Reception History Research Articles

Women leaders lost in translation?: A Study in Romans 16:1-16

This paper sets out a study in the text, interpretation, translation, and reception history of key terms and phrases relating to the ministry of particular women in Romans 16:1–16. It aims to show the complexity of translation and interpretation and demonstrate the importance of careful reading of the Greek text. It argues that terms and phrases relating to the women have not always been given their wider sense, thereby diminishing or denying the (leadership) roles of women in the early church. The phrases investigated are: διάκονος (v1) and προστάτις πολλῶν (v. 2) relating to Phoebe; συνεργούς (v. 3) and κοπιάω (vv. 6, 12) relating to Prisca, Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis; Ἰουνιαν (v. 7) and ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις (v. 7) relating to Junia.

O atraso como condição da crítica

In this article, we present Paulo Arantes' new interpretative approach to the manuscripts of The German Ideology: the understanding that the fundamental problem of Dialectic – the mediation between the universal and the particular, or, the settling of accounts between the idea and the effective reality – persists precisely in Marx and Engels’ consideration of the political and economic backwardness of Vormärz Germany and in the way in which post-Hegelian philosophy expresses this backwardness. By emphasizing Stirner’s critique of universals as fundamental to the Marx and Engels’ critique of ideology, Arantes both differs from the history of the classical reception of these manuscripts, which centralizes the authors’ critique of Feuerbach, and anticipates the widespread position in recent bibliography on Marx and Engels, without resorting, however, to philological studies, as has been done in the literature surrounding the MEGA² project since the 1990s. With this, the text that is commonly seen as a departure from philosophy towards the so-called historical materialism can be read as a “determinate negation [to idealism] [...] whose materialism, it can be seen immediately, does not stop at reducing ideas to the literal matter that supports them” (Arantes, 1996, p. 369).

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.

Elizabeth Acevedo, Laura Esquivel, and the Politics of Multilingualism

AbstractA number of bloggers, journalists, teachers, and librarians have compared Elizabeth Acevedo’s 2019 young adult novel With the Fire on High with Laura Esquivel’s Como agua para chocolate (1989), recommending that fans of Esquivel’s work pick up Acevedo’s—and vice versa. These suggestions echo Acevedo’s own comments about the narrative, which she has characterized as “parecido a ‘Como agua para chocolate,’ pero en el barrio” (Acevedo & Pichardo, 2019). This article takes this recent reception history as an invitation to think through how With the Fire on High deepens and course-corrects the revolutionary path of Esquivel’s earlier text. More specifically, I interrogate how Acevedo and Esquivel engage with linguistic identities and with multilingualism in particular as source material for political resistance and healing. Acevedo, like Esquivel before her, represents multilingual identities in ways that disrupt and resist the neocolonial violence of the United States. However, whereas Como agua para chocolate’s references to minoritized languages are executed in a manner that threatens to reinscribe traumatizing ethnoracial and class hierarchies passed down via colonial history, multilingualism in Acevedo’s novel works more systemically to intervene in and undermine such established matrices of power. Acevedo participates in a project of linguistic resistance and healing that involves reclaiming a heritage language for a multiply marginalized protagonist and, through that act of reclamation, rejecting the received cultural wisdom propagated by both colonial and neocolonial systems.

The Orangist Appropriation of Erasmus

The attribution of an Erasmian spirit to William of Orange is tenuous but has nevertheless been made consistently since the early twentieth century. This article makes use of reception theory to connect this association to events of the early nineteenth century that happened in response to the French dominance in the Netherlands and their subsequent expulsion. In 1810 and 1813 Rotterdam Orangists and opponents of the French presence appropriated the Erasmus statue in the city for their own cause by adorning it with orange accessories and by attaching short verses to it. The repetitive recollection of these events throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century culminated in the attribution of an Erasmian mind to William of Orange, who was himself associated with Orangism as of the twentieth century. While the initial Orangist actions were local and public endeavours, the association gradually entered the national political and academic sphere in the twentieth century. This transfer is exemplary for the changeability of ‘isms’ such as Orangism and Erasmianism. This article therefore ultimately emphasizes that besides the caution it requires, this changeability provides opportunities for reception histories.

A Matter of Hono[u]r: Editing and Performing Beethoven’s Late Quartets in 1840s London

Abstract The importance to reception history of the first complete cycle of Beethoven’s string quartets, given in London in 1845 by the Beethoven Quartett Society, is securely established. Less well recognized is the significance of the complete edition of the quartets prepared by the cellist Scipion Rousselot and published in London in 1846. This article offers the first close examination of Rousselot’s edition and posits that while its claims for unparalleled correctness were unsustainable, its inclusion, uniquely in the case of the late quartets, of two uncommon features – rehearsal letters and instrumental cues – constitutes a trace of the rehearsal practices of the four players responsible for these historically outstanding performances.

