ABSTRACT This article explores how late Ottoman intellectuals championed the German model as a template for the modernization of the Empire – from the Hamidian Era, marked by a growing estrangement from England and France, to the First World War, when the Ottoman state became militarily, economically, and culturally intertwined with Germany. It examines how these thinkers interpreted Germany’s historical role vis-à-vis its rivals, how they positioned its political structure as a model for emulation, and how they reimagined the Deutscher Geist (German spirit). Furthermore, the study investigates how German political ideals were employed to foster social transformation within the Ottoman context. Through an analysis of late Ottoman literature on Germany, this article sheds light on the intellectual underpinnings of Ottoman–German relations, arguing that Ottoman intellectuals constructed a mythical vision of Germany – one that mirrored their aspirations for a future Turkey, where women were incorruptible and men were Spartan, embodying the martial virtues of a nation prepared for war.

The research aims to identify the specifics of the artistic interpretation of the nature of evil and existential alienation in Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel “Last Exit to Brooklyn” and Bret Easton Ellis’s novel “American Psycho”. A comparative analysis of these works has not been undertaken to date, although their plot and thematic parallels and their shared aim of debunking the American Dream have been repeatedly noted in literary criticism. The article presents a sequential analysis of the novels: it traces the development of the protagonist’s obsession in “Last Exit to Brooklyn” from intrusive impulses to spiritual collapse; it identifies the socially constructed categories of simulation and the disappearance of the subject in “American Psycho”; and it establishes the narrative and philosophical-religious points of convergence and divergence between the outwardly similar characters of the studied texts. The scientific originality of the research lies in identifying a model of existential alienation that unites the novels: the internal, ontological mechanism of personality degradation in “Last Exit to Brooklyn” correlates with external, simulational depersonalization in “American Psycho”. The obtained results demonstrate that the novels form a complementary concept for the representation of evil in late 20th-century American literature: in Selby’s work, evil is rooted in the structure of the subject experiencing a sense of God-abandonment, while in Ellis’s work, it emerges as a product of the media-simulational environment.

Textual Formation, Historical Transmission, and Documentation Processes in Late Antique Sacred Literature: A Critical Analysis of Contemporary Methodological Approaches

The Aniconic Beauty: The Imperial Portrait in Late Antique Literature and Historiography

Abstract This paper investigates cultural manifestations of an eco-cosmopolitan consciousness in late Soviet travel literature. Drawing from recent reappraisals of cosmopolitanism in postcolonial studies, ecocriticism and the “oceanic turn”, it argues that late Soviet culture saw a growing awareness of global environmental risks that fostered values and practices of investigation and cooperation. While cosmopolitanism had been a politicized accusation in late Stalinism, used to legitimate repression and anti-Semitism, its values and practices were gradually rehabilitated in the post-Stalinist period. This cosmopolitanism was fueled by a desire of Soviet scientists and authors for recognition by their Western European counterparts and the growing significance of international cooperation in oceanography. This late Soviet eco-cosmopolitanism also increasingly acknowledged the significance of non-human forms of life and established a systemic view on entanglements between world regions on the one hand and human and non-human forces on the other hand. Many consequences of the Anthropocene that have resulted in the fateful transformation of the oceanic world discussed today become legible in this historical reconstruction examining a body of texts mostly overlooked in scholarship thus far.

This article examines a pivotal aesthetic debate in late eighteenth-century German literature between Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) and Gottfried August Bürger (1747–1794) concerning the nature of “popular” art (Volkskunst). The analysis focuses on the core texts of this polemic: Schiller’s critical review, “On Bürger’s Poems,” and Bürger’s retaliatory piece, “Preliminary Anti-Critique.” The study aims to delineate the contrasting literary-aesthetic paradigms of Schiller, who advocated an idealizing, classicist art, and Bürger, who championed a democratic, realist art. The investigation establishes that Bürger argued for a realist principle of “popularity” (Volkstümlichkeit), grounded in the study of folklore and the truthful representation of reality, positing that the poet must be immersed “among the people.” In contrast, Schiller defended an idealist approach, which required the poet to create a sublime ideal and to “descend” to the people in order to ennoble them. It is demonstrated that Bürger’s concept affirmed the work’s fidelity to life, whereas Schiller’s position led to elitism and schematicism. The author concludes that this controversy was inevitable, as it reflected a fundamental divergence between the classicist and preRomantic paradigms. The study further argues that Schiller’s rebuttal of Bürger’s stance served to embed the tenets of a new classicism into artistic theory. The novelty of this research lies in its detailed comparative analysis of the arguments put forth by both sides, which reveals the ontological foundations of their aesthetic disagreement.

