SUNY Series Research Articles

The Medieval French Alexander

Edited by Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox. (SUNY Series in Medieval Studies). Albany, SUNY, 2002. xi+293 pp., 6 b&w ills. Hb $75.50. Pb $25.95. This volume, declared to be the ‘first systematic collective study of the medieval French Alexander tradition and its background’, presents sixteen essays from some of the most respected figures in current medieval French studies. The twelfth century saw a resurgence of the ‘multicultural and transhistorical’ legend of Alexander the Great in French vernacular literature, spawning a vast poetic output that reached its apex with Alexander de Paris's 16,000 line dodecasyllabic (hence, Alexandrine) poem known as the Vulgate Alexandre (c. 1185). The tradition flourished until the fifteenth century; the various redactions of the Alexander legend during this period reveal not only the shaping of contemporary attitudes towards history, but also become a vehicle for expression of the age's aspirations and anxieties. The volume's essays fall into two broad groups, the first dealing with the formative twelfth-century ‘golden age’ of French Alexander literature, the second exploring new approaches to the legend in the thirteenth century and beyond. Michel Zink's short opening essay, somewhat overcrowded by quotation, attempts within an impossibly restricted space to address the issue of reading pagan authors, and from there to consider how Chrétien de Troyes's comparison of Philip of Flanders to Alexander might be reinterpreted. The coexistence of romance and epic characteristics in the Vulgate Alexandre is then explored by Emmanuèle Baumgartner, who argues that the poem presents thematic and technical characteristics of epic, whilst simultaneously questioning the ideological worldview of the chansons de geste. Alexander's biography is beset by ambiguities, from uncertainty surrounding his filiation to doubt over the benefits of his education and the destructive or civilizing outcome of his influence. These and other matters pertaining to Alexander's character and upbringing are addressed by several contributors: Michelle Szkilnik considers the fourteenth-century Perceforest's claim that Alexander is an ancestor of King Arthur, whilst Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas sets out the role of Aristotle in Alexander's education. Amongst those exploring new attitudes to the legend heralded in by the thirteenth century, Michelle R. Warren argues, with a nod to modern postcolonial theory, that the prose Roman d'Alexandre promotes an expansionist ideology giving rise to ‘relations of unequal power’. Indeed, the Alexander legend frequently portrays ‘engagements with geographical and cultural alterities’, as Laurence Harf-Lancner's illustrated essay shows, contrasting approaches to the Orient in the Alexander romances and in Marco Polo's writings. Keith Busby's concluding essay on the codicological features of the Alexander manuscripts begins with what might become a watchword for the volume itself. Despite an apparent sense of order, the manuscripts are enormously varied in terms of content: ‘the textual history of Le Roman d'Alexandre is’, Busby laments, ‘frankly, a mess’. The collation of a large number of essays on diverse aspects of a broad topic within a relatively short volume surely risks a similar fate. Although individually stimulating, the great variety of texts, chronologies, perspectives and conclusions presented by the essays here could jeopardize the collection's overall cohesiveness, were it not for some adept and welcome guidance offered by the editors' introduction.

Gerard Naddaf, The Greek Concept of Nature. Albany, State University of New York Press (coll. « SUNY series in Ancient Greek Philosophy »), 2005, 265 p.

Gerard Naddaf, The Greek Concept of Nature. Albany, State University of New York Press (coll. « SUNY series in Ancient Greek Philosophy »), 2005, 265 p.

:Chinese Discourses on the Peasant, 1900–1949.(SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture.)

:Chinese Discourses on the Peasant, 1900–1949.<i>(SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture.)</i>

:A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandīs in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700.(SUNY Series in Medieval Middle East History.)

:A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandīs in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700.<i>(SUNY Series in Medieval Middle East History.)</i>

:The Politics of Turkish Democracy: İsmet İnönü and the Formation of the Multi‐Party System, 1938–1950.(SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East.)