“This Musical Peace is Worse than War:” Cultural History, Musical Banality and Political Context in the Ballet Excelsior

AbstractFrom 1847, the head of the Budapest ballet was Federico Campilli (1820–1889), an individual of Italian origin. He regarded Viennese taste as authoritative in designing the program, thereby building on the international ballet repertoire. This repertoire included romantic pieces from Western Europe, along with Campilli's own choreographies. Campilli concluded his forty-year tenure in Budapest in 1887, and Cesare Smeraldi (1845–1924) assumed his position. The imperial city served as the model for shaping the ballet program, commencing its operations with the staging of Manzotti's spectacular Excelsior, which had premiered in Vienna two years earlier. This sensational performance, focused on the rise of human civilization and the development of technology, involved hundreds of actors and was destined for success throughout Europe. It ran for 29 years in Vienna and nine years in Budapest. In this study, an exploration of the driving forces behind this ballet success story with unconventional themes is undertaken. Various aspects are examined, such as the discourse of dance and the articulation of otherness in local and global spaces. The study delves into what technophile ballet entails, how cultural history, abstract concepts, discoveries, and inventions can be narrated through ballet. The thesis also highlights the debatable aspects of the ballet's music, utilizing music reviews from Budapest and Viennese newspapers. Through these reviews, an attempt is made to map the reception history of the ballet in Vienna and Budapest. The significance of Excelsior in the political power field within Hungarian conditions is also emphasized.

“Good company”: The Interpretative Communities of The Golden Bowl

Abstract: This paper, arising from work towards the Complete Fiction of Henry James edition of The Golden Bowl for Cambridge University Press, starts from a consideration of the novel’s reception history, then proceeds to reflect on the models of interpretation the novel might be taken to imply. It tries to draw out the implications of a stimulating remark by James in a 1904 letter to Alice Stopford Green, with reference to The Ambassadors : “[T]he creation, the projection and evocation by hook or by crook, of some human and personal good company , . . . is as kind a turn as one can render.”

THEORY OF RECEPTION AND CRITICISM OF FILMS BASED ON THE RECEPTION AND CRITICISM OF THE FILM “ANNA KARENINA” (1997)

The word reception means the acceptance of foreign ideas, norms and values or behaviors. Reception history elaborates the reception that a literary text, a film, or in this case an adaptation of a novel, has found in its audience over time. This paper delves into the core concepts of film reception theory, shedding light on how audiences interpret and actively engage with cinematic narratives. The theoretical part includes different perspectives, recognizing that audience responses are shaped by individual experiences, cultural contexts, and societal influences. This study also delves into the concept of criticism, whether that from the audience or from theorists and critics. This study after the theoretical part of the reception elaborates the reception and criticism of the film Anna Karenina (1997) directed by Bernard Rose. As an adaptation of the novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1887), criticism and reception in this case focuses, among other things, on the stallings and deviations of the adapted story. Additionally this paper addresses the evolving landscape of film reception in the digital age, considering the impact of online communities, social media and interactive platforms on audience engagement. This study aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse on film reception theory by providing insights into the multifaceted nature of audience engagement and its implications for the wider field of film studies. During this study, I came to the conclusion that coded messages and pre-existing expectations also influence the audience’s reception of a film. The coded message is deciphered by the audience based on the knowledge they possess and not the way the producer thought. In this case, the producer too should not convey messages that are not easily decoded by the audience.

On Chopin Editions as Discrete Sources: The Baudissin-Henkel-Pusch Exemplar of the Etudes, Op. 10

While scholarly writing on printed sources of Chopin’s music typically focuses on the class to which that source belongs (say, the second state of the French first edition of the Ballade, Op. 23), this article proposes to tackle the reception history of Chopin through a discrete, individual printed source. The article proposes a brief microhistory of an individual exemplar, to situate it in a network that does not necessarily afford the composer a governing role. The source in question is a copiously annotated exemplar of the Kistner edition of the Etudes, Op. 10. Inscriptions on the title page inform us that Wolf Graf von Baudissin presented it as a gift to Heinrich Henkel in 1838. At some later date, Heinrich Henkel gave it to his daughter Sophie Henkel, who in 1931 presented it to her colleague Henri Pusch. The annotations in the edition help uncover interesting stories, narratives that reveal a largely unrecognized connection between Chopin and an important German diplomat and translator, and that help us understand better how pianists actually engaged with Chopin’s musical texts in the first century of their existence.

