scholarly journals Philology as an Experience of Reading

2021 ◽  
pp. 80-104
Author(s):  
Vitalij Makhlin

The article is an attempt to understand and evaluate Sergey Bocharov’s critical activities and heritage from the point of view of some contemporary problems in human and philological studies. What was and comparatively is quite original in Bocharov’s articles and books, it is, I believe, his approach to a literary text, beginning with his early little book about Tolstoy’s «War and Peace», where this scholar tried to combine his research with his concrete experience of a «common reader». This approach, it seems, allowed him to avoid the two extremes in recent literary studies, namely, abstract theoretism, on one hand, and abstract positivism, on the other. In this sense, Bocharov’s heritage may help us today to return to some «pre-scientific», but scholarly forms of textual analysis in philology based on the reading experience itself.

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 109-139
Author(s):  
Hamid Tafazoli

Abstract My paper discusses the controversial relationship between literature and literary studies by using the example of the term ›migration literature‹. It demonstrates in the first part that ›migration literature‹ as a term in literary studies does not expose explications of rational reconstructions of a conceptual content in Harald Fricke’s and Klaus Weimar’s understanding. In its history (Adelson 1991; 2004), ›migration literature‹ goes back to a chain of different terms and definitions as Gastarbeiter- or Ausländerliteratur and reflects strategies of homogenization and exclusion. From the 1980s forward, those terms produce in cultural contexts a semantic field that propagates culture based on a definition of ex negativo (Tafazoli 2019). The first part of my paper describes an outline of influences of homogenization and reductionism on the discourses of migration in literary studies and explains in the second part an asymmetrical relationship between motive on the one hand and terminology on the other. The term ›migration literature‹ seems to dominate this relationship by determination of a source of ›accepted truths‹ related to the life and background – specifically to the place of birth and the origin – of the author (Bay 2017). By prioritization of criteria beyond narrative reality, literary studies led in the 1980s and 1990s discourses on migration on the sidelines of canon of German speaking literature (Weigel 1991; Wilpert 2001). With regard to terminological determination in order to produce interpretative sovereignty (Foucault 1994), my paper exemplifies in the second part that the term ›migration literature‹ collects selected and limited fields of social, historical and political knowledge in perspective adjustment and in order to classify literature beyond aesthetic criteria. By this means, inductive standards (Müller 2010a; 2010b) classify the literary object ›migration‹ ontologically and regardless of factuality of the author’s life on the one hand and fictionality of narrative text on the other. The ontological classification has been used, for example, in contexts that replace the figure of stranger (Fremder) by the figure of migrant and determines the latter as figuration of external space of culture. The replacement suggests a perspective rigidity in the cultural production of knowledge that flows into a terminological classification and claims with the term ›migration literature‹ sovereignty over culture. From this point of view, the author and his work should be located in the external space of canonized literature. The second part of my paper comes to the conclusion that the term ›migration literature‹ has been developed in politicized frames of external-textual ›accepted truths‹ and bases its stability on cultural essentialism and exclusion regardless of heterogenetic appearance (Bhatti 2015). With regard to theories of »literature on the move« (Ette 2001), my paper understands that migration has always formed a considerable part of literary production. Therefore, migration could be understood as a literary motive. This meaning would undermine an ontological understanding of culture. Narrative texts develop poetics of migration and create by figurations of migration a poly-perspectivity in which migration advances to a polysemantic motive. My paper discusses these thoughts in the context of cultural memory in the third part and understands varied and multifaceted constructions of cultural memory on all sides of cultural borders. This part confronts the asymmetrical relationship between motive and terminology with discussions on migration as narrative of cultural memory that belongs to cultural majority and minority equally, at the same time and in the same space. Based on this understanding, my paper argues that migration as a motive construct shapes and leads discourses of culture under the conditions of global re-formation. The shift of the perspective from conceptual classification to close-readings of literary constructions should lead us to considerations about the openness of the narrative in distinction to terminological unity and should also initiate a paradigm shift in locating migration in discourses of literary studies. The theoretical considerations will be exemplified in the fourth section by Mohammad Hossein Allafis Frankfurter Trilogie that is a collection of the novels Die Nächte am Main (1998), Die letzte Nacht mit Gabriela (2000) and Gabriela findet einen Stapel Papier (2012). The fourth part of my paper examines in Frankfurter Trilogie a reading that integrates migration as a motive into the discourse of cultural memory of global challenges. Using the example of the Trilogie, this part of my paper demonstrates that discussions on migration in the context of cultural memory could initiate a shift in the perspective of reception from conceptual homogenization to narrative openness. The shift of perspective shows that literature translates the questions of community into the aesthetic perception of the form of culture and civilization in which the community actually articulates and appears itself and shows also that reading of migration as a statement about one nation has lost its explanatory power. The last part of my paper resumes my thoughts and takes position in the current fields of research in literary studies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 26-33
Author(s):  
Adibah Abdul Rahim ◽  
Nadzrah Ahmad

