Canonical Texts Research Articles

Об этике буддиста-мирянина (на материале ойратского перевода «Сутры о плоде»)

The article examines the manuscript Calm D 16 in Oirat «clear letter» «Ači üreyin sudur» («Cause and Effect Sūtra») from the manuscript collection of the Library of the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg State University. This sutra refers to Buddhist apocryphal (non-canonical) writings, which in some traditions of Tibetan literature were considered to be the untrue «word of the Buddha», and therefore were not always included in the Buddhist canon. Despite the fact that it was translated from Chinese, in Tibetan and Mongolian translations it entered the Kagyur (Ganjur), and was obviously used by Buddhist priests for didactic purposes to educate the lay community. According to the content, the sutra is a conversation between the Buddha and the disciple Ananda, which explains the consequences of good and evil deeds, which are built into a certain system of ethical norms for a lay Buddhist. Positive actions include cultivating compassion, practicing the six paramitas, making offerings to Buddhist temples, stupas, the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha), as well as to the Teacher and parents, reading aloud, rewriting, contributing to rewriting and reflecting on the Mahayana sutras. Negative actions in the sutra are actions that lead to suffering of living beings: inflicting pain, intimidation, hunting, theft, murder, etc., showing disrespect towards the Three Jewels, the Teacher, the sacred texts of the sutras, the monastic sangha. A comparison of the Oirat translation with the Tibetan and Mongolian canonical versions as part of the Kagyur (Ganjur) shows that the Oirat text is based on either another Tibetan version or an independent revision different from the canonical Mongolian text.

Feministyczny/queerowy przekład i solidarnościowa zmiana na uniwersytecie

This article reflects on the authors’ attempt to develop an alternative formula to the neoliberalized, heteropatriarchal university for the collaborative translation of a canonical feminist philosophical text. The authors argue that the collective process of translating Judith Butler’s <i>Bodies that Matter</i> is a kind of feminist-queer academic activism, dictated by a broadly understood solidarity – with Butler’s text, but also with feminist politics, whose values guided the collective at every stage of the work. Looking at the selected translatory strategies, the authors discuss the possibilities and limitations of such activism in the context of the realities of academic work today. Keywords: translation, feminism, queer, Judith Butler, neoliberalism, hetero norm

Textual Criticism, Literary Criticism, and State Capture: Returning 3 Reigns 12:24p–t to the Canon of Local African Communities

This article begins by considering the relationship between textual variants and the canonical text, arguing for a fuller presence of significant variant readings alongside the canonical text, in line with contemporary textual critical scholarship and their associated eclectic critical editions. Alongside such eclectic critical editions and their appropriation within Bible translation, this article suggests that a community-based approach like Contextual Bible Study could be used to return significant and relevant variants to ordinary African readers and hearers of the Bible. The article argues that LXX 3 Reigns 12:24p–t is such a significant and relevant textual variant, offering as it does a remarkable resonance with contemporary South African concerns about state capture. The article analyses 24p–t as a significant textual variant in text critical terms, as significant narrative literature in its own right, as a coherent economic narrative analysis concerning the cause of the division of the united monarchy, and as a potential resource for Contextual Bible Study work within the contemporary South African context of state capture.

Între un topos folcloric şi un mit cultural. Câteva glose pe marginea baladei „Meşterul Manole”

Between a Folkloric Topos and a Cultural Myth. A Few Glosses on the Ballad “Master Manole” The folkloric topos of the walled-up woman, present in several variants in South-Eastern Europe, has a special status in the Romanian culture. The “Legend of Master Manole” from which it originates, along with “Miorița”, has become a canonical literary text. Considered by G. Călinescu as a “cultural myth”, one of the four essential Romanian myths, in the interwar and communist period, it was intensively exploited ideologically and politically. Interpreted by writers, either as a sample of Romanian creative genius, or as an example of dedication to the work of building the new world, the topos has long overgrown its initial condition as a simple motif of popular culture.

Revision of the Legend of Master Manole in Romanian Feminist Discourse after 1989

The paper focuses on the ideological shift after 1989 that determined the nature of the debates over the role of Ana, the female character of the Legend of Master Manole, and her sacrifice. Until 1989, her perspective was widely ignored because the canonical interpretation of the ballad emphasized the male perspective of Manole and his sacrifice for the act of creation. After 1989, the feminist discourse argued that the symbolic structures perpetuated by this myth were reinforced in Romania by the communist regime. The main aim of the article is thus to present how the newly formed feminist critique employed one of the canonical Romanian texts to show the functioning of the model of a self-sacrificing woman in the social imaginary.

