Scholarly World Research Articles

Distribution of Sino-European Intercultural Texts in Chinese Private Libraries of the Late Ming and the Early to Mid-Qing Periods (1582–c.1823)

Abstract This article focusses on the distribution of Sino-European books in the broad scholarly world: how did these books that are intercultural regarding authorship, content, and material aspect, reach their potential readers? And how widely were these books distributed? It investigates the extent to which these books were included in private libraries from the late Ming until the mid-Qing (1582–c.1823). Book printing had become very efficient in the second half of the sixteenth century and collecting books, both in printed and manuscript form, had become one of the favourite hobbies of (retired) scholars. Some of them accumulated very large libraries, and the catalogues of a few of these have been preserved. Thirty-seven of the still extant catalogues of these libraries contain references to Sino-European books. These references provide the opportunity to investigate the distribution of such intercultural texts over a span of two hundred and fifty years. This article begins with a general presentation of these catalogues. Subsequently, individual catalogues are described in chronological order. When possible, a description is included of the collector’s link with European missionaries or Chinese Christians, as it is through these connections that the intercultural encounters around these texts took place. Next, by tracing the frequency of appearance of the works, this article explores what the extant catalogues can tell us about the distribution of Sino-European books. Finally, the focus moves to the ways the collectors classified these works in their catalogues. By investigating the bibliographic categories, this analysis reveals the intercultural negotiations that took place in the creation of the Sino-European book world.

Celebrating Saint Bonaventure Eight Hundred Years after His Birth

Celebrating Saint Bonaventure Eight Hundred Years after His Birth Joshua C. Benson ONCE IN CONVERSATION with a colleague (a Thomist, who shall remain nameless), he remarked with surprise that scholarship on Bonaventure, like scholarship on Aquinas, seemed to constitute its own world. Scholarship on great figures like Bonaventure does form a world, even a universe, one that includes both the scholarly universe of the moment and that same universe extended backwards in time. In 2020, The Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University published Saint Bonaventure: Friar, Teacher, Minister, Bishop. A Celebration of the Eighth Centenary of His Birth1—but in order better to assess this work, a brief overview of some major celebratory volumes published in Bonaventure’s honor may be helpful. In 1874, the sixth centenary of Bonaventure’s death, Fidelis a Fanna published Ratio novae collectionis operum omnium . . . S. Bonaventurae (Turin, 1874). This volume provided a fore-taste of and rationale for the edition of Bonaventure’s Opera omnia published between 1882 and 1902 at Quaracchi (outside of Florence). A new appreciation for Bonaventure arose from that edition since it included texts, such as his three sets of [End Page 663] disputed questions, that had been forgotten since perhaps the fourteenth century, and it eliminated from Bonaventure’s corpus many other texts (especially of “spirituality”) with which he had long been associated. As that edition and a new Bonaventure emerged into print, medieval studies emerged more fully as a discipline, infused with energy by Pope Leo XIII’s Aeterni Patris (1879). The twentieth century’s greatest scholars began a close study of Bonaventure with the new edition in hand, among them Etienne Gilson and a Franciscan friar he helped establish at St. Bonaventure College near Olean, New York, Philotheus Boehner. These two men helped found the two most important intellectual centers in North America for the study of medieval thought: the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto and The Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure College (later University). While Gilson is famous to many, Boehner is better known to students of Franciscana, since he helped establish the critical edition of William of Ockham’s works and a series to translate the works of Bonaventure at The Franciscan Institute. Both series are still in print and are still essential to teaching and research in the Franciscan tradition. From 1874 and the foretaste of a new Bonaventure, we must leap to 1974, when a series of celebrations for the seventh centenary of Bonaventure’s death resulted in two great collections of scholarly essays. A five-volume collection entitled S. Bonaventura 1274–1974, published by the same college that edited Bonaventure’s Opera omnia, includes contributions by an incredibly distinguished list of scholars. The first volume opens with a citation from Étienne Gilson; the fourth volume with a previously unpublished note of Philotheus Boehner, who had died suddenly on May 22, 1955. The five volumes were arranged topically, covering Bonaventure’s portrayal in art, his life and writings, philosophy, theology, and a final volume that provides a massive bibliography. The volumes are still an essential reference point for scholars, given the exceptional quality of the participants: among them Louis Jacques Bataillon, Jacques Guy Bougerol, Palémon Glorieux, James McEvoy, Bernard McGinn, Anton Pegis, Walter Principe, Michael Schmaus, [End Page 664] Fernand Van Steenberghen, Paul Vignaux, and Grover Zinn. The volumes seemed to be a who’s who, not just of the Bonaventurean world, but of the medieval scholarly world. Another collection, entitled San Bonaventura maestro di vita francescana e di sapienza christiana, published in 1976, arose from a major gathering in Rome for the seventh centenary of Bonaventure’s death. Paul VI gave the initial address. Published in three volumes, the first volume includes nearly one thousand pages on Bonaventure’s life and general issues in his thought. Volumes 2 and 3 are briefer and contain essays focused on specific theological and philosophical themes. These volumes also include a distinguished international list of scholars (some of whom also contributed to S. Bonaventura): Camille Bérubé, Ignatius Brady, Jean Châttilon, Ewert Cousins, Luigi Pellegrini, and Wayne Hellmann—a friar who sought to work with a theologian named Joseph Ratzinger...

