Modern Readers Research Articles

On Subtle Bodies, Out-of-Body Experiences, and Apparitions of the Living: A Review of Ernesto Bozzano's Study of "Bilocation"

For many years there have been phenomena such as apparitions of the living, photographs of the living at a distance, near-death experiences, emanations of light from the dying, fog, or incorporeal “doubles,” which have suggested the existence of a spirit, or “subtle body,” able to separate itself from the physical body, sometimes bringing consciousness with it. This idea also underpins the projection model for Out-of-Body Experience (OBE) cases, which has an interesting history (Alvarado, 2009, 2011, 2019). Here I briefly review that concept through the analysis of a work written by the Italian student of psychic phenomena Ernesto Bozzano, published for the first time in 1934 (Bozzano, 2020) and recently re-edited in the original language by Golem Libri, a young publishing house specializing in “psychic” topics.
 In discussing this book my approach is mainly historical. I hope both to help modern readers to get more acquainted with Bozzano’s work, and to highlight those passages that deepen our understanding of specific aspects of the topic, especially with reference to the ideas on OBEs published before the 1930s. I am convinced that while the issues discussed by Bozzano have a limited value today, they can stimulate further discussions.

GENRE SPECIFICS OF ADVENTURE PROSE IN LITERARU STUDIES OF THE URAL-VOLGA REGION

The history of world literature presupposes the coverage of those phenomena and processes that bring together various national literatures, certain groups of them [1]. The discovery of such sides will help to better and deeper understand both the composition and the plot features of adventure genres. The poetics of adventure prose has been sufficiently studied in many national literatures. Nevertheless, to date, the issues in the comparative perspective remain unresolved. In this sense, it is important to take into account the changed attitudes towards such areas of Chuvash fiction as fiction, detective, adventure, which have become very fascinating for modern readers. In terms of genre, they are short stories, novellas and novels. They are united by the commonality of the characters' lives, conflict situations and circumstances, ways of plotting. The article is devoted to the problem of studying adventure genres in literary studies of the Ural-Volga region, the manifestation of elements of adventure in artistic practice, the typology of the plot and the typology of heroes are investigated, attention is also paid to their plot-compositional features, to certain features of the hero, the nature of situations and circumstances.

Reading Contexts, Goals, and Decisions: Text Comprehension as a Situated Activity

ABSTRACT The spread of digital technology has prompted an increase in the amount of written text that gets produced and disseminated daily, together with a diversification of reading contexts and purposes. In this article, we propose that modern reading increasingly relies on readers’ ability to set up and manage their own reading goals and decisions. We outline our RESOLV theory of purposeful reading and we reflect on students’ preparedness for reading in out-of-school contexts. We stress the importance of reading strategies for disciplinary learning but also their limited transfer to out-of-school reading activities. We illustrate this point with an examination of the decisions involved in the reading of fake news. We conclude that students need to be trained to monitor information quality in contexts where neither the reading goal nor the genre and contents of the texts to be read can be expected a priori, which characterizes many current uses of the web.

Luther in Printed Marginalia: Reference Notes, Reading and Representations in Swedish Lutheran Prints 1570–1630

ABSTRACT This article investigates reference notes to Luther’s works in Swedish books produced from 1570–1630 and uses this case study to explore the presence and function of reference notes to Luther’s works in Lutheran print during the age of confessionalisation. Building on scholarly work on representations of Luther within Lutheran Culture, early modern reading and printed marginalia, it explores reference notes as a medium for representing and commemorating Luther in print. It is argued that reference notes were a useful tool for translators and publishers to highlight Luther’s authority while simultaneously giving the texts credibility. Reference notes materialised in print the Lutheran wish to create a bond between Luther and the late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century reader, as they signalled and verified the spiritual presence of Luther in the printed text and hence enabled the reader to imagine an encounter with the authentic Luther through his texts.

The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source

The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source

The Unridden Donkey Colt: Mark 11:2 in Light of Equine Development and Pedagogy

Most modern readers, unacquainted with the training of donkeys, miss a crucial element in Mark’s description of Jesus’s donkey ride to Jerusalem. A colt that had “never been ridden” before normally would balk and not provide a suitable mount even for the brief journey recounted in this narrative. Mark’s description of its recruitment and cooperation thus implies divine enablement. The colt, unlike most humans in Mark’s Gospel, submits to its rightful lord.

