Original Poetry Research Articles

Hansard as Literary Reception: The Uses of Poetry in Australian Political Debate, 1901–1950

ABSTRACT Hansard—Australia’s record of parliamentary debate—might seem an unlikely site for literary analysis. It is, however, a publisher of original poetry and its criticism a forum for the performance and citation of poetry, and a complex archive of literary reception in Australia since Federation. In this paper, we discuss our findings in relation to the uses of poetry in the Australian Hansard from 1901 to 1950, focusing on how the work of two settler Australian poet-parliamentarians, J. K. McDougall and John Cash Neild, is put to use in parliamentary speeches as recorded in Hansard. Together, these examples indicate that poetry is not only deployed for a range of heightened rhetorical effects on the floor of parliament; it is also part of the fabric of routine political debate, put to a range of adversarial and racist purposes, and part of the wider history of literary publication and reception.

Polonica Toneta Pretnarja

The article presents a portrait of Tone Pretnar, a Slovene Slavic and Polish philologist, primarily discussing his works in the field of Polish studies. Pretnar worked at universities in Ljubljana, Graz, Warsaw, Krakow and Katowice. His works consist of scholarly studies, literary and cultural commentaries, numerous translations and original poetry. His research focuses mostly on the comparative Slavic theory of verse and metre in translation, while his second area of interest was Polish-Slovene literary relations and their history. Pretnar was the greatest Polish literary translator of his generation in Slovenia, having translated over 100 Polish poets and almost 12,200 lines of poetry. With Bożena Ostromęcka-Frączak, he published the first ever Slovene-Polish dictionary (Ljubljana 1996). In light of his achievements, his name was included in the “Słownik badaczy literatury polskiej” (“The Dictionary of Polish Literature Researchers”; ed. J. Starnawski, vol. IV, Łódź 2001).

ПОЕТИЧНИЙ ПРОСТІР ТВОРУ ДІОГЕНА ЛАЕРЦІЯ «ЖИТТЯ ТА ДУМКИ СЛАВНОЗВІСНИХ ФІЛОСОФІВ»

The article examines the poetic component in the discourse of the work of Diogenes Laertius "Life and Thoughts of Famous Philosophers" in the aspect of ancient biography and doxography and in correlation with the cultural and historical realities of ancient Greek panegyrics and invective. The stylistic features of epigrammatic poetry about philosophers are characterized: apotheosis, heroization and glorification or, on the contrary, satire, invective and parody. Panegyristics is embodied in the form of deification, ascension to heaven to the Olympians, invective - in ridiculing human flaws and the shortcomings of philosophers and discrediting their teachings. In the studied epigrams, philosophers, along with prominent historical figures and winners of all-Greek competitions, became objects of public worship for the first time. The poetic works of the philosophers themselves (Solon, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles, Epicharmus, Plato, Arkesilaus, Cratetus, Bion) are also analyzed. , quotations by various philosophers of ancient Greek poetry, their paraphrases and parodies of famous poets. The poetic discourse is described, presented both in the diachrony of the authors involved by Diogenes, starting from Homer and ending with late Hellenistic epigrammatists (more than 250 poems by 32 well-known and little-known authors), and in their genre diversity (epic, lyric, elegy, tragedy, comedy, canticles, oracles , epigram, epitaph, dialogue-diatribe). The metric schemes of poetic works, both quoted by Diogenes and the author's original poetry (dactylic hexameter, pentameter, logaeds, in particular, Archebulian measure, meliamb, prokeleusmatic, holiamb) are indicated; the source base of poetic works used by Diogenes is indicated, from ancient and Byzantine collections (Palatine Anthology, Planudеa Anthology) to scholarly editions of ancient Greek poetry. The rhetorical devices of the panegyric and much more often mocking epigrams of Diogenes himself, of which there are 52 works, are considered.

Ариосто и Тассо в новых русских переводах

The article examines the new translations of the two major literary monuments of the Italian Renaissance — poems The Frenzy of Orlando (“Orlando furioso”) by Ludovico Ariosto and Jerusalem Delivered (“Gerusalemme liberata”) by Torquato Tasso. Ariosto’s translation does not meet any of the criteria for a quality translation: not only the criterion of style unity but even the criterion of linguistic correctness. The translator Tasso, having set himself the goal of conveying, first of all, the original poetry, takes systematic and unacceptable semantic and figurative liberties when working with a poem classified as a literary canon.