The study attempts to highlight feminists’ critics against traditional Christian theology on women. Traditional Cristian theology or known as Biblical or Christian patriarchy by the feminists has allegedly been studied and comprehended from a patriarchal perspective of male dominance hence misrepresentation of female scriptural image within the Bible. In this study, feminists’ critics on issue pertaining to women in the Bible were selected and analyzed its specifics before scrutinized further from Qur’anic point of view. The study finds that despite the feminists’ claim of image defamation of women in the Bible, the Qur’ān on the other hand represented its female subjects in the most acceptable non-discriminative manner. Women as depicted in the Qur’ān were purged of any offensive and denounced outcomes of their own existence and nature. Utilizing scriptural-textual analysis method, the study embarks on deriving points of comparison between the two scriptures highlighting agreements and discrepancies of both texts.


Neophilology ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 385-392
Author(s):  
Yuee Guan

We consider the problems of composing a literary text based on the material of texts by B.A. Uspenskiy. It is proved that as a compositional possibility in the formation of a work can be elicit one or many points of view from which the narration in the literary work is conducted on the concept of “polyphonic collegiality”, in the other words, it finds expression both “internal” (with respect to the work) and “external” points of view on how the point of view of collegiality in the text is understood and determined. Collegiality is one of the main characteristics of the Russian national spirit, which has a telling Impact not only on the creative thoughts of Russian writers, but also on the thinking of Russian theorists in the construction of literary theories. It is justified that the poetics of B.A. Uspenskiy's composition is a continuation and development of M.M. Bakhtin's theory, that M.M. Bakhtin's polyphony is only one of the components in the relation of various points of view in ideological terms. According to B.A. Uspenskiy, the composition of literary text is a multidimensional spatial “free and organic unity”, consisting of multifaceted points of view, possessing both their relative independence and interconnected among themselves.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-130
Author(s):  
Laila Shoukat ◽  
Sanah Waheed ◽  
Khushnood Arshad

This research study is an attempt to explore the literary text of "Sea Prayer" written by Khaled Hosseini with the perspective of trauma study that includes personal trauma model of Cathy Caruth and collective trauma model of Kia Erikson. The theoretical framework focuses on both i.e., Caruth (1996) personal trauma discussed in "Unclaimed Experience: trauma, narrative and history" and Erikson (1991) collective trauma discussed in "Notes on Trauma and Community". This research study examines the elements of personal trauma of the Narrator's character through flashbacks, timelessness and unspeakablity. On the other hand, the elements of collective trauma are also investigated that are breakage of communal bond, distrust in future, mood of fear and depression on the collective level. In addition, the method used is the qualitative analysis. Through aforementioned elements, the researcher has discussed the collective trauma of Syrian community as a whole. Keywords:  Trauma, Sea Prayer, textual analysis, Cathy Caruth.


Neophilology ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 502-509
Author(s):  
Olga A. Dronova

We consider genre typology of documentary novels of “Neue Sachlichkeit”: a “report” novel, a “novel of fact” and a documentary montage novel. The proposed classification is based on the different nature of the interaction of narrative and document in these types of novels. In the “report” novel the narration is conducted from the point of view of the observer, the literary text appears as a testimony, the document of an era. The “novel of fact” is based on real documents that are partially or fully integrated into the artistic whole. In the montage novel fragments of doc-umentary material and narrative are connected with each other associatively, resulting in a frag-mentary image of the world. We analyze the novels of 1920s – early 1930s by J. Roth, A. Doeblin, E. Ottwalt, E. Reger, R. Brunngraber and E. Koeppen. We substantiate the conception, that the problem of cognition acquires special importance in the documentary-fiction novels of “Neue Sachlichkeit”. On the one hand, the hero of the novels is trying to understand the changed social reality. On the other hand, documentary-fiction novels of “Neue Sachlichkeit” require special way of reading: they are designed to activate the reader's perception, to teach the reader to recreate a complete picture of reality based on the comparison of different ways of its image: narrative, evi-dence and documents.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 186-208
Author(s):  
Valentina Borisova ◽  

The article reflects on the results and prospects of studying the gospel text in the works of F. M. Dostoevsky at the present stage, identifies the main directions and methodological problems of their analysis and interpretation in the framework of ethnopoetics as a new scientific direction in literary studies of the late 20th — early 21th century. Its principles are rooted in historical poetics, which aimed to define the role and boundaries of the Christian tradition in Russian literature. As a result, the scientific discourse included new poetical categories of conciliarity (“sobornost”) and paschality, and the understanding of Christian realism as an artistic method was established. Its aesthetic principles were mastered by Russian literature in the 19th century. Revealed in the gospel, Christian realism appeared in Dostoevsky’s work as “realism in the highest sense.” The main result of studying Russian literature from the point of view of ethnopoetics is to identify the gospel text itself. It has not yet been singled out in the early 1990s, but today its key outlines are already well-described, above all — in the works of Dostoevsky. The regularities of the development of modern Russian studies of Dostoevsky in this regard can be traced using the example of the terminological thesaurus formed in the process of studying the gospel text in the works of the author of the Great Five Novels. There is a fundamentally significant combination of literary, philosophical, and theological categories. Nevertheless, the problem of distinguishing philological and religious-philosophical discourses in modern literary studies in general and in studies of Dostoevsky in particular remains relevant: on the one hand, a number of works remain inclined towards pure theology; on the other hand, scientists are paying increasingly greater attention to the analysis of the functions and ways of creative transformation of Christian tradition in Russian literature.