ABSTRACT Timothy Mo, a popular postcolonial author in late twentieth-century British literature, has written extensively about Hong Kong. However, his later and more cosmopolitan works about subjects outside his motherland and adopted country are less acknowledged, let alone his relevant role in British Chinese literature. While Mo’s early career was marked by a distinct “Chineseness”, his later writing gradually shifted focus to multi-displaced Asian diasporas that could not be assigned to any nation-state or ethnic group and shared a deterritorialised identity. This article examines Mo’s oeuvre and argues that his negotiations with “Chineseness” and cosmopolitanism are consistent with British Chinese literature’s move towards a radical world literature. The integration of Mo’s thematic shift with this developing literary field reveals not only the heterogeneity of UK-published writers of Chinese descent but also an anti-essentialist approach to ethnic minorities’ literary identities.

In this paper several works from the late 18th-century Northern Croatian literature are analyzed describing the Austrian-Turkish War (1788–1791). Specifically, it examines Pisma od uzetja Turske Gradiške iliti Berbira Grada (1789) by Antun Ivanosic; Nestrančno vezdašnjega tabora ispisivanje (1789, 1790, 1791) by Juraj Malevac; and Ispisanje rata turskoga pod Josipom Cesarom II (1792) by Blaz Bosnjak. These are the chronicles in verse of the war fought in the Bosnian Krajina (a term used since 1878), primarily in Bosanska Gradiska (i.e., Berbir Grad), as well as in Banja Luka, Bihac, and later in the Belgrade Pashalik. This paper explores the presence of Serbs in these works from both historical and literary perspectives.

This article seeks to resituate the Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase) within the late-Ming medical milieux through the prism of women’s anger. By teasing out the rich layers of discursive contestation revolving around women’s anger and their varied approaches to this emotion, the article contends that the work selectively negotiates with its contemporaneous medical writing. More precisely, the rendition of women’s anger enables us to detect the stronger resonance of the Plum with the etiological than with the pathological strand of medical thinking. The physicians’ pathological consideration of anger’s corporeal impacts on female bodies initially appears to assume diagnostic authority in the work. However, lay explanations in turn complement and complicate the pathological perspective, drawing the reader’s attention more toward an etiological vision. Furthermore, the etiological consideration of women’s anger solves the seeming paradox in the Plum that certain physicians feature diagnostic authority but provide inefficacious treatment. In this way, the article advances a more nuanced repositioning of the work in reference to its surrounding medical contexts. In the meantime, the focus on anger significantly broadens the emotional horizon of late imperial Chinese literature beyond romantic love and sexual desire.

Abstract: In the context of Western medicine, Xin (心 heart), Gan (肝 liver), Pi (脾 spleen), Fei (肺 lung), and Shen (肾 kidney) are five specific organs; while in ancient Chinese medicine, they are five kinds of Zang Xiang (藏象visceral manifestation), often referred to as Wu Zang (五藏five zang-organs), representing five interrelated structural-functional systems. There are both differences and connections between visceral manifestations and organs, which are reflected in the theories of the five zang-organs. The specific connotation of the five zang-organs are determined by the specific context in which they are located. With the accumulation of practice, the five zang-organs of the human body structures and functions, as well as the relationship between the five zang-organs have been in constant development and change. The encounter of Chinese and Western medicine in the 19th century dramatically changed the connotation of the five zang-organs, from emphasizing visceral manifestations and neglecting substance to an organs-oriented perspective. This article examines how theencounter of Chinese and Western medicine in China influenced Chinese medicine. By analyzing three key aspects—(1) the interpretation of the five zang-organs in pre-16th century texts, (2) the evolution and dissemination of Western medicine during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and (3) the shifting conceptualization of the five zang-organs in late Qing medical literature—the study elucidates the transformative impact of this cross-cultural medical encounter on the theory and practice of Chinese medicine.

Abstract The bewildering mixture of various types of knowledge (e.g. astrology/astronomy, divination, magic, physiognomy, biology, geography etc.) and religious or legal discussion in Jewish late antique literature (Talmudic tradition) has triggered in earlier scholarship maximalist and minimalist positions. While some saw scientific ideas as always subdued to theology or rabbinic legal thought (Halakhah), others were very eager to interpret these passages as proof for the true scientific nature of Talmudic texts and held that some rabbis were, in fact, expert physicians, astronomers or diviners. In my article I parse the discursive strategies of the Talmudic authors and seek to shed some light on the integration of medicine and other sciences into a rabbinic corpus commonly understood as religious and normative. Specifically, my inquiry aims at the juxtaposition of religious or moral diagnosis and disease etiologies that neatly intersect (or contradict) medical or physiological explanations of illnesses. Moreover, I study the role of rabbis who are portrayed both as medical experts and patients or practitioners who apply and discuss illness, health or therapies but also receive medical advice and experiment with various cures. Attention is paid to the discursive portrayal, the literary framing and the cultural strategies implied.