All Roads Lead to... Italy


 
 
 
 
 
 The results of research on the translation of Costa Rican poetry into Italian are presented, including its evolution, determining factors, forms adopted, the image the translations project of the original poetry, and their potential function within the target context. It is concluded that the appearance of those translations would have been the result of opportunity and that, as poetic texts, they would have been adapted to the target readers’ expectations.
 
 
 
 
 

Intersections of Children’s Poetry, Popular Literature, and Mass Media: Fujimoto Giichi’s Adaptation of Holes in the Tin Roof like Stars from Tomo Fusako’s Poem to Radio Drama

This paper investigates largely unexplored aspects of the postwar Japanese media industry by tracing the cross-media developments that bloomed from a single poem written by an elementary school girl. Tomo Fusako, a poor elementary school student, wrote the poem “Outage” in 1951 as part of her schoolwork. Tomo’s teacher, Bessho Yasoji, selected Tomo’s work to be published in an original poetry journal featuring children’s writing. Her poems and essays were eventually reprinted in magazines, collected volumes, and even published in textbooks. In 1958, Fujimoto Giichi, an unknown university student at the time, adapted “Outage” into a radio drama and stage play. These works were then further adapted for TV dramas. Children’s essays and poems made for attractive content for the publishing industry and the emerging fields of commercial radio and television media. Fujimoto himself became a famous television host, though it impeded his literary career. Examining Tomo and Fujimoto’s relationship with literary production and media adaptation reveals a cultural world far removed from the literary establishment’s (that is, the bundan’s) view of literature.

Comparing Two Chinese Translations of Amoretti 67 Based on Reception Aesthetics

Similar to other sonnets, Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti followed Petrarchan courtship but also demonstrated the unique Spenserian form. Spenser’s superb creative skills profoundly influenced his contemporaries and the English poets of later generations. Nevertheless, the translation of Spenser’s sonnets began exceedingly late in China with few results. Guided by the horizon of expectation in reception aesthetics, this study compared Cao Minglun and Hu Jialuan’s versions of Amoretti Sonnet 67 (Amoretti 67) based on their content, rhyme, and language style. The main question is to understand what horizons of expectations Hu and Cao’s translations reflect based on reception aesthetics, and how do Hu and Cao’s horizons fuse with the original author’s horizon of expectation? Guided by translators’ vision of expectation, Hu emphasized that both the content and style of the translation should be faithful to the original text. Thus, Hu’s translation is the closest to the original poem. Contrarily, Cao’s translation sought a balance between the original text and the translation. Cao aimed to maintain the content and format of the original poetry while capitalizing on the strengths of the Chinese language. Both Chinese versions embody their translator’s values. The significance of this study extends to its implications for Chinese readers delving into Spenser’s poetic world. Analyzing Cao and Hu’s diverse strategies empowers readers to navigate Amoretti 67’s depth, fostering understanding of Spenser’s artistry and the intricacies of translation.

:Album Verses and Romantic Literary Culture: Poetry, Manuscript, Print, 1780–1850

:<i>Album Verses and Romantic Literary Culture: Poetry, Manuscript, Print, 1780–1850</i>

El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa by Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez

