Classical Reading Research Articles

Teaching classics as moral and civic education

PurposeIn light of the concerns of declining value education in higher education and the debates on the role of general education in current university setting, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the relation between general education and moral and civic education by examining the effectiveness of a compulsory classics reading general education program in cultivating civic literacy in Asia-Pacific context.Design/methodology/approachMixed-method approach in the form of survey assessment and focus group studies was employed to examine the degree of students’ development in abilities and virtues relevant to civic literacy in the course.FindingsData analyses reveal a promising development on students’ civic literacy in the classics reading general education course. Statistical analysis on surveys indicated students experienced a significant development on democratic skills and critical thinking, acquisition of civic knowledge and cultivation of democratic virtues after taking the course. Focus group analysis illustrated a relation between classics reading and students’ acquisition of knowledge of socio-political institutions, cultivation of open-mindedness and sense of tolerance for diversity and willingness of seeking reasonableness and engaging in social debates.Originality/valueThis paper discusses the successful experience of a newly formulated General Education program in Hong Kong. The program is the first attempt in East Asia to launch values education through the teaching and learning of classics in Asia-Pacific context. This could be an example of launching values education at the level of undergraduate education for other local universities.

Interrupting Chicken and the Elephant of Surprise by D. Stein

Stein, David E. Interrupting Chicken and the Elephant of Surprise. Candlewick Press in Association with Penguin Random House Canada, 2018.
 In this, his second picture book starring Interrupting Chicken, Stein begins with a delightful pun: Chicken declares that every good story has “an elephant of surprise.” Papa tries to convince her that she has misheard her teacher, that every good story has “…an element of surprise.” To demonstrate, he attempts to read aloud classic folk and fairy tales: The Ugly Duckling; Little Mermaid; Rapunzel. Chicken, of course, interrupts. The Ugly Duckling gazes at his reflection and sees “…an Elephant.” The prince ascends the tower on a rope of hair to discover that his love is “…an ELEPHANT!”. Papa is dogged; he keeps trying. Chicken is relentless; she keeps interrupting. The story hour goes on with appealing silliness until Papa graciously allows it to end, not surprisingly, with elephants.
 A former Caldecott Honor winner, Stein creates not only this amusing storyline, but its illustration as well. He employs a variety of artistic techniques to great effect. The basic narrative, (including Chicken’s interruptions of Papa’s readings) is presented in cartoon style and bold crayon; the classic readings are highlighted with line drawings and water colour. Thus the theme of “interruption” is both conveyed and sustained by the art work.
 There are a few provisos about sharing this book with primary school children: a child will more fully enjoy the inappropriateness—and silliness—of Chicken’s outbursts if he or she is familiar with the plotlines of the classic tales that Papa attempts to read. The wise parent, or teacher, or librarian will ensure this familiarity in the most obvious and enjoyable way: sharing the stories. There is a further consideration: the hilarity of Chicken’s behaviour arises because she either cannot, or will not, acknowledge the literary concept of a “surprise element.” Children who, themselves, can grasp that concept will laugh harder than children who cannot. Depending on the age and maturity of the child listener, a little didacticism on the part of the adult reader may be appropriate. With these requirements satisfied, this book is a winner.
 Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Leslie Aitken
 Leslie Aitken’s long career in librarianship included selection of children’s literature for school, public, special, and academic libraries. She is a former Curriculum Librarian of the University of Alberta.

THE IMAGO TEMPLI OF THE INVISIBLE CHURCH: IDEALISM AND ABSTRACT ART.

Two events, apparently distant one from the other and without any direct link between them, but nevertheless strictly connected by a common spiritual legacy, constitute the subject of this paper. The first one, took place in 1971, when a very special «ecumenical chapel» opened its doors to the public. It is known under the name of «Rothko Chapel», due to the general project, undertaken by the painter Mark Rothko. Since that time, it has become one of the most precious artworks that represent the contemporary religious aesthetics. The black Rothko’s paintings, the Greek-cross building designed by the architect Philip Johnson, the Broken Obelisk of the artist Barnett Newman standing right out of the Chapel and the music composed for this ambient by the composer Morton Feldman, have replaced what traditionally has been called an «imago templi»; but contrary to all Christian tradition they represent (literally) no-thing. The second event, took place in 1795, when two young friends, Hegel and Schelling, were making a kind of oath under the sign of an Invisible Church, actualizing an ambiguous concept that, even if rooted in the Holy Scriptures, it had been condemned for its consequences as heretical. The relationship between these two events is given by contemporary art historians which have established that modern abstract painting, from a formal point of view, is rooted in the Romantic tradition. With this paper I would like to contribute to the establishment of this connection, not only by formal means, but by showing a common spiritual attitude towards images. Christianity, essentially figurative in its religious aesthetics, has always had to deal with the Jewish prohibition of image-making. This difficulty has been inherited to contemporary debates in which artist with classical readings and education, often of Jewish origins but active in Christian societies, try to create a new kind of art, above all traditions and free of dogmas. According to my suggestion, Rothko Chapel should be considered as the realization of a fragile balance in which both «aniconism» and «need of images» have simultaneously sublated their one-sidedness, producing a higher spiritual stage. Thus, such a chapel would not be a simple space where all religions could only meet and undertake a dialog, but should be considered as something more surprising: a unique realization of what logically appears as a pure contradiction: the realization of an Imago Templi for an Invisible Church.

