Towards a Transhistorical Understanding of the Value of Literary Study

We consider the ideas of the largest Russian literature studies scholars of the pre-revolutionary period in Russia, who laid the foundations of literature studies comparativistics. We establish that the modern idea about comparative literature studies is largely determined by the ideas of Russian scientists A.N. Veselovsky and V.M. Zhirmunsky. They developed individual literature studies aspects on the material of various literary facts and phenomena. We prove that on the basis of Russian scientists’ ideas, comparative literature studies were formed within the framework of the cultural and historical school that prevailed at that time, that new methodological principles and approaches are being developed on their basis, which researchers can apply for productive comparative researches in the Post-Soviet territory. We pay attention to the fact that in literature studies comparativistics nowadays emerged its own approaches: a comparative historical approach, in which genetic and contact relationships are studied; comparative typological (matching) approach, which explores thematic, figurative, genre, stylistic similarities and differences: an intertextual approach which incorporates “one text” into “another text”; the approach of inter-literary interactions when studying the translation of the written work. We substantiate that in the aspect of these approaches it is possible to better understand the national identity of national literature.

Slavonic and East European Review, 96, 3, 2018 Reviews Puleri, Marco. Narrazioni ibride post-sovietiche: Per una letteratura ucraina di lingua russa. Premio ricerca ‘Città di Firenze’, 53. Firenze University Press, Firenze, 2016. 257 pp. Bibliography. Index. €12.90 (paperback). The language question has been central to Ukrainian politics and their perception abroad for several years, at least from the 2012 highly contested ‘On the Principles of the State Language Policy’ law, which aimed at granting Russian and other minority languages the official status of ‘regional languages’. Discussions on the place of Russian, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian and other languages spoken in Ukraine in the context of the strengthening and normalization of Ukrainian after centuries of limitations and several waves of Russification are a constant in the political landscape of contemporary Ukraine, including the debate around the latest education reform, harshly criticized by Ukraine’s neighbours in both the east and west of the country. Marco Puleri’s Italian-language monograph represents an important reminder of how clashes on issues of language policy may tend to obliterate intricate and fascinating multi-language configurations at the level of cultural production and reception. Puleri’s book can be seen as both an important contribution towards a flexible re-evaluation of the cultural sphere of the postSovietspace ,onethatdoesnotfallintothetrapofapplyingrigidbinaryschemes to complex situations, and a compelling study of present-day Ukrainian literature and culture. The object of Puleri’s work is contemporary Russianlanguage Ukrainian literature, including both prose and poetry, although with a clear focus on the former. The author does not intend to provide his readers with a systematic inventory of the several Ukrainian authors who use or have used the Russian language as a medium for artistic expression in today’s Ukraine or of their works, but to present a set of methodological tools to analyse and understand the nature and functioning of a ‘minor literature’ in a hybrid cultural context. Puleri openly recognizes his embracing of Deleuze and Guattari’s paradigm, which he successfully applies to contemporary Ukraine. His book is thus to be seen as both a crucial instrument for a more thorough understanding of contemporary Ukrainian literature and as a model for the study of multilingual literary environments. The first chapter of Puleri’s volume, titled ‘Shifting Identities: Identity Dynamics in the Post-Soviet Context’, is dedicated to a discussion and reevaluation of such widespread yet ambivalent and controversial concepts as ‘post-colonial’ and ‘post-Communist’ in the Ukrainian context. The author, drawing on the work of several scholars from both the anglophone and the post-Soviet world, analyses the Ukrainian tendency to give a binary reading of its much more variegated cultural landscape as a consequence of the historical SEER, 96, 3, JULY 2018 542 traumas of Ukraine, pleading for the acceptance of fluid frontiers over rigid borders (see A. J. Rieber, ‘Changing Concepts and Constructions of Frontiers: A Comparative Historical Approach’, Ab Imperio, 1, 2003, pp. 23–46) in the characterization of cultural negotiations in contemporary Ukraine. The second chapter, ‘Literature, Language and Identity: Moving Frontiers’, pursues the author’s reflection on the applicability of mobile frontiers to the nexus of literature, language and identity in post-Soviet Ukraine through a historical excursus from imperial times to the present day. Puleri analyses Gogol´’s reception in the context of the epistemological choice between exclusive and inclusiveculturalidentitiesandmakeshiswaytothecontemporaryagethrough theexperienceoftheSovietperiodfromthepointofviewofUkrainiancomplex linguistic and political landscape. The third chapter, titled ‘Textual Mappings: Heterogeneity and Polyphony in Post-Soviet Ukrainian Literature’, offers a comprehensive survey of contemporary Ukrainian literature, with special attention to Yuri Andrukhovych and Serhii Zhadan, probably the two most influential authors of post-Soviet (Ukrainian-language) Ukrainian literature. The fourth chapter, ‘Ukraiins’kyi/Rosiis’komovnyi/Rosiis’kyi. Defining New Interpretational Windows’, provides the reader with various insights on the complexity of cultural positioning in contemporary Ukrainian culture that are meant to help them understand the relationship between language, tradition and cultural belonging. This is obtained through a challenging reconstruction of the most widespread attitudes concerning the role of language for the definition of the boundaries of national culture among foremost writers and critics in contemporary Ukraine. The last part of the chapter is dedicated to a fascinating discussion of the role of...