Reviewed by: El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa by Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez Juan M. Gallegos Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez, El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 2021. 445 pp. Hardcover, $75; e-book, $75. In El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa editors and translators Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez recover the written works of noted neomexicano author, publisher, and journalist Felipe M. Chacón. Chacón, a member of the esteemed New Mexican Chacón family, carved out a historical presence during New Mexico’s Territorial Period and the early years of New Mexico’s statehood through his contributions as a journalist, including his time as editor at Spanish-language newspapers like La Voz del Pueblo. A recent addition to the Pasó Por Aquí series published by the University of New Mexico Press, which has spearheaded efforts to recover New Mexico’s unrecognized literary heritage, the book recognizes the work produced by a member of a historically unaccounted for population whose literary production has been relegated to largely unexplored archives. [End Page 82] The book is organized into five sections: both editors’ introductions, an explanation of the translation process, the Spanish transcription of Chacón’s writing, the English translation, and an index. Each scholar wrote separate introductions to the book, with Nogar “examining the aesthetic and creative dimensions” of Chacón’s writing and Meléndez “adding to the sociohistorical understanding of Chacón as an author and of Poesía y prosa as a publication” (5). The appendix is a short one with images of Chacón, selected published poems, and the cover of the original edition of Poesía y prosa. At the core of Nogar and Meléndez’s book is Chacón’s Poesía y prosa. Chacón’s book is divided into four primary parts: a prologue written by New Mexico historian Benjamin Read, and three chapters of poems and prose. While touching on a number of topics and providing a short biography, Read defends Chacón’s decision to write in Spanish. One poem in particular, “In Mexico,” written in Spanish and English, is of particular interest to both Read and Nogar, who argue that Chacón uses his bilingualism to speak to a bilingual population and “to critique Anglo incursion into New Mexico, to comment about the imposition of social conditions and political dynamics onto nuevomexicanos, and to poke fun at those who would demand that nuevomexicanos speak English, while they themselves do not learn the dominant community language, Spanish” (Nogar 31–32). Poetry serves as the dominant genre with sixty of seventy-one selections being original poetry. The poetry’s content runs a gamut of topics, including the personal and the political. Poems like “A Mi Hija, Herminia” and “A Mi Hijo, Felipe” capture a more intimate side of Chacón, while his political poems like “To the Homeland” reflect topics such as his pride in being an American. A short story, a novellete, and a selection that is perhaps a piece of creative nonfiction are the only examples of Chacón’s prose in the book. In addition to his original poetry, Chacón includes translations of poets like Byron, Dryden, Longfellow, and his uncle, Pedro C. Chacón. The book can be seen as a companion to or a continuation of Meléndez and Francisco Lomelís’s work in The Writings of Eusebio Chacón (2012), which collects the writing of Chacón’s cousin, Eusebio [End Page 83] Chacón. Considering the similarities between the two books, this book is highly recommended for those who are familiar with Meléndez and Lomelís’s work. Overall, El feliz ingenion neomexicano opens new avenues of research for those studying the historical literacies of neomexicanos, the Southwest, and Latinxs, whether these literacies are framed by sociocultural, historical, or literary frameworks. It fills an enormous gap in Latinx literary studies, and in many ways serves as a call for the recovery...

The Poetry Turn

This article attempts to conceptualize and encourage an already extant conceptual turn right now taking place in China studies: a turn toward poetry composition, in which transcultural critical scholars also compose their own original poetry. The reason for the phenomenon, the article argues, is the interimperial position of China scholars in English, forced to study texts from one imperial culture in the contexts of another. The article reads poems by Ni Zhange, Wang Pu, and Yang Xiaobin, among others, by using Laura Doyle's theorization of interimperiality as an often-gendered form of labor through which subjects negotiate the “everyday ethical challenge” of survival under multiple imperial structures. The construction and positioning of transimperial subjects in the creative work of China scholars resists forms of imperial power that serve to marginalize, erase, and invalidate the cross-cultural, experiential knowledge at the heart of China studies. By making scholarly betweenness legible and visible, the work of scholar-poets takes steps toward an interimperial style in both poetry and criticism, a meeting place in language that can accept in migration from many directions and build solidarity among diverse thinkers united by the needs of survival under empire.

Understanding death within eternal poetic time

ABSTRACT This article is an a/r/tographic (artist/researcher/teacher) study through autobiographical close readings of several poems as a means to understand death within what the author calls eternal poetic time. Moving beyond the author’s childhood’s static image of death, the paper suggests that the ephemeral nature of life is not something to fear, but makes living more beautiful and eternal through the making and sharing of poetry and art. This paper is the first part of a three-paper study, which includes original poetry by the author.

“I am here because I wanted to shine”: how poetry can be used to better understand undergraduate students’ first-year chemistry or related course experiences

In this study we investigate how first-year chemistry/biology undergraduate students’ original poetry can be used as a reflective tool for others to understand their course experiences. By inviting students from an integrated first-year chemistry/biology course to write poetry about their experiences, we use poetic content analysis as a qualitative research method to analyze the students’ responses to an open-ended prompt. In analyzing the poetry, four major categories emerged: knowledge, community, emotions, and identity, each of which includes examples that reflect and enhance our understanding of well-documented milestones and ideas in the literature regarding first-year student academic experiences, therefore highlighting the extent to which poetry can be useful in this regard. In presenting these findings we also demonstrate how such an approach might be used by others to better understand student experiences, including those related to learning, belonging, and/or identity in their introductory chemistry or related courses.

