Anniversary Of Death Research Articles

El purgatorio de un dictador: Crisis, memoria y narrativas iconoclastas

ABSTRACTIn the autumn of 2005, the museum of Vilafranca del Penedès (Catalonia, Spain) programmed a cycle of cultural events in order to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of Francisco Franco's death. Among them, the performative one-piece exhibition Listen, Franco! The Purgatory for a Dictator showed a bronze sculpted bust of the dictator (belonging to the museum collection) and invited citizens to freely participate and “tell to him” all they would have liked to say if they had had the opportunity to. The unusual shape of the event and the high level of participation made the exhibition become a media success. However, a last-day surprising performance experience—as a result of which the bust was “vandalized” or, should I better say, “re-signified”—became a source of reflection about the boundaries between preservation and transmission of cultural heritage, as well as about museums as places for collective elaboration of public memory. This case appears as a catalyzer of a cultural crisis that exploded after 2008, and a prefiguration a new exhibition around another sculpture of the dictator, which took place in Barcelona in 2016.

50 Years Later: Commemorating the Life and Death of Malcolm X

ABSTRACTThis essay considers the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X's assassination to understand how Malcolm's public advocacy continues to resonate in a contemporary political context that continues to be punctuated by police violence against Black citizens, generally, and Black men, in particular. Using news accounts commemorating the anniversary of Malcolm's death, as well as stories invoking him or avoiding his invocation in #BlackLivesMatter coverage, this essay charts the political significance of invocations of Malcolm as rhetorical frames for understanding the man and his times as well as us in our milieu to understand how Malcolm's contribution to the #BlackLivesMatter has been minimized by their reformist agenda.

Martyrs Never Die: Virtual Immortality of Turkish Soldiers.

The new technologies have changed the rituals related to death: Creation of memorial webpages and of virtual tombs, celebration of death anniversaries are now common currency on the Internet. In spite of their disappearance among the living, the deceased continue to exist on the Web. They still receive messages from their relatives but also from strangers and are at the heart of discussions, prolonging their presence. New technologies have led to a new concept of time and of "where life ends." Through the analysis of Facebook's accounts devoted to Turkish martyrs, this article aimed to describe the new funeral rituals seen on the Internet.

Jan Hus Between Time and Eternity: Reconsidering a Medieval Heretic by Thomas A. Fudge

Reviewed by: Jan Hus Between Time and Eternity: Reconsidering a Medieval Heretic by Thomas A. Fudge Carole M. Cusack Fudge, Thomas A., Jan Hus Between Time and Eternity: Reconsidering a Medieval Heretic, Lanham, Lexington Books, 2016; cloth; pp. xii, 277; R.R.P. US $99.00, £65.00; ISBN 9781498527507. Thomas A. Fudge's collection of essays on Jan Hus is neither a biographical nor a conventional historical study. Rather, Fudge seeks to address issues in Hus's life and martyrdom, and in the reception of Hus that are generally not considered. Part I, 'Priest and Reformer in Prague', contains chapters on possible influence on women's spirituality in Bohemia, Hus's sex life (he had no active sex life but did write on sex, for example, accusing Czech priests of living immoral lives, and in a commentary on the Ten Commandments), and apocalyptic dimensions of his thought. Fudge cleverly mines textual evidence (Hus's own writings, those of his predecessors, like John Wycliffe, and contemporaries) to illuminate his subject. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were tumultuous with regard to religious dissent and eschatological expectations, and Hus was no exception; he expected the end of times, and martyrdom made him an inspiration to 'those left to struggle in "the night of Antichrist" in the shadow of eternity' (p. 70). The second part, 'Martyr at Constance', contains four investigations by Fudge. Chapter 4, 'Hus on Trial', considers the ways that different parties at Hus' trial regarded him. His accusers ranged from 'detached' Jan Železný to Štěpán Páleč, who was a friend of Hus but deemed him as 'proud, arrogant, truculent, and unable to absorb any critique without recourse to defamatory threats' (p. 85). This study makes clear that there were nuances between Hus's opponents, and that some were genuinely enemies where others were not. The next chapter takes up the theme of heresy that dominated the trial at Constance, situating Jan Hus in the late medieval context of heresy hunting. The chapter 'Friendship and Faith: The Prisoner and the Knight', which addresses the relationship between Hus and Lord Jan Chlum, is one of the most intriguing and moving in the book. A sizeable correspondence between Hus and Chlum survives (an 'Appendix' deals with it), and Chlum challenged Pope John XXIII on Hus's behalf after he was arrested (a guarantee of safe conduct had been given by the pontiff). The final chapter in this part, '"The Other Sheep": Reflections on Heresy by a Suspected Heretic', analyses Hus's [End Page 198] writings on simony and other divergent theological views, and probes the idea that he believed that separating 'the wheat and the tares' was too dangerous, too difficult, and that there were 'other sheep' (p. 153). Part III, 'Legacy to the World', is comprised of three chapters that consider the afterlife of Hus. The first argues that he was not a significant presence (as inspiration or rallying point) of the later Hussite Crusade, and questions whether that might be in part because he was radically opposed to violence and killing. The second considers Hus in the light of heretical predecessors and subsequent Reformation heroes like Martin Luther. The six-hundredth anniversary of Hus's death at Constance in 1414 was the occasion that sparked many of Fudge's essays, and a half-millennium has passed since Luther's 'Ninety-five Theses or Disputations on the Power of Indulgences' were nailed to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, the start of the Reformation, which changed Christianity irrevocably. Chapter 10, 'The Seven Last Words of Jan Hus', situates the words Hus uttered as he left the prison and walked to the stake, and leaves readers in no doubt of the great faith Hus possessed, and his absolute trust in God. Fudge's final chapter, 'Politicizing the Legend of Jan Hus: Problems and Perspectives', is a historiographical study that reveals fault-lines and fissures in Hus scholarship that persist to the present day. This is a lively and readable study, filled with surprises (unusual subjects of research, original methods to get close to Hus's ideas and context, and new conclusions). It will be of interest to scholars of late medieval...

