Book Genre Research Articles

Cover-based multiple book genre recognition using an improved multimodal network

Cover-based multiple book genre recognition using an improved multimodal network

The importance of context-relative knowledge for illustrating wordless picture books

This study investigated the role of signs in wordless picture books and their influence on meaning making. The article's main aim is to highlight the importance of using culturally appropriate signs to foster narrative comprehension in wordless picture books. This genre of books can be a useful method and tool for translating cultural knowledge into images, but their production can be a difficult process because skilful execution is required for successful communication. Wordless picture books can serve as a medium that encourages storytelling and fosters a love of reading. This research involved the creation and semiotic analysis - through participant reactions - of three wordless picture books whose stories are situated within the Xhosa culture. Theoretical perspectives of social semiotics and narratology were used as lenses through which to inform the research. The findings include evidence of the importance of understanding context-relative knowledge and of using appropriate signs, symbols, and signifiers when translating and portraying narratives in wordless picture books.

Faith and Freedom: Contexts, Choices, and Crises in Religious Commitments

Faith and Freedom: Contexts, Choices, and Crises in Religious Commitments

On Fruit and Dialogues, and Fruitful Dialogues

I found my way to rhetoric while completing graduate work in ancient Greek and Roman studies and comparative literature. Like a good classicist, I first adopted an Aristotelian-inspired (and conveniently tripartite) view of rhetoric, which resulted in a strict boundary between my rhetorical and literary worlds. The division remained until I read Plato’s Timaeus. I began to believe that I could tie together my interests in rhetorical theory, philosophy, and literary studies, but I wasn’t sure how. In the process of writing a seminar paper on the Timaeus, I came across Andrea Nightingale’s book Genres in Dialogue: Plato and the Construct of Philosophy, which manifested the kind of interdisciplinarity I was after. Nightingale foregrounds the deliberate intertextuality of Plato’s dialogues, proposing that Plato first defined and demarcated “philosophy” by engaging with contemporary rhetorical and poetic genres, thus creating a dialogue among these genres within dialogues of his own. In this way, Nightingale reads Plato’s works as philosophical, rhetorical, and literary texts. Reading Genres in Dialogue motivated me to think more expansively and creatively about my own work in Platonic philosophy and rhetorical theory, and to be more attentive to my writerly inclinations. For years I set aside the Timaeus because, after all, it’s a work of natural philosophy and is rarely read in a rhetorical context. But I had a feeling there was something else there, something that warranted my attention, and I’m on my way to figuring out what that is.In a different genre altogether, Yung In Chae’s essay “Apples and Oranges, Ravens and Writing Desks: How to Compare Stuff,” published in the public-facing classics journal Eidolon, is one I wish I had read much earlier. It’s a common impulse to want to compare the ancient and modern worlds, and this essay was originally aimed at writers who pitched to Eidolon to deter them from falling into comparatist traps, though its directives are much more broadly applicable. Comparing two things can be fun, writes Chae, but to make the comparison productive, you must be able to explain what is at stake with the comparison. I have fallen into all the traps Chae warns of in “Apples and Oranges,” and I fear my past writing contains some of Chae’s “least favorite comparisons,” which “resort to mass generalizations of both cultures, and in the end, make interesting arguments about neither.” Though Eidolon is no longer publishing new material, its archive is available to the public, including Chae’s essay “Like Dionysus: BTS, Classics in K-Pop, and the Narcissism of the West,” which for me exemplifies what comparatist work can do and be. It’s productive to acknowledge shortcomings in my past writing as long as I commit to better and more complex comparisons in the future. Now when I write, I aim to keep Chae’s question in the forefront of my mind: what are the stakes of the comparison I’m making?

Reading preferences during the pandemic (based on the materials of Russian and English speaking social networks)

Book communication has changed considerably caused by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) and restrictive measures in order to minimize its spread. It has manifested itself in isolation of people from each other, including self-isolation, and the predominance of the online format over alternative ways of activity (mixed and offline format). The article examines interests and motivation of readers during the pandemic period in the book social networks in order to determine the features of readers’ preferences when implementing social reading in the Russian and English Internet environments. To achieve the aim, the following tasks have been set: 1) to find relevant (i. e. with up-to-date information on them and with at least a million users) Russian and English book social networks that provide the opportunity for book communication; 2) tto analyze social reading on the selected networks; 3) to compare the obtained data in accordance with the certain criteria. The book social networks LiveLib and BookMix have been chosen as the material for the analysis of the Russian-language segment of the Internet, and the book social network Goodreads and the LibraryThing web application – to analyze the English part of the Internet. This material has been considered according to the following criteria: 1) genre and themes of books discussed on the online platforms; 2) motivation and expectations of book readers when choosing a certain kind of literature during the period under study. To determine the peculiarities of Russian-speaking and English-speaking readers, discussing books they have read in the Internet, methods of comparative analyses of the data obtained from both Internet segments and their generalization have been used.

