Byzantijnse geleerden over Aristophanes

This article studies the reception of the comedies of the Athenian playwright Aristophanes in 12th-century Byzantium. It takes as its starting point various scholarly and didactic texts that facilitated this reception. These texts were written by Gregory of Corinth, John Tzetzes and Eustathius of Thessaloniki, who all used Aristophanes, and ancient literature more generally, in their teaching and scholarly practice. This article explores (1) what moral functions Byzantine scholars ascribe to ancient drama; (2) how they instruct Byzantine writers to weave elements of humour and ridicule into their own work by either imitating Aristophanes’ techniques or quoting his verses; (3) how they use the Athenian playwright as a model for correct atticizing language; (4) and how Tzetzes engages on a personal level with Aristophanes as a historical figure and with the comedies he wrote. This examination of the reception of Aristophanes in the work of Gregory, Tzetzes and Eustathius thus demonstrates the versatility of the Byzantine reception of ancient comedy.

Werner Bergengruen (d. 1964) in Conversation with the Middle Ages: Significant Contributions to Twentieth-Century Medievalism

Medievalism has experienced an enormous popularity in the last decades, if not century, but the specific contributions by the Baltic German author Werner Bergengruen have not yet received full attention. In light of a selection of his novellas, we can identify him as a meaningful respondent to medieval themes, ideas, concepts, and values which he dealt with rather creatively, employing them for his own ethical, religious, or spiritual musings. Studying Bergengruen’s novellas makes it possible not only to familiarize ourselves once again with one of the most popular German authors from the mid-twentieth century who has unfairly lost in popular appeal maybe since ca. 1970. Through his novellas we also gain intriguing keys to open innovative perspectives toward a variety of literary and didactic texts from the Middle Ages, which are not simply imitated here, but emerge as critical catalysts or sources for Bergengruen’s own reflections on timeless human issues.

Reading literacy and periphrastic capacity in the context of individual language development

The aim of the study was to develop linguistic and methodological theoretical aspects of training the skill of paraphrasing, which constitutes an important element of reading literacy. To this end, the authors reviewed research and educational publications in the field of teaching the Russian language and conducted a pedagogical experiment to analyse pedagogical processes. Interrelation between the infosphere and axiosphere of Russian language lessons within the pedagogical discourse involves the division of didactic texts into informational and axiological, including modern linguistic and ethnographic texts that manifest Russian cultural concepts in the new information age. It is shown that various aspects of teaching paraphrasing and interpretation techniques on the basis of informational texts have already been elucidated quite efficiently. However, formation of the axiological component of reading literacy (teaching to paraphrase on the basis of linguo-ethnographic texts) has been undertaken within the framework of the present study for the first time. These issues should be considered comprehensively, in the context of language and values-based development of a personality.

Basics of Atlas Mapping Optimization in the Fergana Valley

Thematic maps reflecting the negative or positive impact of natural and anthropogenic environmental factors on human living conditions are of particular importance in modern world ecological and cartographic research. To optimize the ecological situation in the region, including the river regions and oases of Uzbekistan, such ecological mapping involves the creation of atlases of a systematic collection of analytical and synthetic maps. In the world, environmental mapping gives preference to synchronization methods where specific atlas maps are systematically created by interconnecting environmental characteristics, that is, several maps that interactively interact with their didactic texts in GIS software are deployed on a computer screen at the same time. These research programs ArcGIS, QGIS, and SWAT model software focus on database creation, electronic map visualization, modeling, and analytical mapping.

Confucian Exemplars and Catholic Saints as Models for Women in Nineteenth-Century Korea

Women in Joseon Korea (1392–1910) were held to high standards of virtue, which were propagated through didactic texts such as the “Chaste and Obedient Biographies” volume of Lienü Zhuan, the Chinese classic featuring biographies of exemplary women. Joseon women who converted to Catholicism were also educated in standards of Catholic virtue, often through the biographies of saints, which shared with the Confucian exemplar stories an emphasis on faithfulness and self-sacrifice. Yet, the differences between Confucian and Catholic standards of virtue were great enough to elicit persecution of Catholics throughout the nineteenth century. Therefore conversion would have involved evaluating one set of standards against the other and determining that Catholicism was worth the price of social marginalization and persecution. Through a comparison of the Confucian exemplar stories and Catholic saints’ stories, this paper explores how Catholic standards of virtue might have motivated conversion of Joseon women to Catholicism. This comparison highlights aspects of the saints’ stories that offered lifestyle choices unavailable to women in traditional Joseon society and suggests that portrayals of the saints’ confidence in the face of human and natural oppressors could also have provided inspiration to ease the price of conversion.

Teachings of the Pious Fat Paṇḍita Tsevelvaanchigdorji

This chapter contains a translation of the four short, didactic texts composed in the Written Mongolian language by the nineteenth-century Mongolian Buddhist author Targan (Fat) Paṇḍita (1836–1894). In the Advice on Abstaining from Taking Life, the author advocates vegetarianism and abstinence from killing sheep and other livestock. In the Method of Transforming the Virtue of Offering Veneration to the Saṅgha, Targan Paṇḍta encourages the laity to practice generosity toward monks, promising the freedom from diseases and other misfortunes. The Hell Obtained Due to Greed and Attachment is a brief exposition on the suffering in a specific type of hell experienced by those overcome by greed. A Supplication for Transforming the Root of Virtue of Giving Alms into the Path to Enlightenment: A Transformation into Gold is yet another text in which Targan Paṇḍita encourages the audience to practice generosity and couches this teaching in the contexts of Buddhist doctrine as expounded in the Abhisamayālaṃkāra.

