of a particular color is based on their fgurative system, in which all the phenomena of the surrounding world appear not in the form of philosophical abstract generalizations, but as a realistic perception of the surrounding reality. Symbolism of their perception is revealed in their practical life, the basis on which national consciousness and national mentality is formed. Color symbolism depends on the place and conditions in which an ethnic group lives. A national picture of the world, however, is not only and not so much a reflection of these conditions, it is a reflection of their moral, ethical and aesthetic conceptualization, fxed in various linguistic forms and transmitted from generation to generation as a moral code allowing people to preserve their national identity.

scholarly journals READING AND LITERARY EDUCATION IN IST-IIIRD CLASSES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL AS A SOURCE OF MULTI-ACTIVITY OF STUDENTS

2016 ◽  
pp. 58-69
Author(s):  
Teresa Yanitska-Panek
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Education ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Narrative Description ◽  
Attitudes Towards Reading

Literary education is very important in the process of forming the personality of the individual. It is necessary to implement a number of conditions in order to student’s contact with literature was a great experience. Reading can be seen as a way of man’s existence in the world of symbols and information. Reading can also be a medium through which cultural content reaches to the recipient and enrich and improve his language and engage him emotionally. Reading is an act of great importance, austerity and effort, and at the same time it is an act of preparing the reader and the recipient to the reflection.Many authors emphasize the value of reading, inspired many motives. The authors draw attention to the different attitudes towards reading of the text which have been described by Lech Witkowski, philosopher and pedagogue in 2007. Eight status of the text in the course of reading are specific hints for teachers and non-pedagogical readers how to treat the text. The philosopher’s look on the function of reading puts this ability in a variety of contexts and makes that people interested in reading can become seekers and creative.The reading is determined the following learning outcomes: student reads fluently, correctly, fluently and expressively aloud texts consisting of words discussed during classes. These texts relate to real-life experiences of children and cognitive expectations. A student also understands short texts read silently; student correctly reads aloud texts written own in a notebook and texts stored on a PC. The student working with text by searching for the most beautiful piece. He is also able to distinguish in literary texts the forms such as narrative, description and dialogue.

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