VISION VS REALITY: ARE WE LIVING IN DR. AMBEDKAR'S INDIA?

Dr Ambedkar was a stalwart in the scholarly world. An eminent jurist, economist, philosopher and social reformer, his role as the Father of the Indian Constitution is well-known. However, less emphasised are his various visions that helped in nation-building and continue to have a notable impact in the contemporary Indian socio-economic-political arena. While drafting the constitution, he meticulously laid down a framework to create a fair society enshrined in the ideals of 'liberty, equality, and fraternity.' He propagated concepts like equal pay for work, maternity benets, and Universal Adult Franchise. The path of India towards an egalitarian and casteless society was moulded by his perspectives. Our Constitution is a testament to that. According to him, The Constitution could play the role of a universal moral compass for India, a country society is divided on the basis of caste, religion, language, and other factors. This Constitutional morality would therefore lead to coordination between antithetical interests of different people along with administrative cooperation. Ambedkar's ideas and legacy echo through the welfare programmes of the Government today. The Mudra Scheme for availing loans, Stand-up India for aiding entrepreneurship in the SC and ST community, and the Ayushman Bharat scheme, display the government's unwavering commitment to fullling the dreams of Ambedkar. But these schemes and policies are mere drops of Amrit mixed with Vish in the cosmic ocean of the country we call India. Ambedkar is not just a scholar limited to the pages of a political science textbook anymore, he transcends beyond his contribution to the Constitution. Through this essay, using theoretical and practical considerations, we will explore where Ambedkar's vision has failed, and how India is not the country the father of its constitution had once envisioned.

Early career researchers in the pandemic-fashioned ‘new scholarly normality’: a first look into the big changes and long-lasting impacts (international analysis)

After two-years of repeat interviewing around 170 early career science/social science researchers from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK and US about their work life and scholarly communications in pandemic-times, the Harbingers project is now in possession of a mountain of data on what constitutes a very important academic topic. The purpose of the paper is to share the early highlights of the data, with a focus on the main and lasting impacts of the pandemic. The data presented comes from the national interviewers, who had conducted 3 rounds of interviews with their 20 or so early career researchers (ECRs) over two years and, thus, knew them well. They were asked to provide an ‘aerial view’ by identifying the most important impacts they had detected while things were still fresh in their minds. The main findings are that: 1) ECRs, the research workhorses, have generally proved to be resilient and perseverant and some have prospered; 2) the pandemic has fast-tracked researchers to a virtual and remote scholarly world, with all the advantages and disadvantages that comes with it. The data, however, is nuanced, with significant differences occurring between countries, especially China and France. The paper also updates a literature review on the topic previously published in this journal.

