Book Culture Research Articles

‘Piers Plowman’ and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages by Arvind Thomas

Reviewed by: ‘Piers Plowman’ and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages by Arvind Thomas Elise Wang ‘Piers Plowman’ and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages. By Arvind Thomas. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2019. xiv+258 pp. £55. ISBN 978–1–4875–0246–1. There is no conversational partner quite like the Middle English poem Piers Plowman. Scholars have spent many fruitful years listening in on the dream vision’s generative, manic, and always partial dialogues with the major forces of the time: scholasticism, theories of the mind, book culture, and common law. It is part of the poem’s charm that, given enough attention, it can seem almost exclusively invested in any conversation for which the reader has an ear. Arvind Thomas’s new book adds canon (or church) law to this list and demonstrates that this conversation was exceptionally productive. The book starts from the position that Piers Plowman was a ‘co-producer’ (p. 6) of canon law, and that therefore the poem should be understood as part of this law’s interpretative tradition. This assertion is the book’s most exciting contribution. It diverges from the usual formulations of law and literature, in which either law provides a source for a literary text or a literary text uses scenes of the law for its own purposes; instead, Thomas argues that we ought to ‘reconceptualize poetry as productive of, not just derivative from’ the discourse of law (pp. 10–11). Thomas manages the ambition of this project by confining himself to the canon law of penance, aligning each chapter to a stage of penitential procedure, and focusing each chapter on just one or two passages of the poem. Rather than arguing for direct influence, he extracts related passages from canon law and the poem and collects them together, much as medieval readers were wont to do. The proof of this method lies in how productive it is. Chapter 1 addresses the failed confessions of Mede (Passus 3) and Contrition (B 20 and C 22). Thomas’s diligent comparison of Mede’s famous confession with the performative procedures for contrition shows that William Langland did not mean either character to seem contrite, and instead used them to criticize the way the sacrament was administered. Mede returns in Chapter 2, and Thomas uses his method to excavate the passage’s deliberation on usury across two different versions of the poem, B and C. In Chapters 3 and 4 Thomas unfolds Langland’s engagement with restitution and satisfaction, first with Covetise’s confession and then with the trial of Wrong. He traces law’s maturation from the ‘pastoral approach’ of the B version to the ‘judicial and canonistic’ (p. 124) attitude of the C version. Thomas finishes the book with a meditation on the most famous scene in Piers Plowman: Patience’s sermon and the tearing of the pardon. Such a wide-ranging study could have used a more argument-focused Conclusion to bring its many directions back into alignment. Thomas’s Epilogue eschews this work for an after-history of the ‘inevitable sundering of the ways shared by Piers Plowman and the legal treatises’ (p. 236), which successfully closes the issue but does not help the reader recover her feet. As Thomas points out, canonists shared with Langland an interest in methodology over norms, which made their collaboration a happy one. He grants both canonist and poet the ability to ‘invent’ (inventio) law in both senses—by finding [End Page 698] and by founding. Throughout, Thomas’s strength is that his analysis uses the same attitude his sources do: associative but scrupulous, imaginative but extractive. His readings, like theirs, are often unapologetically narrow, trusting the reader’s interest in the smallest of distinctions. Nonetheless, the book is conscientiously pedagogical, never leaving an obscure source unglossed, always directing the reader to the implications of the argument. As Thomas listens in on a conversation between Piers Plowman and canon law, he also engages with the poem in a lively one of his own, one that it is a pleasure to overhear. Elise Wang California State University, Fullerton Copyright © 2022 The Modern Humanities...

Kim Wilkins, Beth Driscoll, and Lisa Fletcher: Genre Worlds: Popular Fiction and Twenty-First-Century Book Culture

Kim Wilkins, Beth Driscoll, and Lisa Fletcher: Genre Worlds: Popular Fiction and Twenty-First-Century Book Culture

Book Culture in the Charitable Enlightenment Activity of the Merchants Talantsevs