This article discusses the closed door policy of korean culture and its transition to an open door policy, as well as the impact of various reforms on culture. Highlighted the role of the state in the emergence and expansion of cultural policy. In the course of the work, a comparative historical method of analyzing cultural policy was used. It was found that the neoliberal approach of the government led to the creation of a cultural policy that has a powerful impact on the economy. The main purpose of the article is to substantiate the peculiarities of the development of cultural policy on the example of South Korea. The research methods in the work were the study of literature in the field under study and the analysis of materials on cultural policy, as well as the development of cultural and creative industries in South Korea. This article substantiates the role of the government in cultural policy, and the role of cultural policy for the state as an economic factor. Discussed the internal logic of the development of cultural policy and the South Korean way of development after Japanese colonialism. The article asserts the importance of state intervention in cultural policy, which has created an effective guarantee system. Despite significant works on the cultural policy of South Korea, there are few works in a comparative historical approach in Kazakhstan. Therefore, the theoretical and practical significance of the article is that the work can be useful for representatives of the scientific community who are interested in the cultural policy of South Korea.

Technology has revolutionized learning through the integration of data and communication technology, yet persistent research gaps remain in understanding its impact. While numerous studies exist, variations in methodology challenge the assessment of technology's effectiveness across educational contexts. Beyond student performance, technology influences teacher practices, curriculum design, and institutional policies, though research often focuses on isolated aspects, neglecting the holistic impact. The digital divide further exacerbates socioeconomic disparities in access to technology, necessitating research on equitable access strategies. Gaps persist in understanding teacher readiness and ongoing professional development in technology integration. Longitudinal research is crucial for uncovering technology's lasting impact on student learning and evolving teaching practices. Investigating pedagogical shifts facilitated by technology, such as flipped classrooms and personalized instruction, is essential for understanding its transformative potential. This study critically examines technology's role in improving learning outcomes and teaching methodologies, emphasizing both benefits and challenges. Through a comprehensive review of literature and empirical studies, it aims to provide insights into effective technology integration for optimizing the teaching and learning experience.

The Function and Value of Literature and Literary Studies Reconsidered Andrew J. Taggart (bio) Garber, Marjorie . 2003. A Manifesto for Literary Studies. Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities Short Studies. Seattle: University of Washington Press. $14.95 sc. 69 pp. Farrell, Frank . 2004. Why Does Literature Matter?Ithaca: Cornell University Press. $39.95 hc. 261 pp. In 1949, René Wellek and Austin Warren divided literary studies into three branches: literary criticism which determines the meaning of individual works and makes evaluative judgments regarding their worth, literary theory which studies the principles of literature qua literature, and literary history which views literature from a diachronic perspective (1956, 38-45). But by 1988, Barbara Herrnstein Smith could auspiciously write of literary criticism that the "entire problematic of value and evaluation has been evaded and explicitly exiled by the literary academy"; [End Page 204] indeed, it has "not been subject to serious inquiry for the past fifty years." (1988, 17). Since the New Critics, research into literary meaning intensified whereas the business of axiology went under (17) and has only recently taken up shop in Anglo-American philosophy of art. It was not long, though, before specific axiological questions were posed—often carpingly—during the fervent culture wars of the early 1990s where, as debates-cum-caricatures go, literature was the expression of beauty or the manifestation of ideology, intrinsically rewarding or extrinsically interested, the medium through which cultural and national tradition is transmitted or patently subversive of traditional authority. In a word, either welcome literature and civilization or descend into the bowels of theory and barbarism. However farcical the debates sometimes were, they nonetheless reminded us that the institution of literary studies must be thought in conjunction with the study of literature and within the broader context of higher education. But while discussions of the canon were largely about which works of literature mattered (Macbeth or Beloved?), which did not (comic books and Westerns), and what to do about this (make the canon more inclusive, circle the wagons, critique and destroy), the status of the literary aesthetic itself has yet to be systematically addressed by literary criticism as a whole. Michael Bérubé has called the current predicament in literary studies a "crisis of reproduction" (1988, 6) which is tied, to be sure, to the wane of the "cultural legitimacy of literature" (Lamarque and Olsen 2004, 197). At a time when professional positions in literary studies are scarce while those in composition studies and creative writing are (relatively) abundant (Perloff 2006, 3-4), when literature professors continue to describe themselves mainly as researchers and editors and not as teachers, committee members, advisors, and mentors (Williams 2002, 1-18), when the number of students majoring in English since 1990 is down one percent (Menand 2005, 11), when it takes an average of 8.9 years to complete a Ph.D. in English (12), when some professionals still worry that courses on subversive pornography and Empire are replacing those on Wordsworth's poetics and Joyce's artistic development, and when cultural conservatives in the public sphere continue to question the merit of literary studies while some scientists doubt its counterintuitive arguments, a manifesto for literary studies written on behalf of literary critics goes beyond mere fashion or fad; it is entirely prescient. For, as Bérubé gravely declares, "Institutionalized literary study, as an academic subject and as a profession, simply will not exist very much longer if it does not demarcate, for its potential clients, its domain and procedures, however loosely these might be defined" (1998, 159). I take it that Marjorie Garber's AManifestoforLiteraryStudies (2003) attempts to do just this—carve out the object domain and delineate the procedures of institutionalized literary studies in order to [End Page 205] defend its intrinsic and extrinsic value and to thereby justify its existence. At this historical juncture, should the discipline be unable to legitimize itself as a rigorous and worthwhile pursuit, it faces not just becoming extinct but bequeathing literature to those more capable of appreciating the latter's aesthetic value—which is where Anglo-American philosopher Frank Farrell's WhyDoesLiteratureMatter? (2004) comes in. In her "Introduction: Asking Literary Questions," Garber charts the rise...