Domestic water poverty in a semi-arid district of eastern India: Multiple dimensions, regional pattern, and association with human development

It is widely established in the scholarly world that the actual water scarcity is beyond physical availability; instead, it is multidimensional and complex. The present study thus attempted to examine the domestic water poverty of a semi-arid district of eastern India using a PCA-based multidimensional domestic water poverty index. Further, to provide a holistic input in planning secure water for everyone, the study also evaluates the specific importance of each dimension-resource, access, usage, quality, and capacity of the used multidimensional index in determining the spatial pattern of domestic water poverty in the district. Finally, considering the two-way strong positive relationship between water resources accessibility and human development, the association between HDI and DWPI was investigated using the simple OLS regression. The results revealed that the domestic water shortage in Purulia is not only caused by a lack of physical water resources but also majorly by the socio-economic capacity of the community, followed by its access to water. Most of the blocks in the study region are affected by moderate to high multifaceted domestic water scarcity due to their socio, economic, and infrastructural incompetence and limited access to water. Further, the regression results demonstrated a robust negative association between human development and water scarcity, implying that regions with high HDI have lower domestic water poverty. Therefore, it is suggested that the accessibility to the water and the community capacity building must be prioritised while planning safe water for every household in the Purulia district.

PERAN MUHAMMADIYAH DALAM MENANGGULANGI KERJA MISIONARIS (STUDI KASUS DI MAGELANG)

This article aims to find out the history of Christianity in Magelang and analyze the role of the Muhammadiyah organization in overcoming Christianity. Research-based on interviews and assessment of reliable sources with qualitative methods. This study can be concluded that the spread and process of Christianization occurred slowly from communication and entered into the layers of society and ultimately changed the mindset of the local population there, some returned to Islam and some did not return to Islam. Muhammadiyah's role in tackling Christianity is embracing the community, starting from recitation studies, schools, and Islamic boarding schools, to campuses and the Science Council and developing the world of goodness in the world of scholarship, religious knowledge, providing service centers for indigenous peoples that create comfort and awareness and make da'wah to people who feel poverty and persuasion by Islam to make the return of many people to the right path.

Ijma’ Sukuti dalam Pelebaran Mas’a dan Mina Jadid Perspektif Sumber-Sumber Utama Hukum dalam Ushul Fiqh

By definition, ijma’ sukuti means a condition when one or more mujtahids express an opinion on a problem that is widespread in the community and the other mujtahids do not respond or remain silent with that opinion. Opinions in this case can be in the form of fatwas or legal decisions. The most well-known practice of ijma’ sukuti is the legal decision imposed by Amirul Mu’minin Umar bin Khattab which punishes alcohol drinkers with 80 lashes. Originally, in the hadith it is stated that the punishment for drinking khamr is 40 lashes. Umar added that the sentence was doubled on the grounds that 40 lashes were used as punishment for drinking khamr and 40 lashes as a punishment for drinking khamr must have done something disturbing to the public because he was drunk. As for the connection with the widening of masya’irul haram places, such as in the area of pilgrimage rituals, including those carried out by Khadimul Haramain al-Sharifain at the agreement of Saudi scholars and silenced by world scholars, it is a manifestation of the methodology of ijtihad of fiqh law with the ijmak sukuti model. This article uses the ushul fiqh approach by exploring the sources of Islamic law

World of Learning, Sociability and City in early Eighteenth Century France

In this last paper, I wish to present the research project I am currently working on, which is about the connection between the world of learning and scholars and the emergence of urban identities in Europe in the first half of the 18th century. To speak in broader terms, what I would like to grasp is how the circulation of knowledge shaped the making of the great cultural metropolises in the period between the 17th and the 18th century, mainly in a few sites : Paris, Lyon, London, Edinburgh,...