Sulzerism, Sulzermania, and the Shaping of the American Cantorate

Sulzerism, Sulzermania, and the Shaping of the American Cantorate Jonathan L. Friedmann (bio) "The name of Salomon Sulzer has, to modern cantors, an almost mythical sound."1 When musicologist Eric Werner wrote these words for the 1954 reissue of Viennese cantor-composer Salomon Sulzer's Schir Zion,2 the name, much more than the music, was a source of reverence for American cantors. New York's Hebrew Union College (HUC) School of Sacred Music, which Werner helped spearhead into existence, was just six years old.3 It was the first American academy to train professional cantors, and the idea of cantors leading Reform services—as opposed to a choir director or soloist—was still new in many parts of the country. Werner saw Sulzer (1804–1890) as the cantorial ideal, equally adept at vocal performance, Hebraic texts, and Western art music. For the first time in the history of European synagogue song, Sulzer transformed entire services from a functional oral tradition to a decorum-conscious art form.4 His voice was celebrated beyond the Jewish community. His dignified persona was widely praised. Yet, as Werner asks parenthetically in the same preface, "Is his mythical stature perhaps a mere reverential oblivion? It might seem so."5 The reprinting of Sulzer's music in 1954 coincided with the cantor's 150th birthday. It was a hopeful tribute. The material had for decades been inaccessible to American synagogues. Existing editions were enormously expensive, and Jews of Eastern European background stereotyped Sulzer's music as "not Jewish enough," while Classical Reform congregations [End Page 287] found it "too Jewish." In another essay that year, Werner drove home his point: "Most cantors profess to revere his great work and are eager to pay lip-service to him."6 This was not a new phenomenon. In the introduction to an 1885 hymnbook for Cincinnati's Mound Street Temple, published during Sulzer's lifetime, compiler M. Goldstein laments that the music of the "unrivalled master" had been "thrown aside."7 Superficial tributes to Sulzer had a long history. The Society of American Cantors gathered in 1904 to discuss short-lived plans for a New York-based school for cantorial training. The meeting began with an exhortation: "Brethren, if you have your cause and the cause of Judaism at heart, you cannot more befittingly commemorate this centennial birthday of the great master than by establishing a school for cantors where young men of musical ability shall be trained in every branch that is requisite for a modern cantor."8 The Jewish Ministers Cantors Association of America marked the fiftieth anniversary of Sulzer's death (1940) with a commemorative concert in New York.9 The cover of a 1989 issue of the Reform Jewish magazine Keeping Posted features a portrait of Sulzer, but devotes just one dry paragraph to him. As late as 1994—forty years after Werner's tribute and one hundred and ninety years after Sulzer's birth—Cantor William Sharlin noted the "considerable irony" that only a few congregational tunes snatched from Sulzer's choral works remain in synagogue practice, while the grand works that made him "the father of the modern cantorate" are almost never heard.10 Sulzer's legendary status can be viewed as a carry-over from nineteenth-century "Sulzermania," when cantors from Central Europe and, later, Eastern Europe trekked to Vienna to study with Sulzer, and notable musicians and critics heard his services at the Stadttempel synagogue. International luminaries penned flattering accounts of his artistry, including [End Page 288] English travelogue writer Frances Milton Trollope,11 Austrian composer and pianist Franz Liszt,12 and American Sephardic lawyer and diplomat Benjamin Franklin Peixotto.13 Hagiographic depictions of Sulzer's prowess and piety spread in Jewish circles, as did exaggerated accounts of his friendship with Franz Schubert and other leading musicians.14 He was purportedly honored with the Russian Golden Medal; the Grand Duke of Baden Golden Medal; knighthood in the Order of Franz Joseph; and Morenu diplomas from the Jewish communities of Lviv, Szegedin, and Vienna, among other awards.15 Jews and non-Jews attended his ceremonious burial in 1890, and newspapers around the world printed laudatory obituaries and appreciations. The exuberance surrounding...