The article reveals the life and activities of the Talantsevs merchants family in the pre-revolutionary Chuvashia. At the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century, along with entrepreneurship and commercial activities, the Talantsev brothers were also engaged in charity. Unlike many other merchants, who proved themselves primarily as benefactors in the development of temple construction and public charity facilities of religious type, members of the Talantsev family distinguished themselves in the enlightenment direction — in the construction of schools, hospitals, libraries, cultural and educational institutions in multinational Chuvashia, in the organization of agriculture and household life, in preservation and further development of the ethnoculture of Russian and Chuvash peoples. The Talantsevs were particularly active in promoting secular culture and books among the population. That was clearly expressed in their participation in the development of public, factory and private family libraries. The partially preserved library of the Talantsev brothers, located since 1954 in the structure of the National Library of the Chuvash Republic, is a rare example of the noble service of representatives of the merchants of Chuvashia to book culture, enlightenment and preservation of the ethnoculture of the peoples of the Middle Volga region. The historical experience and traditions of merchant families in organizing charity in the field of culture, interrupted in October 1917 and partially revived in the practice of modern entrepreneurs, can now be used in the educational process in all types of educational institutions, taking into account modern realities.

The Library of Varlaam Shyshatsky in the Context of a ‘Reading Revolution’ in the Ukrainian Lands (Second Half of the 18th – Early 19th Centuries)

Varlaam Shyshatsky (1750-1821) was a prominent figure in the Russian Orthodox Church. In this article, the author’s focus is on his personal library – one of the most substantial book collections in Eastern Europe in the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries, which has never been analyzed before. The article not only analyzes the composition of Varlaam Shyshatsky’s library, but also compares this collection with the personal libraries of other figures belonging to the same social group. The analysis is grounded in the broad context of the history of reading and book culture in Europe. Based on a number of criteria, it is concluded that significant changes in the culture of reading took place in the Ukrainian lands of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 18th century – first and foremost the emergence of ‘extensive’ reading and development of a number of new cultural practices among the ‘enlightened elite’. The composition of the library of Varlaam Shyshatsky also attests to the cultural uniqueness of the region and argues in favor of the thesis about the existence of a ‘Ukrainian Enlightenment’ as a phenomenon with national and regional specifics of its own.

Тraditional values and book culture

The draft Presidential Decree on the fundamentals of state policy for the preservation and strengthening of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, put out by Likhachev Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage in January 2022, for public consideration, was analyzed. Based on the ancient cult of the book as a sacred revelation, the book culture is understood as a creative and communication activity of human society carried out in the book form through symbols. In the history of Russian civilization, the book culture has acquired the status of traditional national value and productive force that ensures the development of material, spiritual and humanistic culture. The technocratic society of the twentieth century is at risk of self-destruction. Risks such as environmental crisis (environmental pollution, climate change), biological mutations (viral pandemic, genetic degradation), technological accidents (computer program failure, nuclear facility collapse), geopolitical follies (arms race, terrorism, aggressive globalization, loss of national identity and sovereignty, genocide, fanaticism), and many other anthropogenic threats have acquired global proportions. Successful opposition to dangerous technogenic risks is possible only if we rely on the humanistic book and library traditions. The conclusion is made on the expediency of the need to develop a scientifically and practically sound state strategy for humanistic book culture in modern Russia.

Contribution and Ownership Records of Chancellors and Clerks on Cyrillic Publications of the 16th–18th Centuries

The article continues the author’s research on the source study of records on early printed Cyrillic publications. This type of historical source helps to study both specific groups of publications and regional corporate and private collections. The author turns to the analysis of the facts of ownership and contributions of these book monuments by representatives of the bureaucratic apparatus of the 17th — early 18th century. In the book culture of the 17th — 18th centuries, chancellors and clerks played an important role: they made contributions (including royal ones), were themselves contributors and owners, and in some cases, sellers and buyers of books. In total, 130 records (68 of them autographs) have been identified, as well as eight attachments and fragments used as stickers, revealing information about 101 chancellors and clerks (both state and monastic employees). At the same time, 106 records and documents are accurately dated, these dates cover the period from 1610 to 1782. As a result, it is possible to get not only new information about the book culture, but also to expand the available information about chancellors and clerks. There is fairly high percentage of publications designed for individual text understanding have been identified in their personal libraries: “reading” books, Scripture, educational literature (69%). At the same time, the share of liturgical services is significantly less (31%). The author has also revealed several dozen names that do not appear in available reference books. By the example of L. Asmanov and S. Romanchukov, there is demonstrated the records’ informational opportunities for reconstructing the biographies of public servants and the genealogy of their kind. The records are of particular value for the reconstruction of the family of monastic employees (which is shown by the example of the Yanyshev family of clerks of the Spaso-Yaroslavsky Monastery).