Measuring the scientific greatness : the recognition of Paris in European Enlightenment

This paper will explore the interpretation of european capital cities as centre of knowledge from the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment, to seize the connection between the world of learning and scholars and the emergence of urban identities in Europe in the first half of the 18th century. As we will see, the field of research makes a shift from the history of Republic of letters like Hans Bot, Francoise Waquet, Ann Goldgar or Dena Goodman have developed it in previous works. To spea...

The Beginnings of Yemeni and Zaydi Studies in Europe: The Eugenio Griffini Archive, Milan

Abstract The arrival of large numbers of Yemeni manuscripts in European libraries towards the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century was a sensation that was enthusiastically received by the scholarly world. One of the principal reasons for this enthusiastic reception was the upsurge of South Arabian studies in Europe since the first half of the nineteenth century, together with the hope that the new material would fill some of the gaps in the literary sources on the history and geography of southern Arabia, especially during the pre-Islamic period. The most significant such lacuna was the missing volumes 1 through 7 and 9 of al-Hamdānī’s Iklīl. The two most important collections of Yemeni manuscripts that arrived in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been gathered by Eduard Glaser and Giuseppe Caprotti, respectively, and their collections were sold to Berlin, London, and Vienna (Glaser) and to Munich, Milan, and the Vatican (Caprotti). The collections included some new material on South Arabian history (including volumes 1, 2, and 6 of the Iklīl), but they also opened up entirely new vistas and laid the foundation for the new discipline of Zaydi studies. Unlike South Arabian studies, the study of Zaydism had a slow start, with initially only a few scholars being interested in this entirely new field. Moreover, the scholarly exploration of the respective subcollections depended on the availability of catalogues. The early history of the Caprotti collection is intimately linked to Eugenio Griffini. Caprotti had dispatched nearly his entire manuscript collection of some 1,600 codices to Griffini, who kept it in his apartment in Milan until 1909, when the collection was donated to the Ambrosiana Library. Griffini was also the first and, for a long time, the only scholar to study the collection and prepare studies as well as catalogues of it. The process of his engagement with the material can be reconstructed on the basis of the Griffini archive, the whereabouts of which were for decades uncertain. This study outlines the discovery of the Griffini archive in the Biblioteca Comunale Centrale Palazzo Sormani in Milan and provides an initial overview of its contents, including Griffini’s epistolary exchanges with some ninety-nine correspondents, his descriptions of some of the Ethiopic manuscripts of the Ambrosiana, and, most importantly, his schedario, containing his extensive notes on all manuscripts of series A of the Caprotti collection. The large corpus of so far unexplored material promises to provide new insights into the network of Islamicists and Arabists at the turn of the twentieth century and the nascent phase of Zaydi studies in Europe.

Editorial Commentary

Editorial Commentary

Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics, Vol 2: The Mind

My review of Volume 1 of the four-volume Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics appeared in Al-Shajarah, vol. 26, no. 1 (June 2021) issue. In that review, I promised readers that once I get hold of the second volume, I will try to write a review of it. However, by the time I received a copy of the book – as a complimentary copy from a Malaysian disciple of His Holiness the Dalai Lama – it was too late for me to prepare a review of it to be in time for publication in the December 2021 issue of this Journal. Nonetheless, I am glad that my review of the anticipated volume is now before readers in the present issue of this Journal. In welcoming the first volume, I emphasise the significance that it has for cross-civilisational studies of religion and science. I view the second volume as another significant contribution to the growing literature on such studies. It will help meet the growing contemporary world need for a truly inclusive global narrative of the history of ideas to replace the Western-centric global narrative that has for too long reigned the academic and scholarly world.

Preservation and conservation of indigenous manuscripts

This study is an endeavour to investigate the preservation and conservation status of the heritage of indigenous manuscripts in the Central Library at the Jain Vishva Bharati Institute (Deemed University), Rajasthan, India, that are unknown to the scholarly world. A survey of the manuscripts was carried out to investigate their physical status. A structured interview with nine staff members from the manuscripts section was conducted to obtain information regarding the manuscript collections and current preservation and conservation techniques employed. The findings reveal that the overall preservation and conservation techniques used in the library were found to be satisfactory according to the standard operating procedures of the National Mission for Manuscripts. The study also provides an understanding of the nature of the manuscript collections and the preservation and conservation techniques employed with the manuscripts.

