Horizon Of Expectations Research Articles

Sol Miguel-Prendes. Narrating Desire: Moral Consolation and Sentimental Fiction in Fifteenth-Century Spain

Sol Miguel-Prendes. <i>Narrating Desire: Moral Consolation and Sentimental Fiction in Fifteenth-Century Spain</i>

Reading Philosophy, Writing Poetry: Intertextual Modes of Making Meaning in Early Medieval China

Reading Philosophy, Writing Poetry: Intertextual Modes of Making Meaning in Early Medieval China

Schulgesundheitspflege in Deutschland.

In the last six years, a large number of initiatives and model projects have been registered in numerous federal states with the aim of employing so-called school health professionals in public schools in Germany. The nurses are expected to improve health care, learning conditions and health literacy in schools. This article explores the question of what challenges nursing professionals face from a professional-theoretical perspective in view of this horizon of expectations. Using literature on professional theory and initial evaluation results from current pilot projects, considerations are made on the role of nursing as a profession in the school system, on processes of professionalization and on questions of professional action in the school setting. The results show the necessity of a strong mandate and professional legal protection of the range of school nurse activities, a high demand for qualification measures as well as a necessary educational-systematic positioning of qualification. Overall, school health nursing as a sub-field of community health nursing will be shown to make an important contribution to the structural development of schools in the direction of a health-promoting setting.

Difference and negotiation from the borders: Islamic religious actors providing theological counternarratives for deradicalisation in Belgium

ABSTRACT This contribution focuses on the specific Islamic authority figures that have been incorporated as ‘key figures’ in Belgian deradicalisation policies since 2015, in order to formulate a theological counter discourse. It asks firstly how these Muslim authority figures differentiate their position as ‘non-state’ actors manoeuvring a space of negotiation in secular power structures. Secondly, the contribution reflects on how they negotiate what Talal Asad has called ‘the secular episteme’ in their formulation of a theological counternarrative, as well as on how this relates to processes of ethical self-making and ‘apt’ authority formation. Rather than considering them as docile agents of the secular sovereign state, the concept of ‘border thinking’ is used to value the inter- and intra-traditional situatedness from where they attempt to renegotiate the horizons of expectations subscribed in hegemonic secularism.

Essentially the Greatest Poem: Teaching New Ways of Reading American Literature

This essay arose from a debate held at the 2018 American Studies Association of Norway (ASANOR) about the value of teaching American Literature and Culture survey courses at Norwegian universities. My role, as ASANOR’s president, was to facilitate the debate and offer a response. In the extended version of that response published here, I accept the critique of national survey courses as tending toward exceptionalism and nationalist interpretations of transnational political and aesthetic flows, but in the end advocate for American survey courses. I shift the focus from whether these courses should be taught to how. Taking up Walt Whitman’s description of America as ‘essentially the greatest poem’, I propose that survey classes can ‘read’ that poem in a way that acknowledges America’s complexity and the woeful inconsistencies between its history and its national ideal, while still finding beauty and value in that ideal. The first half of the paper historicizes the American literature survey in Norway in reference to international and national developments in the field of American Studies. The second half elaborates ways of teaching American Literature surveys that foreground students’ and professors’ ‘horizons of expectation’ for American literature and culture, assessing which of those come from American literary and cultural documents and which come from the uses to which the idea of America is put in the lives we live here and now.