Prague as the site of Defenestration: On the Twentieth Anniversary of Bohumil Hrabel's Death

Prague as the site of Defenestration: On the Twentieth Anniversary of Bohumil Hrabel's Death

John McGahern and the Imagination of Tradition by Stanley van der Ziel

Reviewed by: John McGahern and the Imagination of Tradition by Stanley van der Ziel Robert Finnigan John McGahern and the Imagination of Tradition, by Stanley van der Ziel, pp. 320. Cork: Cork University Press, 2015. Distributed by Longleaf Services Chapel Hill, NC, $45.00. Rising to prominence in the 1960s with the publication of The Barracks (1963) and The Dark (1965), John McGahern has, Stanley van der Ziel writes, traditionally been regarded as a chronicler of "the lives of farmers, teachers, schoolboys and policeman in the Irish midlands in the twentieth century." McGahern is also, he notes, an author able to depict "a recognisable culture at a specific moment in history" and one whose "identity as a writer is inseparable from that of the reader." There is already a considerable body of McGahern criticism—Eamon Maher's John McGahern: From the Local to the Universal (2003), Dermot McCarthy's John McGahern and the Art of Memory (2010), and Richard Robinson's John McGahern and Modernism (2016), for example—all of which provide close readings of McGahern's novels and expose his dialectical construction of relationships between tradition and modernity. Van der Ziel's study—released in time to mark the tenth anniversary of McGahern's death—is likewise an authoritative and comprehensive reading of several of McGahern's short stories and novels. This is an illuminating monograph that offers a substantial and thought-provoking assessment of his literary imagination. Like Frank Shovlin's Touchstones: [End Page 150] John McGahern's Classical Style (2016), this study owes much of its originality to the fact that it moves beyond the tendency to foreground the extent to which McGahern's fiction draws its inspiration from real-life events and settings. Invoking the sentiment found of McGahern's comment, "I don't think you can be a writer without being a reader first," van der Ziel outlines the aim of his study, that of reading McGahern "as a self-aware novelist of ideas." Expanding upon this assertion, he discusses McGahern's reading of Sons and Lovers: "In his assimilation of Lawrence we can clearly see at work a process which operates more generally throughout McGahern"s fiction … the basic outlines of biographical events are fused with apposite, illuminating literary allusions which are just as deeply grafted in the writers consciousness." Van der Ziel clarifies, however, that, that the purpose of his book is not simply to identify quotes from and allusions to classic books and authors. Instead, it will isolate some of the major ideas McGahern took from his most eminent predecessors, and demonstrate his fictional oeuvre can be read as a sustained critical commentary on the various literary traditions within which it operates. Van der Ziel adopts a chronological approach and presents a series of case studies that begin with Shakespeare and conclude with Beckett. Each chapter examines the main ideas McGahern borrowed and adopted from "the Irish, English and European authors whom he most admired." Of the seven chapters included, "The Limits of Realism," which offers a reading of McGahern's engagement with the legacy of William Wordsworth and the Romantic tradition is especially noteworthy. So, too, is "A Modernist Mindset II: After Yeats and Joyce," an analysis of the "scrupulous meanness" of Joyce's style, Yeats's use of placenames as a way of giving the local a universal resonance and his consideration of McGahern"s appreciation of wider aspects of Irish Modernism is a particular highlight. In a remarkable chapter, "An Augustan Sensibility," van der Ziel focuses on Enlightenment principles of moral thought as conceived by Hume and Burke, and demonstrates how McGahern draws on "a veritable intertextual web" of influences including Goldsmith's "The Deserted Village" and Jane Austen's novels in his portrayal of rural communities. According to van der Ziel, McGahern was particularly attracted to the emphasis Austen's novels place on the importance of localized culture, her portrayal of social manners, and her characters' behavior. For McGahern, "books like Austen's novels … might provide the modern writer with a conception of good manners even while living in the midst of a society urgently in need of some." Van der Ziel compares Austen' s descriptions with that...