John M. VanderLippe's study is as timely as it is contributory to scholarly research on the vital period of Turkey's history and politics that it covers. The formation of multiparty systems has been nearly absent from among majoritarian Muslim countries in the post-World War II era. The author demonstrates that Turkey's multiparty system had its origins in the confluence of global, geopolitical, and regional developments that influenced its domestic politics. Turkey had established a staunch authoritarian system under the rule of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1923–1938). When Atatürk, known as the Eternal Leader, died in 1938, he was replaced by his former foreign minister and long-time associate, İsmet İnönü, who, by adopting the title National Leader, indicated that he would and wanted to continue the Eternal Leader's authoritarian one-party (Republican Peoples' Party, or RPP) system. İnönü's accession to power coincided with the outbreak of World War II. Turkey's prior experiences with European countries, resulting in the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire and the bitter struggle of Turkish nationalists to establish a republic in 1923, impelled İnönü to pursue a policy of neutrality, which he thought required the continuance of one-party rule. Post-World War II developments compelled İnönü to change his policies, if not his mind. For one thing, Turkey became a member of the United Nations, aligned with the United States, and was a recipient of Truman Doctrine aid. VanderLippe shows the close relationship between Turkey's domestic and foreign policies when he points out that on the same day (July 12, 1947) that Turkey and the United States signed a treaty of assistance, İnönü also made a statement, known as the July 12th Declaration, in which he promised continued support for the multiparty experiment (p. 150). It was important, for the principal leaders of the Demokrat Partisi (DP), the main challenger to the RPP, that Turkey's public-sector economy be reduced in favor of an enlarged private sector. By 1950, their argument resonated with a large portion of Turkey's public who also wanted more freedom of expression, religious freedom, less taxes, more schools, better roads, and electricity. This combination of interests brought the DP to power in 1950.

:The Striking Cabbies of Cairo and Other Stories: Crafts and Guilds in Egypt, 1863–1914.(SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East.)

:The Striking Cabbies of Cairo and Other Stories: Crafts and Guilds in Egypt, 1863–1914.<i>(SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East.)</i>

Stephen eskildsen: the teachings and practices of the early quanzhen taoist masters. (suny series in chinese philosophy and culture.) vii, 274 pp. albany: state university of new york press, 2004. $50.

stephen eskildsen: <i>the teachings and practices of the early quanzhen taoist masters</i>. (suny series in chinese philosophy and culture.) vii, 274 pp. albany: state university of new york press, 2004. $50.

Hegel's Theory of Imagination. SUNY series in Hegelian Studies

Hegel's Theory of Imagination. SUNY series in Hegelian Studies

Hegel's Theory of Imagination (review)

Reviewed by: Hegel's Theory of Imagination Kathleen Eamon Hegel's Theory of Imagination. Jennifer Ann Bates. SUNY series in Hegelian Studies, edited by William Desmond. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. xxi + 202 pp. $50.00 h.c. 0–7914–6092–4. Hegel's Theory of Imagination is intended as both an argument for the idea that Hegel has a theory of imagination and an explication of what Bates takes that theory to be. Against those who would cite its absence from the list of "faculties" that designate the first chapters of the Phenomenology—Sense Certainty, Perception, and so forth—as proof of disinterest, Bates argues that not only does the imagination play a role in the Phenomenology, but it plays the central role. It is, on her telling, both the protagonist and the ultimate object of that book, a book she takes to perform the task of bringing the imagination, the condition of the possibility of theory, into the light of day, thereby also constituting it as the kind of object susceptible to theoretical approach. "With the Phenomenology, Hegel has finally successfully worked out the dialectical nature of representation. It is because he has thought through the imagination, and now thinks through it, that his 'truly philosophical grasping' of the imagination, and of any other object, is now possible" (98). Although Bates argues that we should read the Phenomenology as an epistemological and epistemologically transformative text—a claim that places her book squarely in the debate about that work's position within, as a propaedeutic to, or as superseded by Hegel's later systematic thought—Bates' central focus is not actually the Phenomenology. Much of the book (chapters 2–5) is occupied with the three sets of Philosophy of Spirit lecture notes. She launches her analysis in Chapter 1 with historical context for understanding Hegel's thought insofar as it develops out of and ultimately over and against the philosophies of subjectivity (Kant and Fichte). Given that Hegel's predecessors were much taken with the topic of the imagination, Bates argues, its absence in the Phenomenology is palpable and in need of explanation. Since the imagination makes more of an appearance in the Philosophy of Spirit lectures, Bates turns to these in order to track the development of Hegel's thought on the matter, a development that she equates with the emergence of what becomes his phenomenological mode of argument or presentation. Bates charges Kant and Fichte, in Hegel's voice, with the "failure to reconcile thought and being" (17). The cipher for the reconciliation of thought and [End Page 257] being in Bates' book is what she calls the "dovetailing of space and time" (as when she writes, for example, that the "self is nothing other than the dovetailing dialectic of space and time, folded back on itself, considered in terms of space," 67). Bates moves us through increasingly complex visions of the imagination as an inwardizing and externalizing form of cognition. She associates these functions with theoretical and practical reason respectively, the former as the work of apprehension and the latter as that of producing what is to be apprehended. This is initially a confusing trajectory, given Hegel's early focus on the individual imagination (chapters 2–4). As Bates shows in chapter 5, it becomes less so once the question of communication has become central: "In this way, the self that is the 'I' of language, is the 'we' of community, and the negation needed to create the symbol becomes the interpersonal otherness needed to create the sign" (100). Surprisingly, however, this move does not disrupt the narrative structure of the development of language, which Bates still presents as a transition from symbol-making imagination to sign-making imagination (81). Thus, the movement is from subjective and internal (or at least independent) work, toward symbolization and signification, and finally to language. It is in order to get this narrative on the table that Bates disrupts her otherwise mainly chronological presentation by presenting the three Philosophy of Spirit lectures together before turning to Hegel's phenomenological and aesthetic thought (chapters 6–7). Although Bates doesn't thematize the relationship between the texts in this...

