Textual Scholarship Research Articles

At the Intersection of Translation Studies and Textual Scholarship

The Finnish Literature Society and the University of Turku organized an international conference in Turku in September 2023, aimed at scholars with an interest in translation, transmission, and textual scholarship. Translation studies and textual scholarship share many research interests, such as the processes involved in creating translations, the production of multilingual texts, and the networks related to translation. These themes were well-represented throughout the conference, with the most prevalent topics among the presenters including archival research, materiality, and genetic criticism. Articles based on the presentations are currently being collected for an edited volume.

Käännös- ja tekstuaalitieteiden risteyksessä

The Finnish Literature Society and the University of Turku organized an international conference in Turku in September 2023, aimed at scholars with an interest in translation, transmission, and textual scholarship. Translation studies and textual scholarship share many research interests, such as the processes involved in creating translations, the production of multilingual texts, and the networks related to translation. These themes were well-represented throughout the conference, with the most prevalent topics among the presenters including archival research, materiality, and genetic criticism. Articles based on the presentations are currently being collected for an edited volume.

The Difficulties That Faced Libyan Students in Learning English Vocabulary and Understanding Academic Texts

This study examines Libyan students' difficulties in acquiring the English language and comprehending academic writing. The research delineates particular vocabulary-related challenges and their effects on reading comprehension and academic achievement. A quantitative methodology was employed, utilizing a questionnaire administered to 32 students from the English department at Aljufra University. The results demonstrate that students face considerable difficulties in enhancing their vocabulary, employing words correctly, and comprehending phrasal verbs. The challenges are frequently intensified by cultural and linguistic disparities between Arabic and English, impeding students' ability to identify equivalent concepts in both languages. It also reveals that many students rely on traditional learning methods, such as dictionaries, flashcards, and repetition. While these strategies are somewhat effective, they are insufficient for mastering the complexities of academic English. The research highlights the necessity for educational institutions to provide additional support, including targeted vocabulary instruction, workshops, and one-on-one tutoring, to enhance students' academic writing and comprehension skills. Over 60% of the participants expressed the need for more excellent institutional support in academic writing, emphasizing the importance of structured resources to improve their learning outcomes. The results further emphasize the challenges associated with phrasal verbs and complex vocabulary, which remain common obstacles for non-native speakers. Addressing these areas through culturally responsive teaching techniques and providing real-world examples could make learning more relatable for students. The research underlines the importance of a comprehensive approach to vocabulary learning that incorporates both traditional and modern methods. Educators' focused effort to provide vocabulary support, academic assistance, and culturally relevant instruction is essential for improving Libyan students' vocabulary, enhancing their comprehension of scholarly texts, and ultimately enabling their educational success.

Roaming Pauses in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

ABSTRACT This article discusses a textual feature in Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road (2006) that has hitherto been misunderstood by the reception, namely the spaced ellipses between several paragraphs which are considered by notable McCarthy scholars to signal particularly distinct pauses in the textual flow of the novel. The article demonstrates that this is a misperception with significant consequences for the interpretation of the story’s rhythm. Drawing on textual scholars such as Jerome McGann, Bill Brown, John Bryant, and John B. Thompson, the article finally discusses how neutral bibliographical codes occasionally express their own intentions that are in conflict with those of the author.

Invisible Manuscripts: Textual Scholarship and the Survival of 2 Baruch, by Liv Ingeborg Lied

Invisible Manuscripts: Textual Scholarship and the Survival of 2 Baruch, by Liv Ingeborg Lied