Abstract: This paper explores the representation of zhiyin 知音 friendship through the lenses of gender and performance in The Purple Flute ( Zixiao ji 紫簫記 ), Tang Xianzu ' s 湯顯祖 (1550 – 1616) first but unfinished attempt to write a play for the new southern theater. The zhiyin motif stands out as the intertext between the play and its source story , " The Tale of Huo Xiaoyu ," written in the ninth century. Not only does Tang Xianzu transform the female protagonist Huo Xiaoyu into a zhiyin figure in The Purple Flute, but he also presents a most poignant portrayal of female friendship among musicians and performers in late Ming literature. As musical experts, female entertainers in this play constantly promote new trends in singing and music making, bringing up notions such as " new voices " ( xinsheng 新聲 ) , " new renditions " ( xinfan 新翻 ) , " new transmission " ( xinchuan 新傳 ), and " new making " ( biezhi 別製 ), therefore acting as the mouthpieces of a young, daring, and experimental playwright. As often-alluded-to figures of nostalgia in earlier poetry, these characters are inevitably cast in sentimental entanglement with their past, pointing to the tension between the old and the new in music and theater practice. Their nostalgic songs not only solicit empathetic responses from each other but also call forth a zhiyin audience offstage. In other words, Tang maneuvers female musical voices to promote a new form of theater and to challenge the hierarchy between elite and popular lyrical traditions. By examining the intertextual meanings of zhiyin as embodied by and invested in the courtesan singers across generations in The Purple Flute, this study unravels Tang ' s intricate play with gender, art, and agency in his first ambitious engagement with the new southern theater .

Summary The late 19th century literature on fiducia is strongly marked by the fundamental contributions of Lenel. He identified, in his extensive work reconstructing the institution, passages in the Digest where the Justinian compilers would have substituted the mention of fiducia for that of both pignus and depositum vel commodatum. By contrast, the literature of recent years on the subject has often taken a more cautious approach to the problem of interpolations, limiting itself mainly to using sources not from the Corpus iuris. However, this doctrinal approach does not help to give a complete idea of such a complex institution.

Abstract Reading Phil 2:6–11 in the context of the angel-of-the-Lord tradition makes Paul Holloway’s argument for its angelic background more complete, compelling, and decisively Jewish in origin. This tradition’s core interests extend the angelic correlations that are the strength of his argument (divine form, human form, and possession of God’s name) with additional ones (a humble human servant, an implicit incognito human presence, a heightened standing over all) that more fully mirror the condescension cycle of Phil 2:6–11. This angel’s accounts range over the Hebrew Bible to late Second Temple literature, demonstrating its enduring importance for Jewish writers who adopted and adapted this tradition to describe God’s proxy, as well as its availability as a theological resource to describe Jesus’s mission as God’s saving emissary. As a result, Phil 2:6–11 has angelic antecedents that display this christological passage’s thoroughly ethnic interests.

Published in 1946, the short stories ‘Telegram’ by K. Paustovsky and ‘Homecoming’ [‘Ivanov’s Family’] by A. Platonov marked a brief period of spiritual enthusiasm in Soviet society. Both stories are characterized by profound psychologism, unpredictability, and somewhat ‘un-Soviet-like’ behaviour of their protagonists, which made the two works stand out among the typical prose of the day and naturally triggered an angry critical response. Analyzing these short stories in comparison to 1940s prose, the author points out similarities in their poetics — a forerunner of the poetics of late Soviet literature — such as the determination to describe human distress, the depth of soul-searching (the characters often suffer an internal conflict and are driven to contrition by their own bad conscience), the absence of a happy future, the characteristic features of artistic time and space, etc. The author identifies such common traits of Platonov’s and Paustovsky’s short stories as psychologism, used to depict the protagonist’s internal struggle, and emotions of grief and compassion, as well as the topic of stirring conscience. These traits would typify ‘Thaw’ prose years later.

