Scholarly Style Research Articles

Contemporary Chinese landscape paintings: genealogies of form

ABSTRACTThis article examines differing conceptions of ‘form’ in Western and Chinese landscape traditions, leading to critical perspectives on contemporary Chinese landscape painting. The paper argues that Chinese oil landscapes tend to be conservative, while ink landscapes are more experimental. Furthermore, Western Formalism can be shown to influence Chinese landscape painting, expanding possibilities for both oil and ink contemporary works. Nonetheless, a longer tradition equally persists. Su Shi (1037–1101), for example, who prefigures the literati painting approach, remains an enduring influence. The scholarly style, experimental during the Song Dynasty, conveys a painting's spiritual expression over precise techniques. An examination across Western and Chinese traditions enables a genealogical reading of form in the work of contemporary Chinese artists, bridging history and modernity, Western and Eastern styles, and accounting for differing approaches to form.

Margarita N. Kozhina’s Way in Language Studies

This article presents a scholarly biography of Margarita Kozhina (1925–2012), the founder of the well-known Perm School of Stylistics and professor at Perm State University. She developed the theory of functional stylistics, which revealed and described the regularities of stylistic differentiation in literary Russian. In the early 1960s, Kozhina was one of the first researchers in Russian linguistics to study issues of language functioning and form a new scholarly direction, namely speech studies. Based on an interdisciplinary approach, she defined the main categories of functional stylistics. The latter was regarded as the most important component of speech studies. Kozhina’s papers organically entered the episteme of the second half of the twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries. They marked the turn of linguistics from the system-structural paradigm of studying language to the functional one. Kozhina developed the stylistic-statistical method of speech analysis. A statistical survey of the linguistic side of functional styles allowed her to make conclusions about the interaction of linguistic and extra-linguistic factors in speech. Kozhina authored more than 200 scholarly publications, including 8 monographs and the first Russian textbook on Russian-language stylistics. She was a member of the International Committee of Slavists and the editorial boards of several scholarly journals, including Stylistyka (Poland) and Styl (Serbia). The article describes Kozhina both as a prominent theorist and a remarkable organiser of scholarship. She initiated 20 collections of academic works on stylistics, some international conferences, a three-volume collective monograph on the history of Russian scholarly style from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, and the first Stylistic Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the Russian Language (a compendium of knowledge on functional stylistics). The author describes Margarita Kozhina as a talented researcher and an unusually strong personality, who managed, having overcome dramatic circumstances, to make an important contribution to European studies of language.

From Academic Anthropology to Esoteric Religion

Abstract Carlos Castaneda has been studied mostly as a fraud anthropologist, novelist/philosopher and a contributor to the emerging phenomenon of neo-shamanism. Instead, this article focuses on Castaneda’s individual philosophy and religious system as developed in his written works. A threefold classification is proposed—early, transitional, and late works, complete with chief characteristics of each. The analysis shows how Castaneda slowly drifted from the scholarly style through stress on the narrative to full-fledged religious texts. These changes also reflect on Castaneda’s personal life; from academic ambition through public scandal ‘debunking’ his counterfeit works to the formation of a little new religious movement, of which Castaneda was a charismatic leader. Unlike most scholarly analyses of Castaneda that focus mainly on the early writings, this article takes into serious consideration his late works and shows that it was here that the author fully developed as a religious thinker and guru.

Semantic diffuseness in Art History terminology

The aim of the research is to determine the degree of influence of semantic diffuseness on the strength of the Art History terminology system. This paper examines topical issues of Art History. At the moment, the development of diffuseness of Art History terms can lead to the erosion of the Art History terminology system’s borders and even to the loss of the scholarly style of the language of the entire discipline. In this study, the following linguistic methods are used: semantic analysis, definitional analysis, contextual analysis, as well as elements of semasiological and cognitive analysis. The article reveals the specificity of semantic diffuseness, the reasons for diffuseness; violation of the consequences of the development of diffuseness in the terminology and terminological system of Art History. Scientific novelty of the paper lies in identifying ways to strengthen and structure the terminology system of Art History, taking into account the development of diffuseness in the Art History terminology. As a result, the difference between diffuse Art History terms and diffuse terms related to the terminological systems of other scientific disciplines was revealed, the difference between diffuse Art History terms and lexical units of general literary language was established, and linguistic criteria that allow diffuse terms to function in the Art History terminology system without the threat of blurring the boundaries of the Art History terminology system were highlighted.