The French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe I: Selling Enlightenment

The French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe I: Selling Enlightenment

A late Byzantine book inventory in Sofia, Dujčev gr. 253 (olim Kosinitsa 265) – a monastic or private library?

Abstract This study concerns an inventory of books, dated 1428/29, inscribed in Sofia, Dujčev gr. 253 (olim Kosinitsa 265), fol. 290r. Although the text was obscurely published in 1886, the vicissitudes of this codex over the following century impeded further research and the inventory continues to be overlooked in studies of Byzantine libraries, books and reading. A new edition, furnishing corrections and filling lacunae, together with a first translation and palaeographical analysis, provide a foundation for introducing this rare document and re-evaluating its context and significance. While the limited prior scholarship generally presumed compilation in a monastic library in 1428/29 and pursued inquiries based on that surmise, examination of Dujčev gr. 253 draws attention to annotations by a member of the Laskaris Leontares family, dated 1431-1437,which place the codex in private possession during this period. A survey of thirteen extant codices variously connected to this distinguished aristocratic dynasty, c.1400 - 1455, elucidates acquisition, ownership and use of books in this socio-cultural milieu, with particular reference to this family’s history and social networks. Comparative assessment of this sample of thirteen codices and the 21 items recorded in the book-list of 1428/29 affirms the view that it relates to a private rather than an institutional library and distinguishes its potential value for investigating aristocratic book culture in the late Byzantine era.

A Monument to Medieval Syrian Book Culture: The Library of Ibn ‘Abd al-Hadi

A Monument to Medieval Syrian Book Culture: The Library of Ibn ‘Abd al-Hadi

The Crucified Book: Sacred Writing in the Age of Valentinus by Anne Starr Kreps

Reviewed by: The Crucified Book: Sacred Writing in the Age of Valentinus by Anne Starr Kreps David Brakke The Crucified Book: Sacred Writing in the Age of Valentinus. By Anne Starr Kreps. [Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2022. Pp. 186. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-8122-5387-0.) According to the Gospel of Truth, preserved in Nag Hammadi Codex I (“Jung Codex”), “Jesus appeared. He rolled himself in that book and was nailed to a tree and published the edict of the Father on the cross” (1). This striking image of the crucified Jesus as a crucified book inspires Anne Starr Kreps’s innovative study of scriptural practices among Valentinians and other Christians and Jews of the second and third centuries. Kreps contributes significantly to recent scholarship that revises the standard narrative of the emergence of Christian scriptures and the development of the canon. Valentinian Christians, Kreps argues, effaced the distinctions between human being and text and among Christian, Jewish, and other revelatory books: “The body-as-book, then, signaled a mode of holy book that resisted Irenaeus’s call for a fixed collection of written texts” (p. 117). The Crucified Book consists of four chapters divided into two parts and framed by an introduction and conclusion. The two chapters of part 1 focus on Valentinus and the Valentinians. Chapter 1 studies closely two passages that present Jesus’s death as the publication of a book; Kreps contextualizes this image within Jewish and Christian interpretations of Wisdom in Proverbs 8 and within Roman book culture. Although she admits that it cannot be proved that Valentinus wrote this work, she accepts his authorship and says that attribution to another Valentinian would not affect her reading (p. 19). Chapter 2 examines the implications of understanding the book as at once divine, human, and textual for how Valentinian Christians wrote, read, and transmitted sacred texts (their scriptural practices). The fragments of Valentinus, Heracleon, and Ptolemy evince an openness to the continued dissemination of revelation in multiple books. Part 2 considers early Christians who opposed the Valentinian scriptural program and Jews whose practices resembled those of the Valentinians. Chapter 3 shows that the heresiologists Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius recognized the Valentinians’ fluid approach to scripture, claimed that it led to contradiction and [End Page 789] error, and opposed it with the notion of a limited canon. Kreps suggests that the Jung Codex provides evidence for the persistence of the Valentinian “theory of open revelation” in fourth-century Egypt (p. 87). Working from two rabbinic stories of “Jewish sages mutating into scrolls upon their timely deaths” (p. 92), Chapter 4 argues that the rabbis also developed a “corpora of living books” with illuminating similarities with and differences from Valentinian practice (p. 114). A summary cannot capture this book’s many stimulating ideas, nor can it replicate its lucid, often eloquent prose. Kreps works easily with sources in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Hebrew, and she adduces revealing comparative materials from across the Mediterranean; the book fulfills the Divinations series’ goal of “rereading late ancient religion.” I might complicate Kreps’s account by placing the Valentinians Ptolemy and Heracleon closer to Irenaeus and farther from Valentinus (Gospel of Truth and fragments) than she does; for example, I think that when Ptolemy invested authority in “the words of our Savior,” he had in mind written gospels, not oral traditions (p. 57). Nonetheless, as Kreps notes, I coined the term “scriptural practices” a decade ago as an invitation to scholars to write less teleological histories of the New Testament and early Christian literature. The Crucified Book represents precisely the kind of work that I hoped to see. I enthusiastically recommend it to historians of Christianity interested in textuality, canon formation, and what we used to call “Gnosticism.” David Brakke The Ohio State University Copyright © 2022 The Catholic University of America Press