Losing Freud

Losing Freud

Kirsten A. Greer. Red Coats and Wild Birds: How Military Ornithologists and Migrant Birds Shaped Empire

In Red Coats and Wild Birds, Kirsten Greer examines the motivations, practices, and consequences—for science, for empire, for masculinity—of nineteenth-century officer-ornithologists in the British army. Tracing the migratory paths of bird-watching lieutenants, ordnance officers, and military surgeons from their training grounds in the United Kingdom, to imperial way-stations in the Mediterranean (Malta and Gibraltar), to further-flung corners of the Empire (Crimea, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Tunisia, India), and back, Greer elucidates how the study of ornithology centered both the self-fashioning of British military masculinity and the production of geographical knowledge of the British Empire. The connection between the study of birds and military training, combat, and careering may not be immediately apparent to a modern reader, but ornithology constitutes a long and venerable tradition in the British military. By the nineteenth century—Greer’s period of study—participants had amassed an impressive “avian imperial archive” (12, 21) composed of diaries, journals, notes,...

Peasants and Polyptyques in the Ninth Century: The Peasant Hermod

Eileen Power’s peasant Bodo has influenced our vision of medieval peasants for close to a century. Her image of a busy agricultural worker and his family serving on a great ninth-century estate, drawn from a variety of different sources in addition to the polyptyque of St.-Germain-des-Prés in which he briefly appears, has become the standard for textbooks and popular accounts. In spite of Power’s laudable effort to give an account of a lower-status person to whom the modern reader could relate, we know far less about Bodo or his contemporaries than she suggests. The difficulties of learning about the life of a supposedly typical peasant are illustrated by the peasant Hermod, who appears in the polyptyque of Montier-en-Der. The polyptyques, very few in number and all using different criteria to enumerate property and income, provide a dizzying array of peasant obligations: some owed rent but not labor, some owed set amounts of both rent and labor, and some seem to have been expected to provide labor at any times. The tenants themselves had a wide variety of status, from servile to free. These people were surrounded by others about whom we have no direct evidence, but there are indications that many of them must have been free-holders, not owing rents or labor dues to anyone, indeed perhaps providing hired labor to the manor. Twelfth-century hesitancy to copy ninth-century polyptyques into cartularies suggests that peasant status and obligations had thoroughly changed in the centuries after Bodo and Hermod, making them even less typical of high medieval peasants than they had been for those of the Carolingian era.

Tertullian’s moral theology on women and the accusation of misogyny

Some modern scholars have linked the second century church father, Tertullian, to misogynism. This article wades into the debate over whether Tertullian should be considered a misogynist. Through the combined approaches of historical enquiry and interpretative theory, this article probes the validity of such connections. This article also argues that a consideration of Tertullian’s infamous De cultu feminarum and prevailing views of gender in the second and third centuries CE establish that he was not a misogynist per se. Rather, the offending comments should be understood as part of his broader moral and theological worldview of his time to call the Christian women to genuine Christian virtues, sobriety, sincerity, and continence.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article provides a reinterpretation of Tertullian’s attitude towards women for modern readers. While modern thinkers become shocked of some of his remarks about women, we have shown that a proper understanding of Tertullian’s moral theology will change the perception of modern readers, especially on the accusation of misogyny.

Historical empathy and medicine: Pathography and empathy in Sophocles' Philoctetes.

The aim of this article is to explore the ways in which the engagement with Greek tragedy may contribute fruitfully to the unfolding of empathy in medical students and practitioners. To reappraise the general view that classical texts are remote from modern experience because of the long distance between the era they represent and today, I propose an approach to Greek tragedy viewed through the lens of historical empathy, and of the association between past situations and similar contemporary experiences, in particular. After a brief examination of the concept of empathy, its links with literary reading, and the discussion of these interrelations within the training of narrative medicine, and narrative ethics in particular, the focus turns to selected parts of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, such as the disease scene—an ancient example of pathography. Here Neoptolemus’ empathy for Philoctetes’ situation and its consequences are explored with specific interest in the modern readers’ affective response in connection with their own experiences in medical practice. Neoptolemus’ ethical conflict, which is resolved by his decision to care for Philoctetes, and the problematic nature of this attitude are both indicative of the aim of Greek tragedy to problematize universal issues and thus to point towards the instability of human life and the fluidity of human nature. Realizing through historical empathy the precariousness of human existence may lead to a better understanding and hence better care for others and open new perspectives in the development of empathy within the context of contemporary medical education and practice.