Clásicos e hitos literarios. Su contribución a la educación literaria / Classics and literary milestones. Their contribution to literary education

In this paper, we propose a reflection on the concept of classic for children and youth and its difference with those other works that we could call "milestones". And also about another reality: the obligatory reading of classics in the language and literature classroom. Are these books beneficial for young readers? A new conception of literary education indicates that its main objective should be that young people get to read for reading (the pleasure of reading). Are these works appropriate to achieve this goal? In this paper we propose how to approach these texts to the youngest students and what advantages and disadvantages are presented by the alternatives to their full reading. Finally, we reflect on the use of these masterpieces of our literature in the formation of a competent reader.

Franca MancinelliThe Little Book of Passage

Mariana Dimópulos All My Goodbyes Trans. Alice Whitmore Transit Books Having written and translated multiple novels, Argentine author Mariana Dimópulos’s splintered novella is about murders that haunt a girl in Patagonia. Dimópulos constructs time as fluid, making the narrative structure of the book fragmented; however, while her voice is vivid, at times there is an emotional disconnect between the reader and the characters. Hans Magnus Enzensberger Panopticon Trans. Tess Lewis Seagull Books Hans Magnus Enzensberger, considered by many to be one of Germany’s most important living poets, offers a series of provocative essays tied to society, religion, economics, and politics . Utilizing the abnormality of his world perspective as a poet, Enzensberger captures all that is curious and captivating in our contemporary world while at the same time searching for answers and unlocking ultimate truths. Nota Bene notes between February 2010 and December 2018. In terms of that prolificacy, Impón tu suerte is more a statement than an anthology (a few texts are part of other collections or of what he calls “voluble ledgers”), and a running thread is the coolness, amiability , and matter-of-factness with which he starts every piece. What kind of reader is he? Judging by Impón tu suerte (from René Char’s impose ta chance, roughly, “trust firmly in your luck”), he absorbs twentiethcentury world literature and suffers national identity politics lightly, carefully meting out credit where credit is due, as in the pieces about his compatriot Juan Marsé. As part of the disruptive innovations in Spanish-language literature for which he is largely responsible, Vila-Matas devotes more energy to perspicacious and novel readings of classics like Kafka, Joyce, Walser, Nabokov, Beckett, Savinio, and the Oulipo group; Borges, Rulfo, Cortázar, Monterroso , and Pitol among the Latin Americans; to recent masters like Banville, Perec, and Coetzee; and to canonical forerunners like Cervantes, Stevenson, Proust, and Simenon. Thus, his epilogue asserts: “I do not devote myself to nonfiction, black or dirty realism, nor to damned autofiction; without further ado, the space in which I have always moved is simply fiction’s.” What about his contemporaries and the future he spoke about in Guadalajara? Generous to a fault with younger authors, Impón tu suerte is more revealing of what he reads thoroughly, so very few of those authors merit mention rather than inclusion, and those who feel compelled to write solipsistic Major Novels and are especially visible to Spanish-language audiences receive none at all. The exceptions are Zambra, Fresán, and Bolaño, who is the center of one of the longer pieces (and the most thorough essay on the paradigm shift of new Spanish-language writers), “Los escritores de antes (Bolaño en Blanes, 1996–1999).” The theoretical but direct scaffolding for comprehending his meticulousness at contextualizing literary developments occupies part 4, “The Idea.” Conceptually, he is drawn to Duchamp, Gracq, Dalí, and Blanchot , with some nods to Barthes and David Markson. But, even with them, he exhibits the coolness of an intellectual who “when in doubt, play[s] insane,” an attitude also useful when he devotes attention to writers who have lapsed into literary obscurity, entangling their texts to show that there is no anarchy in refuting traditions and their politics. A necessary corrective to reigning aesthetic conceits, Vila-Matas’s writing has a perfect sense of conceptual timing that avoids throwaway lines, perfectly comprehensible when considering how extensively he reads. Because his boundless tool is the dynamism of language, his narrative and nonfiction strike universal chords when he writes about the poetics of failure, authenticity, minimalist essayists, the metaliterary, Tarantino, hipsters, Facebook, and the like. Ultimately, Impón tu suerte asks readers to go with their instincts, and Vila-Matas’s cerebral coolness when facing high- cultural stakes ensures that his arguments are companionable. Will H. Corral San Francisco Franca Mancinelli The Little Book of Passage Trans. John Taylor. Fayetteville, New York. Bitter Oleander Press. 2018. 97 pages. Italian poet Franca Mancinelli’s The Little Book of Passage, with facing-page translation WORLDLIT.ORG 91 Books in Review by John Taylor, exemplifies the best possibilities of the prose-poem form. As James Longenbach notes in...