The Justinianic church on Jebel Musa, Sinai – Investigation of the seismic behavior of its structural system and interpretation of its destruction mechanism

The Byzantine remains of the three-aisled Basilica with a narthex on Jebel Musa, South Sinai, were known to the scholarly world since the 19th century. The architectural survey of the site (1995) and the excavations of the Hellenic Archaeological Mission at South Sinai (1998–9, 2008) identified additional original parts of the church and unearthed its foundations. This project aimed at first in a more detailed study of the documentation material produced onsite, that includes the detailed survey of the in situ preserved parts of the building and of numerous carved granite architectural members scattered in the surroundings. The outcome of this endeavor is a quite precise graphic reconstruction of the original form of the Basilica and a better understanding of its structure and its constructional characteristics. Moreover, this detailed documentation was further elaborated from the structural point of view with the aim (i) to assume the weaknesses and inherent vulnerabilities of the original structure of the basilica and (ii) to examine various possible failure mechanisms that could provoke the destruction of the monument, taking into account permanent loads and seismic actions. For this purpose, based on the graphic reconstruction, a detailed 3D cad model of the structure was first developed. Subsequently, a preliminary numerical linear elastic analysis was carried out, focusing on the structural behavior under seismic actions. The qualitative evaluation of the analyses results in comparison with the actual remains of the basilica led to a first approximation of the possible failure mechanisms.

An Invitation to Dance

An Invitation to Dance

Through a peephole: Vladimír Karbusický, the secret police and the scholarly ethos in socialist Czechoslovakia

ABSTRACT The main goal of the article is to expose how the Czechoslovak state socialism shaped scholarly habitus through various mechanisms, institutions and policies, especially through the intrusion of the secret police into the scholarly world. The article is informed by the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and presents a case study focusing on the ethnographer Vladimír Karbusický. In the 1960s, Karbusický was under surveillance by the State Security, the secret police of the socialist Czechoslovakia. His surviving dossier from the State Security archives allows us to see precisely how exactly the actions of the State Security diminished the autonomy of the scholarly world, influenced career paths and contributed to the formation of academic habitus. At the same time, the dossier, which emerged as part of the effort of the state to maximize its control over society, can be also used as evidence of the persistence of (surviving) academic autonomy and the concomitant scholarly ethos. This suggests that the socialist state of Czechoslovakia under the hegemony of its Communist Party may have not been entirely successful in its policies to control society.

Why Is There Nothing—Rather Than Something?