ABSTRACTThis paper is based on the authors’ ongoing research on LGBTIQ parenting in Croatia. The elementary research question of this study is the examination of the transformative potential of LGBTIQ parents’ visibility and engagement in school. Using a case study research design, a semi-structured interview with two gay parents was used to gain insight in their understanding of different complexities of non-hegemonic parenting practices, with an emphasis on educational issues. The interviewed parents demonstrated that LGBTIQ families have a transformative potential even if they apply a semi-private strategy of disclosure in a heteronormative social context, while the transition towards a ‘’proud’ strategy necessarily demands support from different social partners, the academy having strong potential to be one of them.

Literary studies was established as an academic discipline within humanities divisions. This chapter asks what insights and intellectual dispositions it missed by being placed at institutional remove from the social sciences, also coalescing intellectually during the same period. Literary studies’ humanities base predisposed it to valorize specific texts over their common print medium; to focus on aesthetic evaluation rather than the economics of book production, distribution, and consumption; and to construct retrospective canons of emblematic texts rather than attending to contemporary literary developments. Granted, literary sociology has long existed as a marginal activity within English departments, imported from French social history, spurred by Marxist literary theory, and, in particular, prompted by book history’s reconceptualization of bibliography as ‘the sociology of texts’. Yet there are still other models for blending humanities and social science approaches, specifically the disciplines of media, communication, and cultural studies, though literary studies has had surprisingly fitful and uneven exchange with them. The present era of digital humanities, in which traditionally humanistic disciplines are reconsidering their relationship to print culture and to each other, presents an optimal time to reassess how institutionalization formed the mental horizon of academic English. Equally, the time is ripe to explore how the alternative intellectual schema of literary media studies can rejuvenate a discipline facing fundamentally altered circumstances. The chapter’s second half illustrates how combining traditional literary-studies close-reading and sociology’s attention to technological, economic, and legal structures illuminates a particular born-digital institution: Literary Hub—the world’s most popular English-language literary website.

Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik. Das Projekt »LiLi« aus heutiger linguistischer Sicht

The article examines the features of Byronism in Raskolnikov's - one of Dostoevsky's characters. Based on the analysis of the works of Byron and his characters, an attempt is made to generalize the main features of this type of characteristic of the Byronic hero. Through comparison with the "Byronic heroes" and their inner world, Raskolnikov's character is analyzed more concretely and accurately. At the same time, the images of heroes of different historical periods, different nationalities and different literary trends are compared, similarities and differences between them are analyzed. Based on the comparison, an attempt is made to identify and generalize the Byronic features present in Raskolnikov's character. The comparative-historical approach, methods of generalization, interpretation of the results were used in the study. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that in the course of the work, the features of Raskolnikov's image were revealed in the aspect of such a literary trend as romanticism. The author also analyzes the reception of Byronic heroes in Russian literature. The main conclusion of the study is that Raskolnikov, although he appears in Dostoevsky's work as a realistic character, may well be considered as the successor of the Byronic hero. The results of the research contribute to the study of Raskolnikov's image in all its complexity. In addition, the conclusions of the article can also be used in the study of Dostoevsky's literary and philosophical position as a whole.

