Extant Versions Research Articles

Review of Bryan R. Simms, ed., Pro Mundo, Pro Domo: The Writings of Alban Berg (Oxford, 2014)

[1] In addition to his compositions, Alban Berg (1885-1935) was also a writer and editor of letters, analyses, polemical tracts, commentaries, tributes, and editorials. Indeed, much of what we know of his music has been guided by Berg's own words, transmitted directly or through his pupils, in particular Willi Reich and Theodor W. Adorno. Berg's writings have appeared in various collections, but only partially-and in scattered sources-in English translation.(1) With this new volume, containing Bryan Simms's translations of and informative commentaries on forty-seven items from Berg's writings, we have the opportunity to expand our knowledge of Berg's career, and to reconsider his legacy in both its musical and written aspects.[2] The title, "Pro Mundo, Pro Domo," roughly "for the world, for one's own house," is taken from the subtitles to Berg's essay "The 'Problem of Opera'"; Berg was influenced by Viennese author Karl Kraus's use of the terms in his journal Die Fackel and a collection of aphorisms Pro Domo et Mundo (1912). Simms's collection, presented as six sections, each ending with commentary, reflects this division of perspectives in Berg's writings. The first five sections move from external, public topics to personal, private concerns with the sixth section a mix of the two:1. "The Schoenberg Guides": four items written 1913-20, consisting of analyses of Gurrelieder, the Chamber Symphony op. 9, and Pelleas und Melisande2. "Essays, Lectures, and Analyses": fifteen items including "What is Atonal?", "Why is Schoenberg's Music So Difficult to Understand," and several items on Wozzeck3. "Tributes": eight items on musical and non-musical individuals(2)4. "Interviews": seven items, mostly on the topic of Wozzeck5. "Fictional Works": three items written 1903-04 and 1918, including an early text entitled "Hanna"6. "Miscellaneous Writings": nine items, all on musical topics[3] In his Introduction, Simms notes Berg's lifelong love of literature, drama, and philosophy, and his early aspirations to be a writer. From about 1920-26, Berg sought employment as an editor and essayist, and was for a time editor of the journal Musikblatter des Anbruch. After the success of Wozzeck, however, his focus was on composing, and his writing shifted to shorter forms, such as lectures, tributes, interviews, and commentaries. From 1932-37 Berg's writings were initially published in various formats by his pupil Willi Reich, including a book (Reich 1937); Hans Redlich later listed 28 written items in a book on Berg's music (Redlich 1957a). Translations of Berg's writings into English appear in Redlich's English-version book (Redlich 1957b) and Cornelius Cardew's translation of some eight items from the 1963 abridged version of Reich's original collection (Reich 1965). Simms observes that with the research and publication of critical editions and texts from the Alban Berg Stiftung and Universal Edition, new works and writings are coming to light; the current volume represents only what was known at the time of publication (8).[4] With regard to this volume, Simms writes that "For the sake of consistency in English-language readings, new translations by the editor of this volume have been used" (9); among existing translations, Simms re-uses only Mark DeVoto's translation (DeVoto 1993) of Berg's analytical guides to Schoenberg's pieces (ix).(3) Helpfully, a companion website supplies the original German-language texts for comparison and study.(4) The various formats of these originals are informative, ranging from the original published versions to typed and handwritten copies, and they contain notes and revisions by Berg, and even voice-inflection markings for speeches. Simms writes that for his translations he started from "a single best source" (9) for each item, with clarification on the criteria for "best" given in the commentaries. For instance, the lecture on Wozzeck has at least seven extant versions; the one chosen for translation is the "most complete" and the one "read in Vienna on May 15, 1930" (294-99). …

"I Can't Eat if I Don't Plass": Impoverished Plasma Donors, Alternatives, and Autonomy.

