Reading Distance: Port Louis, Cairo, Beijing

PMLA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 135 (5) ◽  
pp. 859-876
Author(s):  
Michael Gibbs Hill
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Distant Reading ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Paul Et Virginie ◽  
Reading Distance

This essay uses a case study of Lin Shu (1852-1924) and (1876-1924) to argue for an approach to world literature called “reading distance.” Through a close reading of Lin Shu's and translations of Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie (Paul and Virginia) into Chinese and Arabic and a consideration of their work as translators and intellectuals, the essay reads between peripheries—places like Cairo and Beijing—to understand how intellectuals in those places grappled with difficult questions concerning translation, language reform, and changes in reading publics. By thinking with models of distant reading but also engaging with materials that are usually excluded from those models, the essay examines an important point of overlap in the intellectual and cultural histories of the Arab and Chinese enlightenments of the early twentieth century.

World Literature as a Speculative Literary Totality: Veselovsky, Auerbach, Said, and the Critical-Humanist Tradition

2021 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-251
Author(s):  
Ben Etherington
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Distant Reading ◽  
Literary Practice ◽  
The Face ◽  
Humanist Tradition ◽  
Literary Experience

Abstract This essay revisits critical-humanist approaches to literary totality that have largely been sidelined during the recent revival of world literature studies. While there has been no shortage of defenses of close reading in the face of distant reading and other positivist approaches, this essay argues that it is precisely the hermeneutic attention to particular works that has allowed critical humanists to think about literary practice within the most encompassing purview. For those in this tradition, “world literature” can never be a stable object but is a speculative totality. The essay discusses three exemplary critical concepts that assume a speculative epistemology of literary totality: Alexander Veselovsky’s “historical poetics,” Erich Auerbach’s “Ansatzpunkt,” and Edward Said’s “contrapuntal reading.” Each, it is argued, is grounded in the distinctive qualities of literary experience, a claim for which Theodor Adorno’s account of speculative thinking serves as a basis.

scholarly journals SACRALISATION AND THE COLONIAL-INDIGENOUS ENCOUNTER IN SOUTHERN AFRICAN CHRISTIAN HISTORY: THE MEMORY AND LEGACY OF JOHANNES DU PLESSIS AS CASE STUDY

2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Retief Muller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Biblical Scholar ◽  
Christian History

The role of the Dutch Reformed Church’s mission policies in the development of apartheid ideology has in recent times come under increased scrutiny. In terms of the formulation of missionary theory within the DRC, the controversial figure of Johannes du Plessis played a significant role in the early twentieth century. In addition to his work as a mission theorist, Du Plessis was a biblical scholar at Stellenbosch University who was found guilty of heresy by his church body, despite having much support from the rank and file membership. This article asks questions regarding the ways in which his memory and legacy are often evaluated from the twin, yet opposing perspectives of sacralisation and vilification. It also considers the wider intellectual influences on Du Plessis such as the missiology of the German theologian, Gustav Warneck. Du Plessis’s missionary theory helped to lay the groundwork for the later development of apartheid ideology, but perhaps in spite of himself, he also introduced a subverting discourse into Dutch Reformed theology. Some of the incidental consequences of this discourse, particularly in relation to the emerging theme of indigenous knowledge, are furthermore assessed here.

Intellectuals

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Allan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Andre Gide ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Literary Writing ◽  
Epistolary Exchange ◽  
André Gide

This chapter examines the provincialism of a literary world in early twentieth-century Egypt and France by focusing on two scenes of epistolary exchange: the letters exchanged between André Gide and Taha Hussein in 1939, and a series of imagined letters exchanged in the context of Hussein's 1935 novella Adīb (A Man of Letters). It first considers the transformation of theological questions into literature in the correspondence between Gide and Hussein before asking about the world that literature makes thinkable. It then analyzes the imaginary correspondence staged in Adīb that recounts the story of a friendship between two intellectuals from the same village. The Gide–Hussein correspondence invites us to contemplate on the circulation and dissemination of literary writing—the sorts of transnational exchanges by now integral to discourses of world literature and access to texts across languages and nationalities.