Autographs, Autobiography, and Black History in Britain: the Congo House Autograph Book

This article utilises a recent discovery of a textual trace of black people’s self-representation in Edwardian Britain. It concerns an autograph book, currently kept in private hands, bearing entries by black students who attended the African Institute, Colwyn Bay, in around 1905. This short text speaks to the difficulty of accessing private writings and self-representations by black people who lived in Victorian- and Edwardian-era Britain. Though there exist substantial texts written by black people in late-nineteenth-century Britain, including texts of an autobiographical type (broadly defined), self-expressive writings by black people are unquestionably rare. In retracing black lives, scholars frequently piece together information from archival and print sources. The autograph book is itself a work of fragments, though given their autobiographical character they are both rare and valuable: quotations from Shakespeare, sketches, original verse, epigrams, and quotations from scripture. These writings afford some degree of insight into the personalities of the students, who are otherwise generally represented by onlookers in the primary and secondary literature of the Institute.

Ways of Conveying the Aesthetic Value of Tang Poetry in Russian Translations: A Case Study of Three Translations of Li Bai’s Poem “Thoughts on a Quiet Night”

Russian and Chinese languages belong to different language families, which makes it difficult to translate from one language to the other. The translation of one poetic language into another without making any changes is an especially difficult task, which is why conveying the aesthetic value of the original poem becomes the embodiment of an ideal adequate translation. The aesthetic values of Tang poetry lie in the integration of sound, thought form and the poetic world, that is, in the beauty of rhythm, the accuracy of the line and the expression of feelings depicted in the text. Rhythm, rhyme and poetic dimension belong to the form of poetry; the meaning of words, sentences and text together form the meaning of poetry; and the picture of life depicted in the text makes up the poetic world. If the Russian translation of Tang poetry can achieve conformity of form, equivalence of meaning and consistency of the poetic world with the original poetry, then it will be able to realize the aesthetic value of the original poetry and will relate to the ideal complete translation of poetry. The poem “Thought on a Quiet Night” is one of Li Bai’s masterpieces and it is included in Chinese language textbooks for elementary school. Due to the high aesthetic value of this poem, it has become a compulsory poem for Chinese elementary school students to study. To date, there are eight translations of this poem in Russia. This article mainly considers the translations by V. A. Alekseev, L. N. Menshikov, and V. F. Pereleshin. Through the comparative analysis on these three versions about the “Thoughts on a Quiet Night”, it shows that different translators with different aesthetic aspirations may produce disparate translation.

Urban Developments in Late Antique and Medieval Rome: Revisiting the Narrative of Renewal ed. by Gregor Kalas and Ann van Dijk