One of the central considerations to be taken into account in evaluating the ethics of compensation for donated plasma is respect for donor autonomy. And one of the main arguments against compensated donation systems is that many donors do or would come from circumstances of poverty that restrict their alternatives in a way that compromises those donors' autonomy. In this paper, I develop and defend a novel version of this "compromised autonomy argument" which improves upon extant versions by employing a more nuanced account of the relationship between alternatives and autonomy. According to the version of that argument I offer, donors lack autonomy with respect to the sale of their plasma if their economic circumstances leave them with no choice but to sell their plasma (i.e., "plass") on the basis of a desire they have had no choice but to hold. After explicating the key terms of this argument, I examine its policy implications. I argue that, given several reasonable empirical assumptions, my argument implies that a majority of individuals whose income falls below a specified threshold would indeed lack autonomy with respect to the sale of their plasma. Most individuals whose income falls above that threshold, on the other hand, would be able to autonomously sell their plasma. I argue that respect for donor autonomy therefore speaks in favor of an income-restricted system of compensated donation which permits collection centers to purchase plasma from those whose income falls above the relevant threshold, but not those below it.

Of Empresses and Indians

Of Empresses and Indians

Of Empresses and Indians

Of Empresses and Indians

II . Boniface, Incest, and the Earliest Extant Version of Pope Gregory I’s Libellus responsionum (JE 1843)

Article II . Boniface, Incest, and the Earliest Extant Version of Pope Gregory I’s Libellus responsionum (JE 1843) was published on August 1, 2014 in the journal Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung (volume 100, issue 1).

Avoidance of feudal taboo on emperors' names in perused versions of Yi jin jing (Classic of Changing Tendon) and the time of its transcription and blockprinting

By studying the avoidance of feudal taboo on emperors' names in the perusal of 48 extant versions of Yi jin jing (Classic of Changing Tendon), together with their contents, it is found that these versions are of valuable editions and 15 of them can be viewed as the early representative works of Yi jin jing, including 8 hand copied versions, and 7 blockprinted versions. No version of the Ming Dynasty can be found. The earliest versions are all transcribed ones, while the earliest extant blockprinted version appeared until the Daoguang reign of the Qing Dynasty. The preface of Shen's checked version doesn't avoid the emperor's name, saying that it was written in the "xin chou" year of Shunzhi, hence, it should be copied in the early Kangxi reign, and is the earliest hand copied version. The hand copied version of Yongzheng reign avoids the word "xuan", yet doesn't avoid the word "hong", also with a preface written in Yongzheng reign, indicating that this one is the earliest next to the previous one. Since the Xidi version avoids both the words "xuan" and "hong", it should be copied during or after the Qianlong reign. The earliest extant blockprinted edition is the one checked and printed by Fu Jin-quan in the third year of Daoguang which might also be the earliest blockprinted edition. That collection by Zhu Wenlan and Laizhangshi might be all later editions.

Beckett'sEmbersand the Modernist Ovid: a Tiresian Poetic?

This paper interprets the second Beckett radio play, Embers, as a miniature epic that reworks numerous myths from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Paradoxically exploiting an aural broadcast medium, Beckett thus creates, in the listener's imagination, a mythical series of interlocking visual ekphrases. Comparison of the earliest extant versions, the MS THR 70.3 holograph and MS 4664 typescript, also suggests that Beckett's Embers – after Eliot's The Waste Land – dramatises the revelatory afflatus of Orphico-Dionysiac ritual initiation. Though caricatured in Plato's parable of the cave, such mystical gnosis was later celebrated in Ovid's interwoven myths of Echo, Narcissus, and the blind shaman Tiresias.

AL-ANṬĀKĪ'S USE OF THE LOST ARABIC VERSION OF PHILOPONUS'CONTRA PROCLUM

AbstractIbn al-Faḍl al-Anṭākī'sKitāb Bahjat al-muʾmin, theBook of the Delight of the Believerpreserves, in the first part, in at least three of its 100 philosophical and theological problems, passages from the hitherto lost Arabic version of Philoponus'De Aeternitate mundi contra Proclum. All quotations are taken from the refutation of the first proof, one of them from the beginning which is also lost in Greek. For this latter passage a parallel is found in al-Isfizārī who draws on the same Philoponus source in hisKitāb fī Masāʾil al-umūr al-ilāhiyya(Book on Metaphysical Questions). A comparison of the other passages to the extant Greek text suggests that al-Anṭākī quotes Philoponus faithfully, but with some omissions and occasional re-arrangement of his source. Additional evidence for al-Anṭākī's overall accurate use of sources can be gained from his quotations of the extant Arabic versions of theDe Anima-paraphrase, Nemesius'De Natura hominisand ʿAlī b. Rabban al-Ṭabarī'sFirdaws al-ḥikma(Paradise of Wisdom).