The Monstrous Hospitality of Canonical Text Selections: The Need for a Hospitable Literacy Framework

Recent political excursions into classroom text selections by local and national politicians and pundits have made teaching canonical texts more appealing to many school districts and teachers. In this study, we used conceptions of Derridean hospitality alongside monster theory to examine what common canonical texts teach students about who is welcome and worthy of hospitality in American society and who is viewed as wholly monstrous and outside the bounds of hospitality. The results of our critical content analysis revealed that in commonly taught canonical novels, identity categories like race and gender shape determinations of who is welcome and who is othered. The findings suggest that critical readings of canonical texts cannot offer a hospitable welcome to marginalized and othered youth in ELA classrooms. Instead we offer a hospitable literacy approach to text selection in ELA classrooms.

Creative Appropriations: Everyman on the Contemporary Stage

Abstract The morality tale Everyman has in recent years seen a notable renaissance in contemporary theater: Everybody (2017) by US American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Carol Ann Duffy’s adaptation of Everyman (2015) at the National Theatre in London, and director/playwright Milo Rau’s work Everywoman (2020) have turned to it. In this article, I conceptualize these theatrical works as creative appropriations which stage the vexing relation between canonical text and contemporary theater practice. They are marked by an ambivalent dynamic in that they are far less conclusive about their own return to and reworking of the literary source. Their mode of representation oscillates between adaptation, appropriation, and playful de- and reconstruction. Despite evident contrasts in theme and form, these works openly reference their literary source and draw destabilizing effects from their montage of different modes of language and writing (citational speech, self-narration, confession) and performative elements. As I argue, however, these productions cannot be easily aligned with postdramatic theory’s advocation of a deconstructivist approach towards the dramatic text. The text, rather, is treated as an archive of poetic figures, narrative ideas, and moral concerns. In these productions, the textual material is not deconstructed but rather blended, momentarily decentered, and interwoven with vital performative elements (media, dance, collective speaking) which allows each creative appropriation to explore how canonical literary sources may speak to our contemporary culture and society.

Transcribing the Sacred in the Printing Era: A Study of Handwritten Buddhist Canon during the Northern Song Dynasty

In an era marked by the advent of advanced printing technology during the Northern Song period, the tradition of transcribing the Buddhist canon endured rather than promptly fading away. This persistence is particularly noteworthy in the 10th to early 12th centuries when handwritten copies of the canon coexisted with the emerging prevalence of block-printed versions. Notably, the monasteries in the Jiangnan 江南 region remained prolific producers of handwritten copies. This article adopts a socio-political perspective to elucidate the coexistence of handwritten and block-printed copies. It delves into the dynamics of canon replication within a specific temporal and geographical context, unveiling a broader tableau of handwritten copies in the printing era. This exploration necessitates an examination of the intricate interplay between the state, the canon, and Jiangnan society. This study contends that the state’s printing policies before the Xining 熙寧 period (1068–1077), which rigorously regulated the production and dissemination of canonical texts, constituted a pivotal factor in sustaining the tradition of handwritten copies. Furthermore, it identifies a sustained societal demand for possessing the canon for constructing the zhuanlun zang 轉輪藏 (revolving wheel storage cabinet), which was most pronounced in the Jiangnan region. This persistent societal need fortified the enthusiasm for transcribing the canon within Jiangnan monastic communities.

Temporal dimensions of the passion narrative in «via crucis» by Franz List and Stefano Vagnini