"Kommt, um die Liebe zu lieben. "Maria Magdalena von Pazzi eds. by Michael Plattig and Edeltraud Klueting

Reviewed by: "Kommt, um die Liebe zu lieben. "Maria Magdalena von Pazzi eds. by Michael Plattig and Edeltraud Klueting Elisabeth Fischer "Kommt, um die Liebe zu lieben. "Maria Magdalena von Pazzi. Edited by Michael Plattig and Edeltraud Klueting. [Karmel Paperbacks, 1. Vol. Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2016. Pp. 128, €14,80. paperback ISBN 978-3-402-12100-9. This first collected edition of the Karmel Paperbacks was published by the Research Institute of the Carmelite Province of Germany, founded in 2016 in Mainz. In addition to the well-known and well-researched mystical experiences of the saint and mystic Maria Magdalena de' Pazzi (1566–1607), this short study explores the mysticism of the saint through the biographical dimension of this mysticism and de' Pazzi's spiritual development (p. 78). Although addressing an academic audience, due to its brevity the study is merely an introduction to the life and mystical experience of the saint. Offering references to present-day concerns, the well-written volume manages to inspire its reader intellectually as well as spiritually. In his first article (pp. 10–47) Plattig examines the life of saints in the social situation of Maria's Florentine home during the Renaissance and also considers changed concepts of piety and mysticism between the medieval period and sixteenth-century ideas of spirituality (p. 13). In his second contribution, Plattig analyzes de'Pazzi's mysticism (pp. 48–78) (see "Mystagogue," p. 74), underlining love as a key element of her spiritual development and characterizing her mysticism as daily practice. In his article Bruno Secondin investigates1 (pp. 79–105) the question of the current relevance of de' Pazzi. In comparison, he highlights the unifying moment of the believer's desire for reforms in the Catholic Church of the twenty-first and sixteenth century. Moreover, he stresses the neglected role of the Holy Spirit for de' Pazzi's mysticism. The edition concludes with a reprint of Pope Benedict XVI's letter on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of de' Pazzi's death in 2007 (pp. 106–11), and excerpts of de Pazzi's writings Quaranta Giorni and the Revelatione e Intelligentie (pp. 112–25). The study is a recommendable introduction to the life, spirituality, and mysticism of de Pazzi. [End Page 809] Elisabeth Fischer University of Hamburg Footnotes 1. Bruno Secondin, "Rinnovarela Chiesa. Con cuore amante e parole audaci. L'attualità di Maria Maddalena de'Pazzi," Carmelus, 63 (2016). Copyright © 2017 The Catholic University of America Press

Международная регионалистика А.В. Чаянова (к 80-летию гибели ученого)

Международная регионалистика А.В. Чаянова (к 80-летию гибели ученого)

Золотой век и «Железная гвардия»: к 30-й годовщине смерти Мирчи Элиаде

Золотой век и «Железная гвардия»: к 30-й годовщине смерти Мирчи Элиаде

Shakespeare, Easter 1916, and the Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain

AbstractIt is a commonplace to speak of the dramatic qualities of the Easter Rising; the staging of rebellions inevitably attracts theatrical comparisons. In the case of 1916, the dramatic aspect has arguably been overplayed. Either the focus is on amateur dramatics and improvization, with the Rising itself as a piece of theatre, which plays down the history and politics as well as the rich theatrical traditions behind the Rising, or the emphasis is on a drama of martyrdom and grand gesture, a political passion‐play with Padraig Pearse at its centre, which erases many of the conflict's complexities. That 1916 also coincided with the three‐hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's death – events in Dublin interrupted planned celebrations there by the English playwright's Irish admirers – prompts us to reflect on an approach to history as drama – and drama as history – that does not see theatre merely in terms of spectacle or violence, a theatricality that goes beyond caricature, character assassination, pantomime, or the politics of a Punch and Judy show. This article suggests that a reading of 1916 in the context of the ongoing critical debate around Shakespeare's dramatic depictions of the Irish has more to teach us than invocations of theatricality of a more limited kind.