Cartographic Sea-Changes in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick: Ahab, Charles Wilkes, and the US Exploring Expedition

Author(s): Smith, L. Katherine | Abstract: Recent attention to the intersections between literature and geography has yielded productive new readings of old classics like Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, though developments in scholarship on deep time, the Anthropocene, and archipelagic and oceanic studies bring new exigency to Melville’s frequent allusions to mapping in the novel. This article brings the novel’s engagement with cartographical practices at sea into clearer focus through a series of close readings framed by the extraordinary ideal of precision guiding the cartographic agenda carried out by the US Exploring Expedition (US Ex. Ex.) in the South Pacific and Antarctica from 1838 to 1842. As metaphors for land, the captured and pursued whales in the novel reflect the surveying processes undertaken by the US Ex. Ex., which sought to establish an imperial presence in the South Pacific by bringing cartographic order to the region. In addition to emphasizing the representational failures of cartography and shortcomings of nineteenth-century cartographic processes, the novel exposes the fatally-flawed ambition of the US Ex. Ex. on two fronts: first, by revealing a contradictory imperative for imperial powers to both represent and shape the cartographic subject, which often obscures (rather than clarifies) subjects surveyed in imperial relations; and second, by demonstrating how attempts to dominate the ocean and indigenous peoples through cartographic representation expose the surveyor to cartographic counterattacks. By capitalizing on the difficulty of organizing the sea into charted order, the novel issues an ominous warning for the nation, unsettling its geography and expanding borders by envisaging latent threats within representations conveying geopolitical visibility and order.

Software inspections: comparing a formal method based with a classical reading methodology

In this paper, we present a rigorous comparison of two inspection techniques: our formal method-based approach, SOLIMVA 3.0, with a set of Object-Oriented Reading Techniques (OORTs). We evaluated efficiency (required time to analyse a scenario) and effectiveness (ability to find defects within UML diagrams). Results show that the classical OORT methodology is more efficient than SOLIMVA. However, we found a strong positive correlation between the required time by using OORT and SOLIMVA. For effectiveness, in general, both methodologies presented the same performance. However, SOLIMVA detected more inconsistency (incorrectness and extra information), ambiguity, and partial incompleteness defects while OORT identified more total incompleteness. Our overall conclusion is that a classical reading methodology (OORT) and a formal-based one (SOLIMVA) can be adopted in a complementary way within a software inspection process. While OORT is less costly to apply, SOLIMVA can be used to address some specific types of defects.

Software inspections: comparing a formal method based with a classical reading methodology

In this paper, we present a rigorous comparison of two inspection techniques: our formal method-based approach, SOLIMVA 3.0, with a set of Object-Oriented Reading Techniques (OORTs). We evaluated efficiency (required time to analyse a scenario) and effectiveness (ability to find defects within UML diagrams). Results show that the classical OORT methodology is more efficient than SOLIMVA. However, we found a strong positive correlation between the required time by using OORT and SOLIMVA. For effectiveness, in general, both methodologies presented the same performance. However, SOLIMVA detected more inconsistency (incorrectness and extra information), ambiguity, and partial incompleteness defects while OORT identified more total incompleteness. Our overall conclusion is that a classical reading methodology (OORT) and a formal-based one (SOLIMVA) can be adopted in a complementary way within a software inspection process. While OORT is less costly to apply, SOLIMVA can be used to address some specific types of defects.