Pursuing the Percys: the original owners of the Percy Psalter-Hours

ABSTRACT In 2019 the British Library acquired the Percy Hours, a late thirteenth-century book of hours from York. This acquisition reunited the manuscript with the Percy Psalter, acquired by the Library in 1990. Together they originally formed a single volume psalter-hours. The Percy Psalter-Hours is one of a small number of devotional books for the laity surviving from thirteenth-century England, and probably the only example from York. It provides rare insight into a period of great change in book culture, when devotional books for the laity were growing in popularity and regional workshops for commercial book production were emerging around the country. Despite its significance, the question of the manuscript's original ownership has never been satisfactorily answered. Through analysing the heraldic evidence of the manuscript, this paper proposes a new identification of the intended owners and explores the wider implications for our understanding of the social history of the book.

The posadsky wife Matrona Kalistratova in the history of Church and book culture of the Kostroma region of the 17<sup>th</sup> century

In the article a source study of inscriptions on Cyrillic books of the 17th century was carried out, as a result of which it was possible to uncover a rare historical plot, the main character of which is one of the notable residents of the city of Soligalich at the time. We are talking about the book contributions of the posadsky wife Matrona Kalistratova, a wealthy owner of salterns аnd other property, that have survived to date. Her book donations, addressed to Soligalich and the nearby Gorodets monastery, made it possible to highlight some facts from Matrona’s biography and her role in the Church history of the Kostroma Region. It turned out that Matrona Kalistratova is one of the participants in the posthumous miracles of St. Abramius of Galich, which is reflected in the Life of the saint. It is the detailed inscriptions on her book contributions, which immediately attract attention due to their content among the preserved old printed books of the Kostroma Region repositories, that allowed us to draw undoubted parallels with the hagiographic text. Mutually complementing each other, the Life of St. Abramius of Galich, archival data and book descriptions clarified various details from the life of Matrona Kalistratova and her trace in the book culture of the Kostroma lands in the second third of the 17th century. The relatively large book contribution of the posadsky wife is a remarkable phenomenon in itself, as well as the fact that it became a commemoration that recorded the miraculous healing of the depositor on the relics of the saint.

"The spectacle of nature and the arts" as a sample of the encyclopedia of the XVIIIth century

The aim of the article is to attract readers’ attention to the outstanding monument of book culture of the XYIII century – the encyclopedia “The Spectacle of Nature and Arts” (“Schauplatz der Natur und der Kunst ein vier Sprachen, deutsch, lateinisch, franzosisch und italienisch. Bd. 1–10. Wien. 1774-1779”) – an edition in ten volumes published in Vienna in four languages (Latin, German, French and Italian), which gave an idea of handicrafts, trades, natural phenomena, plants and animals, – and its Russian speaking version.Famous Russian scientists took part in translating the encyclopedia into Russian. Particular attention was paid at characteristics of articles on typography since they could provide information about ancient technologies for making books. Drawings (illustrations) attached to each article allow you to visualize the atmosphere of workshops as well as materials, tools and equipment common to that time.The edition is richly illustrated - each article is accompanied by an engraving on copper. Some of the engravings were re-engraved from the German edition, and some were made especially for the Russian one.