A Message from the New Arthur Miller Society President

Fall 2016The centennial of Arthur Miller's birth brought well-deserved attention to his literary legacy. Special events were presented by his alma mater, the University of Michigan, and the Arthur Miller Foundation staged a celebrity-filled fund-raiser on Broadway in support of arts education in the New York City public schools, which Miller himself had attended in his youth. On behalf of the Arthur Miller Society, Steve Marino organized a varied, insightful, and thoroughly engaging centennial celebration at St. Francis College in Miller's old neighborhood in Brooklyn. Inspired revivals of A View from the Bridge, The Crucible, and Incident at Vichy were produced in New York and were accompanied by many excellent productions of Miller plays in regional theaters, including several from the end of his career, such as two fine but quite different stagings of Broken Glass in Watertown, Massachusetts, and Westport, Connecticut, and the Rapture Theatre Company's production of The Last Yankee in Glasgow, Scotland. The United Kingdom also provided stages for two Miller plays that previously had not been produced: No Villain, which he wrote during spring break of his freshman year at the University of Michigan in 1935 and modeled on his family's financial difficulties after his father's coat business failed; and The Hook, a drama about corruption on the Brooklyn waterfront that Miller and Elia Kazan took to Hollywood in 1951 in the hope of finding funding for a movie version. The idea later served as the basis for Budd Schulberg's On the Waterfront, which Kazan directed in 1954 at the height of the McCarthy era as a kind of public reply to Miller's The Crucible (1953) about the morality of informers. All of this was perhaps capped by the Royal Shakespeare Company's London production of Death of a Salesman, a nod in his centennial year to Miller's significance for world literature in the same season in which the RSC commemorated the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Attention certainly was paid . . . and will continue to be paid next spring when The Price is scheduled to open on Broadway.This flurry of productions is due, however, not merely to the centennial. Miller's concerns continue to pervade our society in many ways. I wish he were alive today to comment on our current political situation in the United States. So much of the discussion seems to arise from themes of personal responsibility, forgiveness, and the sense of self we inherited from our culture of the American Dream-both its genuine hope and its hypocrisy. All of these are topics central to Miller's explorations. These are invigorating times for Miller scholarship and performance and lively times for the Arthur Miller Society.The heart of the Arthur Miller Society as a resource both for society members and other people interested in Miller is the society's website and the Arthur Miller Journal. Sue Abbotson, in addition to authoring many influential articles and books on Miller, has been more than impressive for many years in keeping the website up to date with information about upcoming Miller events and productions. Steve Marino founded the Arthur Miller Journal in 2006, continues as its editor, and brilliantly shepherded its adoption in 2014 by the Pennsylvania State University Press as one of its stable of academic journals while also producing several significant Miller publications of his own. It is impossible to start a term as any kind of officer of the Miller Society without acknowledging these two good people as the society's core and thanking them for all they do for all of us and for encouraging Miller studies with such energy.Sue and Steve provide the base for the society, and my hope is that we can grow from this in the future in the following ways. I am eager to hear from any of you about how these projects might be pursued or about other ideas you may have for growing the society and interest in Arthur Miller:* The Arthur Miller Society traditionally has organized panels at several national literature conferences, in particular the Comparative Drama Conference generally in early April and the American Literature Association convention on Memorial Day weekend. …

Международные Шмелёвские чтения: «Проблемы исторической памяти и творчество И.С. Шмелёва». К 65-летию со дня смерти писателя (Москва, ИМЛИ РАН, 5–6 октября 2015 г.)

Международные Шмелёвские чтения: «Проблемы исторической памяти и творчество И.С. Шмелёва». К 65-летию со дня смерти писателя (Москва, ИМЛИ РАН, 5–6 октября 2015 г.)