Http://habibiaislamicus.com/index.php/hirj/article/view/150

Hafiz Ibne Kathir (R.A….) was a scholar of the 8th century of Hijra. He had command over many sciences of the Islamic studies, like:Quran, Hadith, fiqh, Seerat and history. He was a prolific writer and left a number of books which are used in the Islamic world as reference books. He wrote an exegsis of the Holy Quran and named it; Tafseer-ul-Quran el Azeem (commonly known as Tafseer Ibne Kathir) One of his books; Al-Fusul Fi Ekhtisare Seerat Al-Rasool is one of his book about the life of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW). The book is spread over four hundred pages. The writer divided it into two sections. The first part contains discussions on the Seerat of the Holy Prophet (SAW) and the battles which he fought for the sake of Islam commonly known as Maghazi. The second part contains discussion on the lifestyle, habits and the reasons of the Prophethood. The unique style of Ibne Kathir, in this book is that the writer extracts jurisprudential aspect from the life of the Holy Prophet (SAW). The writer explains all these with the help of the Holy Quran and the authentic sources of Seerat. The writer has tried his level best to bring only authentic narrations. If the views of scholars are different about the date and location of any event, Ibne kathir himself do research and tried to prove certain facts in the light of logic. And many scholars admit his logic follow it. A few of the narrations coated by Ibne kathir are weak in a sense but they are very short in counting. Because of this style, many scholars have coated Ibne kathir in the field of Seerat. This research paper discusses the unique and scholarly style of Ibne kathir and also discusses the methodology of Ibne kathir adopted by him in his book.

Ideals of the Body: Architecture, Urbanism, and Hygiene in Post Revolutionary Paris by Sun-Young Park

Reviewed by: Ideals of the Body: Architecture, Urbanism, and Hygiene in Post Revolutionary Paris by Sun-Young Park Sharon L. Fairchild Park, Sun-Young. Ideals of the Body: Architecture, Urbanism, and Hygiene in Post-Revolutionary Paris. UP of Pittsburgh, 2018. ISBN 978-0-8229-4528-4. Pp. 372. This is a rich and complex study of modernist developments in Paris during the first half of the nineteenth century, as represented by new urban spaces whose constructs were driven by concerns about the physical and mental health of the urban population. The work analyzes formerly under-studied initiatives such as physical education in the schools, school buildings and grounds, institutions of gymnastics, amusement parks, public gardens, swimming facilities, horseback riding, and other recreational spaces and activities. It focuses on public health projects that took place prior to the sweeping urban renewal project of Georges Eugène Haussmann during the reign of Napoleon III. According to Park, these initiatives represent emerging modernist trends that heretofore have not been recognized as such. Following the losses of the Napoleonic wars and the violence of the Revolution, the physical and moral conditions of the French soldier and the urban population were found to be in decline, making it difficult to recruit healthy men. As a result, a new movement advocating exercise and bodily fitness was taken up by early nineteenth-century [End Page 227] doctors, politicians, and philosophers, taking some ideas from the eighteenth century. Physical health was believed to strengthen the mind and improve moral well-being. These ideas were distinct from urban hygiene concerns such as sanitation and epidemic control, instead being more focused on education, child-rearing, diet, emotions, and architecture. In her study of these public health developments Park also describes the numerous conflicts and resistance such ideas encountered on the political and social levels. For example, proponents of physical reform and strength building were often liberal thinkers, while more conservative government officials feared that such training could lead to revolt of the working classes or students. The book is structured around five social characters and the activities and programs that were associated with them: the soldier, the schoolboy, the demoiselle, the Lionne, and the sportsman. In each chapter Park discusses contemporary medical theories about the physical condition of the chapter subject and then examines the innovative programs and physical spaces developed to reform their physical and moral conditions. Much of the focus of these chapters, however, is on the changes in the architecture of buildings and the introduction of outdoor spaces that reflect how new concepts and programs influenced the physical environment. The numerous illustrations and color plates that accompany these discussions, the fruit of extensive archival research, support this central focus. Many are rare documents such as hand-drawn plans for schools, architectural renderings of gymnasiums, swimming clubs and bathhouses, exercise equipment, public gymnasiums, and amusement parks, as well as period illustrations of physical exercises being performed by men, women, girls, and boys. Park contextualizes these documents and interprets them in the culture of the moment. Despite the dense scholarly style in which this book is written, Park provides an intriguing picture of changing ideals of the body and the physical, social, and cultural changes that represented the beginning of modernity in Paris. Sharon L. Fairchild Texas Christian University, emerita Copyright © 2020 American Association of Teachers of French