Reviewed by: Urban Developments in Late Antique and Medieval Rome: Revisiting the Narrative of Renewal ed. by Gregor Kalas and Ann van Dijk Douglas Boin Urban Developments in Late Antique and Medieval Rome: Revisiting the Narrative of Renewal. Edited by Gregor Kalas and Ann van Dijk. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 2021. Pp. 342. €128,00. ISBN: 9789462989085.) In this model volume of collaborative scholarship, editors Gregor Kalas and Ann van Dijk have assembled an all-star list of scholars to address, in nine master-class case studies, one gradually emerging central question. As imperial Rome’s circle of influence diminished and other global centers of culture and commerce emerged in Asia and the Islamic worlds, with the Italian peninsula growing ever more insular by the minute, how did life in the city of Rome change over the third through twelfth centuries? Under the editors’ orchestration and jointly-authored introduction, the seemingly parochial theme reveals surprising insights into the legacy of Rome’s capacity for “creativity” (p. 26) in art, poetry, architecture, music, ritual and even financial matters, underscoring the city’s legacy of pursuing “productive responses to evolving circumstances” (p. 7). Rome as a symbol of apocalyptic disaster, this is not. Claims of liveliness across any city or community over a long stretch of nearly a thousand years, of course, can easily drain any analysis of historical specificity. The search for stability during a time of change becomes a sentiment just bland enough to keep all problematic or extenuating circumstances out of the scholar’s focus. Too sagacious to settle for trite and tired frameworks, however, editors Kalas and van Dijk have pushed their contributors toward precision, and what emerges here quite sharply is how important the seventh century was, in particular, in marking the gateway toward many of the new social and cultural realities that distinguished the classical city from the medieval one. The century that saw the last meeting of the Roman Senate (p. 28) would witness, as in Erik Thunø’s essay, the indisputable establishment of the popes as “martyr-saint impresarios” in church building, while Dennis Trout’s study of church inspirations under Pope Honorius, whose under-appreciated artistry is rendered by Trout in original verse translations, reveal a papal city “renewed and embarking on a novel course” (p. 162). In a city “deeply committed to curating its past for present purposes,” the seventh century, Trout writes in epigrammatic fashion marked “yet another renaissance” (p. 150). Where the contributors excel—Kristina Sessa on war, finance, and the clergy; Dale Kinney on the nuanced collaboration between lay and ecclesiastical stakeholders in illuminated manuscript production and architectural renovation; Luisa Nardini’s fascinating account of manuscript changes in musical notation, charting the “permeability” of Roman chant, replete with Frankish, Gallican, and Beneventan [End Page 173] influences—is to bring a radical or unorthodox way of seeing old material which asks scholars to consider it anew, to see even this later Rome still shaped by factors beyond its walls, and to study complex processes outside the traditional boundary divisions of time. Jacob Latham’s nod to the Jewish contexts for the study of early Christianity in his essay on public rituals, as well as William North’s discussion of Hebrew Scripture in the eleventh century, shows a welcome sensitivity to religious inclusion in an otherwise excellent volume that misses an opportunity to engage directly with the history and archaeology of Rome’s Jewish community on the eve of the Middle Ages. When the Roman Empire withdrew from its control of Dacia in the third century—a stunning retreat—foreigners threatened the empire’s borders, exposing what would become a lingering issue of who possessed citizenship and whether these rights and judicial protections might be acquired by outsiders. Kalas’s own study of the monuments of the fifth-century city reminds us that Romans frequently lived in a “denial of conflict” (p. 103). In his analysis of the medieval guidebook, the Mirabilia, John Osborne goes a step further. In Rome always lay a “wonderful blend of possible fact and utter fantasy” (p. 209). Douglas Boin Saint Louis University Copyright © 2023 The Catholic University of America Press ...

“Special Feature: The Achievements of John Dennis,” ed. Claude Willan. 1650–1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, ed. Kevin L. Cope

“Special Feature: The Achievements of John Dennis,” ed. Claude Willan. <i>1650–1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, ed. Kevin L. Cope</i>