Parents and Children Reading Together: Expanding Shared Book-Reading Across Genres

In this conceptual article we explore parents’ shared book reading (SBR) interactions with their preschoolers across different book genres in their natural home settings. We consider the unique and shared contributions of narrative, informational, wordless, and alphabet picturebooks, and how reading across genres can increase children’s involvement in the interaction, deepen their content knowledge, expand their vocabulary, and strengthen their visual literacy. Beyond the benefits for children, we discuss the advantages for parents of reading from different genres and highlight directions for future research.

The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society, by Francesca Trivellato

The medieval bill of exchange and marine insurance are widely regarded by historians as financial instruments central to the long-distance trade that fuelled the commercial revolution of pre-modern Europe. Marine insurance was rooted in partnership contracts (commenda, societas maris), which, by splitting risk, mitigated loss due to storms, pirates and war. The bill of exchange, by which a merchant promised to repay a loan in another currency and place, combined the promissory note with currency exchange. Some early modern authors attributed the invention of these financial instruments to medieval Jews who, these authors supposed, used them to secrete wealth out of lands from which Jews had been expelled. Intrigued by the legend of Jewish origins, Francesca Trivellato (an Italian historian known for her work on Jews and cross-cultural trade in the early modern period) sets out to find when, where and why this ‘legend’ emerged. The book is the intellectual history of this legend. Trivellato traces the legend of Jewish origins back to the seventeenth-century genre of mercantile law books, in particular to Étienne Cleriac’s widely used Us et coustumes de la mer (1647), Jacques Savary’s ‘commercial manifesto’ Le parfait négociant (1675), and Savary’s sons’ bestselling Dictionnaire universel de commerce (1723–30). In the mid-eighteenth century, Montesquieu incorporated it into his De l’esprit des lois. With Montesquieu, the legend leapt from the backwaters of mercantile law to the mainstream of political theory. And as the reach of the legend expanded, the image of its Jewish inventors underwent significant change. Cleriac’s version of the legend was rooted in rank medieval stereotypes of Jewish usurers, while the Savarys stripped away these negative connotations. But in Montesquieu’s hands, the Jews became economic liberators—the obverse of usurers. The Jewish bill of exchange was not a species of nefarious usury, but a means of liberation from the economic stagnation of medieval Catholic doctrine. With this invention, ‘Jews introduced new dynamism into Europe’s economy and became harbringers of modernity’ (p. 134). However, Montesquieu’s positive vision of Jews as a modernising commercial force was reversed with the French Revolution.

The Medieval Pontificalia and the Necessitates Temporum: A Study of the Church's Liturgy Responding to the Needs of the Time