“Eso Parece Español”. El Patrimonio Conflictivo Compartido de las Dictaduras

The following article is a local case study that examines the shared heritage of German and Spanish fascism in Berlin and its critical artistic reappraisal using the example of historical sites and monuments of art and architecture of the 20th century. The text is based on the experiences and controversial discussions of the heritage conservation andrestoration in the German capital after the opening of the Berlin Wall (1989/90) and the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe (1989/1991). Characteristic differences in the reception of history and heritage between the western sectors of Berlin and East Berlin after 1945 also became apparent. The text owes essential impulses to the recent Action Group ‘Integrated and Comprehensive Approaches for Dissonant Heritage in Europe’ of the ‘Partnership Culture and Cultural Heritage’ within the framework of the ‘Urban Agenda of the EU’ and is intended as a contribution to the current discussion at the II International PAMEFRAN Conference “Heritege and conflict Debate on the management and treatment of a multifaceted object”. The article opposes a politically motivated iconoclasm of symbols and monuments of autocratic systems of the past and advocates for their critical reappraisal and commentaryin situ.

“You have answered me?”: Situational Shift (or Not) in Psalm 22

Abstract Psalm 22 receives most of its notoriety from its reception history—from the numerous citations and allusions thereof in the NT and early Christianity, particularly in the Synoptic passion accounts. This article wrestles not with the insertion of this psalm into later stories but with the story of the psalm itself. The shift from lament to praise in Ps 22:23 (MT; v. 22 in ET) is quite drastic and in need of explanation, and that explanation has come for many in the final word of the previous verse: עניתני. This verb is taken to indicate a sudden divine intervention such that God has now acted on behalf of the psalmist, thus bringing about the exultation of vv. 23–32.This article disputes that reading and argues that for literary and form-critical reasons, עניתני, or whatever the original form of that word may have been, should be read as part of the lament rather than a transition statement to explain the movement from lament to praise. Thus, no divine intervention is indicated by that word, for indeed no such intervention has taken place. Rather, the psalmist has recognized from within their suffering that there will come a moment when redemption will have taken place, and at that time the psalmist will lead the whole people of God in uttering his praises.

The Mercurial Mark Twain(s): Reception History and Iconic Authorship

The Mercurial Mark Twain(s): Reception History and Iconic Authorship

The History of Reception as a Battlefield: French uses of “Spinoza” in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The French reception of Spinoza during the nineteenth and twentieth century shows that what we call the “reception” of a corpus must be understood in a quite different way than the word suggests. The receiver must be disposed to make use of the corpus, and this attitude is determined by the receiver’s position within the structure of the academic or intellectual field. Spinoza was received in France in the early nineteenth century because it played a strategical role in the debate about pantheism as an atheism. But the “Spinoza” that was inherited was a corpus of works, while a certain reading of it had been elaborated in another context for other goals, namely, that of German idealism. Reception is not merely passive: the receivers impose their own structure to what affects them. At first, “Spinoza” was a figure or a label that played a role in a battlefield. This is still true for what we may call (albeit not in an ontological sense) the “materialist” reception in the 1960s. Yet, it was not doomed to give a purely imaginative knowledge of “Spinoza”: a better knowledge of the corpus, international exchanges between scholars of all over the world, and history of reception itself, made a rational knowledge of Spinozism, and even a singular understanding of Spinoza, possible.

The Independent Works of Luke: Further Evidence on the Early Christian Reception of Luke and Acts

Abstract Literary and rhetorical analysis has led scholars to approach the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts as a two-volume work, often referred to as Luke-Acts. In response to increased attention to Luke-Acts, there is renewed interest in the early reception history of these books. Research has focused primarily on the second century ce and yielded little to support the assumption that early recipients consistently read these books together. This lack of evidence for the unified reading of Luke-Acts, heightened by Acts’ own varied reception, has enlivened the discussion of how one should approach the study of Luke and Acts today. This paper seeks to contribute to the discussion by examining early Christian prologues to Luke’s writings, ranging from the second century to the sixth century ce. The prologues will be examined in light of three questions: (1) How do the prologues describe the author of Luke and Acts? (2) How do they engage with Luke’s own prefaces to the books? (3) How do they frame Luke and Acts in light of other literature? What emerges from these texts is that early readers were aware of a connection between Luke and Acts, but such a connection was overshadowed by other associations.