Научный стиль Генриха Орлова как феномен российской культуры второй половины ХХ века

The history of Russian musical scholarship of the second half of the 20th century is inconceivable without Genrich Orlov, whose texts about music have always been acknowledged by the professional community as a standard. Orlov is a full-fledged adherent of the musicological school of Mikhail Druskin, which demonstrated an extremely subtle connection of aspiration to an original authorial viewpoint and respect for the traditions of his pedagogues with a constant search for a resonator of the changing historical time, at times even forestalling it. The scholarly style of Genrich Orlov presents a dynamic phenomenon, which has developed during the course of over forty years. Three of his fundamental monographs, “Simfonii Shostakovicha” [“The Symphonies of Shostakovich”] (1961), “Russkiy sovetskiy simfonizm” [“The Russian Soviet Symphonic Legacy”] (1966) and “Drevo muzyki” [“The Tree of Music”] (1992) are perceived as brilliant examples of interpretation of the particularities of historical time periods in the author’s scholarly style, in which three stages have been established: the early 1960s, from the second half of the 1960s to the early 1970s, and the turn of the 1990s. Among the peculiarities of the style of the first monograph, written at the the time of «Khrushchev’s thaw,» mention must be made of the use of reviews written by critics and the composers themselves as means of objectivizing musical analysis; the content of the symphonies is examined through a historical-biographical context, and the author’s utterances can be characterized for their publicist and controversial attitudes. In the second book the authorial style gradually becomes more academic, and the index of names which appears at the end of it vividly demonstrates the musical picture of the world of the Soviet intellectual during the beginning of the period of stagnation. Orlov’s third compendium, having been written during the time of his emigration, nonetheless, has become a scholarly bestseller of post-Soviet musicology. In this work the signature features of his scholarly style were concentrated: the conceptual importance of the premise, the multi-angle quality in the analysis of the object, the adherence to the comparative method and the extra-musical conceptions and terms, the hypothetical deductive method, and an interest in themes endowed with an interdisciplinary or poly-disciplinary character. The publication is prepared within the framework of scholarly project No. 19–18–00414 supported by the RNF (Russian Science Foundation). Keywords: Genrich Orlov, scholarly style, methodology of musicology, Dmitri Shostakovich, the Russian Soviet symphonic legacy, the philosophy of music.