Place-name changes in Bantul Regency, Indonesia, often driven by modernization, administrative interests, or infrastructure development, threaten the preservation of local culture by erasing the historical and cultural values embedded in the original names. This anthropological study aims to analyze the impact of place-name changes on cultural preservation and provide recommendations for protecting traditional names as part of cultural heritage. This study employs a qualitative approach that utilizes primary data from in-depth interviews with community leaders, cultural experts, and local historians, as well as secondary data from literature studies, historical archives, government documents, and local cultural records. Linguistic and anthropological analyses were conducted to identify the meaning and structure of place names before and after the changes and to understand the cultural and historical values they contain. This study reveals that place-name changes in Bantul, such as the merging of villages such as Gandekan, Teruman, and Bedjen into Bantul or the renaming of Ringinharjo to Bantulkarang, can lead to a loss of cultural and historical meaning, erode local identity, and disconnect communities from their heritage. The impact of these changes is complex and interrelated, with both positive and negative consequences for social, administrative, and bureaucratic aspects. This study emphasizes the importance of involving all stakeholders in the process of changing place names to maximize positive impacts and minimize negative ones. This highlights the need to preserve traditional place names as part of cultural heritage through documentation, promotion, and protection efforts by the government and community.

This research was aimed at describing the historical, cultural, and economic value of blacksmith activities. The research method used was a literature study (library research). Data collection techniques were carried out through collecting research results that had been carried out and published in reputable indexed journals, Google Scholar, etc. The research results showed that blacksmithing had historical value whose development varied in each region of the world. In Asia, especially Indonesia, the historical development of blacksmithing was estimated to have existed since the 7th century AD. This was based on findings on temple wall reliefs, inscriptions, and ancient manuscripts found as relics from the royal era. Meanwhile, the historical development of blacksmiths in Europe, Africa, and other Asian regions was quite diverse, having developed from 1150-1400 BC. The blacksmiths of Dokdak Village also had cultural values ​​that were very important to be passed on. This was based on data which showed that in blacksmithing activities there were cultural elements, namely the knowledge system, livelihood system, and equipment and technology systems used. Furthermore, Dokdak Village's blacksmith activities had economic value, because the carried-out activities could produce production goods that have economic value. Based on this, it is important to protect and maintain the livelihood of blacksmiths to pass on values ​​to the younger generation.

By exploring certain perspectives, it is hoped that teachers can be helped to create inclusive educational contexts by transforming the learning environment into a third educator. Based on the Reggio Emilia approach, we hope to reveal the ways and means by which the spaces of the educational institution can be interpreted, prepared and in some cases created, in order to encourage children to explore and express themselves. This study presents the concept of context as a modern educational space and draws attention to several essential aspects for the creation of educational contexts: educational provocations and invitations; the use of materials and tools to create them; the learning documentation and learning visibility; and the nature of the adult-child dialogue. A qualitative research model was applied that produces information in the form of descriptive data records by providing clear and systematic descriptions. The data collection techniques used were literature studies and narrative interviews with pre-school teachers. Twelve pre-school teachers participated in the study and criteria-based selection was applied, with thematic analysis being used to analyze the data (Soderberg, 2006). The experiences of pre-school teachers in creating contexts are summarized by distinguishing the following aspects of the thematic analysis of contextual development experiences: the change in the role of the teacher, the nature of the child’s activities and the process and principles of creating contexts. The results indicated that the context helps to engage the child and establish an authentic “dialogue” between the child and the materials and tools used, which is then developed with the adult. Educational contexts help develop the creation of an educational environment and allows teachers to create unique learning situations in any scenario.

Talking Drama, Teaching Writing

Spatial Literary Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Space, Geography, and the Imagination

Translanguaging theory posits that bi/multilingual students have unitary, dynamic repertoires of communicative features and seeks to subvert monolingual norms and language standardization that perpetuate the marginalization of bi/multilingual learners. Yet, some argue that translanguaging research in education fails to live up to its transformative claims. Motivated by these ongoing debates, we conducted a systematic literature review of translanguaging research in US education spaces to explore if, how, and for whom translanguaging is transformative. Based on this analysis, we propose that the transformativeness of translanguaging in educational contexts exists along a spectrum: from recognition and inclusion (e.g., affirming students’ bi/multilingualism) to deconstruction and innovation (e.g., validating language “mixing” as legitimate bi/multilingual practice) to, finally, social critique and action (e.g., engaging in explicit justice‐oriented critique and action to challenge inequitable conditions). We contend that all of these categories denote transformation or transformative potential, albeit to varying scales and degrees. At the same time, given the relatively limited number of articles coded social critique and action, we call for more translanguaging‐in‐education research that embraces this more explicitly justice‐oriented praxis.