Stakeholder Happiness Enhancement: A Neo-Utilitarian Objective for the Modern Corporation

ABSTRACT:Employing utilitarian criteria, Jones and Felps, in “Shareholder Wealth Maximization and Social Welfare: A Utilitarian Critique” (Business Ethics Quarterly23[2]: 207–38), examined the sequential logic leading from shareholder wealth maximization to maximal social welfare and uncovered several serious empirical and conceptual shortcomings. After rendering shareholder wealth maximization seriously compromised as an objective for corporate operations, they provided a set of criteria regarding what a replacement corporate objective would look like, but do not offer a specific alternative. In this article, we draw on neo-utilitarian thought to advance a refined version of normative stakeholder theory that we believe addresses a major remaining criticism of extant versions, their lack of specificity. More particularly, we provide a single-valued objective function for the corporation—stakeholder happiness enhancement—that would allow managers to make principled choices between/among policy options when stakeholder interests conflict.

Antinomies of Pluralism: Modulating Conceptions of Politics and Agency in India

Conceptions of pluralism and identity exert a powerful influence both on the process of politics and on the study of politics. They inform a wide range of ideals and methods and, more importantly, shape influential definitions of politics and political subjectivity and agency across national spaces. The article is an attempt to formulate an approach to pluralism that allows us to enrich accounts of political subjectivity and agency at the same time that it forces us to rethink our relation to political theory and political sociology. The context in question is India—indeed certain broad transitions in the social and historical landscape of modern Indian political thought and practice—which serves to complicate extant versions of the contending models of politics. The argument is certainly not for a new, extra-historical (or post-cultural) foundation for agency and for political claims, but rather to set up a heuristic for contending with the antinomies of pluralism as they articulate in the space of politics and agency in India. The ground traversed is an attempt to meet the constraints as much of historical sociology as of normative theory (or theorising).

The Unrepentant Twyllforwyn: Modern Perspectives on Virginity Testing in Medieval Welsh Folklore

<em>The Island of the Mighty</em><span>, by Evangeline Walton (1936), is one of the first modern adaptations of the </span><em>Mabinogi</em><span>. The novel’s re-publication in 1970 launched Walton’s career as a critically and popularly successful fantasy fiction writer. Although her work is little-known today, the re-publication of </span><em>The Mabinogion Tetralogy </em><span>(2001) indicates a renewed interest in this ground-breaking work. This essay examines the novel’s feminist re-visioning of Arianrhod’s virginity test in the Fourth Branch as a case study for Walton’s ability to re-examine the </span><em>Mabinogi </em><span>from a modern perspective while maintaining a fidelity to the medieval narrative. Walton’s re-visioning focuses on the transformation of gender roles in a Mother Goddess-worshipping culture on the verge of monotheism, as the pagan traditions of the Old Tribes are slowly eroded by the patriarchal New Tribes. The novel utilizes the virginity test as an exemplar of this emerging patriarchy’s desire to place the formerly venerated female body under its masculine jurisdiction.This essay will utilize Luce Irigaray’s theory of the maternal function of the female gender to explore how Arianrhod’s decision to reject the maternal role undermines both Gwydion’s gender identity and necessitates her vilification in the eyes of the </span><em>Mabinogi</em><span>’s medieval redactor. Walton’s re-visioning of the extant version of the Fourth Branch re-casts Arianrhod not as villain, but as a complex anti-heroine, allowing the reader to question the patriarchal gender constructs in the medieval tale and their own society.</span>

