Early Writings Research Articles

Jon Sobrino and ‘the Crucified People’

‘The crucified people’ became a key theological concern in the writings of Jon Sobrino SJ in the 1990s. This article examines how and why Sobrino made this concern a central element in his theology at the time. Section 2 discusses what Sobrino has described as his ‘awakening from the sleep of inhumanity’ in the 1970s as he encountered liberation theology in El Salvador following his doctoral studies in Frankfurt. Section 3 examines three figures in the Salvadoran Church who influenced Sobrino: Ignacio Ellacuría (assassinated 1989); Oscar Romero (assassinated 1980); and Rutilio Grande (assassinated 1977). All three paid with their lives for their work in the Church. Section 4 examines the understanding of the crucified people offered by Ellacuría in 1978, and the encouragement for this idea in the words of Romero and Grande in 1977. Sections 5 and 6 turn to the use of the term as used by Sobrino himself. Section 5 argues that Sobrino’s early Christological writings are quite cautious in their use of this idea. The murder of Ellacuría by the military in November 1989 at the Central American University—alongside the killing of five fellow Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter—appears to be the pivotal event that prompts Sobrino’s bolder discussion in publications from 1989 onwards (Section 6).

How Far Do We Self-legislate?

In his early writings, Kant regarded the autonomy of the will as the supreme principle of morality, as well as the sole principle of all moral laws and of the duties conforming to them. Nevertheless, this impressively sounding principle gradually disappeared from the later Kant’s texts, and there is not much in the literature to explain why. Pauline Kleingeld’s purpose, in the two articles I consider here, is to address this lacuna and to show that there are good philosophical reasons for this principle’s gradual disappearance from the Kantian framework. One of my aims, in this paper, is to formulate and argue for several reservations about Kleingeld’s argument; however, even if these reservations turn out to be apposite, my claim is not that Kant did not actually abandon the Principle of Autonomy; instead, I argue that, even if Kleingeld were right and Kant had abandoned the Principle of Autonomy, he would still not have needed to.

Evolution of the figure of the Brahmin in early Muslim writings

When we talk about the caste system today, among other things, we talk about the wily, crafty and the boasting Brahmins who founded and maintained a set of self-serving rules that effectively took the form of the caste system. How do social scientists know about these Brahmins? As a set of new scholars are demonstrating today, the ancient Indian texts - such as the Vedas or the Mahabharata - do not talk about the caste system or the rule-setting priestly class of Brahmins. These texts do not even exhibit an impulse to put into place a system that even remotely resembles the so-called caste system. Whence is this idea of Brahmin then? Ever since Wilhelm Halbfass’s Imagining India (1990), a growing but a small number of Indologists talk about the 11th century Al-Bīrūnī as one of “the greatest scholars ever” to speak about the Indian caste system. There is, however, neither a comprehensive study to show what his contributions measure up to nor any attempt to dig into the Islamic culture that culminates in Al-Biruni’s quite detailed picture of the Brahmin and the caste system. This paper sifts through the earliest available Islamic writings on India, from the early 8th century to Al-Biruni’s time, to chart a genealogy of the figure of the law-making crafty Brahmin that we confront by the 11th century in Muslim writings.

From Fiqh Matn to Code of State: Shifting Representation of the Multaqā from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries Ottoman World and Beyond

Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī’s (d. 956/1549) Multaqā al-abḥur, published in 1517, quickly became one of the most authoritative fiqh texts in the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman authors treated it just as fiqh text. In their early writings, Western scholars also represented the book to their audiences as a fiqh book. However, by the late seventeenth century onward, Western authors started to portray the book as a code of the state in the modern sense of a uniform law. Some Muslim scholars in the late nineteenth century fallowed the same path. Thus, the representation of the Multaqā shifted from being a fiqh text to a code of the state. This article traces the historical process of this shift and argues that viewing the Multaqā as a code of the state was a misrepresentation that emerged under the influence of the notion of a modern nation-state.