Origen and the Story of the Mother and Her Seven Sons: Reimagining Third-Century Caesarean Horizons

AbstractThis article employs Galit Hasan-Rokem’s notions of vertical and horizontal axes of transmission for the study of biblical reception history, presenting the reception of the story of the mother and her seven sons in Origen’s writings as a case study. I suggest that Hasan-Rokem’s vertical axis of intergenerational transmission corresponds to reception history: it also involves us and thus demands our critical awareness. The horizontal axis of intergroup transmission, then, calls for our sensitivity toward the diverse interpersonal and intercultural exchanges that reception history presents less frequently as authoritative or even manifest. My analysis scrutinizes Origen’s pronouncedly bookish relation to the story of the mother and her seven sons, and I provide a reading of this relation as entailing both (inter)personal and intercultural encounters. I use both Eusebius’ biography of Origen and recent studies on late antique rabbinic discourse as means by which to broaden our perspective on Origen’s horizon of expectation. In conclusion, I suggest that Origen’s portrayal of the mother indicates some ambivalence toward this figure: her words of wisdom have undisputed authority over Origen, while her embodied wisdom makes him reserved. Thus, the reception of the story of the mother and her seven sons in Origen’s writings could strengthen the prospect that the story was a living reality for Origen as well as for others in third-century Palestine.

The role of spiritual formation in the education of modern human beings: A European Christian perspective

One of the most considerable changes in the contemporary European educational mentality is a person’s disconnection from spiritual life. Christian formation has been replaced with religious pluralism, in terms of syncretism influenced by global economic ideologies. Some consequences are low resilience and low spiritual resistance to contemporary challenges, associated with mental traumas or social behaviour deficits. Is it possible to restore the modern person’s spiritual education? There is no evolution in the modern individual’s social life without a horizon of spiritual expectation and fulfilment, different from the strictly material one. Moreover, conscious education cannot deprive people of cultivating the spiritual part of their consciousness from which the real values of existence are born. A series of arguments for renewing the relation between school and the mature, Scripture-based Christian thinking in the spirit of the European pedagogy are revealed by the factual historical analyses. Both Eastern and Western European experiences have met after 13 years of evolving into two antagonist geopolitical spheres. Their lessons in the education field could be an appropriate model, academically applied at the cultural mentality and the European pedagogy level.Contribution: With this study, I want to highlight the historical and conceptual frameworks of the Christian religious education meaning in the context of the rediscovery of Orthodox Christianity by the international theological culture in post-communism. Orthodox Christianity, forgotten in dictionaries and syntheses by the Western theological elite, brings in a spiritualisation of education according to the Lord Jesus Christ’s Gospel and not of the ideological cultural interests.

The Dualism of Place in Lattif Halmat’s Poetic Texts

This research, which is entitled “The Dualism of Place in Lattif Halmat’s Poetic Texts”, is a critically analytical study on the dualism of place, the role and position of the element of place within the frame of poetic texts. In the poet’s poetic texts, the element of place created a kind of reversal in the readers’ horizon of expectations. The binary oppositions have become the structure of art and the aesthetic of poetic texts. And often, they have become (purple patches) in the texts in a way that all the surrounding words are ablaze with their power and their beauty. This research is composed of two chapters: The first chapter is devoted to the concept and definition of dualism and the philosophical concept of dualism in a theoretical method. In terms of their presence in Lattif Halmat’s poetic texts, the second chapter deals with the dualism of place within the frame of poetic texts in a critically analytical way. And finally, the research ends with the conclusions and bibliography.

Bigmouth Strikes Again: The Controversies of Morrissey and Cancel Culture

On May 14, 2019, Morrissey performed on American television using a pin of the far right For Britain party. When criticized, he succinctly responded on Twitter: “ Why don't you have freedom of speech? Or freedom to wear a pin on TV?” His online fandom reacted vehemently suggesting a “cancellation” of the artist. In this context, our proposal is to track constitutive parts of this process of “deception” with Morrissey, focusing specifically on a phenomenon that has gained visibility on socio-technical networks: the idea of “canceling.” To gauge the reaction of his fandom, we address this event from the perception that this response to the singer took place on the horizon of expectations constructed through the experience that fans had with his career over the decades. We also use the notion of expressive coherence, as an analytical guide to understand some of the implications and tensions related to Morrissey’s trajectory, examining how his historically constituted nostalgic performance tracks and sheds light on two questions that are essential to our analysis: “Was he really always like this?”; and “How did he become this person?” These are conjugated to a definitive affirmation: “I cannot be his fan anymore.”