Сторіччя «Русалки Дністрової» у тогочасному видавничому контексті

Based on the books edition of Ukrainian publishing organizations of Galicia, the author is analyzed the place of the 100th anniversary of “Rusalka Dnistrova” — the first literary and folk issue of native language in the western Ukrainian territory, in the publishing practice of the interwar period. An attempt was made to find out the influence of the almanac on the cultural development of the region, the idea of the unity of the people on the both coasts of the Dnieper, and the formation of the national consciousness of Ukrainians throughout the century. Almanac “Rusalka Dnistrova” is a book that was destined to start a new vernacular, folk literature in Western Ukrainian, and at the same time, the Ukrainian cultural and political revival of the region. This book, on the eve of the appearance of Shevchenko’s “Kobzar”, was compiled by the Lviv romantics, theological seminarians Markiyan Shashkevich, Ivan Vahylevych and Yakiv Holovatskyi, named “Rus’ka Triitsia”. The issue was printed in Budapest in 1837. Although the title states “Rusyn folk songs”, the compilers submitted not only recordings of folk songs from different regions of Galicia, but also their original poetry, prose and examples of translation work. In the introductory comments to individual chapters of the almanac, M. Shashkevich and I. Vahylevych review the content of the publication retrospectively and prospectively, presenting the historical genesis of the material, its thematic and genre stratification, and its lexical and stylistic features. The book is filled with love for Ukrainian folklore, antiquity and everything native. It has a strong spirit of conciliarism of Ukraine. Almost all Galician magazines in one form or another responded to the jubilee almanac, including historical, literary and journalistic articles and artistic works. The 100th anniversary of the first book in the Ukrainian vernacular was commemorated by a lot of public organizations in Galicia. In addition to publications in the columns of periodicals about the celebration of the anniversary of “Rusalka Dnistrova”, new book editions have appeared for a wide Ukrainian audience. Literary scholar and folklorist Mykhailo Wozniak favorably evaluated the movement work of the “Rus’ka Triitsia” and on the occasion of the anniversary period (1833–1837) prepared new information about the activities of the group under the name “In the century of “Zoria” by Markiian Shashkevich (1834–1934)”. The content of the “Calendar for everyone for 1937” edition of the Ivan Tiktor publishing house is almost entirely dedicated to the centenary of “Rusalka Dnistrova” as evidenced by the thematic art cover by Edward Kozak and the anniversary publication of the collection. And in general it can be said that the calendar is dedicated to the national revival of Ukrainians. The support of the national idea of M. Shashkevich is evidenced by a considerable list of donors, placed on the last page of the illustrated one-day magazine “In the century of “Rusalka Dnistrova”, which on the occasion of the solemn celebration of the anniversary on August 1, 1937 at Bila Hora in Pidlyssia and in the artistic thematic cover of the work of the artist Myron Levytskyi was issued by the Zolochiv branch of the “Prosvita” society. For the centenary of the almanac, the jubilee collection published a circle of “Ridna Shkola” named after Markiyan Shashkevich in Sambir, which became the first printed publication of the society and another printed issue. The appearance of “Rusalka Dnistrova” was a significant event in the development of the literary process in Western Ukraine in the conditions of social and national oppression of the Ukrainian people. The collection defended its right to exist, to develop language and culture, and over the centuries the almanac has not lost its relevance. Keywords: almanac “Rusalka Dnistrova”, “Rus’ka Triitsia”, Markiyan Shashkevych, Ukrainian folklore, national consciousness.

Bryusov-lyrics' Genre in a Translation Dialogue with French Symbolism

The subject of the study is an intertextual dialogue between V.Y. Bryusov and Paul Verlaine based on the poem "Croquis parisienne" ("Parizhskoe croquis"). The object of the research is the ways and means of forming intertextual and intercultural dialogue in poetic translations of the Silver Age. The authors consider in detail such aspects of the topic as the unique word usage of the word "croquis" in the use of V.Y. Bryusov, reinforcing the conclusions with quotations from the National Corpus of the Russian language. Special attention is paid to the exclusive use of the word "croquis" as a genre mark, which corresponds to the extensive tactics of mastering genres by V.Y. Bryusov both in translations and in original poetry. The main conclusions of the study are the means allocated by the authors to implement intertextual dialogue in translation: the changes made by the translator to the original text strengthen the dialogic component of the picture developed by the author and weaken the motive of existential loneliness presented in the original text. A special contribution of the authors to the study of the topic is the identification in the translation work of V.Y. Bryusov of the original genre of the ekphrasic type - "croquis"-a sketch associated with the visual and verbal representation of the image. The novelty of the research lies in a detailed description of this impressionistic poetic genre and tracing its semantic and aesthetic connections with the fundamental attitudes of Impressionism in painting.

No justice, no peace: an arts-based project with a college choir

ABSTRACT This study examined the changes in perception toward systemic racism of twenty-six first-year students at a mid-sized university in central New Jersey. All were members of the first-year choir and, with their conductor, participated in a three-week workshop called ‘No Justice, No Peace.’ The goal was to examine social justice issues and systemic racism in society and to produce multimedia works of art to express their changing attitudes. Reacting to prompts by the facilitator, they created original poetry, singing, movement, and visual art projects recorded and posted on YouTube for public viewing. Critical pedagogy, critical pedagogy for music education, and activist pedagogy provided the theoretical frameworks. Coding techniques from the grounded theory literature offered a structure for the data analysis. We invited four students from the choir to participate in open-ended interviews and to share their final projects. We found that the students had positive feelings about the project, which did provide a safe space for dialogue among the students. But little changed in their attitudes and understandings about systemic racism and/or their commitments to social justice by condemning acts of racism and injustice when they see evidence of it in society.