Cherubino's Leap: In Search of the Enlightenment Moment by Richard Kramer

Reviewed by: Cherubino's Leap: In Search of the Enlightenment Moment by Richard Kramer Katharina Clausius Cherubino's Leap: In Search of the Enlightenment Moment. By Richard Kramer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. [xvi, 224 p. ISBN 9780226377896 (hardback), $45; ISBN 9780226384085 (e-book), $10–45.] Music examples, reproductions, bibliography, index. Upon his election to the Académie française in 1753, the polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, entertained his fellow colleagues with a discourse on the subject of the scholar's literary style. In good eighteenth-century academic fashion, he began with benign flattery of the Académie's own literary endeavors and then systematically tackled the concept of "style"—its basic definitions, parameters, and pitfalls. Far from adopting a circumscribed approach to his topic, Buffon wound up contemplating human nature and the very quality of enlightenment. In spite of Buffon's delicate protestations to the contrary, the Académie's exalted membership may have found cause to take umbrage at some of his more pointed observations: "nothing runs more contrary to enlightenment [la lumière], which establishes itself and spreads uniformly through writing, than a series of sparks that one only extracts by force by knocking words against one another and that dazzle us for a mere instant only to then leave us in darkness" (Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, "Discours sur le style, prononcé à l'Académie française," ed. Adolphe Hatzfeld [Paris: Lecoffre fils, 1872], 20 [my translation]). The surprising collision of ideas might well taunt us with a promise of illumination, Buffon argues, but such ideas are too quickly consumed again by darkness: real enlightenment foregoes the excitement of such scintillating moments in order to shatter obscurity more permanently through sustained understanding and work. Buffon's dictum—that the scholar ought to suppress the temptation to play idly with juxtapositions and incongruities—sounds relatively sensible in theory. In practice, Buffon's strict sense of good scholarly style perhaps forecloses on rewarding discoveries made accessible by the more "sparkling" style he denounces. Certainly, Richard Kramer's latest book puts to the test just such an approach with a view to recharacterizing the "established" and "uniform" Enlightenment as a self-contradictory and fragmented aesthetic praxis. In many ways, Kramer turns Buffon's logic on its head to argue that far from establishing itself and spreading uniformly, Enlightenment music radiates vividly, momentarily, and spontaneously through scintillating disjunctions—Überraschungen (p. xiii). Conventional, patient, scholarly style promising a kind of permanent illumination cannot hope to capture such intense sparks, implies Kramer, who characterizes his method as a series of "snapshots" that do not depict as much as "anticipate" beauty-filled surprises that promise to "reclaim for us a place and a time long after its players had vanished" (p. xiii). Unlike a conventional photo album, Kramer's eschews all sense of historical chronology; his discussion largely focuses on the period 1760–1815, but various "players" and accompanying examples enter as though impervious to the linear passage of time. Like a scrapbook of half-forgotten occasions and group photos without captions identifying the sitters, Kramer unfurls an extended family of Aufklärung composers, poets, and theorists and a strikingly diverse series of music examples. What knits the assemblage together is a tacit assumption of generational heritage and the sense of [End Page 527] intangible affinity among distant relatives. Presuming rather than asserting connections, Cherubino's Leap springs nimbly across decades, characters, and musical works. The German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, for instance, casually populates several of Kramer's snapshots alongside contemporaries like Ludwig van Beethoven, and Kramer's evenhanded treatment of both men assumes a readership intimately familiar with the life and accomplishments of this eclectic cast. Such bold gestures recur throughout the book and in their own way testify to a historiography wholly committed to inducing the feeling rather than the knowledge of the historian's thesis. It is as though Kramer bravely resists the rigid demands of a scholarly audience accustomed to being shown the way rather than being content to stay put and admire the fireworks. Perhaps in this sense, Kramer has innovated a strategy to forestall the formulaic sequence of apologias and contextualizations...

“Kiss me with the hollow of your mouth” – imagining falling in love with Stense Andrea Lind-Valdan

ABSTRACTThe essay reflects upon the function of images within the love encounter, drawing on the personal experience of the author and his partner, visual artist Stense Andrea Lind-Valdan. Mixing personal experiences, diaristic notes and academic reflections, the essay moves beyond conventional scholarly style and experiments with more personal and anecdotal modalities, thus creating a text that re-enacts the fascination and imaginary entrapments involved in the love encounter while simultaneously reflecting upon these aspects of love.