Mission (Im)possible: Debating the "Sentimental" Genre

Abstract: Francomano reviews the scholarly debate on the "sentimental" genre over the past decades in order to suggest that the search for a conclusive definition is a chimera. An appreciation of these fictions as intentionally mixed works written by men who were steeped in erudite, rhetorical, literary, legal, and religious traditions, and who seem to have been well aware of the effects of playing around with poetic conventions and horizons of expectation, reveals that genres are not only invitations for particular sorts of interpretive engagements but also vehicles for shaping knowledge. The "sentimental" novelas/ficciones/romances have much to teach us about genre in the fiftheenth and sixteenth centuries.

Study on Paratextual Elements in News Transediting: A Case Study on the Transediting Strategies in Reference News

Reference News is a state-owned news platform that provides foreign opinions to average Chinese readers. As the only Chinese news platform eligible for publishing articles from the foreign press, it serves as a “corpus” to study news transediting strategies in the context of China. This paper selects sources related to the COVID-19 pandemic from Reference News and compares the sources with the transedited articles. The author upholds there are three main paratexts guiding the process of transediting pandemic-themed articles on Reference News : reader’s value and horizon of expectations, ideology and national emotions, and national interests. It can be concluded that, under the influence of those three paratexts, Reference News generally prefers to use four strategies to transedit relevant articles, namely the selection and combination of sources, deletion, addition, and variation. The author hopes that, given the significance and popularity of pandemic-related information and opinions, this paper can enlighten future research on transediting news articles about COVID-19.

The need for durable institutions for future generations: Mobilising the citizenry

Institutions for future generations (IFGs) have lately become the subject of intense academic and political debate. That some had a short life prompted discussion about IFGs’ durability; indeed, to deliver any result at all, an institution first has to exist. One hurdle to the creation and survival of IFGs underlined in numerous studies is the lack of democratic legitimacy of an institution having power to limit the options of living generations in order to protect the presumed interests of future generations. Accordingly, there is some agreement that IFGs should be resumed, but with a foresight rather than decision making role. However, even in this benign form, IFGs are not safe from the vagaries of politics, unless they are constitutionally entrenched. We argue that referenda for amending the constitution to make room for the IFGs may succeed, through shaping citizens horizons of expectation, mobilisation of ‘good’ patriotism (or ‘civic/liberal nationalism’) among the citizenry, and a communications strategy of bonding past decisions, present challenges, and future prospects.

The reception of Cameroon Films and home videos in student residential areas: the case of Bambili – Cameroon

Film as a medium of communication uses visual and auditory signs between senders and receivers. It is considered as one of the most influential areas of media. The art form in Cameroon is valorised more through the home video system caused principally by the closure of theatre halls and the advent of cable TV channels dedicated to the broadcasting of movies for home consumption and the emergence of new media. This study looks at the reception of these home videos particularly in the student residential area of Bambili – Cameroon. A total number of 500 students served as sample for the study whose results show that a majority of viewers choose films according to different criteria but mostly influenced by their horizons of expectations.

In Search of Equal Justice (al-ʿadl bis-sawiyya)

Abstract In the last century and a half, modern legal ideas and institutions have more or less found their way into traditional Muslim societies. The translation and transmission of foreign ideas, notions, and concepts into the Islamic context brought about a crisis, which has led to the evaluation of a field of discourse over modernity. The current paper seeks to explain the modifications of the legal language and concepts within the constitutional experience of the Islamic world during the 19th and 20th centuries, by reference to Reinhart Koselleck’s “space of experience” and the “horizon of expectation”. For this purpose, the essay deals with the development of the modern concept of “equality” and some related notions, such as “justice” and “fairness”, with a focus on selected source texts in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman-Turkish.