Death Shall Have No Dominion: Daniel Berrigan of the Resurrection

Death Shall Have No Dominion: Daniel Berrigan of the Resurrection Bill Wylie‐Kellermann At this writing…Dan is the only remaining brother of the six; I believe that he is in close communication with his own dying and the life that awaits him and all of us. Like Phil, like Jerry, it looks to me as if Dan is in touch with the life that lies beyond this one. Elizabeth McAlister, Preface, The Berrigan Letters I once had a conversation with Dan Berrigan (+ April 30, 2016 +) about his death. We were talking late into the night at the Block Island hermitage that William Stringfellow and Anthony Towne had built for him while he was two years in Danbury Federal Prison in consequence of the 1968 Catonsville draft board action. He had by then foresworn scotch on doctor's orders, so I was being introduced to manhattans dry which were somehow allowed. The place was fitting for the topic. On the wall above us was an exorcism poem which he had hand‐lettered in a style familiar to Catholic Worker and resistance houses across the country. At landsend where this house dares stand and the sea turns in sleep ponderous, menacing and our spirits fail and run landward, seaward, askelter, + we pray you protect from the law's clawed reach from the second death from envy's tooth from doom's great knell all who dwell here. I'm certain I was the one to broach the topic of death. When we met in my seminary days in the early seventies, it was in the wake of notorious assassinations; Medgar Evers and Viola Liuzzo, Fred Hampton of the Panthers, Malcolm, King, the Kennedys. There was a certain youthful grandiosity in imagining that he or Phil or others who were such troublesome peacemakers would be similarly targeted. I braced my heart. I told him so. (Then he turns around and lives, thanks be to God, to 94!) I probably mentioned Bonhoeffer or King and the way the blood of the martyrs is seed of movement or church, even yearning secretly myself for some sort of “meaningful death.” He gently countered with Albert Camus’ good life and the absurdly random car crash of his death. So, I was as much chastened as honored when he turned the conversation into a Block Island poem: Drinking one night, Kellermann and I talked the moon down, ‘Think of mad racers we're at the mercy of And stuttering engines of air craft so high the guardian angels peel away— Then street knifings. And bloody so on. It's certain we exist courtesy of bellicose junkers, by merest suffrance.’ Significant death? Gold leaf of history, cosmetic on a split skull. In point of fact, Dan had himself once wondered over the sort of death I imagined him. In 1970, instead of submitting voluntarily to the Catonsville prison sentence he had gone underground, slipping away from a very public event, under the noses of federal agents, in the oversized Bread and Puppet effigy of one of the apostles, Peter or John. During that notoriously public four months, he wrote a letter to the Weathermen, a cohort of war resisters whose tactics many found violent. There he said, “And this is why we accept trouble, ostracism, and fear of jail and death as the normal condition under which decent men and women are called upon to function today. Undoubtedly, the FBI comes with guns in pursuit of people like me because beyond their personal chagrin and corporate machismo (a kind of debased esprit de corps; they always get their man), there was the threat that the Panthers and the Vietnamese have so valiantly offered.” Our last conversation, less than a year ago, was again partly about Dietrich Bonhoeffer (+ April 9, 1945 +). The new Charles Marsh biography, so honest and revealing, was out. He'd not heard tell. His underground sojourn coincided with the appearance of the earlier definitive and elephantine biography by Bonhoeffer's beloved companion and student, Eberhard Bethge. It was actually on the twenty‐fifth anniversary of Bonhoeffer's death by hanging in the Nazi prison of Flossenberg, that Berrigan went openly missing in 1970. That day...