Some Postclassic Questions About the Classic Maya

The Postclassic and Colonial texts of the Books of Chilam Balam tell us very little, or so I believe, about the Classic Maya directly. And that little, though very precious, is confined to brief passages in the first three Chronicles, and may have been reshaped to fit the mythological predilections of a later age. The Chronicles being much the best known passages of the Books to Mayanists (Barrera, 1948; Roys 1935), and the events they chronicle being as much as a millennium removed from the composition of the surviving versions, I shall eschew here any attempt to interpret their direct relevance to Mayan Classic history in detail. While the Books do not give us direct answers to our questions about the Classic Maya, they do raise some interesting questions about Classic Maya culture to which archaeology, art history and epigraphy may eventually supply answers. It is the object of this paper to isolate some of these questions, primarily social, calendrical and literary. The basis of these queries is my recent translations of the Books of Tizimin (Edmonson, n. d. a: completed) and Chumayel (Edmonson, n. d. b: in draft). Largely on internal evidence, I conclude that the extant versions of these two Books date to the period between 1824 and 1837. Even if, as I believe, they contain passages transcribed from pre-Conquest glyphic texts, they are nonetheless separated from the end of the Classic period by nearly a thousand years. They present corresponding problems of interpretation before we use them in the reconstruction of earlier Mayan history.

B-theory old and new: on ontological commitment

The most important argument against the B-theory of time is the paraphrase argument. The major defense against that argument is the “new” tenseless theory of time, which is built on what I will call the “indexical reply” to the paraphrase argument. The move from the “old” tenseless theory of time to the new is most centrally a change of viewpoint about the nature and determiners of ontological commitment. Ironically, though, the new tenseless theorists have generally not paid enough sustained, direct attention to that notion. I will defend a general criterion of ontological commitment and apply it to generate a version of the new tenseless theory of time. I will argue that many of the extant versions of the new tenseless theory of time (specifically, all those which seek to identify tenseless truth-conditions of tensed sentences as a way out of apparent ontological commitment to tensed features of reality) are unsatisfactory because their general criterion of ontological commitment is inadequate. Those versions of the new tenseless theory which are adequate (specifically, those which identify tenseless truthmakers for tensed sentences) actually entail the criterion of ontological commitment that I defend, despite appearances to the contrary.

The Faithful Dog: the place of the Book of Syntipas in its transmission

The tale known in English under the title The faithful dog features in many medieval literatures, as shown and discussed in the article. According to the author, this old tale can be used as the most useful touchstone for checking the reception of the gnomic sample entitled Sendebar, which is thought to have come from the East by means of a series of translations, most of them now lost. In a former contribution, the author suggested that the Byzantine Book of Syntipas the philosopher does not follow the pattern of a translated text. Now, after comparing the different extant versions of the tale of the faithful dog, he concludes that the Syntipas must be considered the kernel of the literary transmission. Yet there exists a parallel, oral transmission which in Europe is to

Representations in working memory yield interference effects found with externally-triggered representations

An act as simple as flicking a switch involves various stages of processing. Each stage is susceptible to interference from competing representations/processes. Interference at different stages of processing (e.g., perceptual stages versus response selection stages) leads to distinct behavioral, neural, and subjective effects. In the flanker task, for instance, one responds to a visual target and disregards flanking ‘distractors.’ Theoretically-predicted interference (increased response times, error rates, and subjective ‘urges to err’) is stronger when distractors and targets are associated with different actions (response interference) than when they look different but are associated with the same action (perceptual interference). Extant versions of the task tax working memory (WM) minimally, but many everyday actions (e.g., searching for keys or holding one's breath) require more WM-based control. To illuminate this uncharted area, we examined the nature of interference in delayed action tasks, which rely on WM. We found that systematic interference arises even when action-related representations are, not triggered solely by external stimuli, but actively held in WM. We discuss these findings with increased emphasis on the under-explored subjective effects of different kinds of interference. The implications of these findings for the study of action production, WM, and conscious processing are entertained.