Character: Three Inquiries in Literary StudiesCharacter as Form

Character: Three Inquiries in Literary StudiesCharacter as Form

El elogio como expresión de agudeza en la universidad novohispana en el siglo XVIII

This paper aims to describe the horizon of expectations concerning praise or eulogy as a literary subgenre in New Spain’s 18th century. I tackle its background in European Renaissance, its affiliation with the rhetorical tradition of acumen or acuity, its inclusion in the university practices of New Spain and the controversy that arose because of that. Although not all intellectuals from New Spain decided to add acumen to university eulogies, the tradition of doing so prevailed.

El elogio como expresión de agudeza en la universidad novohispana en el siglo XVIII

This paper aims to describe the horizon of expectations concerning praise or eulogy as a literary subgenre in New Spain’s 18th century. I tackle its background in European Renaissance, its affiliation with the rhetorical tradition of acumen or acuity, its inclusion in the university practices of New Spain and the controversy that arose because of that. Although not all intellectuals from New Spain decided to add acumen to university eulogies, the tradition of doing so prevailed.

Pedagogies of perfection in the postfeminist digital age: young women’s negotiations of health and fitness on social media

ABSTRACT In this paper, we explore how pedagogies of perfection in fitness content on social media work as a postfeminist technology of the self, exhorting young women to act upon themselves to become ‘perfect’ but hiding the extent to which exercise as aesthetic labour is normatively demanded. We draw on focus group and individual interviews with 37 young women who follow fitness content on Instagram and a discourse analysis of the social media presence of Patry Jordán, a famous Spanish fitness influencer. Through the concept of pedagogies of perfection, we explain how fitspiration is a gendered public pedagogy of digital health through which neoliberalism and postfeminism are disseminated, providing techniques to develop individualized projects of the self. The perfect is the horizon of expectation for continued self-optimization, where young women engage in a never-ending project of the body that also demands the improvement of psychological attitudes. Through the careful articulation of 'positive' pedagogies, the idea of imperfection or failure becomes embedded within the perfect. This production of the self both as a problem and with possibilities represents the horizon of expectation, a powerful force that leads to the belief that all women can achieve ‘successful’ feminine subjectivities while reproducing gender inequality.

Venturing beyond Koselleck’s Erwartungshorizont: on the category of the utopian

ABSTRACT For a long time, the reception of German historian and theorist Reinhart Koselleck’s work focused on disciplinary and methodological aspects of conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte). However, in recent years, there has been an increased interest in Koselleck’s more theoretical discussions on historical time and temporality, highlighting his oeuvre of a theory of the conditions for possible histories (Historik). Taking its cue from the current trend, this article revisits the Koselleckian category of horizon of expectation (Erwartungshorizont) in light of Ernst Bloch’s work on the principle of hope (Das Prinzip Hoffnung) and the concept of utopia as the forward dreaming of the Not-Yet (Noch-Nicht). By exploring and developing the utopian as a formal category – used as a supplement to Koselleck’s conceptualization of the relationship between the space of experience and the horizon of expectation – the article argues that Koselleck’s theory can be reframed into one that can fully account for the utopian imaginaries of political thinking.

Mechanisms for Interpretative Cooperation: Fan Theories in Virtual Communities.

This work focuses on analyzing fan theories as interpretive processes shared by users of virtual reading communities. Within these spaces of participatory culture, a complex strategy of interactions among its members is encouraged to formulate conjectures about the text's intentions and negotiate its degree of relevance. We have based our research on a methodology linked to the ethnography of reading. From a representative sample of the narrative universes of A Song of Ice and Fire and Harry Potter, the different modes of agreed collaborative textual interpretation are explored. The data show that within these communities of practice, three reading models are developed: predictive theories in which future narrative contents are inferred; explanatory theories in which narrative arcs are endowed and charged with meaning through the analysis of canon and, finally, alternative theories with a highly creative component in which the interpretative limits of the text are explored. Within these virtual communities, hermeneutical proposals are characterized by the activation of complex, heavily referenced literary argumentation to maintain semiosis active and expand the horizon of expectations of its members.