The Medieval Pontificalia and the Necessitates Temporum:A Study of the Church's Liturgy Responding to the Needs of the Time Ryan T. Ruiz (bio) ABSTRACT The history of liturgical books is a perennial story of unity and diversity. The development of sacramentaries, pontificals, and rituals presents a rich dialogue between the Roman Rite and the religious experience of a given people. The medieval pontificals, in particular, provide an insight into the fruit born from this dialogue. The "book of the bishop" not only contained rites requisite for the local pontiff, but also those that would eventually pass into the book of his priests—the Rituale. This essay examines how the medieval pontificalia helped the Church's liturgy respond to the realities of the day. Special attention is paid to the Pontifical of William Durandus, which served as a template for the Tridentine Pontifical. KEY WORDS History of liturgical books, medieval pontificals, William Durandus, necessitates temporum, organic development INTRODUCTION In the introduction to his critical edition of the medieval Roman pontificals, documents that include the Pontificale Romanum of the twelfth century, the Pontificale Curiae Romanae of the thirteenth century, and the Pontificale Romanum [End Page 26] of William Durandus, the learned liturgical scholar of the early twentieth century, Michel Andrieu, noted that the genesis of the Roman Pontifical was rooted in the organic, albeit at times socio-politically motivated, correspondence between the Church of Rome and the Frankish empire.1 Noting that "the Pontifical, or Book of ceremonies normally reserved to the bishop, was not known in Rome until the tenth century," coming to Rome from across the Alps,2 Andrieu highlights how the composite nature of this liturgical book reflects an important characteristic of the Roman Rite's organic development in general: the preservation of the genius of both the traditions of Rome and those traditions that served the pastoral needs of the cultures in which the gospel had been received. According to Andrieu, "the material for [the Pontifical] was . . . borrowed simultaneously from documents, sacramentaries, and ordines from Rome, and from the native books which had preceded them or still competed with them in [End Page 27] daily practice."3 While this liturgical exchange of the patrimony of Rome with the customs of newly evangelized non-Roman cultures can be observed in other genres of liturgical books—for example, the late antique sacramentaria and modern ritualia—the pontifical, as the book of the bishop, provides a unique lens by which to examine the Church's response to socio-political realities and the pastoral needs of the times, the necessitates temporum, through the ministry of the chief shepherd of the local church. In going about this discussion it is important to recognize the danger of layering contemporary constructs onto the past, which can inevitably create anachronistic interpretations of historical developments. To be sure, the motivating factor for any perceived liturgical cross-pollination in the medieval pontificalia should not be assessed from the modern perspective of interculturation.4 To do so would be somewhat spurious since little evidence supports the medievalists' thinking with such a category in [End Page 28] mind. However, while this essay wishes to keep distance from eisegetic analyses, it nevertheless hopes to identify in the medieval pontificalia elements that can serve as analogies to present day discussions related to the preservation of the purity of the liturgical patrimony of Rome while likewise respecting the necessitates temporum. To this end, particular focus will be paid to the Pontifical of William Durandus that, due to its navigation of this question, set the stage for future editions of the Roman Pontifical. From this study of the "book of the bishop" and its ramification on the Church's response to the socio-political and pastoral realities she faces in every age, it is hoped that we might identify some points of reflection for the contemporary Church as she continues the organic development of the lived reality of the liturgy, safeguarding the ancient patrimony of the Roman Rite, while striving to meet the diverse pastoral needs of the day. LITURGICAL EXCHANGE IN THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD The Church's accommodation of her liturgical ordines to respond to the exigencies of the day has...

Китайские единомышленники Е. Замятина: Чжан Тянь-и и Лао Ше

We explore the dystopian novels of the 1930s by Chinese novelists Zhang Tianyi “Ghostland Diary” (1931) and Lao She “Cat Country” (1932). We give brief information about the specifics of the work of Chinese writers who are not known to a wide range of modern domestic readers and literary critics. We reveal the typological proximity of these works to the dystopian novel by Y.I. Zamyatin “We”. We identify the literary predecessors of the analyzed novels, the connection with the works of Russian, Chinese, and world literature. We note the role of criticism in the fate of authors and their creations. We designate traditional and innovative genre and style features of books. We analyze in detail the plot-compositional structure, figurative system, and ideological content of the novels. We consider an ironic description of various spheres of life: the party system, elections, the education system, wars, and the creative activity of decadent poets. The features of narration associated with the artistic functions of narrators are studied in detail. The synthetic nature of the novels, combining elements of several literary genres, is noted. We reveal that the form of hyperbolic generalization of modern realities, elements of satire and irony in the depiction of society gave the works a timeless and extraspatial character, taking them beyond the limits of Chinese reality. We form an idea of the genre-typological community of Zhang Tianyi and Lao She’s warning novels, exposing myths about the ideal society of the 20th century.

A Collection Analysis of the Tana Hoban Papers in the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection

The de Grummond holdings of Tana Hoban’s work contain items she donated from 1982 to 1991 as well as copies of her books received from other donors. These materials include correspondence; biographical materials; her diaries; and some of her work as a commercial photographer, including photos and advertisements. There are also promotional items for her books and items related to a 1973 educational filmstrip series for which Hoban served on the creative development team (Brown, 2021; (“Tana Hoban Papers,” n.d.). Copies of physical books are augmented by book dummies she created for books that were published later and some that were not. These papers reveal a creative process and innovative use of photography that was influential to the picture book genre. This study is a collection analysis of the Tana Hoban papers located in the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi to identify relevant content and facilitate research.

Gender Bias in Islamic Children’s Literature: Case Study in Indonesia

Children's books with Islamic content are popular in Indonesia. The motivation of parents to introduce this genre of books is to help them teach their children the faith and knowledge of Islam from an early age. The more complete the information about Islam available in the book, the more parents will consider buying the book. Meanwhile, consideration of books with content that introduces gender equity needs to be considered. This study analyzes the gender bias in stories of Islamic content. The books analyzed are several popular books published by various different publishers. The research method used was qualitative and the narrative and visual data were critically analyzed with a gender perspective. Feminist linguistics was used to more deeply reveal the signs that will be described based on the context that surrounds the female character. The depiction of women in the four books is generally represented by traditional gender patterns. The female figure is depicted as dependent on men, not involved in dominant narratives. The female characters are described as weak while the male characters are described as stronger without regard to the female character.