Pressed for Time [Book Reviews

Do you feel ever more rushed, with never enough time to do everything you want and expect to do? Is this connected with new technologies, which go faster and faster? But wait just a minute: weren’t new technologies meant to make work and life more efficient? Technologies are supposed to be labor saving, so why should there be less free time than before? The paradox of time pressure is the topic of this book. In short, is “It’s more complicated than it seems on the surface.” Scientists and workplace managers think of time as a linear, constant flow, but people’s perceptions of time are varied and complex. To begin, not everyone experiences time the same way. Those who constantly feel rushed tend to be affluent and have high-powered jobs, often with family responsibilities as well. There is a significant gendered dimension to the experience of time pressure. More women have paying jobs but they still carry out a much larger proportion of unpaid work in the home, so they are especially prone to feeling overwhelmed and short of time. The author addresses these and other issues in a careful, scholarly style. She cites a considerable body of research about people’s use of time, perceptions of time, use of digital technologies, and much else relevant to time as a social and psychological facet of life today.

Musical and Literary Networks in the Weekly Critical Review, Paris, 1903–1904

Published in 1903 and 1904 the Weekly Critical Review was a typical ‘little magazine’: it was produced on a shoestring with a small readership, with big editorial ambition. Its uniqueness lay in its claim to be a literary tribute to the entente cordiale (and it enjoyed the imprimatur of King Edward VII), but more importantly, it was a bilingual journal, which was rare at the time even for a little magazine. The Weekly Critical Review aimed to produce high-quality criticism and employed at least a dozen high-profile English and French writers and literary critics including Rémy de Gourmont (1858–1915), Arthur Symons (1865–1945) and H.G. Wells (1866–1946). It also published articles and musical news by four leading music critics: English critics Alfred Kalisch (1863–1933), Ernest Newman (1868–1959) and John F. Runciman (1866–1916) and the American James Huneker (1857–1921).Why did these critics write for the Weekly Critical Review? What did the articles in the WCR reveal about Anglo-French relations, about the aspirations of the English and French music critics who wrote for it, and about the scholarly style of journalism it published – a style that was also characteristic of many other little magazines? And in what ways were those who wrote for it connected? As a case study, I examine the ways in which Ernest Newman’s literary and musical networks brought him into contact with the journal and examine the style of criticism he sought to promote.

Opposition to Philosophy in Safavid Iran: Mulla Muḥammad-Ṭāhir Qummī's Ḥikmat al-ʿĀrifīn ed. by Ata Anzali & S. M. Hadi Gerami