Michael Bonner, Mine Ener, and Amy Singer, editors. &lt;italic&gt;Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts&lt;/italic&gt;. (SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East.) Albany: State University of New York Press. 2003. Pp. ix, 345. Cloth $71.50, paper $23.95

Journal Article Michael Bonner, Mine Ener, and Amy Singer, editors. Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts. (SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East.) Albany: State University of New York Press. 2003. Pp. ix, 345. Cloth $71.50, paper $23.95 Get access Bonner Michael, Ener Mine, and Singer Amy, editors. Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts. (SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East.) Albany: State University of New York Press. 2003. Pp. ix, 345. Cloth $71.50, paper $23.95. Avner Giladi Avner Giladi University of Haifa Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 109, Issue 5, December 2004, Pages 1679–1680, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/109.5.1679 Published: 01 December 2004

JONATHAN MENDILOW, Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel, 1965–2001, SUNY Series in Israeli Studies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003). Pp. 310. $81.50 cloth, $27.95 paper

JONATHAN MENDILOW, Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel, 1965–2001, SUNY Series in Israeli Studies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003). Pp. 310. $81.50 cloth, $27.95 paper

Language, Ontology, and Political Philosophy in China: Wang Bi's Scholarly Exploration of the Dark (Xuanxue). By Rudolf G. Wagner. SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. viii, 261 pp. $81.50 (cloth); $27.95 (paper).

Language, Ontology, and Political Philosophy in China: Wang Bi's Scholarly Exploration of the Dark (Xuanxue). By Rudolf G. Wagner. SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. viii, 261 pp. $81.50 (cloth); $27.95 (paper).

Higher Education in the Making: Pragmatism, Whitehead, and the Canon. SUNY series in Constructive Postmodern Thought

Book Review| October 01 2004 Higher Education in the Making: Pragmatism, Whitehead, and the Canon. SUNY series in Constructive Postmodern Thought Higher Education in the Making: Pragmatism, Whitehead, and the Canon. SUNY series in Constructive Postmodern Thought, GEORGE ALLAN. Pete A. Y. Gunter Pete A. Y. Gunter Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Process Studies (2004) 33 (2): 339–341. https://doi.org/10.2307/44797672 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Pete A. Y. Gunter; Higher Education in the Making: Pragmatism, Whitehead, and the Canon. SUNY series in Constructive Postmodern Thought. Process Studies 1 January 2004; 33 (2): 339–341. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/44797672 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressProcess Studies Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2004, Center for Process Studies Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Beshara Doumani, editor. &lt;italic&gt;Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender&lt;/italic&gt;. (SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East.) Albany: State University of New York Press. 2003. Pp. xii, 341. Cloth $86.50, paper $29.95

Journal Article Beshara Doumani, editor. Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender. (SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East.) Albany: State University of New York Press. 2003. Pp. xii, 341. Cloth $86.50, paper $29.95 Get access Doumani Beshara, editor. Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender. (SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East.) Albany: State University of New York Press. 2003. Pp. xii, 341. Cloth $86.50, paper $29.95. Karl K. Barbir Karl K. Barbir Siena College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 109, Issue 4, October 2004, Pages 1343–1344, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/109.4.1343 Published: 01 October 2004

Harry T. Hunt, Lives in Spirit: Precursors and Dilemmas of a Secular Western Mysticism. SUNY Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2003. xii+357 pp. $68.50 (cloth); $22.95 (paper).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewHarry T. Hunt, Lives in Spirit: Precursors and Dilemmas of a Secular Western Mysticism. SUNY Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2003. xii+357 pp. $68.50 (cloth); $22.95 (paper).William B. ParsonsWilliam B. ParsonsRice University. Search for more articles by this author Rice University.PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 84, Number 4October 2004 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/427014 Views: 11Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Luke Devine “The Ghetto at Florence” : Reading Jewish Identity in Amy Levy's Early Poetry, 1880–86, Prooftexts 31, no.1-21-2 (Jan 2011): 1–30.https://doi.org/10.2979/prooftexts.31.1-2.1

A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack (review)