Sixty years of gender representation in children's books: Conditions associated with overrepresentation of male versus female protagonists.

As a reflection of prominent cultural norms, children’s literature plays an integral role in the acquisition and development of societal attitudes. Previous reports of male overrepresentation in books targeted towards children are consistent with a history of gender disparity across media and society. However, it is unknown whether such bias has been attenuated in recent years with increasing emphasis on gender equity and greater accessibility of books. Here, we provide an up-to-date estimate of the relative proportion of males and females featured as single protagonists in 3,280 children’s books (0–16 years) published between 1960–2020. We find that although the proportion of female protagonists has increased over this 60-year period, male protagonists remain overrepresented even in recent years. Importantly, we also find persistent effects related to author gender, age of the target audience, character type (human vs. non-human), and book genre (fiction vs. non-fiction) on the male-to-female ratio of protagonists. We suggest that this comprehensive account of the factors influencing the rates of appearance of male and female protagonists can be leveraged to develop specific recommendations for promoting more equitable gender representation in children’s literature, with important consequences for child development and society.

Exploring Topics and Genres in Storytime Books: A Text Mining Approach

Objective – While storytime programs for preschool children are offered in nearly all public libraries in the United States, little is known about the books librarians use in these programs. This study employed text analysis to explore topics and genres of books recommended for public library storytime programs. Methods – In the study, the researchers randomly selected 429 children books recommended for preschool storytime programs. Two corpuses of text were extracted from the titles, abstracts, and subject terms from bibliographic data. Multiple text mining methods were employed to investigate the content of the selected books, including term frequency, bi-gram analysis, topic modeling, and sentiment analysis. Results – The findings revealed popular topics in storytime books, including animals/creatures, color, alphabet, nature, movements, families, friends, and others. The analysis of bibliographic data described various genres and formats of storytime books, such as juvenile fiction, rhymes, board books, pictorial work, poetry, folklore, and nonfiction. Sentiment analysis results reveal that storytime books included a variety of words representing various dimensions of sentiment. Conclusion – The findings suggested that books recommended for storytime programs are centered around topics of interest to children that also support school readiness. In addition to selecting fictionalized stories that will support children in developing the academic concepts and socio-emotional skills necessary for later success, librarians should also be mindful of integrating informational texts into storytime programs.

Perbandingan Penerbitan dan Harga Buku Mengikut Genre di Malaysia dan Jepun Menggunakan Data Akses Terbuka dan Simulasi Monte Carlo

Reading habits are often associated with an increased cognitive level. However, book genre can also affect the cognitive level. This is because different book genres can be attributed to different types of knowledge and tendency towards a specific book genre can be viewed as a preference towards a specific type of knowledge. Research on Malaysians’ interest and the tendency towards book genre and type of knowledge can be investigated using the publication data of each book genre and its prices. The objective of this research is to analyse and compare the book publications and the average price of each book’s genre in Malaysia with those of Japan. Comparison was done based on book categorisation genre strategy to 12 book genres. Based on Monte Carlo simulation method data, Malaysians are attracted to book genres on language, literature and science. While the Japanese are more interested in the book genres of social sciences and hobbies/art. The similarity between Malaysian and Japanese societies are that both societies also favour book genre of literature. However, it is possible that the themes of literary genre in Japan and Malaysia are very different. The result of this study can be used to identify the differences between Malaysian and Japanese reading habits as well as for formulating strategies to change Malaysian reading habits towards the style of Japanese reading habits.

The Sixties in Berlin and in Hollywood: City with a Wall in Its Center—The Attempt to Erase the German Past

The Sixties in Berlin and in Hollywood: City with a Wall in Its Center—The Attempt to Erase the German Past

The Matrix of Understanding: Moses Zacuto’s Em la-Binah and Kabbalistic Works of Reference

Abstract The systematization of knowledge for educational practice entered a new era in the wake of Ramism. Innovative encyclopedic approaches and textbooks also surfaced in the field of Kabbalah. This article discusses Moses Zacuto’s approach to the kabbalistic genre of reference books and the impact of Lurianic Kabbalah. Against the backdrop of the reception of Ramist ideas and building upon the interaction between Kabbalah and logic in Abraham Cohen de Herrera’s Spanish books, two works in particular, which Zacuto left in an apparently unfinished state in manuscript form, are analyzed in this context: Em la-Binah and Remez ha-Romez. Both works differ from traditional reference books, and Em la-Binah in particular will be examined in order to answer the question of how Zacuto’s strategy for commonplace learning worked in a Lurianic textbook in progress.