Relevance of the study. Postmodern genre pluralism, including in sacred musical creativity, has increased the interest of scientists in church genres that have recently been on the margins of musicological science, namely those that were not based on canonical texts, but relied on the paraliturgical tradition. Among them, let us pay attention to the rite of the Way of the Cross (via crucis), which for a long time was in the shadow of canonical genres, but in the period of modernism and especially in postmodern times, due to mobility, it turned out to be relevant for the creative searches of contemporary masters. The first artistic example—«Via crucis» by F. Liszt, created at the end of the 19th century, laid the foundation for the genre of the Way of the Cross, and therefore deserves the primary attention of scientists. No less important are works that not only continue the genre tradition, but also rely on the Lisztian model invariant. In this context, the iconic composition is «Via crucis» by S. Vagnini, written at the turn of the millennium. Both works are connected not only by belonging to the genre invariant, but also by the originality of approaches to the passion narrative underlying the rite, so this aspect is central in the comparative analysis of these compositions that are significant for European religious music.
 The purpose of the article is to reveal the temporal aspect of the deployment of the passion narrative in the compositions «Via crucis» by F. Liszt and S. Vagnini and to elucidate the artistic and dogmatic-theological potential of temporal shifts in the passion narrative.
 The methodological basis of the article are the historical, cultural and comparative methods, which made it possible to single out the Way of the Cross from other passion genres and to carry out its typology. Musical-liturgical and theological-hermeneutic analysis made it possible to identify the features of the embodiment of the passion narrative in the works of «Via crucis» by F. Liszt and S. Vagnini, to prove that temporality as a category outlining the linearity or non-linearity of the storyline deployment can become a factor in the formation of new meanings—artistic and theologicaldogmatic.
 The results and conclusions. A typology of the musical-liturgical genre of the Way of the Cross has been created: a genre invariant (a work of cantata-oratorio type with a developed instrumental and minimized verbal component) and two variants —instrumental and cantata-oratorio with a sprawling and detailed storyline —has been identified. The genre invariant, represented by the work «Via crucis» by F. Liszt (1879) and the modular oratorio of the same name by S. Vagnini (1997), turned out to be the most mobile and open to experiments. Both works are notable for the temporal decision in the unfolding of the passionate narration, which is unconventional for sacred music. F. Liszt violates the linearity of the passionate narrative, based on fourteen episodes of the rite of the Way of the Cross, choosing for a number of parts of his «Via crucis» verbal texts that are temporally inconsistent with the content of the events described. Of particular importance in the composer’s work is the medieval sequence Stabat mater, which serves as a marker of the presence of the Mother of God in the storyline of the Way of the Cross. In «Via crucis» by S. Vagnini, who in his composition focused on Liszt’s work, temporal non-linearity becomes the basis of a parallel storyline of the Mother of God. Temporal shifts and double (parallel) narrativity in the works of F. Liszt and S. Vagnini become a form of conveying theological truths, namely, in a special and visual way they emphasize the role of the Mother of God in the Salvation history.

‘Historiese improvisasie’

Karel Schoeman’s fictional historiography Skepelinge. Aanloop tot ‘n roman (2017) offersan alternative representation of the early colonial history at Cape of Good Hope with itspronounced emphasis on marginalized individuals or groups and unrealized socialpotentials of the (hybridized) colonial society. By activating forgotten or concealednarratives and alternative visions of history and by writing from the position of historical‘losers’, the text also contains an anti-colonial potential and reveals a constant ideologicalstruggle in the historiographical representations. The novel therefore fits into the postapartheid literary trend of rewriting (national) history, parodizing canonical texts andcriticizing the ideological strongholds of Afrikaner nationalism.

Down but not out: Using restorying to imagine beyond the constraints of mandated texts for critical thinking, empathy, and identity work

AbstractIn this paper, we highlight how restorying with preservice secondary English language arts teachers can encourage them to explore what is possible with mandated texts, like those found in the canon, for diverse world building centered in empathy, self‐exploration, and justice. Findings highlight the critical reflective process preservice teachers engaged in as they restoryed canonical texts. These findings highlight and how preservice teachers can use restorying as a way to engage the self and others for more inclusive storytelling. Finally, the authors argue that in oppressive spaces that seek to silence marginalized voices, restorying can act as a subversive tool to engage in work that bends toward justice.

Comparative literary theory: A cross-cultural approach to English literature

The comparative analysis of the known and the unfamiliar, the self and the other, forms an integral part of cultural exploration throughout history. Culture itself becomes the subject of comparison, and each act of comparison contributes to the broader understanding of cultural phenomena. The historical development of human society lacks examples of completely isolated social, cultural, and literary advancements, as interaction between various segments has always played a significant role. The degree of cultural sophistication within a society often corresponds to the intensity of its connections and exchanges with other communities. This article aims to accentuate the benefits of comparative literary theory in examining English literature from a cross-cultural standpoint and its potential impact in fostering a greater appreciation for cultural diversity. Explore literary traditions, genres, and historical contexts, emphasizing common themes and distinctive features. Engaging with the literary traditions worldwide broadens our perspectives and challenges existing notions while re-evaluating canonical texts. We emphasize the critical examination of cross-cultural influences and the transformative power of translations in interpreting and analyzing literary texts. Translations play a determining role in disseminating literary works across language barriers, allowing readers to explore different cultures through literature. We study how English literature has cross-fertilized with other literary traditions, demonstrating how a comparative approach can illuminate shared themes, motifs, and narrative techniques across different cultural contexts. Comparative literary theory helps us understand how societies influence and change their literary canons over time. A cross-cultural approach uncovers interrelatedness between different literary traditions and broadens our global perspective of English literature.