Reviewed by: A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack Gereon Kopf David R. Loy . A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack. SUNY Series in Religious Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. vii + 244. David Loy's most recent work, A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack, constitutes an intellectual history of Europe from what he calls a "Buddhist perspective." His obvious goals in this book are (1) to develop a heuristic device, if not a mature methodology, out of the Buddhist intellectual tradition and to apply it to matters that are not necessarily related to the Buddhist tradition, and (2) to reread European history from a new standpoint. I have to confess that I am not a historian and thus cannot evaluate Loy's historical claims; however, from my perspective as a scholar of Buddhist and comparative philosophy, it seems to me that not only does Loy succeed on both counts but his study of European history from what he calls the perspective of lack reveals astonishing yet previously barely highlighted insights into European thought. It also undermines, in a methodological slight of hand that at times evokes Michel Foucault's approach, the conventional assumptions about the dominant paradigms of the generally accepted periods of European history. I do not want to claim that Loy's methodology resembles Foucault's "archaeology" in any way; however, it does demonstrate that discourses and time periods are fluid rather than static and that their paradigm depends on, and changes in accordance with, the perspective of the historian. For example, seen from Loy's perspective of lack, the central and most formative event of European history was neither the Renaissance nor the Enlightenment, but the Papal Revolution of the late eleventh century. In general, Loy's book is filled with observations and indictments of common myths that are not only provocative in nature but sure to challenge many of the presuppositions that the proponents of the so-called Western World hold dear. In concrete terms, Loy seems to focus on and examine not so much European intellectual history but the myths that are used to argue for the superiority of the "West": freedom, progress, romantic love, the sanctity of the nation-state, and free-market capitalism. Loy chooses as his standpoint "a Buddhist perspective," namely the "perspective of lack." He takes as his basic assumption the dictum he borrows from early Buddhism and, as he adds, psychotherapy, namely that humans have to live with the basic frustration-Loy's translation of dukkha, which is usually rendered as "suffering"-that reality does not conform to our innermost desires. We desire immortality but cannot avoid the impermanence of all living beings. The awareness of our impermanence not only shatters our sense of and quest for a self, but it also [End Page 580] arouses the "immediate and terrifying (because quite valid) suspicion . . . that "'I' am not real right now" (p. 3). This frightening sense of lack propels humans onto what Norman Brown calls the Oedipal project, that is, the attempt to create oneself. This sense of lack, Loy remarks, is common to all religions, but what separates Buddhism from most other religious traditions is that it does not offer a self and some kind of immortality, on the one hand, and refrains from reifying this sense of lack as, for example, "sin," on the other. Rather, Buddhism, to Loy, can be "understood as a way to resolve our sense of lack" (p. 6). With regard to his present project, Loy asks, "[i]f that (the sense-of-the-self's sense of lack) gives us insight into the individual human condition, can it also shed light on the collective dynamics of society and nations?" (p. 8). In other words, Loy asks how the interpretation of European history would change if one were to choose the primary Buddhist assumption, namely the deep anxiety over one's future death and present-day insignificance and groundlessness, as one's starting point. However, Loy is quick to argue that this standpoint is not unique to Buddhism, and he corroborates his perspective on lack with the findings of psychotherapy, mostly the...

Constitutional Politics in Canada and the United States

Constitutional Politics in Canada and the United States, Stephen L. Newman, ed., Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004, pp. vi, 282Constitutional politics in Canada and the United States are staples of teaching and research in both countries, and accordingly merit periodic updating and reflection. An excellent contribution in this respect is Stephen Newman's edited collection of essays, published as part of SUNY's series on American constitutionalism. The essays are balanced, of fairly even quality, and diverse in both subject matter and ideological perspective.

The Living and the Dead: Social Dimensions of Death in South Asian Religions. Edited By Wilson Liz. SUNY Series in Hindu Studies. Albany: University of New York Press, 2003. xi, 212 pp. $68.50 (cloth); $22.95 (paper).

The Living and the Dead: Social Dimensions of Death in South Asian Religions. Edited By Wilson Liz. SUNY Series in Hindu Studies. Albany: University of New York Press, 2003. xi, 212 pp. $68.50 (cloth); $22.95 (paper).

NOZAR ALAOLMOLKI, Life after the Soviet Union: The Newly Independent Republics of the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, SUNY Series in Global Politics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001). Pp. 196. $18.95 paper

The subject of this book is the recent political and economic history of the Central Asian republics as well as the state of Azerbaijan in the Caucasus since the end of the Soviet era and their subsequent independence. In addition, the author examines the present-day conditions of these republics up to the year 2000.

The Roots of Tantra. Edited by Katherine Anne Harper and Robert L. Brown. pp. ix, 270. SUNY Series in Tantric Studies. Albany, State University of New York Press, 2002.

The Roots of Tantra. Edited by Katherine Anne Harper and Robert L. Brown. pp. ix, 270. SUNY Series in Tantric Studies. Albany, State University of New York Press, 2002.