Classical education and Darwinism: Tadeusz Zielinski’s attempt at reconciliation

ABSTRACT Written by a Polish-Russian scholar Tadeusz Zielinski, Our Debt to Antiquity (1903) was a successful attempt to combat the prejudiced view that classical education resists progress. Zielinski argued that Darwinian laws manifest themselves in his discipline in three aspects: (1) in the emergence of Greek and Latin languages as a result of the selection of word-forms and expressions that testify to certain features of national character; (2) in the persistence of classical education across many centuries as the ‘fittest’ educational system; (3) in the selection of schoolchildren for national elites. Although Zielinski’s application of Darwinian laws of selection to human society may appear reactionary to a modern reader, this article argues that in doing so he defends classical education both from the left-wing populists and from attempts at abuse from the right. Moreover, his thoughts prompt modern scholars to reflect on the real presence of Social Darwinism in our present educational system.

Adolf Hitler’s Attitudes About Religion in the Book “My Struggle” („Mein Kampf“)

The aim of this work is, through the analysis of the book „My struggle”, especially its parts connected with religion and devotion and the most important facts about this complex topic, present to the modern readers Adolf Hitler’s main ideas in the process of decreasement, and even often destroying of a religious factor in the everyday life of average Germans in the period between his entering into politics and the start of WWII and his project of solving the Jewish problem in the areas conquered by the German army. The complexity of this topic is also visible in the fact that there was a conflict in whole social life in Germany after losing WWI. The society in Germany after WWI had been searching for comfort and escape from poverty that happened after 1919, political instability and other destabilizing factors in religion, no matter is it Roman Catholicism, Protestantism or Judaism. For National socialists who were constantly getting more and more power, thanks to mistakes of other political movements, excellent organisation and endurance of its leaders, before all, Adolf Hitler, every kind of devotion that was not agreeing with the ideas of national socialism was declared as a political enemy. From today’s perspective, we can say that Germany between the two World Wars was a very interesting area for researching the relationship between religion and politics, especially if we keep in mind that Hitler in his book defined the relationship between religion and its destroying, in the case when religion does not use to the political goals.

Strategic change at the Hospital Saint-Jacques at Le Roeulx (Belgium), from the account book of Sister Magdelaine Delcourt

Prior to going on Crusade in 1202, Baldwin, bailiff of Le Roeulx, gave his house and associated income to found a hospital in the hope of saving his immortal soul. The original objective of the hospital was to sustain the poor and pilgrims (especially those undertaking the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain (the Camino)). However, few pilgrims availed themselves of its facilities. The mission was then revised to look after the poor and to shelter the sick. By the seventeenth century augustine sisters of Ath administered the hospital. Sister Magdelaine Delcourt, the nun in charge, left us an account and information, covering the period 1625 to 1627. This gives a vivid picture of the financial and other affairs of the organisation for that period. The archaic nature of this record makes it largely inaccessible to the modern reader: this article renders it legible to current researchers.

Getting the Hell Over Manhattan

Getting the Hell Over Manhattan

Translating Cain: Emotions of Invisibility through the Gaze of Raskolnikov and Bigger by Samantha Joo