Love actually: a thematic review of teacher passion for the subject

What does it mean to feel passionately for the subject one teaches? What does such a passion entail for those involved in the teaching–learning situation? This study focuses on the teacher’s passion for their subject. Nine scholarly texts were reviewed, which allowed for four distinct notions of passion to be discerned: i.e., romantic, friendly, erotic, and divine love. Findings showed also combinations of these notions as well as ontological variations. Inductively created themes revealed that the foundations of these different notions of passion ranged from love of the Truth and the Good to a calling from the subject, and that the character of these notions ranged from them being about intellectual and emotional allure to being about their being disclosed and brought to fulfilment. It also revealed what the different notions of love entailed for the teacher, the student, and the subject itself: for the teacher—from a demand to seek the good in the subject to a requirement to perceive the subject as a voice, the subject in turn making their life meaningful; for the student—from becoming part of the community of “we who love subject X” to a “homecoming of self-hood”; and for the subject itself—from beginning to reveal itself to holding teachers and students accountable. The usefulness of the findings for teacher education and research on teacher–student relations is discussed.

Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer and Classical Latin Poetry in Scholarly Debate on Early History of Ancient Rus

This article is dedicated to a stylistic feature of 17th-century scholarly texts, namely the incorporation of poetic quotations into polemical scientific discourse, which enhances the expressiveness of evaluations concerning opponents and their concepts. An analysis of Gottlieb Bayer's texts is conducted. A number of works by the academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer (1694–1738), focus on the early history of Ancient Rus. In preparing these works, Bayer extensively relied on ancient historical sources, and his articles were written in Latin, which naturally involved the traditions of classical literature in discussions pertaining to the historical issues of early Rus. This publication examines quotations and reminiscences from classical Latin poetry introduced by G. S. Bayer in his article “Origines russicae” (“The Origins of the Russians,” posthumously published in 1741). The poetic interpolations within the scholarly text serve as elements of the author’s style and fulfill two purposes. Firstly, they are utilized by the author to illustrate his assertions, lending emotional depth to academic reasoning and subtly indicating the breadth of his intellectual horizon, which enhances the perception of the scholarly reliability of his work. Secondly, they sustain Bayer’s polemical stance towards certain established historical concepts of his time, allowing for a sharp critical tone that accentuates the polemical fervor without resorting to personal attacks.

A critical love letter to my ancestors: perhaps a therapeutics of recognition?

Preface: Part memoir, part Chinese history, part theoretical reckoning with settler positionality of my lineage as an immigrant on Turtle Island from Hong Kong, this article is a critical self-study and creative nonfiction experiment that dialogues with colonial recognition and with the abjection method to the self and ancestry, to wrestle with generational failures and what it means to honor my ancestors. I walk through the lens of Kristeva, Fanon, Muñoz, and Coulthard, using their frameworks to understand my distance and relationship with my ancestors and to speculate on their contexts, mindset, and behavior with the colonizers and as the colonizing others, engaging from a place of critical love. This article aligns with the mode of “depth education” as discussed by Andreotti (2021), as an inquiry to expand the researcher’s capacities and dispositions to observe our own affective responses and to hold space for complexities and paradoxes within and around us, without feeling immobilized or demanding to be rescued from discomfort. The writing uses a performative writing approach to interrupt conventional scholarly texts and discourse and seeks to generate curiosity and responses in knowledge-creation spaces.

Cross-gender hijacking of high achievers by translation students: English to Polish

ABSTRACT In Polish, where different inflectional paradigms apply to female and male names, attributing male gender to female referents such as eminent scientists and authors that pass unnoticed in English becomes visible in scholarly as well as popular scientific texts, exposing the society’s gender bias. While gender bias in machine translation has been widely observed and criticised, it is believed that human translation would eliminate factual mistakes of this type. Yet false attributions of male gender to eminent female linguists found in Polish scholarly texts suggest the contrary. A translation experiment conducted with a group of graduate students of translation was conducted in order to test the presence and strength of the bias, differences between male and female student translators, and the impact of earlier teaching on assigning gender in translation from English to Polish. Both male and female students frequently attributed the male gender to linguistic scholars even in the presence of strong evidence to the contrary, and after prior learning. Male students’ choices were slightly but significantly more biased. The conclusions pertain to the social consequences of the bias and the need to include this topic in translation training while attending more strongly to students’ research and sociocultural competence.