Debatable “Chineseness”

© 2018, Francais sur la Chine Contemporaine China. This article discusses the ongoing debates about classics reading (dujing) in the revitalisation and diversification of Confucian classical education in mainland China. It begins by reviewing two disputes about dujing in modern Chinese history and then turns to the contemporary debate, focusing on how one professional and experienced practitioner expounded on the disparities in practicing classical education. The author summarises three controversial issues-(1) the relationship between the educative principles and methods, (2) historical legitimacy, and (3) the linguistic nature of Chinese language. Based on these, this paper reflects on the current dujing movement by concluding that the diversification of classical education has complicated the authenticity of Chineseness and rendered it a debatable public issue.

El exilio de Pedro Henríquez Ureña en México

As founder of the Sociedad de Conferencias, leader and teacher of the Ateneo de la Juventud in the city of Mexico, Pedro Henríquez Ureña has been recognized as one of those responsible for organizing a series of readings of the Greek classics, with the aim of fighting positivism which prevailed in public education. Deals with the intellectual and career literary one of the Ateneo important members in the modern Mexican culture.

Experiential Character Education with Classical Reading and Museum Education -Focused on Dasan’s Hapichop(霞帔帖) and the Silhak Museum-

Experiential Character Education with Classical Reading and Museum Education -Focused on Dasan’s Hapichop(霞帔帖) and the Silhak Museum-

Dealing With Selective Outrage Politics in Russia-West Relations

The paper addresses the issue of uneven treatment of the Western and the Russian actions in the world politics. The author discusses the application of international law to different situations of use of force in the recent history. The paper discusses what structures the international outrage or makes it selective. Two factors seem to play a major role. The first factor is perceived geographic proximity between certain conflict areas and those who are practicing outrage on the international arena. To illustrate, the West tends to have no problem with violations of international rules with regard to intervention or secession in Asia or Africa. The second factor of selectiveness in international outrage is an increasing emotionality of international politics. Simply speaking, emotionality implies instability of preferences, disregard for procedures and constraints: sometimes the issue is important for an actor, sometimes it is not. From textbooks and classical reading, International Relations students know that state and/or political leader and/or institutions behave rationally. Many scholars tend to admit that this rationality is bounded by time restrictions, unavailability of information or cultural differences. However, this is not exactly the case in the current international relations. There is a clear tendency to replace sober analysis of cost and benefits with the competition of who reacts quicker (“we gotta do something” approach) and to substitute fact-checking with the existing political narrative.

Análisis de las adaptaciones literarias de Hamlet para su uso didáctico en el aula

La lectura de los clásicos en el aula no está exenta de polémica entre el profesorado. Sin embargo, debido a su relevancia en la formación humanística del alumnado y con el fin de solventar los posibles obstáculos derivados de su lectura por un joven lector, surgen las adaptaciones literarias, susceptibles también de discrepancias entre los estudiosos. En esta línea, el objetivo general del estudio se centra en analizar diferentes adaptaciones literarias de La tragedia de Hamlet, Príncipe de Dinamarca de William Shakespeare, para estudiar el procedimiento de adaptación o recreación seguido en cada una de ellas. El diseño de la investigación se centra en una metodología de corte descriptivo, basada en la técnica del análisis de contenido. La muestra se compone de siete adaptaciones en las que se ha procurado la diversidad genérica, intertextual y lingüística. Se emplea el programa de análisis cualitativo Atlas.ti, para proceder al tratamiento de los datos en función de las siguientes categorías: nivel/edad, comparación temática, género, formato y estilo lingüístico. Finalmente, se muestra la especificidad y oportunidad didáctica de las adaptaciones analizadas, con el fin de un empleo adecuado del clásico en el aula en función de sus lectores y las necesidades docentes correspondientes.

La promesa de felicidad en Proust y Miró

A menudo se han comparado las obras de Marcel Proust y de Gabriel Miró. Las afinidades estéticas de los dos autores contemporáneos se pueden entender a partir de sus modelos comunes decimonónicos. Entre ellos, Stendhal ocupa un lugar especial. Su sentencia sobre la belleza como una «promesa de felicidad» que cambia según el tipo de felicidad esperado en diferentes épocas y lugares, aparece en varios pasajes de À la recherche du temps perdu y de El obispo leproso. El uso narrativo del aforismo estético le añade nuevos contextos: mientras que Proust lo interpreta a la luz del impresionismo y a la sombra de la antropología moralista, Miró contrasta la «promesa de felicidad» con la promesa de salvación cristiana.