Writers, Manuscripts, Collectors: Modern Authorship and the Fin-de-Siècle Origins of the Literary Archive

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, collecting authors’ material remains developed from a private pursuit into a public mission, a history that is coupled to the emergence of modern institutions such as the research library and the literary archive. Authors of the period were themselves both aware of and involved in the market for literary manuscripts and the increasingly institutionalized culture of collecting writers’ papers. This article looks at literary fiction as a contemporary medium in which this moment of transition was mirrored. As a case study, I focus on the early writings of Edith Wharton – retracing a gradual shift in her creative interests from the autographs of contemporary or near-contemporary writers to those of canonized figures and from collecting as an amateur occupation to collecting as a professional endeavour.

Post-Colonial Indian Woman: Journey from Subjugation to Emancipation

In terms of emancipation, gender equality, female individuality and identity have become prominent themes in Indian feminist writings in the recent decades. The literary canon is dominated by men in most post-colonial countries. Patriarchal intellectuals did not pay serious attention to early feminist writings and ridiculed their radical ideas regarding women's freedom. It has become a natural social evil that a woman should not think about her freedom in India. This paper explores journey from subjugation to emancipation of Indian woman. Before independence of India, the Indian woman is not given higher education, not given social and political rights, not given economic security and she has to be dumb to ask anything for her existence. Unlike men, Indian feminist writers have been able to shine their subtle talents in the literary world. Indian feminist writers gave a new spirit to the Indian woman with the inspiring works of radical female protagonists in their novels. These works gave Indian woman new ideas, socio-political rights and economic freedom and she gained great confidence to stand with a man to show her influence in all walks of life.

Ann Petry’s The Street: an exposition of discursive practices of capitalism, racism, and chauvinism

ABSTRACT African-American women’s fiction is so tantalizing that it has haunted the memories of readers ever since its inception. The earlier writers of this variety of fiction have been often labeled as sheer protest writers by some critics, but there are efforts made by researchers consistently to resuscitate the hitherto less known authors from the appropriation of partial canon makers and critics and to show that they are matchless in terms of their literary dexterity and originality. This paper will try to succinctly scrutinize one such writer Ann Petry’s debut novel The Street (1946), which interrogates and unmasks the discursive practices of ‘capitalism’ that pervade America and breed racism, chauvinism, and false class consciousness, and hamper the growth of blacks in general and women in particular. Further, the paper will also try to explore how Petry through the metaphor of the street of Harlem exposes the ubiquitous forces of ‘capitalism’ that produce white supremacism and racialized patriarchy.

On the Apostasy of Tiberius Julius Alexander

Abstract In the hope of shedding some light on what it meant to be “Jewish” in the first century CE, and perhaps in other times, this article will closely examine what “everybody knows” about Tiberius Julius Alexander – that he was an apostate from Judaism – by carefully considering the arguments of earlier writers and critiquing them, in light of the events of his distinguished military and governmental career. It will also consider some remarks of his uncle Philo that others have thought relevant, and will offer an alternative narrative of his role as second in command of the Roman army in the Jewish War.

Children with handwriting difficulties: Impact of cognitive strategy training for acquisition of accurate alphabet-letter-writing

Introduction: An occupational therapy handwriting programme integrating cognitive strategy training with alphabet-letter-writing instruction was found more effective than in-class instruction alone for early writers. This study investigated the impact of cognitive strategy training for children struggling to correctly write alphabet-letters. Method: Participants were ten children in the first 2 years of formal schooling identified with challenges in alphabet-letter-writing. A nonconcurrent A1BA2 single system research design was used. The A Phases represented within-class handwriting instruction only and B Phase represented additional handwriting intervention which included cognitive strategy training. The Perceive, Recall, Plan and Perform (PRPP) System of Task Analysis (Stage 2) was the repeated outcome measure. Results: Results revealed all ten children demonstrated a similar pattern of change in cognitive strategy application which was concomitant with improvement and mastery in writing all 26-lowercase alphabet-letters from memory. Cognitive strategies which exhibited the greatest impact on acquiring and executing accurate alphabet-letter-writing skills were those related to planning, memory, attention and sensory perception. The least influential were those associated with generating and controlling motor actions. Conclusion: This study provides beginning support for including cognitive strategies training concurrently with alphabet-letter-writing instruction to assist children struggling to write alphabet-letters.