More than words: PhD students and critical reading

PurposeMany PhD students have strong reading comprehension, but some struggle with how to read critically. The purpose of this study is to understand what reading looks like for PhD students, what they are doing when they read scholarly texts and how they bring these texts to life in meaningful ways.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a self-study using a phenomenological research approach. Five PhD students collected data on their academic reading for three weeks, including the references, purpose for reading, and what they did as part of the reading process. Second, students analyzed their reading processes according to Paul and Elder’s (2006) intellectual standards. Third, students participated in two semi-structured discussions about the standards in relation to doctoral reading.FindingsReading is inseparable from thinking, with Paul and Elder’s (2006) intellectual standards (e.g. clarity, relevance, logic and fairness) playing an essential role in the academic reading process. Alongside these cognitive aspects of reading, the affective domain also contributes to the reading process.Originality/valueThis study is important because being able to read scholarly work is crucial for completing doctoral programs, conducting research, and publishing. We suggest that just as we need to teach writing, we need to acknowledge that many doctoral students need guidance to read scholarly texts, they need to be educated on the intellectual standards, and supervisors must rest their assumptions about doctoral reading and explicitly teach these processes.

A publishing infrastructure for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted academic authoring.

Investigate the use of advanced natural language processing models to streamline the time-consuming process of writing and revising scholarly manuscripts. For this purpose, we integrate large language models into the Manubot publishing ecosystem to suggest revisions for scholarly texts. Our AI-based revision workflow employs a prompt generator that incorporates manuscript metadata into templates, generating section-specific instructions for the language model. The model then generates revised versions of each paragraph for human authors to review. We evaluated this methodology through 5 case studies of existing manuscripts, including the revision of this manuscript. Our results indicate that these models, despite some limitations, can grasp complex academic concepts and enhance text quality. All changes to the manuscript are tracked using a version control system, ensuring transparency in distinguishing between human- and machine-generated text. Given the significant time researchers invest in crafting prose, incorporating large language models into the scholarly writing process can significantly improve the type of knowledge work performed by academics. Our approach also enables scholars to concentrate on critical aspects of their work, such as the novelty of their ideas, while automating tedious tasks like adhering to specific writing styles. Although the use of AI-assisted tools in scientific authoring is controversial, our approach, which focuses on revising human-written text and provides change-tracking transparency, can mitigate concerns regarding AI's role in scientific writing.

A Second Take

In the 1990s, performative writing and reading attempted to disrupt the rhetorical and ideological structure of scholarly writing. Performative readings helped expose the ways in which scholarly claims to truth-telling—as in Clifford Geertz’s influential essay on the Balinese cockfight—obscured violent or oppressive rhetorical operations. While most performative writing and reading concentrated on the essay form, experiments with public lectures and creative adaptations of scholarly texts were also undertaken. The verve of performative writing and reading tapered off as other issues came to the fore.

Deconstructing racial code words

AbstractRacism has become more covert in post-civil rights America. Yet, measures to combat it are hindered by inadequate general knowledge on what “colorblind” race talk says and does and what makes it effective. We deepen understanding of covert racism by investigating one type of discourse – racial code words, which are (1) indirect signifiers of racial or ethnic groups that contain (2) at least one positive or negative value judgment and (3) contextually implied or salient meanings. Through a thematic analysis of 734 racial code words from 97 scholarly texts, we develop an interpretive framework that explains their tropes, linguistic mechanisms and unique roles in perpetuating racism, drawing from race, linguistic and cultural studies. Racial code words promote tropes of White people’s respectability and privilege and Racial/Ethnic Minorities’ pathology and inferiority in efficient, adaptable, plausibly deniable and almost always racially stratifying ways, often through euphemism, metonymy and othering. They construct a “colorblind” discursivity and propel both “epistemic racism” (racism in knowledge) and systemic racism (racism in action). We further strengthen applications of Critical Race Theory in sociolegal studies of race by presenting a “racial meaning decoding tool” to assist legal and societal measures to detect coded racism.