The History of the American Comic Book, Revised - Review of <i>Comic Books Incorporated: How the Business of Comics Became the Business of Hollywood</i> by Shawna Kidman, University of California Press, 2019

This book review of Shawna Kidman’s Comic Books Incorporated: How the Business of Comics Became the Business of Hollywood highlights the works crucial intervention in comic book studies. In the face of a rote history of the comic book as a persistent subcultural phenomenon, Kidman argues that attending to the various legal, social, and industrial infrastructures of comic book culture can illustrate the ebbs and flows of comic book popularity, its shifts in genres and tone, and its movements across mediums as the path of a “fundamentally corporate” medium, “a dominant form in a culture built to support its growth.” The review sketches the book’s chapters, which each focus on a different form of infrastructure relevant to the history of the comic book: distribution, copyright law, subculture, and financing. I end with further areas of research suggested by this work, particularly within the field of historical ethnography. While Comic Books Incorporated tells its story through the history of industrial logics, a closer attention to comic book reading practices during the time in which this story takes place can deepen our understanding of the transformation from a mass medium with seemingly equal readership across gender to a niche subcultural fascination for college aged white men.Throughout the text, the work demystifies a prevailing narrative that the comics industry and fanbase tells: that the success of the medium is due to the inherent quality of the source material. This book thoroughly demonstrates that the evolution of the comic book was driven not by creativity and iconoclasm, but by corporate logic.

From John the Exarch to Protopope Avvakum: the History of Doctrine on Form and Matter in the Old Russian Book Culture

This article considers the history of reception of the form-matter (the hylomorphism) conception, historically raised to Aristotle, in the Old Russian book culture through selected slavonic translations of Church Fathers and the original Old Russian works. Metaphysics itself (especially in the sense of Aristotle’s “Metaphysics”) was not known in the Slavonic book culture. However, such element of it, as a doctrine on form and matter (two of the four Aristotle’s causes), was assimilated by Old Russian scribes in two forms: in the natural philosophy and in logical categorical one. In the first case, this conception is used to interpret the general principles of the creation of the world, according to the first book of Genesis. In the second, the form is one of the types of universals (the lowest and most specialized kind in the hierarchy). Key sources for the first case are follow: Hexameron of John the Exarch and separated places at the Orationes of Gregory the Theologian with Nicetas of Heraclea’s comments. The logical concept of form was known from translations of the logical works of John of Damascus. In the original Old Russian thought of the XVI century, the most popular was the natural philosophical use of these theories in order to describe creation and to criticize the so-called craft-analogies (Joseph Volotskiy, Maxim the Greek, Zinoviy Otenskiy). In the first half of the 17th century, the scholastic theory of the sacraments, together with the new Latinized terminology, penetrated into the Moscow literature through Western Russian writings. Finally, a case of the influence of hylemorphism is also found in the “The Book of Denunciation” of Protopope Avvakum.

Development of the Al-Assad National Library’s Collections under the Circumstances of the Military Conflict in Syria

During the military conflict on going on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic (Syria), there was destroyed not only the economic, but also the educational and cultural infrastructure of the country. Thousands of libraries located in northern Syria have completely lost their collections. The number of Arab cultural centres (public libraries) decreased by 60% from 2011 to 2018. They were located in the conflict zones and were destroyed during military operations. Huge damage was caused to the market of publishing industry and the book culture of Syria as a whole.During the tough movement process from war to peace, the preservation of monuments, including writing, remains an important issue for the country and its future. The leading library in Syria is the Al-Assad National Library (NL), which receives legal deposit copy of domestic publications; it is engaged in international book exchange; makes procurements; receives books and manuscripts as donation. Preserving the documentary cultural heritage of the country, the library performs the memorial function, which is much more complicated in the conditions of military conflict and economic crisis.The purpose of the research is to study the impact of the war in Syria on the activities of the Al-Assad National Library, the dynamics of the development of its collections, as well as the formation of strategy for the reconstruction of the countryʼs library system. The author used the methods of comparative analysis in the work and conducted the review of the literature on this topic.In 1988, the Al-Assad National Library’s collections contained 131,931 items. In the 2000s, there was an increase in the number of publications received by the library via legal deposit copy system. Since 2011, the beginning of the terrorist war, which was accompanied by the economic blockade by Western countries, the replenishment of the stock has significantly decreased. From 2012 to 2015, the International Book Fair in Damascus was suspended. At the end of 2020, the total stock of the library amounted to 567,117 information resources in Arabic and foreign languages.Russiaʼs support in restoring peaceful life in Syria is highly appreciated by the Syrian people. The relevance of the study is related to the lack of information in Russian about the development of the national library collections during the war in Syria. Russian universities train Syrian specialists in both library and other branches of science. The Russian language has been introduced into educational programs in Syria, which will further lead to its adoption as a foreign language to replace English language in the Republic.At present, it is necessary to restore all areas of life in Syria, including cultural. The Al-Assad National Library plays a key role in the reform of the library system in the country, the formation of cultural policy through the creation of a stable system of book communication and the embedding of national book culture in the world information space. The Syrian society is forced to take into account political, economic, socio-cultural challenges. It is necessary to expand international cooperation, especially with countries that have maintained friendly relations with Syria.