인문고전과 인접 텍스트의 융합을 통한 대학 교양교육 연구 : 윌리엄 골딩의 『파리대왕』을 중심으로

The report looked at examples of university education through the fusion of academic classics and neighboring text. Golding"s work is a text that can be used to educate students in fused communications through discussion and writing using neighboring text, and symbolizes a sense of rivalry in European society shortly after the war. The use of the film “Lord of the Flies” is an active complement to the understanding and interest in classical reading lessons of video generation students. In addition, the movie revealed criticism of the Korean reality with its hourly utilization range based on violence, helping it to deduce and reflect on social issues. The education of cultural content through the fusion of these adjacent text provides an opportunity for students to think about various issues by provoking curiosity and imagination, and to address ethical issues that should be addressed in the community. I have read, understood, discussed, and then extended my lesson with film appreciation, poetry appreciation, and analysis. After that, I have mapped the direction in which our society or the community should present and discussed its concrete ideas in writing. I think he suggested one possibility of university education in that it encourages us to expand our thinking on various patterns and problems that occur in real life.

다문화사회 대학의 고전읽기 수업의 학습변인별 학습효과에 대한 실증연구

This paper analyzes the learning variables on the classics reading lessons and then established the several research hypotheses on the learning variables and learning effects of the classics reading lessons. As the results of statistical analysis, university students have different learning effects according to their learning variables of the classic reading lessons and the recognition variables on the value of classics. As a whole, the interest and taste variables on the classics reading influenced on the learning effects directly. However, the recognition variable on importance of the classic did not directly affect the learning effects such as necessity of the classics, satisfaction and recommendation intention to friends according to the regression analysis. However, the recognition variable on the importance of the classic indirectly influenced on the learning effects via the mediate variables of the enhancement of presentation and expression power, logical thinking power, and the value of life according to the path analysis.

The chair leg and the stadium

To contribute to the colourful palette of Europe’s noteworthy contemporary Shakespeares, this article analyses the unique approach to Shakespeare of the Hungarian director László Bagossy through case studies of two productions, The Tempest (2012) and Hamlet (2014). Bagossy’s Shakespearean productions peeled method acting off from Shakespeare for good and effectively demonstrated how a change in performance traditions (distancing, operatic, realist) can initiate a novel handling and reading of the familiar classics.

황순원 문학의 ‘고전 읽기’ 과목으로서의 적절성 연구 - 1930∼1990년대 시대별 대표작품 읽기와 토론 -

황순원 문학의 ‘고전 읽기’ 과목으로서의 적절성 연구 - 1930∼1990년대 시대별 대표작품 읽기와 토론 -

The Bible in a Disenchanted Age: The Enduring Possibility of Christian Faith

The Bible in a Disenchanted Age: The Enduring Possibility of Christian Faith

THE IMAGO TEMPLI OF THE INVISIBLE CHURCH: IDEALISM AND ABSTRACT ART.

Two events, apparently distant one from the other and without any direct link between them, but nevertheless strictly connected by a common spiritual legacy, constitute the subject of this paper. The first one, took place in 1971, when a very special «ecumenical chapel» opened its doors to the public. It is known under the name of «Rothko Chapel», due to the general project, undertaken by the painter Mark Rothko. Since that time, it has become one of the most precious artworks that represent the contemporary religious aesthetics. The black Rothko’s paintings, the Greek-cross building designed by the architect Philip Johnson, the Broken Obelisk of the artist Barnett Newman standing right out of the Chapel and the music composed for this ambient by the composer Morton Feldman, have replaced what traditionally has been called an «imago templi»; but contrary to all Christian tradition they represent (literally) no-thing. The second event, took place in 1795, when two young friends, Hegel and Schelling, were making a kind of oath under the sign of an Invisible Church, actualizing an ambiguous concept that, even if rooted in the Holy Scriptures, it had been condemned for its consequences as heretical. The relationship between these two events is given by contemporary art historians which have established that modern abstract painting, from a formal point of view, is rooted in the Romantic tradition. With this paper I would like to contribute to the establishment of this connection, not only by formal means, but by showing a common spiritual attitude towards images. Christianity, essentially figurative in its religious aesthetics, has always had to deal with the Jewish prohibition of image-making. This difficulty has been inherited to contemporary debates in which artist with classical readings and education, often of Jewish origins but active in Christian societies, try to create a new kind of art, above all traditions and free of dogmas. According to my suggestion, Rothko Chapel should be considered as the realization of a fragile balance in which both «aniconism» and «need of images» have simultaneously sublated their one-sidedness, producing a higher spiritual stage. Thus, such a chapel would not be a simple space where all religions could only meet and undertake a dialog, but should be considered as something more surprising: a unique realization of what logically appears as a pure contradiction: the realization of an Imago Templi for an Invisible Church.