Reviewed by: Opposition to Philosophy in Safavid Iran: Mulla Muḥammad-Ṭāhir Qummī's Ḥikmat al-ʿĀrifīn ed. by Ata Anzali & S. M. Hadi Gerami Brian Welter Opposition to Philosophy in Safavid Iran: Mulla Muḥammad-Ṭāhir Qummī's Ḥikmat al-ʿĀrifīn, (English and Arabic Edition), ed. Ata Anzali & S. M. Hadi Gerami, 2018. Leiden / Boston: Brille, 458 pp., £184.38. ISBN: 9-789-00434-564-5 (hbk). Modern accounts of the religious history of the Safavid era are rife with misunderstandings, at least according to two writers. Anzali and Gerami's persuasive and informative Introduction to Qummī's Ḥikmat al-ʿĀrifīn (which appears in Farsi) provides a nuanced background to the Safavid era. They challenge widespread assumptions that this era was anti-philosophical and that 'religious fanaticism rose and eventually triumphed over the rational sciences and / or Sufism' (1). They do not deny that many thinkers strove to pull Shi'a Islam in what was considered a purer direction based on the Imams and the Shi'a hadiths. However, they affirm philosophy's stature at this time. Even many religious scholars taught philosophy. In fact, the authors portray philosophers as being a driving force in the madrasas. Sufism's treatment in Safavid Iran is also misunderstood. Did the drive (by some) for purity challenge the Sufi orders' teachings? In fact, not so much according to the authors. 'Instead, important aspects of the social functions and intellectual components of Sufism were adopted by Twelver religious scholars' (2). Sufism's worldview became a part of the Safavid Shi'a religious experience, even while social changes marginalized Sufism institutionally. Readers also get a solid sense of Qummī, who was born in the late sixteenth century and was 'an avowed Akhbārī scholar' (16). Unfortunately, the authors fail to define Akhbārism's origins, tenets, and main champions. Qummī is nevertheless presented within the Safavid social and religious landscape, with readers getting a sense of how aspects of his personality and scholarly style impacted his project. He suffered from retaliation for his 'confrontational style of criticizing his opponents' and for criticizing the Shah for drinking (18). He took on the philosophers, Sufis, and mystics as well, including Mullā Sadrā, whose teachings he considered faulty owing to the influence of Ibn ʿArabī. Readers without [End Page 521] a strong background in the history of Islamic spirituality and thinking will find this discussion quite challenging at times because of all the references to thinkers and intellectual topics. The authors, in their nuanced style, point out that Qummī's opposition to philosophers and Sufis did not mean his own religious teaching offered only 'a dry, rigid, literal understanding of sacred texts' (26). This is where the Introduction whets readers' appetites for the Farsi reading to follow, for Qummī 'appears to have been genuinely and deeply interested in a framework for spiritual life based wholly on the Qur'an and the teaching of the imams' (26). The authors describe Qummī's demanding spiritual life. Yet the issues went beyond the spiritual. Anzali and Gerami highlight the significance of 'Qummī's semantic choices' (29), which form part of the wider semantic shifts in Safavid society that arose due to the elevation of Shi'a Islam to a state religion. Qummī, in other words, played a significant role in the remaking of Persian society at this time. Long-held truths were re-evaluated. The authors in this part provide a glimpse of Akhbarism, though insufficiently: 'Perhaps the most distinctive and radical expression of the central place the infallible imams and their sayings found in the newly-established Safavid sacred nomos during the seventeenth-century' (31). The Akhbaris condemned the Aristotelian philosophers as being unIslamic and sought '"the superior knowledge of the Imams"' (31). Overall, Anzali and Gerami succeed in preparing the audience for Qummī's Ḥikmat al-ʿĀrifīn by showing what kind of person penned it, and given the social and religious background, the work's purpose. Their aim and tone are corrective, as they prove that much further scholarly work needs to be done on this era, which also underscores why Qummī should be read today. [End Page 522] Brian Welter Hsinchu, Taiwan Copyright...

Teksty naukowe i techniczne doby średniopolskiej jako źródło badań historycznojęzykowych

In the Middle-Polish period numerous texts on science and technology were written. Linguists used to pay little attention to those writings – researchers analysed the terminology and noted the morphological manifestations of the scholarly style as well as the manifestations of consistency of historical scientific texts. The issues such as the emergence of the principles of drafting ancillary texts (footnotes, references, bibliography lists); the early development of the scientific press publications (popular-scientific press) in the Polish language and the emergence of new genres of text assisting the scientific aspects of life were of little interest to linguists. Moreover, a large body of historical scientific and technical texts remained entirely unknown to a vast number of readers as the overwhelming majority of those publications have never been republished. In recent years, thanks to–among others–quickly progressing digitisation, it is increasingly easier to access the old scientific and technical texts. Consequently, more and more attention is paid to them by researchers who emphasize that the development of the Polish language was influenced not only by the transformations of the artistic language but also by other stylistic varieties of Polish, including the scholarly style.