Reviewed by: Translating Cain: Emotions of Invisibility through the Gaze of Raskolnikov and Bigger by Samantha Joo Jeffrey H. Pulse samantha joo, Translating Cain: Emotions of Invisibility through the Gaze of Raskolnikov and Bigger (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020). Pp. xii + 187. $100. Samantha Joo approaches the narrative of Cain and Abel using a method designed to translate the emotional connotations of this ancient text. Since the author of the story wants to convey these emotional realities and the subsequent connotations of these emotions, the solution is to "recontextualize" the event in order to evoke similar emotions from the reader. J. argues for the story's transference of an emotional attitude to the reader because the power of the narrative resides in its ability to stir the emotions, not to stimulate the mind. In order to accomplish this, J. focuses on the issue of "invisibility" in the story of Cain and Abel using two classic examples from modern literature that contain this mythic plot: the character of Raskolnikov in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright's Native Son. Raskolnikov is a poor, young, ex-university student in nineteenth-century Russia, while Bigger Thomas is a poor, young, black man in Chicago in the 1940s. Both stories, while different in context and time, exhibit the same [End Page 304] mythic plot as seen in the Cain and Abel narrative—invisibility. (1) The character becomes invisible; (2) the character is emotionally distraught at being invisible; and (3) the character kills to find visibility. Thus, J. argues that seeing Cain's story through the characters of Bigger and Raskolnikov, characters who seek visibility through violence, even murder, will lead the reader to look at this ancient story differently. J. is interested in how invisibility molds and affects the character's emotions that then lead to violence. This approach does not try to discern authorial intent or consider the reader's response. Joo structures the book in five sections. In the first, she lays out the theoretical model and then explains the need for analogies. Section 2 is an analysis of the narrative of Cain and Abel, highlighting the social invisibility of Cain, which is implied in Cain's Kenite identity. Then, section 3 is an analysis of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and the character Raskolnikov, while section four treats Wright's Native Son and the character Bigger Thomas. Finally, in section 5, J. compares and contrasts the portrayals of Cain, Raskolnikov, and Bigger. The book is laid out to accomplish three distinct purposes. J. states, "On the theoretical level, I will provide a model that will convey emotional connotation of biblical stories via analogies. On the analytical level, I will highlight the Kenite identity of Cain that will explain the reason for the violence. On the social level, I will examine the phenomena of social invisibility and its violent consequence" (p. 6). I believe that J. accomplishes this quite well. The motivation for the murder of Abel is found in Cain's need to be "seen." He felt invisible/ignored by God as Abel and his sacrifice were preferred. To gain the attention of God, therefore, Cain killed his brother. But, as J. argues, this goes far deeper than personal rejection; it is the effect of social marginalization. Working beneath the surface is Cain's Kenite identity. The Kenites were a marginalized group of nomads, and so Cain is the ancestor who represents the Kenites' existence as an "invisible" group, alienated from the more established community. Thus, the rejection of Cain and his offering is a reflection of the social invisibility of the Kenites. J. argues that this Kenite identity is lost on the modern Western reader who is unfamiliar with the agropastoral background of Syro-Palestine; therefore, the intended meaning of the story is lost. Similar stories from modern literature provide an analogy that restores intended meaning to the text. Joo's example of this method of translating emotional connotations of an ancient text using modern literature as analogy is fascinating and useful. However, is it the only way to connect the modern reader to the text? Is it a valid method? Placing...