Boots on the Ground: Integration of Fieldwork in Coastal Governance Decision-Making Processes

Our understanding of and engagement with landscape and site – as a physical, cultural, and spiritual location – have undergone radical changes in recent years. In an era of predicted increases in ecological and climatic challenges and the poly-crisis of the Anthropocene, it is inevitable to reframe how we think through and work with landscapes (Kahn & Burns, 2021). This paradigm shift requires novel frameworks, techniques, and tools for engaging with landscapes on a governance level. The coast of Aotearoa New Zealand exemplifies a particular landscape type, yet has eluded a holistic definition within coastal governance. Together with the Western bifurcation of land versus sea, this omission has caused a lack of communication across marine and terrestrial planning authorities (Peart, 2007) and systemic issues in our (built) environment. We must adopt more site-specific and site-sensitive methods to ground our thinking and practices on the multi-layered constructs of landscapes. Fieldwork counters the technical, apparent omniscient processes of outdated paradigms of controlling ‘nature’ and reveals serendipitous findings rooted within a specific site. Therefore, engaging human researchers deeply within the field and the multi-scalar and diverse ontological reality of the more-than-human and non-vital. This methodological approach critiques the prevalent positivistic framing of current landscape planning practices by adopting an interpretive perspective (Davoudi, 2012). In my research, I look at a coastal site in Tāmaki Makaurau, and explore methods of fieldwork to derive theory from practical activity. This approach enhances the learnings from canonical texts and counters the hardening of divides between theory and practice in landscape architecture and related fields of study (Kahn & Burns, 2021). By exploring site-specific methods, I am uncovering the synthetic qualities of fieldwork practices and address their benefits for integration into decision-making processes for coastal governance.

Beyond “The Power of the Powerless”: the Political Thought and Polemics of the Czechoslovak Opposition, 1977–1980

Abstract The article focuses on the political thought of the Czechoslovak opposition during the brief period from the creation of Charter 77 to 1980. It analyzes the themes of Václav Havel’s essay “The Power of the Powerless” within the context of the political thought of Czechoslovak dissidents. In doing so, it reveals various positions that were highly critical of Havel’s formulation of dissent. It is argued that the intellectual discourse of the opposition can be structured according to contentious themes such as the relationship to the impersonal institutions of modern society, the nature of politics and party politics in particular, the meaning and importance of “living in truth,” the interpretation of “small-scale work,” and the nature of responsibility (moral versus political). This article reveals mutually incompatible intellectual positions which, although unrealized in practice, are not intellectually inferior to canonical texts like Havel’s.

What triggers perceptions of racism in Heart of Darkness? A reader-response analysis

This paper combines reader-response analysis and stylistic insights to investigate what may be triggering perceptions of racism in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. It presents the results of a survey that asked participants to read extracts from the novel in which Africans are described and to highlight words and phrases they found problematic. Participants were then asked to answer some questions about their perception. Linking quantitative examination of the patterns emerging from participants’ highlighting with a qualitative analysis of participants’ answers, this paper provides a comprehensive picture of the linguistic features and structures that contribute to the perception of racism in Heart of Darkness. By doing so, this paper not only offers a novel perspective on the discussion about race and racism in Conrad’s canonical text, but it also provides further empirical evidence of the relationship between language and reader response.

Revisiting Tantrasamuccaya: A Fundamental text for Kerala Tantra

Tantrasamuccaya of Chennas Narayanan Namboothiri is Kerala's most influential and widely practised ritual manual. It primarily deals with temple-related rituals, from constructing a new temple to installing and expiatory traditions. It is written in the Malayalam language. The author was considered to be an authority in the fields of mathematics and tantra. Tantrasamuchaya is still considered the authentic reference manual in temple architecture and rituals. The temple in Śaiva theology is conceived as a powerful, sacred space where various divine energies are invoked and worshipped for the benefit of all creation. Temple construction was a perfect collaboration between the Ācārya and the Sthapati, using the canonical texts of the śaivāgama-s and śilpa śāstra manuals. The rich temple-building culture of Hinduism seems to have been carried to foreign shores, at least in part with traders, merchants and emperors. Tantra is very close to actual practice. Things done come first, and interpretations come later. No Tantrika would expect to be able to move straight from ordinary life to the most exalted stages of internal symbolism by mere thought. Some people will say The Tantra represents a thoroughgoing, practical system for manipulating and focusing human libido, enhancing it and then withdrawing it entirely from the passing and valueness phenomena of the word and directing it instead to a transcendent object. According to Tantra, creation is sexual self-realisation through the activity of the goddess. Tantra is esoteric, and much of it is always kept secret. In all Indian ceremonies, pooja is the root activity. In Tantric Pooja, the most crucial point is that the symbolism of the whole ceremony is taken over and applied by the pujari to himself through an intense meditation on the significance of each act as he performs it. Innumerable works of Tantra contain references to basic pooja. The vessels and implements by the Tantric pujaris are often worshipped as devatha emblematic of the activities of the transmuted self.