Epistemic space and key concepts in early and late modern medical discourse: an exploration of two genres

This article provides a corpus-driven overview of the ‘epistemic space’ surrounding the use of two lockwords of Early and Late Modern English writings on midwifery and childbirth,childanduterus. Rather than searching for epistemic stance markers themselves, this study employs the ‘bottom-up’ approach by examining the propositions containing these lockwords, and then seeing what particular epistemic meanings are signalled by the surrounding discourse context. Both treatises and periodicals representative of medical writing from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries are examined, thus allowing any diachronic trends characteristic of a period that witnessed much change in midwifery practices, and medicine more broadly, to be uncovered. Data are drawn from theEarly Modern English Medical Texts(EMEMT) andLate Modern English Medical Texts(LMEMT) corpora.

Jean-Luc Godard and Walter Benjamin: metahistory, dialectical images and worldly theology

ABSTRACT Despite the recognition of Walter Benjamin’s influence on Jean-Luc Godard’s cinema, little in-depth comparative work has been conducted on this relationship to date. The article provides a close reading of Godard’s documentary political filmmaking and articulates it with a large spectrum of Benjamin’s texts, from the early writings and unpublished fragments to his latter and best-known work. The article looks beyond methodological confluences between Benjamin’s historiography and Godard’s cinema, enabling the viewer to consider philosophical, philological, metahistorical and aesthetic issues that chart new points of analysis for further comparative work. The first sections examine the importance of dream and spectral appearances in the redemptive historiography of both authors; the middle sections problematise dialectical thinking, image and language, investigating the specificities of both Benjamin’s and Godard’s practices and theoretical approaches; the final sections consider the theological and Messianic interpretation of historical time, analysing the importance of ethical and political aspects in the work of both authors. By exhaustively mapping the specific moments in which Benjamin’s passages appear in Godard’s films, the article offers a way of entering into some of the most enigmatic formulations of Benjamin’s historiography, while opening up Godard’s documentary cinema to new readings.

GRICE, Annalise. 2022. D. H. Lawrence and the Literary Marketplace: The Early Writings.

Book review.

The Materiality of Middle English Anchoritic Devotion

The Materiality of Middle English Anchoritic Devotion

Representations of motherhood in late francoist Spain: From catholic discourses to early feminist critiques

This article examines changes and continuities in the representations of motherhood at the end of Franco’s regime (c 1960-1975). Influenced by the approaches of the history of emotions, this study looks at the emotional prescriptions and norms associated with Catholic representations of motherhood and family, but also at the emotional counter-narratives of second-wave feminism in Spain. It draws on various sources, including popular and religious magazines, films, medical discourses, advice literature, illustrated books and feminist writings. The first section focuses on the most conservative depictions of motherhood at the time, those linked to Opus Dei, which praised the joys of prolific motherhood and resisted any change in social attitudes towards birth control. Modern in appearance, but very reactionary at heart, these publications intended for a popular readership disseminated an ideal of the self-sacrificing mother who never lost her smile or optimism despite the hardships of everyday life. The second section deals with a new type of advice literature for mothers aimed at disseminating the so-called painless childbirth method, which contained a conservative message about the role and emotions women should perform during labour. Thirdly, the article assesses the evolution of the most progressive Catholic discourse on motherhood and family in the 1960s and early 1970s in the context of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Finally, it studies some early feminist writings from the end of the dictatorship. In opposition to the patriarchal narratives, these critiques drew attention to the various types of violence associated with the experience and institution of motherhood.