Different fiction genres take children’s memories to different places

ABSTRACT Fiction, more than expository text, nurtures intimate connections between text and the reader’s life experiences. This dimension of reader response is underexplored in relation to children. Adapting methods from Empirical Literary Studies to educational research objectives, the authors employed the concept of ‘remindings’, i.e. reminiscing prompted by text, in studying children’s life-resonant responses to self-selected leisure books. Six workshops were run in primary classrooms during which participants (N = 148; age 8–11) engaged in remindings and mental imagery. Written remindings were then analysed for systematic variation across fiction book genres (Real-world vs. Fantasy; Relationships vs. Adventure). They found that Real-World Adventure books prompted remindings of discrete life events, while Real-World Relationships books prompted remindings of more diffuse experiences. Fantasy Adventure books were the least likely to prompt remindings. Further genre-based differences emerged in the distribution of themes within remindings. The authors consider the consequences of these insights for supporting young readers.

Mothers' discourse during shared reading of books relating to ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ emotions in different genres

BackgroundThe current study provides information about differences in parent–child discourse during shared book reading (SBR) surrounding narrative and didactic book genres about ‘positive’ (e.g. love, happiness) and ‘negative’ (e.g. anger and sadness) emotions. Research shows that characteristics of different children's book genres impact discourse during SBR, but narrative and didactic books have not been examined. Children's books often relate to the characters' inner mental and emotional states. Research has not explored parent–child conversations during SBR regarding different types of emotions, yet studies on other discourse contexts reveal that parents discuss ‘positive’ emotions differently than ‘negative’ emotions.MethodsParticipants were 26 mothers of 5‐ to 6‐year‐olds (M = 64.30 SD = 6.27). There were 18 boys and 8 girls. Eleven dyads received a narrative and didactic book on ‘positive’ emotions, and 15 dyads received a narrative and didactic book on ‘negative’ emotions. Interactions were video‐recorded and analysed. We examined the number of turns, initiations, general utterances and mental–emotional utterances.ResultsPrimary results revealed that mothers used more general utterances when reading both narrative and didactic books surrounding ‘negative’ emotions compared with books surrounding ‘positive’ emotions. Mothers used more mental–emotional utterances with a didactic book on ‘negative’ emotions compared with a narrative on ‘negative’ emotions and with a didactic book on ‘positive’ emotions compared to a narrative on ‘positive’ emotions.ConclusionsThis study highlights the importance of text selection for SBR and how it may impact the discourse. Mothers used didactic books for detailed conversations with their children. The simpler structure of the book may have facilitated the discourse about emotions. Mothers related more to anger and sadness compared with love and happiness. This may indicate that they feel they have to explain and teach their children about ‘negative’ emotions and how to cope with them, whereas positive emotions may be more implicitly understood.

Книга как жанр: средневековая традиция в русской прозе ХХ века (В.П. Астафьев, Ф.А. Абрамов)

The author aims to observe the phenomenon of “thinking by books” which has been born in the verbal creativity of Medieval Russia and promoted in Russian literature of the XX century but has been little studied yet. A special attention is paid to the formation of the book genre by such writers as V.P. Astafyev (“The Last Bow”, “The King-Fish”, “Zatesi”) and F.A. Abramov (“The Pure Book”). To fulfill the tasks set, the author relies on both the provisions of medieval studies and the concepts of genre theorists and historians of modern Russian literature. Definition of “book” as a specific meta-genre; dialectics of the novel and book genres is considered. A special attention is paid to the processes of formation of the “book” by uniting text elements into a super-genre unity. The author shows how the free form of the “book”, consisting of chapters and stories, provides creative freedom to the author and allows, in the medieval spirit, to expand the original version adding new and new texts to it. The article substantiates the position of the “book” as a narrative consisting of seemingly separate, but cyclically connected chapters and parts. This is a meta-genre that is becoming and moving along with historical reality. In conclusion the author of the article draws a conclusion about the productivity of genre of the book in the Village prose as a leading literary direction of the second half of the twentieth century and marks a continuation of this tradition in contemporary Russian prose.

Students' Strategies in Cultivating Their Reading Habit

This study aims to find out reading strategies used by students at a public university in Aceh in cultivating their reading habit. Data were collected by means of questionnaire and interview. The results showed that most of the students were interested in reading and they had started it before coming to university. Family and friends had a little influence on them as they were self-motivated. The two most common reading habits that they had were having a reading schedule and making a reading list of their favorite book genres. On the other hand, none of them like to either bring books everywhere or read for others. They believed that reading has a lot of benefits, however, they did not want to force others to love reading.