Recognizing the Founder, Seeing Amida Buddha: Kakunyo's Hōon kōshiki

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)While it is common to refer to Shinran ... (1173-1262) as the founder of Jodo Shinshu ... (True Pure Land School), one of the largest and most historically significant Buddhist sects in Japan, he died largely unknown but to a small group of disciples who were indistinct from a larger Pure Land movement inspired by his teacher, Honen ?? (1133- 1212). The development of a community centered around devotion to Shinran may be said to have begun with the construction of a memorial chapel and the donation of that memorial site to his followers by his youngest daughter Kakushin-ni ??? (1224-1283). It was, however, not until Kakunyo ?? (1270- 1351), Shinran's great-grandson, that a distinct religious community was envisioned with Shinran as its founder through the institution of regular memorial services at the site and the production of a number of ritual, biographical, and doctrinal texts for use in the memorial services. The first of these was an elegiac liturgy for Shinran entitled Hoon koshiki ???? (Koshiki on responding to benevolence) composed for use in the memorial services on the occasion of the thirty-third anniversary of Shinran's death. Shortly after, Kakunyo produced the first illustrated biography of Shinran to be viewed and sacralized in the memorial services, an illustrated hand scroll (emaki ??) that recorded the of the teacher Shinran, the teaching of the true import (shinshu ??), and the community that took shape after his death.1 During the course of his life, Kakunyo would go on to produce five more illustrated editions of the Shinran den'e ?? ??2 and a host of other hagiographic representations that would serve to differentiate Shinran and his teachings in his efforts to transform the memorial site into a center of a new and distinct community.While the Shinran den'e has received a lot of scholarly attention by both historians and sectarian scholars wanting to reconstruct the historical life of Shinran, the Hoon koshiki has received relatively less attention.3 Later doctrinal writings by Kakunyo such as the Kudensho ??? (Extracts from the oral transmission) or the Gaijasho ??? (Extracts correcting heresy), have also received attention for they are regarded as important sources for scholars wishing to write a history of the development of Shin doctrine (Dobbins 1989, 79-98). As historical studies of Shinran and his thought has dominated past scholarship on Shin Buddhism, it probably does not come as a surprise that a ritual text in a community that is largely perceived as having little concern for ritual due to Shinran's emphasis on faith alone, would be put to the side. Nevertheless, I would argue that ritual congregations of Pure Land practitioners, which can be traced back to Genshin ?? (942-1017) and the rise of Amida devotionalism in the Heian period (794-1185), have always played a crucial role in the life of Pure Land Buddhism and in the case of the new Pure Land communities that arose in the Kamakura period (1185-1333), would continue to play an integral role in their genesis and popularity.With the Hoon koshiki and the production of the illustrated biographies, Kakunyo transformed the memorial services for Shinran into an occasion to express gratitude toward Shinran as founder of a new religious community and the means through which the community was able to witness the life of Shinran and his teaching. By the time of Rennyo ?? (1415-1499), the memorial services for Shinran would become week-long, large-scale assemblies for the whole community known as the Hoon ko ???,4 in which the Hoon koshiki was recited and the large scale hanging scroll versions of the illustrated biographies were displayed and performed. These memorial services continue to be held today, with observances of the Hoon ko at the central temples of the community as well as local temples throughout Japan.5 Although not much is known about the earliest memorial services to Shinran, a closer examination of Hoon koshiki, read alongside the illustrated biographies of Shinran, will show how Kakunyo sought to refocus the newly emerging community around devotion to Shinran and redefine Shin Buddhist practice as gratitude. …

Shakespeare: 400 years on

A range of events and initiatives are being run to help schools mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Emma Lee-Potter takes a look

"The infirmity of his age": Shakespeare's 400th anniversary.

In 1819 an article in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine asserted that William Shakespeare's four greatest plays were Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear. A century later, the influential critic A C Bradley reinforced this opinion by devoting his published lectures Shakespearean Tragedy (1904) to these plays, calling them “the big four”. As we celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, they have retained their pre-eminence. Although the comedies and history plays are popular, it is the great tragedies that are most admired. Two major new productions of both King Lear and Hamlet have just opened in the UK; more are on the way. For every outing of Antony and Cleopatra or Coriolanus, there are a dozen of Othello and Macbeth. What has made these plays seem the apex of Shakespeare's achievement? Shakespeare: the bard at the bedsideIn his preface to the inaugural issue of The Lancet, editor Thomas Wakley promised not only to report medical intelligence, but also literature. Accordingly, that first issue included a review of Much Ado about Nothing. Writing in 1823 to a medical audience, there was no need to mention the playwright's name: William Shakespeare, the 400th anniversary of whose death is marked today. Since then, Shakespeare has appeared in 1200 Lancet publications, including the theatre review of Hamlet by Niall Boyce in today's issue. Full-Text PDF

Pantocsekiella, a new centric diatom genus based on morphological and genetic studies

The paper is dedicated for 100th death anniversary of the famous Hungarian diatomologist Jozsef Pantocsek (1846-1916). Previous morphological studies showed that the description of the Cyclotella genus was too general and according to new morphological criteria new genera were established based on both recent and fossil taxa (e.g. Discostella, Handmannia, Puncticulata, Tertiarius). Furthermore, previous molecular biological investigations proved that the Cyclotella genus was not monophyletic. Integrating the above mentioned knowledge the former Cyclotella genus has been split into 4 genera (Cyclotella s.s., Discostella, Tertiarius and Lindavia). Based on the position of rimoportula Lindavia genus was formed for involving the species of both the Cyclotella ocellata and C. bodanica lineages. Our morphological and molecular (genetic distance and phylogenetic analyses of rbcL and 18S rDNA sequences) investigations suggested that Lindavia/Cyclotella ocellata group could be raised from the Lindavia as a separate genus. Its distinctive morphological features are the followings: striae unequal in length, central area without areolae. We describe the new genus Pantocsekiella gen. nov. and we transferred several Lindavia taxa into it. We also provide an amended diagnosis for the genus Lindavia.