The Power of Qur'an to Heal Physical and Mental Illness

All Muslims look toward the Quran for spiritual and moral direction. Since 1400 years ago, Al-Quran has stated its role as a treatment and therapy for human illness through the term of Syifa. The purpose of this study was to examine important other choice spiritual therapeutic verses in the Quran and determine the parts (juz) and verses (ayaat) where keywords and phrases pertinent to the Quran as a medication for every illness are stated. Currently, Islamic medicine is used as a therapeutic treatment for both physical and mental illnesses. Islamic medicine practitioners usually incorporate specific Quranic verses into their treatment through a variety of methods. This study uses the systematic review approach to gather information from the texts of previous and current scholars and then analyzes the data using a PRISMA methodology. Through comprehensive study among mufassiriin and modern experiments, Quranic verses have had great impact as a treatment or therapy for human ailment, both physically and mentally. As a result, instead of traditional medicine, this technique should be acknowledged and adopted as a supplementary therapy among Muslims.

PREVENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BURNOUT OF TEACHERS IN CONDITIONS OF MIXED LEARNING

PREVENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BURNOUT OF TEACHERS IN CONDITIONS OF MIXED LEARNING

Antecedents of Spiritual Health Affecting Family Management and Sexual Relationships of Couples: A Conventional Content Analysis

Background: Spiritual Health (SH) is the most meaningful and universal part of health affecting all human dimensions functions. Given that community health depends on the health of the family environment, Islam pays special attention to the basic foundation of the family and its persistence. Therefore, this qualitative study aimed to determine the antecedents of SH in Muslim couples according to Islamic sources. Methods: To collect the required data, some keywords, including “spiritual health”, “spirituality”, “spouses”, “couples”, and “Islam” were searched both in Persian and Arabic in Google Scholar, Noormags, SID, and Magiran databases in 1980-2023. After examining 37 documents, the conventional content analysis method was adopted to determine the antecedents of SH. Results: The 139 extracted codes were then classified into six categories (affecting the family management and their sexual, spiritual, behavioral, emotional, and cognitive relations). This paper elaborates on the antecedents of SH “affecting the family management”, and “sexual relationships” of couples. The first category includes four subcategories, “family boundaries and management”, “mutual and exclusive rights”, “planning”, and “cooperation and division of labor”. The second includes five subcategories, “encouragement to marry with trust in God”, “having offspring”, “preparation and contextualization”, “request and response”, and “infidelity prevention”. Conclusion: Both categories of “affecting the family management” and “sexual relationships” affect the lives of Muslim couples as antecedents and consequences of the concept of SH. It is suggested to perform more research by considering the texts of Sunni scholars.

Концепцията на Такис Папас за популизма като демократичен илиберализъм

Abstract: The article discusses Takis Pappas’s concept of populism as democratic illiberalism. The method of desk research is used and a critical review and reading of the main scholarly texts by Takis Papas concerning the tension between populism and liberal democracy. The analysis has highlighted three main elements of this concept: first, the distinction between liberal and populist democracy; second, the role of charismatic leadership; third, the causal mechanisms that cause populism to emerge and stay in power (politicization of public discontent, creation of a new cleavage between “the people” and “the elite”, and deepening of political polarization). The analysis also includes examples from contemporary political realities in different countries. Conclusions are also drawn on Takis Pappas’s contribution in terms of research methodology in bringing out empirical charac¬teristics of populism, which are related to conceptual unfolding of its definition as well as its relevance in contemporary politics. Conclusions regarding the units of analysis, the conceptual scope of the concept and its specificities are presented. Keywords: Takis Pappas, populism, democratic illiberalism, populist democracy, causal mechanisms