How to Write a Diary in Mao’s New China: Guidebooks in the Crafting of Socialist Subjectivities

The Maoist regime has conventionally been understood as a totalitarian apparatus hostile to the individual. Yet the mass dictatorship also saw the proliferation of guidebooks on how to write a diary. This article is a pioneering exploration of these didactic texts, situating them within a longer Chinese tradition of popular subjectivation. A close reading of the guidebooks in light of their Republican predecessors suggests that the regime simultaneously anticipated the individual’s role as revolutionary agent of change and viewed it with trepidation. Prescribing paradigmatic frameworks for constructing socialist subjectivities, the manuals propagated journal-keeping as a political routine by which to shape the writer’s life and selfhood. Central in these teachings was the desire to mobilize yet monopolize the individual’s conscious agency. At once empowering and constraining, the “how-to” books rendered creative self-reflexivity indispensable—albeit dangerous—to the Maoist agenda, revealing a deep-seated anxiety of the state about socialism’s modern legacies.

EPONYMOUS TERMS IN MORPHOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF HUMAN SKULL

It is well known fact that in the domain of morphological sciences, e. g. human anatomy, clinical, topographical and pathological anatomy, histology, embryology, cytology, etc., eponymous terms are very common and have been being used for a long time. Eponymous terms are used to cover a wide variety of anatomical structures ranging from the most important to a less important in clinical practice. Eponyms in medical terminology in some cases result in the use of two or more synonyms for the same concept and therefore, there seems to be reasonable to replace some eponymous terms with somewhat descriptive terms. This work was aimed at studying eponymous terms for human skull syndromes in anatomical terminology related to the human skull by reviewing relevant literature. The research methodology includes generally accepted scientific methods: dialectical, historical and chronological, bibliographical and descriptive ones. Nowadays, eponymous terms in the domain of human anatomy are an inseparable part of academic and didactic texts (monographs, students’ textbooks, research articles, etc.) and, as they are shorter than their non-eponymous variants, they may provide the texts with laconism. The eponyms studied are valuable in the reconstruction of the origin of a concept. The use of eponyms in medical terminology has been more frequent than in other domains, which has in some cases resulted in the use of two or more synonyms for the same concept. The use of eponyms in medical terminology has been more frequent than in other domains, which has in some cases resulted in the use of two or more synonyms for the same concept. The use of eponyms in medical terminology has been more frequent than in other domains, which has in some cases resulted in the use of two or more synonyms for the same concept. The anatomical terms, which include names or surnames of researchers who were the first describe certain anatomical structures greatly contributes to a better understanding of the topographical and anatomical characteristics of an organ or a body area. The study of eponymous terms also contributes to the a stronger understanding of the evolution of clinical disciplines, to fostering critical thinking, as well as is a prerequisite for developing professional competence of medical students, their masterying the medical language.

Holy Women and Men as Teachers in Late Antique Christianity

This article shows how the theme of education was treated in late antique hagiographical discourse. Brief references are made to two ascetic archetypes, Antony and Macrina, who are both styled in their vitae in relation to education, either by rejecting classical education or appropriating philosophy and substituting classical literature with biblical literature. On this basis the article focuses in more detail on six hagiographical texts and their protagonists, i. e. three texts primarily on men (the Life of Hypatius of Rufiniane, the saints of Theodoret of Cyrus’ Religious History and Cyril of Scythopolis’ Lives of the Monks in Palestine) and three texts on women (the Lives of Marcella, Melania the Younger, and Syncletica). Although classical education is evaluated differently in these texts, and ascetic formation takes various shapes, it is obvious that both male and female saints played a role in the discussion about the Christian appropriation of classical education as well as in the development of particular Christian ideas of formation. A correct use of education was not a hindrance for holiness, but rather a sign of ascetic wisdom. That both men and women, on a literary level, incarnated Christian teachings in their Lives, and that they were able to live and teach Christian ideals, tells us much about the ambitious transformation of education that was visualized in the ascetic literature. The hagiographical texts themselves both reflect the discussion of education and are didactic texts with the aim of establishing new norms.

Documentary and its doubles

This chapter provides a critical overview of the history of documentary cinema, arguing that it gradually lost sight of its early inspiration in the cinema of the Lumière brothers, adopting many of the features of fiction film production and modelling itself increasingly on didactic texts and journalism. In the sound era, British documentary films made under the aegis of John Grierson, despite his celebration of the ‘actual’, turned towards mass education and an idealised vision of collective humanity, and away from recording actual events in human lives. Italian Neorealist fiction films and changes to camera technology in the post-war period inspired a return to these objectives, but this found little space in television, which remained firmly fixed on journalism, entertainment, and public issues. Reactions took many forms, including experimental documentaries, social advocacy, biography and autobiography, and films exploring the relationship of film to reality, as in the work of Jean Rouch and Errol Morris. The rise of observational films gave promise of a return to the more modest aim of giving audiences shared access to what the filmmaker had witnessed, despite the challenges of manipulative ‘reality’ television and designer-packaged documentaries. The essay refers to a host of influences and commentaries, including those of Edward Said, Bill Nichols, Dai Vaughan, Robert Flaherty, Jean Rouch, Colin Young, and Grierson himself.