New essays on John Clare: poetry, culture and community

New Essays on John Clare: Poetry, Culture and Community. Edited by SIMON KOVESI and SCOTT McEATHRON. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2015. pp. xii + 244. £64.99.Some of the chapters presented in New Essays on John Clare emerged from the 'John Clare in Space' conference held at Oxford Brookes University in 2014, organised to mark the 150th anniversary of the poet's death. As the book's title makes evident, the collection is structured by three strands or themes. Of these, 'culture' receives the most treatment: four of the book's ten essays are devoted to it, while 'poetry' and 'community' occupy three chapters each. But another theme- often closely connected to the three mentioned-could be added to the list: 'class'. As Simon Kovesi and Scott McEathron say in their Introduction, 'At the heart of the matter-as always in English life, it seems-lies class; and for Clare in particular, class seems to render problematic almost every relationship he and his work might forge to the polite world of letters' [12). It is, on the face of it, a hard claim to disagree with. It also sets the tone for a number of the chapters in the book, from which Clare is read as a 'defensive' figure (63, 64), an 'outsider' (93,135, 217), and a 'victim' (2).In fact, the idea of Clare being a 'victim' is part of a core duality ventured in the book's Introduction; that is, Clare is 'both beneficiary and victim' (2) of the considerable changes in the literary marketplace in the early nineteenth century. This idea operates almost as a modern critical palimpsest for the paradoxes of the 'peasant poet' label, the label of temporarily useful but also often crippling dual identity that explicitly marked Clare's introduction to the 'world of letters' in Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820).In this sense, New Essays closely follows John Clare in Context (1994), privileging the concept of class in its explorations of the unfortunate circumstances and contradictions which confronted the poet throughout his writing life. The Introduction acknowledges the 1994 collection, also published by Cambridge University Press, as 'the first major critical essay collection focused on the poet' (8). The emphasis on class in New Essays makes the almost excusive focus on Clare's pre-asylum writing in the collection understandable.In Fiona Stafford's essay on 'Clare's colours' the predominant shade is, perhaps unsurprisingly, green (the colour of Clare's jacket worn on a visit to London, as many commentators have noted and as Richard Cronin reiterates in his essay in this collection on the London Magazine). However, Stafford's identification of 'multiple simultaneous possibilities' (20) that the greens and browns of a given rural scene or scenario afford Clare follows John Barrell's highly influential claim (1972, 157, 158) that a 'manifold of simultaneous impressions' in response to localised areas of the countryside is the chief feature of Clare's work. Like Barrell's book, Stafford's wider argument considers the 'sister arts' of poetry and painting (here the work of Peter De Wint). Clare's sonnet on the contemporary painter concludes with an appreciation of how De Wint makes the representation of 'rushy flats befringed with willow tree' (13) an art to rival the great Italian painters: 'befringed' is the most distinctive word in the last few lines of Clare's tribute to De Wint and suggests a kind of boundedness and by definition, a boundary; like the essentially bounded form of the birds' nests which Stafford's essay also treats, Clare's admiration of De Wint's 'befringed' craft stands as an intriguing counterpoint to the boundlessness and the blending effect (including a rather tenuous equation between colour and lack of punctuation in Clare's manuscripts) which Stafford argues is characteristic of Clare's colours.Adam Rounce builds on John Goodridge's John Clare and Community in his account of Clare and two eighteenth-century poets, James Thomson and William Cowper. …

The New Forms of Mourning: Loss and Exhibition of the Death on the Internet.

According to some specialists, ceremonial funeral practices are inclined to disappear, particularly as death is an object of repression in contemporary society. However, it seems that new forms of rituals are developing through modern technologies. Virtual tombs, memorial webpages, and the celebration of death anniversaries are now common currency on the Internet. Nonetheless, the overexposure favored by the Web seems to question traditional ways of "living out" one's grief, subjecting the living and the dead to a redefinition of concepts of time and space, and entailing new forms of interaction.