Evolutionary Categories and Musical Style from Adler to America

As we consider music's role in defining races, cultures, and species, musicologists may benefit from examining more closely the history of conceptions of musical style. That history offers an opportunity to reassess the question of how and how much one of the core tools of music scholarship—the recognition and categorization of musical style—reflects a historical tradition of categorizing culture as a form of essential, biologized difference. This exercise seems particularly relevant in the present moment, when scholarly style categories converge with a renewed interest in evolutionary science. Tracing notions of style from the days of Guido Adler to the present, I argue that classifications of musical style have offered a way for music scholars to explore changing concepts of human difference. By asking what it means to identify a musical style, it is possible to engage more sensitively with music's power to classify human cultures, define human beings, and demarcate the perimeter of the humanities.

V poiskakh "Bezgreshnykh katakomb": Tserkovnoe podpol´e v SSSR (In Search of "Sinless Catacombs": The Church Underground in the USSR) (review)

Aleksei Beglov, V pooiskakh Bezgreshnykh katakomb: Tserkovnoe podpol'e v SSSR (In Search of Sinless Catacombs: The Church Underground in the USSR). 349 pp. Moscow: Izdatel 'skii sorer Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi and Arefa, 2008. ISBN-13 978-5946253031. In the last two decades, the study of religiosity in the USSR has experienced a predictable boom. The unexpected growth in the influence of religious organizations in post-Soviet public space, plus the scale of previous repression, combined with the relative openness of state archives, have generated hundreds of studies and document collections. Moreover, whereas in the 1990s research focused principally on mass repression against religious organizations in the 1920s-30s, more recently the attention of researchers has been drawn to the period of the 1940s-60s. Accompanying this shift has been another new tendency: whereas in the 1990s research on the Soviet period was clearly divided into confessional histories--indeed, volumes on this topic were issued not only by Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin, the official historian of the ROC, but also by certain Protestant sects--and histories (although personal religious convictions were often responsible for the historian's interest in the topic), in the 2000s a growing number of works are intended for a broad audience while retaining a confessional perspective. (1) Their appearance on the shelves of Moscow's and Petersburg's humanities bookshops has ensured the entry of a clerical perspective on Soviet religiosity into the worldview of readers who did not always suspect that they were being subjected to missionary influence or religiously motivated manipulation. This was all the more true in that the authors of such material are frequently people formally affiliated with scholarly organizations. Among these formally lay historical works are those of Ol'ga Vasil'eva, Boris Kolymagin, and Sergei Firsov. (2) The work by Aleksei Beglov reviewed here may be added to this list. It is co-published by the Moscow Patriarchate's publishing house and its subdivision for political journalism, which has its own imprint, Arefa. Unlike the works of many precursors, the book has a judicious foreword, a seductive title, and a well-formulated topic; therefore it will inevitably be bought by university libraries, which usually ignore Orthodox historical literature. Specialists have long looked forward to this book by Beglov, who for more than a decade now has published in the pages ofAlfa i Omega, the church's small-circulation journal, or in little-known short-run collections of documents from the Moscow Orthodox underground. Yet when all is said and done, the monograph proves to be a disappointment. The basic aim of his book is to provide a description of all illegal activity, without reference to the specific groups involved. Thus groups that opposed the Moscow Patriarchate and those that were loyal to it are lumped together. At first the approach seems justified, since most of the references to illegal actions by Orthodox people in the official documents that Beglov uncovered say nothing about these groups' attitudes toward the Moscow Patriarchate. Yet, as we shall see, this approach is problematic. The book begins with a solid foreword in good scholarly style, which analyzes in detail the genesis of the word catacomb as applied to illegal Soviet-era Orthodox activity and demonstrates that the members of the movement used it very little themselves until at least the 1970s (and then only in Leningrad). Beglov rejects the stereotype established in the historiography, to the effect that the catacomb found itself in constant political opposition not only to the secular authorities but also to the official hierarchy. To describe the groups in question more accurately, Beglov proposes a new term of his own devising: the church undergound. He also argues for abandoning the statist approach traditional to Russian historiography--an exclusive focus on state policy toward religious organizations--in favor of an analysis of the social composition of members of underground groups, their ideology, daily activism, and other dimensions that so interest modern historians, sociologists of religion, and anthropologists. …

Ross and Joyce Bell as Mentors at the University of Vermont

Ross and Joyce Bell as Mentors at the University of Vermont

Ross and joyce bell as mentors at the university of vermont.