Beyond Martyrdom: Rereading Invisible Man

For political and literary theorists working on race, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a canonical text. Most political theorists approach the novel through what this essay calls a “martyr reading,” though martyrdom is just one of several political strategies explored in the work. This essay highlights an alternative in Ellison’s repertoire. The “trickster reading” developed here better accounts for several key scenes in the novel and also shows the limits of martyrdom as a technique of democratic politics. While other democratic theorists have identified Ellison with redemptive or deliberative aims, the novel’s references to Homer’s Odyssey, with its own trickster-hero, license a trickster reading of Invisible Man. Tricksters do not take on suffering, loss, or sacrifice in the hope of redemption nor are they necessarily committed to the virtues of deliberation. Instead, they evade sacrifice by resorting routinely to irony, cunning, and refusal. This reading demonstrates the importance of these techniques to Ellison’s vision and to our politics today.

Teaching Whiteness in Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 18’

Abstract This article will outline several strategies which can be used to teach Shakespeare’s poem ‘Sonnet 18’ in the pre-University classroom. Although one of the most famous texts in the canon, and regularly read in non-educational contexts, ‘Sonnet 18’ is rarely discussed in relation to its racial politics and its normalizing treatment of metaphorical whiteness. Being able to detect the operative invisibility of white imagery is a crucial critical skill, as it empowers students to assess the significance of the racialized effects of the poetic evidence placed before them. I touch on the five Assessment Objectives at Key Stage 5 at various stages to meld current critical methodologies with A-Level pedagogical structures. The focus on ‘Sonnet 18’ will also help to sharpen awareness of the coercive properties of canonical texts which are often presented to the reader as ideologically neutral, particularly those on bucolic or ‘English’ themes.

Mingled Minds and Transtextuality in a Contemporary Hungarian Young Adult Novel (And the Case of Compulsory Literature in High Schools)

Re-adapting classical works for Hungarian adolescents bridges the gap between the classic and the contemporary. This paper introduces Borbála Szabó’s novel as an example in a larger project that establishes strong intertextual connections with early twentieth century canonical texts reflecting on the friendship of two literary figures, Dezső Kosztolányi, and Frigyes Karinthy. Fictional reality is parodied on several levels almost parasitically and in a hallucinatory manner. It is rearranged with metaleptic gestures relying on the tropology of the schizophrenic mindset. Living in a family of alcoholics, the protagonist, a sixteen-year-old girl is on the verge of a mental breakdown with psychotic episodes whose development is described through connections to literary texts and figures. NoFather NorMother (Nincsenapám, seanyám) is a complex and comic novel, a parody of caricatures. Its central image is the closed space. It is replete with transtextual, paratextual, and intertextual references explicitly discussing the status and meaning of literature and demonstrating strategies of interpretation. A tour de force of presenting narrative elements, citational techniques, critique, the novel stages the disturbing schizophrenogenic environment of a teenager and enters the debate around compulsory school readings.

Translation and analogical reasoning

AbstractThis article argues that the dissemination of literatures across historical and cultural divides follow partly random analogical pathways, not least pushed by translations. By contrast, within traditional comparative literature hierarchical centre/periphery models for literary transmissions were to a large extent based on the idea of a unilateral influence moving from dominant source cultures and their canonical writers and texts to other cultures. With the aim of revising this model I will as necessary suggest analogical reasoning, understood as a bi‐directional and non‐hierarchical approach to literary dissemination as it is embedded in translatory, aesthetic and performative practices across languages and cultures. My examples are two: an early nineteenth‐century direct Danish translation from 1805 of William Shakespeare's Hamlet; and an early twentieth‐century case of cross‐media use of an indirect German translation of Chinese poetry in Gustav Mahler's symphonic work Das Lied von der Erde (1908–1909).