2021 ◽  
pp. 155-172
Author(s):  
Tamara P. Batalova ◽  
◽  
Galina V. Fedianova ◽  

The authors of the proposed article aimed to consider the discussion of Dostoevsky’s novel “Demons”, which unfolded in the 1920s — 1930s, in two aspects: from the point of view of its significance for the development of literary studies, and on the other hand, to determine its influence on the new Soviet ideology that was developing at that time. To clarify the first side of the General problem, we studied the works of leading literary critics of that time-V.V. Vinogradov, A.S. Dolinin, L.P. Grossman, V.L. Komarovich, B.M. Engelhardt, V.F. Pereverzev, P.N. Medvedev, and others. The influence of Dostoevsky’s novel “Demons” on the ideology of that time is evidenced by the works of N.A. Berdyaev, Yu.I. Aichenwald, S.S. Borschevsky, the materials of the journal “Vestnik Literatura”, the discussion about Dostoevsky, which gradually manifested itself at the First all-Union Congress of Soviet writers, resulting in the prohibition of a separate publication of the novel “Demons”. The research has shown that works about Dostoevsky of the 1920s — 1930s and, above all, about the novel “Demons”, such as the discussion of the first published Chapter “at Tikhon’s”, are of great importance in the development of dostoevistics. On the other hand, the discussion of the novel “Demons”, especially in the 1930s, became a discussion with a new ideology that contradicts the objective discussion of Dostoevsky’s work. Overcoming this situation has only been possible since the late 1980s.


2019 ◽  
pp. 26-33
Author(s):  
Adibah Abdul Rahim ◽  
Nadzrah Ahmad

The study attempts to highlight feminists’ critics against traditional Christian theology on women. Traditional Cristian theology or known as Biblical or Christian patriarchy by the feminists has allegedly been studied and comprehended from a patriarchal perspective of male dominance hence misrepresentation of female scriptural image within the Bible. In this study, feminists’ critics on issue pertaining to women in the Bible were selected and analyzed its specifics before scrutinized further from Qur’anic point of view. The study finds that despite the feminists’ claim of image defamation of women in the Bible, the Qur’ān on the other hand represented its female subjects in the most acceptable non-discriminative manner. Women as depicted in the Qur’ān were purged of any offensive and denounced outcomes of their own existence and nature. Utilizing scriptural-textual analysis method, the study embarks on deriving points of comparison between the two scriptures highlighting agreements and discrepancies of both texts.


2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 129-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reimer Kornmann

Summary: My comment is basically restricted to the situation in which less-able students find themselves and refers only to literature in German. From this point of view I am basically able to confirm Marsh's results. It must, however, be said that with less-able pupils the opposite effect can be found: Levels of self-esteem in these pupils are raised, at least temporarily, by separate instruction, academic performance however drops; combined instruction, on the other hand, leads to improved academic performance, while levels of self-esteem drop. Apparently, the positive self-image of less-able pupils who receive separate instruction does not bring about the potential enhancement of academic performance one might expect from high-ability pupils receiving separate instruction. To resolve the dilemma, it is proposed that individual progress in learning be accentuated, and that comparisons with others be dispensed with. This fosters a self-image that can in equal measure be realistic and optimistic.


Author(s):  
I. R. Khuzina ◽  
V. N. Komarov

The paper considers a point of view, based on the conception of the broad understanding of taxons. According to this point of view, rhyncholites of the subgenus Dentatobeccus and Microbeccus are accepted to be synonymous with the genus Rhynchoteuthis, and subgenus Romanovichella is considered to be synonymous with the genus Palaeoteuthis. The criteria, exercising influence on the different approaches to the classification of rhyncholites, have been analyzed (such as age and individual variability, sexual dimorphism, pathological and teratological features, degree of disintegration of material), underestimation of which can lead to inaccuracy. Divestment of the subgenuses Dentatobeccus, Microbeccus and Romanovichella, possessing very bright morphological characteristics, to have an independent status and denomination to their synonyms, has been noted to be unjustified. An artificial system (any suggested variant) with all its minuses is a single probable system for rhyncholites. The main criteria, minimizing its negative sides and proving the separation of the new taxon, is an available mass-scale material. The narrow understanding of the genus, used in sensible limits, has been underlined to simplify the problem of the passing the view about the genus to the other investigators and recognition of rhyncholites for the practical tasks.


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