The significance of aesthetic landscape appreciation to modern geotourism provision

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Hose
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Lake District ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
English Lake District ◽  
European Engagement ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Nineteeth Century

Many of the stakeholders involved in modern geotourism provision lack awareness of how the concept essentially ermeged, developed and was defined in Europe. Such stakeholders are unaware of how many of the modern approaches to landscape promotion and interpretation actually have nineteeth century antecedents. Similarly, many of the apparently modern threats to, and issues around, the protection of wild and fragile landscapes and geoconservation of specific geosites also first emerged in the ninetheeth century; the solutions that were developed to address those threats and issues were first applied in the early twentieth century and were subsequently much refined by the opening of the twenty-first century. However, the European engagement with wild and fragile landscapes as places to be appreciated and explored began much earlier than the nineteenth century and can be traced back to Renaissance times. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a summary consideration of this rather neglected aspect of geotourism, initially by considering its modern recognition and definitions and then by examining the English Lake District (with further examples from Britain and Australia available at the website) as a particular case study along with examples.

Smoking Bans and Shop Floor Resistance during the Early Twentieth Century

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Wood
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Mass Production ◽  
Large Mass ◽  
Shop Floor ◽  
Smoking Bans ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Paper Company ◽  
Time Away

This chapter explores early-twentieth-century employers' opposition to smoking in the workplace, focusing on a case study of smoking practices and shop floor disputes at the Hammermill Paper Company in Erie, Pennsylvania, during the long, hot summer of 1915. Uniquely detailed reports of working conditions and workers' behaviors in this large mass-production factory, written by a pair of curious labor spies, documented nicely the ongoing efforts of many workers to circumvent the company's prohibition of smoking. In response to the refusal of management to allow smoking, workers improvised an assortment of surreptitious strategies that would allow them to smoke at work and enjoy time away from their jobs. As the Hammermill case illustrates, the wide extent of worker subversion made the no-smoking rule a dead letter, much to the constant frustration of management and the spies themselves.

scholarly journals Nonconformity and socialism: the case of J. G. Greenhough, 1880–1914

2019 ◽  
Vol 92 (258) ◽  
pp. 771-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liam Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Self Interest

Abstract This article examines the life, thought and activism of the prominent Baptist minister John Gershom Greenhough. Existing scholarly and popular narratives generally focus on the key role played by Nonconformity in nurturing the labour movement in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Using Greenhough as a case study this article posits an alternative interpretation of this relationship, contending that the individualistic religious culture of Nonconformity was often deeply hostile to socialism. This hostility motivated Greenhough, and others like him, to abandon their historical allegiance to the Liberal party in the early twentieth century in favour of the Conservatives. More broadly, this article investigates the process of political and ideological conversion and challenges dominant historical readings that characterize anti-socialism as being synonymous with middle-class economic self-interest.

Re-Enchanting Modernity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G. Mansell
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Sound Control

This chapter inserts an interruption into the story usually told about sound control in modernity, arguing that scientific and secular rationalisms were not the only forces shaping responses to the problem of noise in the early twentieth century. The chapter takes account of those seeking sonic “re-enchantment” via sounds that promised to reconnect the hearing self with the magical vibrations of the cosmos. The chapter takes the Theosophical movement as its case study, tracing the influence of this movement on a range of cultural projects that emerged in response to modern noise, including self-help writing, social sound projects such as John Foulds’s “Cenotaph in Sound” as well as Maud MacCarthy’s experiments in musical healing.

The Growth and Dissolution of a Large-Scale Business Enterprise

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Boyce
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Financial Structure ◽  
Industrial Sector ◽  
Business Enterprise ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
The World

This book is an in-depth case study of the Furness Withy and Co Shipping Group, which operated both tramp and liner services and was one of the five major British shipping groups of the early twentieth century. It demonstrates how British shipowners of this period generated success by exploring Christopher Furness’ career in relation to the social, political, and cultural currents during a time of tremendous shipping growth in Britain and the establishment of some of the largest shipping firms in the world. It approaches the study from three angles. The first analyses how the Furness Group expanded its shipping activities and became involved with the industrial sector. The second illustrates the organisational and financial structure of the enterprise. Finally, the Group’s leadership and entrepreneurship is scrutinised and placed within the wider context of twentieth century British business. The case study begins in 1870, with an introduction explaining how Christopher Furness came to join the family company, Thomas Furness and Co. in order develop services, expand, and instigate the changes and mergers that brought the Furness Group into existence. There are thirteen chronologically presented chapters, a bibliography, and seven appendices of data including an ownership timeline, tonnage statistics, acquisitions, a list of maritime associates, and a timeline of Christopher Furness’ life. The book concludes in 1919 with the de-merging of the Furness Group’s shipping and industrial holdings, the resignation of the Furness family from the company’s board, the sale of their shares, and the move into managing the firm’s industrial interests.

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