Why Is There Nothing—Rather Than Something? Jeffrey R. Di Leo (bio) It is not often that one can date the high point of a philosopher's career to a movie scene. And it is even less frequent that the philosopher would disavow said film. But such is the case with Jean Baudrillard. On March 31, 1999, directors Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, released The Matrix. The film, which the Wachowski's said was inspired by Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation (1994), prominently featured the book as a prop early in the film. But unlike say Heineken, which is used as a prop in Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015)—and has been a corporate partner with the James Bond film franchise since Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)—Baudrillard had no corporate skin in The Matrix. In fact, he said that the film was not representative of his philosophical views in Simulacra and Simulation—and claimed that The Matrix was the type of film the evil Matrix program (from the film) would make about the Matrix. Says Baudrillard, "the real nuisance in this movie is that the brand-new problem of the simulation is mistaken with the very classic problem of illusion, already mentioned by Plato." Shortly after the release of The Matrix, Baudrillard's theoretical star would come crashing down in the scholarly world via his views on the fall of the Twin Towers and terrorism. But his popular image as the philosophical inspiration of The Matrix, a film whose box office receipts were nearly half a billion dollars, would make Simulacra and Simulation one of the most well-known props for postmodern philosophy. But two decades removed from the hoopla of the film and the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and more than a quarter of a century from the publication of the book, should we still be blaming Baudrillard for the death of theory? Or does that famous prop have a very different legacy in contemporary theory? Given time and distance, I'm more inclined now to the latter view. [End Page 1] But to make my case, we will need to go back to some of the lesser-known philosophical work that led to Simulacra and Simulation—and forward to a key work that came after it. _______ Jean Baudrillard's world is one filled with objects. "Our urban civilization is witness to an ever-accelerating procession of generations of products, appliances and gadgets," he comments in The System of Objects (1968), "by comparison with which mankind appears to be a remarkably stable species." This book, his first, argues that social life is structured by our consumption of these objects. "Could we classify," asks Baudrillard, "the luxuriant growth of objects as we do a flora or fauna, complete with tropical and glacial species, sudden mutations, and varieties threatened by extinction?" Baudrillard explores the classification system of consumer objects that code social behavior and consumer groups. In this work, he reconsiders consumer society through a Marxism tempered by Ferdinand de Saussure and Sigmund Freud, that is, by use of linguistic categories rather than economic ones. For him, we live in a consumer society wherein traditional Marxist analysis fails to capture the status of objects. Commodities post-1945 have a communicational structure that can only be captured by a semiotics that relies not on a referential model akin to Charles Peirce, but rather a differential one like Saussure. Baudrillard's semiotics combines aspects of Freud and Saussure to show how in the commodity word and image is related to desire, rather than use value or utility. Symbols provide the codes that differentiate one consumer product from another. Upon consumption, symbols then transfer meaning from the product to its consumer. Moreover, as a poststructuralist, the free-play of this semiotics is potentially endless, and provides the consumer with a strong sense of freedom and self-determination within the hyperreality of the new semiotic condition of consumer society. It is hyperreality because in Baudrillard's system one cannot get outside of the fantasies and desires generated by consumer consumption within the system of objects. In Baudrillard's economy of signs, individuals are not making consumption choices based on tastes in...

Contemporary French and Francophone Narratology

Contemporary French and Francophone Narratology

Evolving Trends in Scholarly Publishing and Impact on the Monotony of Predators

Open access (OA) journals have emerged in the past two decades and have influenced scholarly publications to a great extent, contributing to the benefits of OA publishing. The research focuses on the evolving trends of OA and the measures required to address the issue of exponentially growing predatory publishing. The study concludes the research by proposing measures for the scholarly world to address predatory publishing globally. The scope of the research is qualitative, discussing the fair publishing practices and implications of Plan S and open peer review. In the methodology, the study reviews the wealth of published literature in the discipline to decide the variables and impact on the dependent variable.

Big Data, Accounting and International Development: Trends and challenges

This article aims to show how the Big Data techniques application in accounting to monitor international cooperation projects are a green-field in the academic world. To obtain an exhaustive vision of the state of the art in academic research in this field, a bibliometric analysis has been carried out, based on multiple Web of Science searches, with focus on international development, Big Data and accounting, adding the holistic vision of the 17 SDGs or “Sustainable Development Goals” of the UN Agenda 2030. Research on Big Data, international development and accounting is a new field that has started in 2015 although academic literature is still scarce. Publications related to SDGs also begin on that date, but with much more prolific academic literature, without explicit references to the use of Big Data in accounting. The article finds deficiencies in existing academic research compared to other enterprise fields in which Big Data techniques are much more developed, and international organization reports lead this line of research, as opposed to the scholarly world. The main practical implication derived from the paper is the need to deepen in real cases of use outside the academic sphere as a starting point to develop this line of research. The development of this research area will help NPOs and governments to have a better accounting to evaluate the impact of their initiatives and cooperation projects. In addition to the bibliometric techniques used for the analysis of main publications, authors and relevant topics focused on this area of study, the authors consider a challenge and an opportunity to take the plunge into this field from academic world, which will undoubtedly improve decision-making in international development, emphasizing the need to gain momentum given the current state of greenfield.