The Personal is Linguistic: Personal Pronouns in the Art of Mirella Bentivoglio and Ketty La Rocca

Personal pronouns occur repeatedly in the works of Italian artists Mirella Bentivoglio and Ketty La Rocca. Both artists were significantly shaped by visual poetry in the late 1960s, and continued their exploration of language in the visual arts throughout the 1970s. Notably, their engagement with personal pronouns centered the first-person singular “I.” As the key site of subject-constitution in language, this linguistic category is crucial to a great number of early feminist writings. In recourse to these writings, I argue that Bentivoglio and La Rocca negotiate the personal pronoun “I” as a predetermined linguistic category and make use of it to introduce alterity into the constitution of the gendered subject. They do so by engaging with public signs. Considering the works of these artists as cornerstones of a feminist critique of language in the visual arts, the article explores the critical potential of personal pronouns for this very critique.

Spitting at Jim Crow

Spitting at Jim Crow

OS NÍVEIS DA LINGUAGEM: A TEORIA LINGUÍSTICA DE EUGENIO COSERIU

ABSTRACT From his very early writings on general linguistics onwards, the Romanian linguist Eugenio Coseriu, like his own contemporary Noam Chomsky and Ferdinand de Saussure before them, delineated the concept of linguistic knowledge . His pursuit of this concept led him to elaborate his famous distinctions of the levels of language , which came to be one of his most important contributions to linguistic theory. In addition to detailing such distinctions, this article discusses the author’s view of the nature, content and structure of linguistic knowledge. It also presents some external and internal circumstances to his theory that could explain the widespread ignorance of Coseriu’s ideas in the realm of contemporary general linguistics, especially in the English-speaking world, before recent claims that Coseriu’s original contributions could have given linguistics a different direction if half a century ago his work had received proper attention. Finally, this paper addresses the question whether Coseriu is a neglected genius of twentieth century linguistics as it is frequently argued by his former students and devotees.

Schelling and the Priority of Philosophy to Art

In his early writings up unto his so-called “middle period” Schelling treats art as having a crucial role with respect to philosophy. Yet there is no consensus in the secondary literature as to the nature of this role, and the extent to which Schelling changed his mind on the subject. The paper will defend the claim that Schelling holds consistently, from his early texts to the Philosophy of Art, that philosophy is in some sense prior to art while essentially dependent on it. The paper will explore the development of this position from various perspectives. This will shed light on Schelling’s view on both art and philosophy and his view that in the future the two will merge.

The Evolution of Jefferson’s Political Philosophy in his Early Writings

The Evolution of Jefferson’s Political Philosophy in his Early Writings

Destitutionalised Reading of Gender and Caste in Baburao Bagul’s Short Stories

In this research paper, I analyze the effects of institutionalised ways of reading ‘gender’ and ‘caste’ in Marathi literature with reference to Baburao Bagul, one of the important Dalit writers, short stories with the help of some notions and arguments from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, Jacques Derrida’s essay “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences”, Aniket Jaaware’s essay “Destitute Literature” and the book Practicing Caste: On Touching and Not Touching. Baburao Bagul’s short stories re-valuated the established institutionalized reading practices of gender and caste in literature set by the Marathi writers and critics, mostly upper-caste, before the 1960s. However, other Dalit writers did not venture to re-valuate the representation of gender and caste in literature. Before the concept of ‘Destitute Literature’ was propounded by Aniket Jaaware, most of the reading/analysis of Marathi Dalit literature followed institutionalized ways of consumption of literature. The dominant practices of reading literature in academia as well as out of it did not spare even the scholars who claimed to be different from the hegemony. The descriptions and analysis of gender and caste were mostly on the grounds of identity politics. For example, all the essays in the Marathi book Samagra Lekhak: Baburao Bagul (Complete Writer: Baburao Bagul) edited by Dr. Krushna Kirwale offer the institutionalized readings of Bagul’s stories, their form, content, and the characters. I attempt to critique such earlier writings and criticism written on Baburao Bagul’s stories and re-read the stories in destitutionalised way.