Ross and joyce bell as mentors at the university of vermont.

Martin Jesse Klein

Martin Jesse Klein

Anglican Communion in crisis: how Episcopal dissidents and their African allies are reshaping Anglicanism

Anglican in Crisis: How Episcopal Dissidents and Their African Allies Are Reshaping Anglicanism. By Miranda K. Hassett. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007. 320 pp. $39.50 (cloth). This gem of a book based on Miranda Hassett's dissertation in anthropology urgently needs to be. read and discussed by many throughout the Anghcan Communion. It will appeal to those still trying to understand what happened at Lambeth 1998 as they prepare for Lambeth 2008, as well as others looking for a fresh perspective on the global Anglican controversy. Hassett studied Anglicans in Uganda and in America who were forming transnational alliances before and after Lambeth 1998, alliances that are transforming the practice of Anglican Christianity. Rather than chronichng just a North-South realignment, Hassett personalizes the relationships between fellow Anglicans behind the scenes of those global debates. A third of Hassett's book is a summary of conversations with Anglicans in Uganda and the United States with reflections on how other Anglicans might learn from these relationships. In a welcome departure from more standard anthropological studies, these Anglicans are not Hassett's subjects but rather her consultants in an accessible book written in a literary rather than scholarly style. As encouraging as Hassett's version of global Anglicanism is in this book, she does not lose sight of the breakaway and controversial nature of transnational alliances. She points, for example, to the website of the American Anghcan Council (AAC), which bears the title Road to Realignment. She notes that realignment here captures the idea of connection along lines of affinity, whether within or across diocesan or provincial boundaries, rather than connection or belonging through the older Eurocentric structures of the Communion (p. 153). And Hassett does an excellent job of placing this innovation in historical context. Historically, Anglicans have respected jurisdictional boundaries that prevent bishops from crossing over and between dioceses or provinces without the permission of the local bishop. These boundaries are now being crossed by several African bishops even though the bishops of the Anglican have not intentionally agreed to change the juridical relevance of these historical boundaries. Though the bonds of affection between bishops have historically held the Anglican together, jurisdictional boundaries and the authority of local bishops are not covered by any binding agreements. And there is the rub. A number of efforts throughout the Anglican have been associated with addressing this vacuum through covenants, transnational alliances, parallel Anglican dioceses, alternative episcopal oversight, conscience clauses, and even extended conversation in diocesan conventions and synods. Yet few who are energized by such efforts appreciate that Anglicans are free to leave but no authority exists for expelling Anglicans from the Communion. Hassett provides sociological evidence that transnational alliances are actually common in many contexts, though the church is slow to capitalize on their global networking opportunities. In advance of Lambeth 2008 Anglicans would do well to consider the possible role these alliances might play in transforming cross-boundary relationships. They could be a temporary accommodation until the Anglican decides on how to proceed. …

The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam

This is an excellent book. With a beautiful, exemplary scholarly style, OmidSafi treats the reader to a deep sounding of accounts of the frequently marginalizedplayers and problems of Islamicate intellectual, religious, political, and social history. The welcome news is that we must learn to treat nothingas marginal in the formation of culture and thought. The audiences andconversations analyzed and interpreted here provide a previously largelyunnoticed door to some very serious truths about the rise, formation, andespecially the characteristic institutional formations of early and later medievalIslamicate society. While I think the title is a mistake (premodern producesinappropriate expectations), one is equally sympathetic with theauthor’s avoidance of the “M” word for a number of reasons. One of themost pernicious of these is that medieval frequently functions as a euphemismfor Islamic or Islamicate in a milieu still disinclined to appreciate theformative, creative, and enduring genius of this great civilization and thedebt that our world so profoundly owes it. Forgive the khutbah, but it seemsthat this cannot be repeated too often, unfortunately ...