Untranslation: The Popol Wuj and Comparative Methodology

UntranslationThe Popol Wuj and Comparative Methodology Nathan C. Henne (bio) [R]eading . . . can never be reduced to what is read. —Roger Chartier Any competent account of American genesis is bound to center on the Popol Vuh [spelled in the old orthography]. . . . The reasons for this are several but quite simple. The Popol Vuh tells the Fourth World [the Americas] story of creation legibly and at length and in a fashion that draws ingeniously on the native-script tradition from which it claims to have been transcribed. Stemming as it does from the middle of Mesoamerica, it serves as an un-rivaled point of reference for cosmogonical texts from cultures to west and east, and beyond that, from North and South America. . . . Offering a critique of the Popol Vuh means searching for the heart of native America, which in turn means raising philosophical questions that have appeared fundamental over millennia. —Gordon Brotherston, Book of the Fourth World [End Page 107] For all the reasons Brotherston offers above, the Maya K’iche’ Popol Wuj1 has long served as the anchor of Mesoamerican studies. Yet the Popol Wuj account of the “creation” differs radically from the standard line in other Mesoamerican literature. These differences provide the taking-off point for this article and offer a window onto some of the complications and opportunities involved in translating indigenous American texts. Specifically, the “creation” scene of the Popol Wuj depends on an abstract poetics that contrasts sharply with the concrete descriptions of the inceptions of the world in other Mesoamerican texts. My contention here is that stark differences like these often stem from translation and reading practices founded on Western philosophies and not from actual stark differences in these particular cultural artifacts across the region. Understanding the complications in translation that led to these differences can help us learn to read indigenous American texts through a less distorted lens. In the following pages I compare various translations of the “creation” passage in the Popol Wuj to illustrate how the significant differences among the translation choices expose a bigger complication in the translation of indigenous texts. Commonly called “the oldest book in the Americas,” the Popol Wuj certainly meets the criteria for this name if we adhere to what the term “book” means in the strict Western sense. Though many of the extant versions of Mesoamerican codices2 (four of them Maya3) and some other nonbook (but fairly long) hieroglyphic inscriptions on other surfaces predate this version of the Popol Wuj, these do not have the narrative unity of the Popol Wuj and, as such, do not seriously challenge this designation in the comparative context of other “books.” Because of this narrative unity, the Popol Wuj is often used to anchor in pre-Contact4 times the oral traditions of other American peoples. This is possible for two main reasons: first, a significant philosophical continuity exists in the American languages and literatures across the continent; second, the Maya recorded much of their literature in a highly sophisticated writing system that could not be completely destroyed by the ravages of the colonial era—though, of course, much of it was wiped out in the version of the Inquisition that took place in the Americas.5 However, in this article, I primarily concern myself with the continuity the Popol Wuj anchors across only the Mesoamerican portion of the Americas. [End Page 108] Although the earliest extant version dates from 1703, the Popol Wuj certainly was a book in the most traditional sense of the word almost two centuries before that. The 1703 manuscript was copied by the Spanish priest Francisco Ximénez in Chichicastenango, Guatemala, from a mid-sixteenth-century text. The sixteenth-century text from which it was copied had been secretly written by Maya scribes using Latinate characters adapted by priests at the time of Contact to represent, somewhat crudely, the sounds of the K’iche’ language. However, this version was probably also a copy of sorts, from a pre-Contact text in the form of a hieroglyphic screenfold codex that had survived the book bonfires of the Spanish clergy.6 The process of “copying” this sixteenth-century manuscript from...

Laæamon's 'Brut' between Old English Heroic Poetry and Middle English Romance: A Study of the Lexical Fields 'Hero,' 'Warrior' and 'Knight' (review)