A Companion to Chivalry

A Companion to Chivalry

Current Trends in the Development of Higher Library and Information Education in Germany

The purpose of the article is to explore the experience and identify best practices for modernizing the content and organizational structure of the librarians’ graduate training in Germany.
 The methodology. The research was conducted using a set of theoretical and empirical methods of scientific knowledge. These allowed to identify the main stages of evolution of the higher library education system in Germany, the establishment of classical and innovative models of its modern development. The following scientific approaches were cognitive tools for achieving this goal: system, historical, comparative, as well as research methods: statistical, modelling, content analysis of the 19 German Universities’ 30 educational programs for Bachelors, Masters and Doctors of Philosophy in “Library and Information Sciences”.
 The results. The generalization of the study’s empirical basis allowed us to conclude that 19 German Universities offer more than 30 educational programs to their applicants for “Library and Information Sciences” higher education at various levels, including 45% bachelor’s, 35% master’s, and 20% doctoral degrees. Terms of bachelor’s educational programs are 3–3.5 years, master’s — 2–2.5 years, doctoral — 3–4 years. In the context of the global communication space digitalization the most popular are universal educational programs in “Information Systems”, “Information Science”, and “Information Management”, which train professionals for all types of information institutions and provide extensive opportunities for profiling with a focus on scientific information management or solutions tasks of library, cultural and educational management with a focus on work in school, university and public libraries.
 The topicality. Germany has a long tradition of forming a national book culture and training high-quality librarians, which contributed to the development of one of Europe’s most powerful library, publishing and bookselling industries. Germany’s accession to the Bologna Process made adjustments to the national system of training librarians, identified new vectors of its European integration development, formed modern models for the educational process optimization through the implementation of levelling, succession, flexibility, and interdisciplinarity of education programs in library. In the context of the higher library education system modernization in Ukraine, these innovative practices need to be studied to determine the possibilities of borrowing the most effective of them.
 The practical significance. The results of the analysis of the profiling of modern bachelor’s and master’s degrees in German universities show their interdisciplinarity and focus on training a universal information specialist capable of performing professional tasks in all types of document communication institutions (libraries, archives, media libraries, publishing houses, news agencies, mass media, etc.). Starting with the 3rd semester most bachelor’s degree programs provide their applicants with a choice of a particular specialization, deepening professional competencies through a wide range of optional disciplines and training through participation in the implementation of real interdisciplinary projects. This experience of German colleagues should be borrowed by Ukraine as well.

Owners of Russian Personal Book Collections in the Turkestan Region

The article is devoted to the owners of Russian personal libraries in Turkestan region at the end of the 19th – the beginning the 20th centuries, the persons who made a great contribution to creating the first public library of the European type on the territory of modern Uzbekistan. The purpose of the article is to consider the personality of the Russian personal libraries’ owners in the Turkestan region in the late 19th – early 20th centuries, as well as the history of the formation of their personal book collections, thematic content and the degree of their study. The article considers the peculiarities of the formation of Russian personal libraries, the composition and design of bibliophile collections, a variety of ownership characteristics. Russian personal book collections of the Turkestan region are of exceptional importance as a valuable source for the study of Russian book culture and socio-cultural development of the region.

Representation of Culture in EFL Textbooks: A Linguistic and Content Analysis of My Book of English

This study explores the representation of culture in My Book of English, a second-generation English-language book for the first-year middle school in Algeria. Based on both content and a linguistic analysis method, our objective was to demonstrate the cultural significance of some representational choices. The notion of ideology was exploited in this study to examine the part that language takes in perpetuating ideas about culture, multiculturality, diversity, nationalism, and identity. According to the findings, cultural and social representations capture both the tendencies of cultural heritage preservation and the promotion of innovation and change. The analysis demonstrates that My Book of English acknowledges, to a certain extent, the role that English plays in the processes of internationalization and globalism. However, as a foreign language material, the book exaggeratedly highlights the source culture, making it difficult for the learners to transcend national boundaries