The compound legifer, likely a neologism in Verg. Aen. 4,58, is used mainly in poetry. Until the second century AD, it appears only in Ou. am. 3,10,41 and Apul. met. 10,33. In Late Latin literature, legifer becomes more frequent, often referring to Greek figures such as Lycurgus and Solon or to the biblical Moses. Two specific examples are worthy of attention: Rut. Nam. 1,77, in relation to the triumphi of Rome, and Ven. Fort. carm. 9,1,102, concerning the Frankish king Chilperic.

Is the Quran an epigonic text?In other words, does the Quran rely on Late Antique Judeo-Christian literature for its stories, figures, and themes?This article examines the widely debated claim among Western scholars that the Quran is an epigonic work, borrowing from prior religious texts, and aims to critically assess this assertion.Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, many Western Orientalists argued that the Quran was constructed through selective borrowing from Judeo-Christian literature.Key figures promoting this view include Abraham Geiger, Michael Cook, and Christopher Luxenberg.However, from the latter half of the 20th century onwards, there has been a significant shift in Western academic perspectives on the Qurn, with increasing recognition of its originality and theological independence.Scholars like Sidney Griffith and Joseph Witztum argue that while the Quran may have adapted stories from earlier religious traditions, it reinterprets them within a distinct theological framework, exhibiting originality.Although certain Quranic narratives bear similarities to Jewish and Christian sources, their recontextualization within the Quran highlights the text's unique theological message.This paper challenges the notion of epigonality by examining the Qurn's originality and its divine origins in light of recent academic discourse.

Abstract In this article, the author argues that the history of research on the apocryphal acts of the apostles is still largely influenced by the biblical canon and by the habits of reading and interpretation that are a natural consequence of it. He first shows that the modern habit of designating a varied body of late ancient literature as “apocryphal acts,” opposed to canonical Acts, has obscured the many differences among these texts and overlooked their medieval designations. He then discusses how works categorized as “apocryphal acts” have been closely compared to Acts in biblical research, and shows that it does not correspond to the way these texts were perceived in antiquity and in Byzantium. Last, the author reviews the data showing that the canonical and apocryphal books were not rivals and that the books categorized as “apocryphal acts” were not understood in this way in Church tradition.

ABSTRACT Late Ottoman Turkish perceptions of the Arabs emerged within an intellectual climate that emphasized Western-defined notions of progress and ‘civilization’ as a hegemonic ideal. As previous works have emphasized, these intellectual premises often led the late Ottoman elites to view the empire’s Arab population through the lens of an Ottoman Orientalism, which cast them into the position of an ‘uncivilized Other’ and foregrounded the need of an Ottoman civilizing effort towards them. This article studies late Ottoman encyclopaedic literature, a genre displaying the intellectual spirit of its time, and analyses portrayals of the Arabs and Arabness found therein. After briefly engaging with the question of how collective designators used for the Arabs transformed over the decades from an unspecific to a more ethnicized terminology, the article finds that perceptions of the Arabs and Arabness in late Ottoman encyclopaedic literature reflect the merging of different knowledge traditions current in the late Ottoman era. Consequently, a more multifaceted picture emerges, as portrayals vary between venerating references to the Arabs as a noble and ancient people who should be credited as the bringers of Islam, the Arabs as negatively racialized blacks, and approaches informed by the findings of Western scientific racism.

Abstract: For the ongoing reappraisal of late antiquity’s relationship to the nonhuman world, the tree stands alone in both its potentials and its significance. This is on display in Ephrem the Syrian’s intricate poems and treatises, which provide a perspective into the ways that many in antiquity encountered arboreal life. Rather than grouping Ephrem’s trees with other so-called natural subjects, and further making recourse to abstract symbolism or biblical hermeneutics, this article attends to ways that trees paradoxically appear in Ephrem’s works. It is the world of arboriculture, and especially the technique of grafting, that helped Ephrem conceive of the life and value of trees. A critical attention to the graft’s long-standing articulation elucidates why Ephrem’s trees are immersed in paradox, simultaneously praised and derided. Across his Madrāšē on Virginity , Madrāšē on Faith , Madrāšē on the Nativity , among others, the tree is a wondrous producer, both materially and metaphorically, while nonetheless a failed and lacking thing. Relying upon Ephrem’s poetic rendering of the graft, and the graft’s elaboration from classical to late antiquity, I show how an arboricultural practice can effectively mediate a perception and appropriation of arboreal life. Recent calls to reconsider vegetal life in the study of culture further help illuminate late antique literature, which has been increasingly mined for ecological insight. Ephrem’s texts are not only sources for symbolism, theology, or history; they are also archives of the effects that trees have had on people.