Reviewed by: Laæamon's 'Brut' between Old English Heroic Poetry and Middle English Romance: A Study of the Lexical Fields 'Hero,' 'Warrior' and 'Knight' Lucy Perry Christine Elsweiler , Laæamon's 'Brut' between Old English Heroic Poetry and Middle English Romance: A Study of the Lexical Fields 'Hero,' 'Warrior' and 'Knight.'Münchener Universitätsschriften. Texte und Untersuchungen zur Englischen Philologie. Bd. 35. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang, 2011. Pp. xx+470. ISBN: 978-3-631-59669-2. $96.95. The relationship of Laæamon's Brut to the English literary tradition, in terms of style as well as language, has defined much of the research undertaken on the two versions extant, British Library Cotton MSS Caligula A. ix and Otho C. xiii. Christine [End Page 94] Elsweiler's study, undertaken for her doctoral thesis, takes the debate in an important direction as she investigates with methodological rigor the lexical fields of warrior and knight. She scrutinizes claims that Otho is a modernization of an otherwise archaistic text represented by Caligula, approaching the two texts separately before proceeding with a comparison of each set of findings. Her choice of lexical fields is pertinent, linking as they do elements common to Old English heroic poetry and Middle English romance: the deeds of armed men. By limiting investigation to these closely related lexical fields, she is able to explore in depth lexical choices and their interpretative implications in the two extant versions. The data relating to the lexical fields under discussion are detailed in two core sections of her book, the first exploring them in relation to the Old English heroic tradition and the second in relation to Middle English romance. A number of tables, making it possible to view her data at a glance, and the index of lexemes at the end of the book are indispensable and will allow this study to remain an important reference resource. Elsweiler investigates the relationship of the two texts to Old English in three stages. In the first she categorizes the lexemes of Laæamon's Brut into Old English poetic terms, terms unique to Laæamon in Middle English and terms remaining current in the Middle English period. Her discussions of the semantic force of some words are particularly insightful—lauerd in Caligula, for example, transmits generally the sense of a ruler or a king, at times giving expression to the theme of loyalty between lord and retainer associated with the term hlaford in Old English heroic poetry (ironically in the case of Modred and emphatically in the case of Gawain), a sense not sustained consistently in Otho. The second part of her investigation, on the use of nominal compounds, also demonstrates significant differences between Caligula and Otho. Finally, Elsweiler goes deeper, showing how the poet promotes certain themes and motifs by building alliterative clusters, while the Otho redactor's 'elimination of clusters' results in a 'change of thematic emphasis' (246-47). In order to define the relationship of the two versions of the Brut to the emerging romance genre, Elsweiler begins by analyzing the lexicon of a group of Middle English romances in the fields of knight, leader, and army. Her sample from the romances, necessarily highly selective, includes the earliest romances in English, King Horn and Havelok the Dane, as well as the first 1200 lines of The Alliterative Morte Arthure. To broaden her findings, Elsweiler also mines data from the Middle English Dictionary, assessing comparable lexemes identified in the wider corpus of Middle English romances. Importantly, Elsweiler finds that Otho and Caligula 'mostly agree in their usage of the lexemes under investigation' (365). Additionally, through sampling a variety of romance texts, Elsweiler provides some insight into the lexicon of Middle English romance, inspiring further questions for future research. Finally, Elsweiler considers her findings in the light of cultural transfer theory in a short section that at times needs more discussion. It would perhaps have been helpful to introduce some of these concepts earlier so as to integrate the ideas more convincingly into the book's overall argument. Elsweiler was awarded her doctorate in 2009, and we are fortunate that it is in...

Stories of the Babylonian Talmud (review)