‘Text Corruptions’ Corruption: Restoring C.S. Lewis's Critical Satire

This essay examines in detail a C.S. Lewis letter, published in The Times Literary Supplement that was, in fact, an example of ‘mock-criticism’ (as in ‘mock-epic’), being a satiric parody of an argument made by eminent Shakespeare scholar John Dover Wilson. Lewis published his ‘minor disagreement’ in March 1950, to which Dover Wilson responded with appreciation for Lewis's good humour but continued disagreement on the point of contention – that Shakespeare would ever include lines of verse in a section of his prose. By close analysis, the essay demonstrates how the editor of The Collected Letters inadvertently ‘corrupted’ Lewis's original by his formatting and editorial changes. Three versions of the letter are compared to show the specifics of the corruption. Further, Lewis's long critical encounter with Dover Wilson from the late 1920s onward as well as his little-known role as a textual criticism scholar at Oxford are demonstrated to provide the context for interpreting and appreciating the letter. Finally, two other Lewis letters, previously pointed out by Stephanie Derrick (neither published in The Collected Letters) are presented from the Dover Wilson archives as evidence of the cordial scholarly relationship that eventually developed between the two. The essay shows Lewis as a clever, thorough, combative, yet friendly scholar (though perhaps not always all at the same time) engaging in and, in fact, initiating important discussions with perhaps the most significant Shakespearean textual scholar of his time.

Academic Collaboration in the Early Enlightenment: Daniel Waterland (1683–1740) and his Cambridge Tyros

Abstract While early modern collaborative practices have long been associated with the natural sciences, humanistic scholarship has mostly been depicted, ever since Mark Pattison’s classic biography of Isaac Casaubon, as a lonely and even self-destructive affair. This article reconstructs a moment in English intellectual history when textual scholars did collaborate in a semi-professional manner. To this end, it examines the relationship between Daniel Waterland, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and three ambitious young scholars who assumed roles within his enterprise: Edmund Law, Thomas Johnson and John Chapman. By showing how an unofficial research team was assembled over several years and directed to perform separate but related tasks with the stated goal of defending the Church of England, the article highlights the dynamics at work within a collective, subtly top-down model of scholarly interaction. Though a passing reference has been made in the historiography to ‘Waterland & Company’, this article is the first to delve into the nature and scope of this network and its sometimes contradictory objectives.

“Grand Narratives” and “Personal Dramas”: (Re)reading the Masterpieces by Artemisia Gentileschi

This article discusses the œuvre of Artemisia Gentileschi, a prominent Baroque painter who was rediscovered by art historian Roberto Longhi in the 1910s. Today, her art is interpreted through various lenses, including art theory, women’s studies, and psychoanalysis. Gentileschi’s paintings are often “read” in close reference to her painful biography, with a focus on the “chiaroscuro” of trauma and its overcoming. Significantly, such biography-oriented approaches seem to be predominant in scholarship on art created by women. The argument presented is that Gentileschi’s works require a thorough re-reading free of “compulsive biographism”, as postulated by Salomon. The focus should shift from an empathic Einfühlung (or empathic projection) towards an objective analysis based purely on art-historical or sociological criteria. This article also explores the presence of the socially mediated and mediatised figure of the artist in fine literature (novels by Banti, Lapierre and Vreeland), cinematic biographies (Artemisia, directed by Merlet, documentaries (Artemisia Gentileschi: Warrior Painter, directed by River), anime (a series titled Arte, directed by Takayuki Hamana), and graphic novels (Ferlut and Baudouin; Siciliano). In this artistic constellation Artemisia is labelled as an art/feminist “icon”, a female genius, and as in numerous scholarly texts dedicated to her, “a victim”. I propose that the discussed literary and visual texts related to Gentileschi be interpreted as symptomatic (in line with Panofsky’s concept of ‘iconology’) of the contemporary mentality, which is filtered through feminist and subaltern thought.