All’s Well That Ends Well’s Paroles and the Bisexual Miles Gloriosus: Early Modern Expectations, Modern Stagings

ABSTRACT Productions of All’s Well That Ends Well increasingly portray Paroles as gay, bisexual or queer. This article argues that such stagings are not unjustified in that early modern audiences would expect to associate Paroles with same-sex attraction. While it is a critical commonplace that Paroles displays the traits of the classical miles gloriosus or braggart soldier, modern discussions of early modern braggart soldiers omit one trait of the classical version: an open, shame-free bisexuality. This article argues that an awareness of the classical miles gloriosus’ bisexuality established expectations and reception frameworks in early modern audiences when they encountered early modern dramatic braggart soldiers, including Paroles. It then demonstrates textual traces of this. However, if staging Paroles as gay, bisexual or queer today might be justified in terms of this reception history, the ways in which this is done are not always as progressive as they might seem. This is particularly so when evidence of same-sex attraction no longer serves primarily as pleasurable corroboration that Paroles is a miles gloriosus, but instead is framed as a psychological-realist problem, a source of shame to be overcome, and when Paroles’ humiliation scene is staged as sexualised homophobic violence not grounded in the text.

Galatians 6:17 and its Reception History: Assessing the Echoes

Galatians 6:17 and its Reception History: Assessing the Echoes

Sidewise Looks: Asian American Poets Revisit Wallace Stevens

Abstract: While common knowledge on Wallace Stevens suggests that he influenced only one Asian American poet (his friend, the scholar Peter H. Lee), a fuller investigation into Stevens's legacy reveals that he very well may be the Anglophone modernist with the most widespread and enduring influence on the past eighty years of Asian American poetics. In this essay's first half, I retell the history of Stevens's reception by Asian American poets, distinguishing it from his reception by Black poets (on the one hand) and from Asian American poets' responses to modernist orientalism (on the other). In the essay's second half, I offer a flexible argument about the indispensability of Stevensian abstraction to two of the most celebrated poets of their generation, Arthur Sze and Vijay Seshadri.

Empress Theodora of Byzantium Through the Lens of Ancient Female Archetypes

This paper evaluates the historical reception of Byzantine Empress Theodora through the lens of her contemporaries and societal expectations. As Theodora was empress of the Eastern Roman empire during the spread of Christianity, she must be seen through the lens of biblical themes as well as through Roman literature. A prevalent Roman example for ideal femininity is found in Lucretia: a noblewoman who toppled the Etruscan kings with her honor. After she was violated, Lucretia chose to expose the perpetrator and end her life rather than live sullied. With such mythos surrounding a woman who chose her honor over her life, it is no wonder Theodora was received with shock. Theodora spent her early years as an actress, meaning she earned much of her living through sex work. Another strong Roman literary comparison comes in the form of Medea. Medea represented the antithesis to feminine ideals because she had murdered her kin. More than anything, familial duties rested upon a wife or mother in a Roman household, and a woman like Theodora who was, inaccurately, rumored to have orchestrated the death of an illegitimate child. Although the rumor is false, it represented a fracture between Theodora and the expectations her society had for her. Finally, in her Christian contemporary, Mary Magdalene, Theodora was viewed as redeemed. Just as Mary did in the Gospel of Luke, Theodora went from "sinful woman" to queen and a dedicated wife. She embodied the story of redemption that is so often told in Christianity.

Queer and Gender-Fluid Artists in the Music Performance Universe of the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries

In classical music there has been an effort in recent years to bring to light those whose artistic output contributed to their genre or era but were not as well-memorialized as their caucasian heteronormative male counterparts. So, what about artist-musicians, and those adjacent to them, who lived outside the gender constructs of their contemporary hegemony? What contributions did they purposefully or inadvertently make? What is their reception history and how were these histories documented? Queer Studies in- and outside of musicology has made strides to recognize the existence of historic queer and gender nonconforming individuals. Generally speaking, the aim has been to legitimize the gender spectrum and to make the lives of these noteworthy individuals known. Still it’s impossible for us to know how these gender non-conformists would have categorized their own gender in the Early Modern and Modern Periods were they to have the same terminology as we have today. In this thesis I will cite figures from plays and broadsheet ballads of the 17th century, the developing opera genre in France in the early 18th century, the “low style” in London society and theater in the early 19th century, through to the Reconstructionist United States. By illuminating queer and gender nonconforming individuals and the performative acts that defined their personal lives, I show that these communities have always existed in some iteration and in many facets of the musical universe. What emerges is a centuries-old artistic lineage between gender non-conforming people that has yet to be fully explored.