Reviewed by: Stories of the Babylonian Talmud Laurence L. Edwards Stories of the Babylonian Talmud, by Jeffrey L. Rubenstein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. 316 pp. $55.00. It is characteristic of the style of the Talmud that the words of many generations are presented on each page, edited in such a way as to appear to be a single flowing conversation. As in biblical studies, modern scholarship on the Talmud strives to identify, expose, and analyze layers and sources within the received text. This approach, broadly called "Critical Talmudic Studies," is flourishing, thanks especially to the efforts of scholars at institutions like the Hebrew University, Bar Ilan, and the Jewish Theological Seminary. At JTS, the European-trained generation, including such luminaries as Saul Lieberman and David Weiss-Halivni, raised up gifted disciples. Recent attention has [End Page 197] emphasized the labors of the redactors, unnamed "Stammaim," who shaped the ultimate form of the Babylonian Talmud (Bavli). The work of Jacob Neusner, legendary in its scope, made it problematic to read a text as vast and layered as the Bavli synchronically. Early on, Neusner emphasized the shaping over time of rabbinic narratives found in multiple forms in several sources. Whereas a prior generation of scholars trusted narratives about the rabbis as reliable sources of historical and biographical information, post-Neusner writers ask different questions: How did the stories evolve? What do the stories tell us about the issues that mattered to the particular time and place in which a given version appeared? As Jeffrey L. Rubenstein puts it in his first volume, Talmudic Stories (1999), "Stories express the spiritual world of the storytellers, not the real world of the characters" (TS, p. 9). The second volume of his (so far) three-part project focused more intensively on The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud (2003), and in particular on the academies of the Stammaitic period. (The familiar references to rows of scholars, in which the novices sit in the back rows, and advance to the front rows as they progress—often retrojected to the Tannaitic period—actually describe the highly structured world of the late talmudic academies of Babylonia.) Among the current generation of academic Talmud scholars, Rubenstein has carved out a place as the expert on the rabbinic narratives about—rabbis. The goal is not to write mini-biographies, but to understand more deeply the dynamics of rabbinic culture and textual formation. Prof. Shamma Friedman (of JTS and Bar Ilan) has summarized three areas of scholarly attention: "1. The literary shape of the sugya and the historic relationship of its parts. 2. Parallel passages within the larger talmudic-midrashic corpus. 3. Manuscripts of the Talmudic text and other early textual witnesses" ["The Talmud Today" http://atranet.co.il/sf/talmud_today.pdf, p. 9]. This certainly describes part of the program followed by Rubenstein both in his earlier work and the present volume. There are alternative approaches to the material. Emanuel Levinas, for example, reads similar stories and investigates the underlying ethical implications, with little or no regard for redactional history. Rubenstein is not averse to talmudic ethics, but his primary project is the examination of the process of composition. Through close literary reading (with credit to other scholars, notably Jonah Fraenkel and Ofra Meir), comparison with parallel passages in other rabbinic sources (especially the Yerushalmi), and attention to the larger context in which the passage has been situated (by the redactors), Rubenstein aims to uncover the process of the reworking of traditions and what it teaches us about the cultural values of the Stammaitic editors. [End Page 198] Let us take one example from Rubenstein's current collection of readings. In Chapter 9 he considers the well-known passage from Menahot 29b in which Moses, on Mt. Sinai, asks God about the crowns that God is attaching to the letters of the Torah. Moses is then imagined visiting the classroom of Rabbi Akiba, said to be able to derive many halakhot from these crowns. Moses is seated behind eighteen (my text says eight—each chapter has an appendix in which Rubenstein compares major extant versions; mine is apparently from the first printed edition, Venice, 1520) rows of students and...

Making War from a Map: Andrada's Atlas for Privateers (1641–1661)

ABSTRACT This paper concerns a seventeenth-century manuscript nautical atlas of the coast of Portugal that was compiled in the context of the Hispanic-Portuguese crisis of 1640. The atlas was the work of Antonio da Cunha e Andrada, a Portuguese operating under the orders of King Philip IV of Spain, who seems to have been an amateur cartographer. Andrada's own description of his cartographical achievement as an atlas for privateers is upheld in the light of the accompanying text, which contains a strategy for blockading the coastal trade of secessionist Portugal to ruin her economy and force her back under Spanish rule. The extant version of the atlas is dated 1661, but the author tells us it was a copy of the one he had made in 1641.

In Search of Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Lost “Long Documentum”

The principal source of the fourteenth-century rhetoric textbook known as the Tria sunt is Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Documentum de modo et arte dictandi et versificandi, but the anonymous compiler may have used a version of Geoffrey’s work that was composed in the early thirteenth century and differs in important ways from the extant version (written in 1198/99) that was edited by Faral. Examined in the context of Geoffrey’s other rhetorical treatises, especially the contemporary Poetria nova, the traces of the revised Documentum that are preserved in the Tria sunt reveal the probable structure and contents of the longer and now presumably lost final version of Geoffrey’s rhetoric textbook in prose.