Between Hearing and Silence: A Study in Old Testament Theology by John Kessler

Reviewed by: Between Hearing and Silence: A Study in Old Testament Theology by John Kessler Mark McEntire john kessler, Between Hearing and Silence: A Study in Old Testament Theology by (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2021). Pp. xiv + 274. Paper $39.95. The new offering from John Kessler is intriguing in two initial ways. He has already produced a large volume on OT theology (Old Testament Theology: Divine Call and Human Response [Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013]) based on the concept of divine–human interaction and communication. Will this volume move in different directions or fill gaps in the previous work? Second, while he describes Between Hearing and Silence as a monograph, the subtitle carries the phrase "Old Testament Theology." There are searchengine-related reasons to do this, of course, but how might this volume relate itself to the troubled subdiscipline of OT theology? There is an ongoing debate about whether something called "Old Testament theology" exists and, if it does, what it should look like. During the heyday of this enterprise, it became a synthetic presentation of everything about ancient Israel, including its religion, literature, social and political institutions, self-understanding, and place in the world. A narrower, and more manageable approach has been to make OT theology an examination of how the HB/OT presents the divine character. The work of K. is closer to this second conception of the field, and a large part of this latest volume examines when and why that character goes silent. Other parts of the book examine the silence of humans, but typically in the presence of the divine or in relation to divine behavior, so K. does not stray far from the more focused definition. Silence is rarely, if ever, total, and K. understands it broadly. He is concerned with more than the presence or absence of sound; the book's primary interest is changes in the "soundscape" of the biblical text and what these changes signal. "Silence, either human or divine, is generally a form of communication, and when present, calls for an explanation" (p. 5; italics original). The bulk of each chapter consists of detailed lexical and exegetical work with selected texts in which silence, or change in soundscape, plays a significant role. An early sequence of chapters looks at silence as an aspect of alienation, as a response to catastrophe, and as an element of repentance and renewal. The discussion of alienation or even "divine rejection" begins with the story of King Saul. While this is an example of a drastic change in divine interaction with a human being, the story is more layered than the treatment here, which ignores the political and ideological efforts to replace Israel, embodied in Saul, with Judah, embodied in David, as the ascendant nation. The result is a dichotomous portrayal of Samuel and David as good and Saul as bad, a situation signaled by modes of divine presence and their accompanying soundscapes. The treatment of Jeremiah's silence, commanded by God at various times in [End Page 306] Jeremiah 7–15 is a more productive example of a change in soundscape as a result of a ruptured relationship, though explanations of the cause and effect are almost entirely spiritualized and thus take little account of the material and political struggles of the Babylonian threat to Judah's existence. A greater sense of material concern is present in the discussion of catastrophe. The soundscape produced by a thriving and productive society, including agriculture, commerce, and celebration, is different from that produced by a society that has experienced destruction. The latter can include, but is not limited to, silence, as Lamentations 2 and Job 2 both demonstrate. The meaning of silence reaches its nadir here, as K. acknowledges, and his treatment moves on to the role of silence in repentance and restoration. At times, the argument seems like a retreat to a predetermined Christian piety of silence as acquiescence. This move will continue to shape the presentation as it moves to its most urgent set of questions. The most poignant issue for most modern readers emerges in chap, 7, concerning divine silence in the face of human suffering. The tendency of most theological...

Bound to the Land: Cove Fort in Kesler Family History and Memory

Bound to the Land: Cove Fort in Kesler Family History and Memory

Revisiting Characters in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: Binarism, Trauma and Resilience

For decades, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) has been subject to different readings and interpretations. Transcending the boundaries of time and place, Conrad’s novella is still a relevant text for modern critical readings. Although many critics have studied characters referring to different theories and perspectives, characterization is still a rich source of meaning. This paper aims to study the characters in Heart of Darkness and examine Conrad’s narrative strategy in terms of binarism and doubling. The paper also explores how, despite their depiction as powerful characters, Marlow and Kurtz show symptoms of failure and trauma while the black female character, usually depicted as an emblem of absence and negation, shows signs of power and resilience despite her muteness and minor presence. Feminist, Psychoanalytical and trauma theories are referred to in the revisiting of characters in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

EULER’S POWER CALCULATIONS OF “NATURAL FORCES” TO RAISE WATERS WITH PISTON PUMPS

Introduction: In a 1754 publication, Discussion plus particulière de diverses manières d’elever de l’eau par le moyen des pompes avec le plus grand avantage (Very detailed explanation of the different methods of raising water through pumps with the greatest effectiveness), Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) made extensive use of the concept of mechanical power in estimates of the power needed to raise waters with piston pumps, by means of natural forces such as human and horse force, running waters, and windmills. Purpose of the study: We aimed to revisit this publication to show to the modern reader Euler’s pioneering approach in providing rational calculations of the power of natural forces needed to drive different machines to raise waters with piston pumps. Methods: After a brief historical review on the use of natural forces to drive machines and the evolution of the concept of mechanical power, the method employed was the examination and an annotated reproduction of the main formulation using Euler’s original notation and ways of scientific writing of the time. Discussion: We address the evolution of hydropower and wind power, particularly for the generation of electricity, and also show that despite of its much lower attractiveness, there have been some attempts in the use of human and animal power in developing countries, particularly in applications that do not require large and constant amounts of power inputs.