The Hours of the Universe: Reflections on God, Science, and the Human Journey

THE HOURS OF THE UNIVERSE: Reflections on God, Science, and the Human Journey by Ilia Delio. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2021. 242 pages, index. Paperback; $25.00. ISBN: 9781626984035. *In this exquisitely constructed book, Delio reveals the current state of her reflections on the central concern of her life and work: the relationship of God, humanity, and the universe in the context of the evolutionary process. Her unscripted career leading to this publication, narrated in her memoir Birth of a Dancing Star: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian, has exhibited the same sort of development and diversity that she finds woven into the fabric of the universe. A Franciscan sister who began her religious life as a cloistered member of the Carmelite order, Delio earned doctorates in pharmacology and historical theology and has taught at Trinity College, Washington Theological Union, Georgetown University, and Villanova University. Today, she is an award-winning author, best known for her Center for Christogenesis, which seeks to promote dialogue between faith and reason and stimulate a Christian spirituality fully infused with evolutionary consciousness. *Communicating the urgent need and prospects for that kind of spirituality is the burden of this, Delio's twentieth, book. A theology whose starting point is not evolution and the story of the universe, she insists, is a "useless fabrication" (p. xvi). Her work is rich in scriptural references, but the call to restore the book of nature to its primacy as the true first testament in Christianity's sacred canon is one of her signature themes. Though she displays no interest in apologetics or polemics, her basic assumption is the distinctively Catholic principle of the revelatory character of creation, a conviction at odds with the Protestant Reformers' suspicion of natural theology. A robust sacramental imagination permeates the entire book and provides its organizational design. Portraying the universe as the "new monastery" (p. xvii), Delio orders her reflections according to the liturgy of the hours that has structured daily prayer in Christian monastic communities for centuries: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. Delio clusters her chapters--along with prologues of original poetry--around these times of contemplation and guides the reader through the prayers of one rotation of the earth and toward what she calls a new synthesis of faith and science. *Delio's thirty-two brief chapters, each a free-standing essay, cover a broad spectrum of topics from the cosmic to the autobiographical--from quantum physics, gravitational waves, and artificial intelligence to the Eucharist during the coronavirus pandemic and the death of her beloved cat Mango. Delio addresses a number of social issues such as racism, consumerism, and homophobia and sets the full scope of her reflections against the backdrop of the threat of climate change. Her main objective is the nurturing of a Christianity mature enough to match the achievements and insights of contemporary science. In this effort, her primary dialogue partners include interfaith scholar Beatrice Bruteau, Passionist priest and self-styled geologian Thomas Berry, Hindu-Catholic mystic Raimon Panikkar, and luminaries from her elected Franciscan tradition such as Saint Francis, Bonaventure, and the contemporary spiritual writer and retreat leader Richard Rohr. Pope Francis's unprecedented encyclical on creation care, Laudato Si', is a constant touchstone for Delio, but pride of place in her personal communion of saints is granted to the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose transposition of Catholic Christianity into an evolutionary key animates virtually every page of the book. *Delio's essays orbit this Teilhardian view of things like planets in an intellectual galaxy characterized by both order and chaos. The overall effect is a prophetic warning regarding the irrelevance and near-obsolescence of any Christian system fixated on the categories of Aristotelian or Newtonian worldviews. Like her monastic and mendicant forebears, Delio calls for church reform and creative thinking. The dominant mood of the book, though, is a blend of hope and awe, even audacity. Delio's conclusion equates the rise of a "new species with a new God consciousness" (p. 240) with the second coming of Christ. *Delio's engaging book is limited by its scant attention to the menacing side of science and technology, its failure to reckon seriously with the dramatic rise of nonreligion that calls her privileging of Christian myth into question, its overestimation of the general reader's science literacy, and its tendency to align scholarly and homiletic modes of communication too closely and too uncritically. Readers seeking linear arguments for theistic evolution or Christian pantheism will have to look elsewhere. Clergy, advanced students, and believing specialists in theology and the natural sciences will find a provocative and prayerful statement of a unique Christian cosmology that informs and inspires. *Reviewed by Peter A. Huff, Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Center for Benedictine Values, Benedictine University, Lisle, IL 60532.