Textuality

The article reads the invention of the Exodus-Narrative in its historical context of the religious and political system of the Ancient Near East. It reconstructs the revolutionary different approach to political power and theological foundation in the development of the Mose- and Exodus-Narrative and its innerbiblical Fortschreibung. For this development it is most decisive that the Exodus-Narrative is not based on a historical migration-movement "from point A to point B", but on a historical confrontation with the political powers at that time. The foundation of a strict monotheistic understanding of theology and the invention of “textual authority” that diverged from the status of scripture in the Ancient Near East and which can be reconstructed through the structure of the Exodus-Narrative and its canonical form as the Tora of Mose, has laid the foundation for the identity of Israel and the basis for the three Monotheistic Religions. The article's argument is strictly developed in correspondence with contemporary exegetical and historical research (esp. E. Otto and Chr. Dohmen) and is brought together with contemporary accounts to political thought from poststructuralist and deconstructive philosophers like Derrida, Levinas, Badiou and Agamben. The outcome of this study is articulated as a contribution to an affirmative reading of the so-called »crisis of representation«.

This article presents a manuscript that significantly enriches the textual corpus of ›Helfta Mysticism‹ with a series of hitherto unknown writings. Aside from this, it contains what is by some distance the oldest copy of the ›Legatus divinae pietatis‹, in the form of a ›special edition‹ that consists of excerpts from the known text as well as new material. This is preceded by a prologue and a florilegium which is marked in an epilogue as Gertrude’s own work. We argue that the epilogue of the florilegium, the prologue and the ›special edition‹ itself were probably composed by ›Sister N‹ of Helfta herself. The article provides a full description of the manuscript (Ms 827), a breakdown of the new ›special edition‹ of the ›Legatus‹-text, and an edition, translation, and close reading of the prologue.

Im Folgenden soll eine Handschrift vorgestellt werden, die die Textbasis der Helftaer Mystik mit einer Reihe von bislang unbekannten Schriften bereichert. Außerdem enthält sie die mit Abstand älteste Abschrift des ›Legatus divinae pietatis‹ in Form einer ›Sonderausgabe‹, die aus Exzerpten aus dem bekannten Textcorpus und aus weiterem bislang nicht bekanntem Material besteht. Dieser geht eine Vorrede und ein im Epilog als Gertruds Werk ausgewiesenes Florilegium voraus, Texte, die wie die ›Sonderausgabe‹ selbst von Schwester N von Helfta stammen dürften. Die vorliegende Studie bietet eine Beschreibung von Ms 827, die Aufschlüsselung der ›Sonderausgabe‹ des ›Legatus‹ sowie Abdruck, Übersetzung und inhaltliche Analyse der Vorrede.

Richard Wright's Native Son has often been read as a socially-oriented text, seemingly neglecting its existence as a literary construct. Such readings gear towards identifying the text with such societal ills as racism and environmental impact on the individual, as if these are the only business of the text.In this paper, however, attention shifts from such external referents to the text itself, deconstructing the meaning of blindness already ascribed to the text as well as the meaning of silence as it is denotatively known. The uncovering of the textual meaning of each of these concepts will also serve either to compliment a character or to disparage same, and then the interweave of both concepts will result in reading the text as a tragedy. This study will be anchored on the provisions of Derrida's deconstructive criticism.

The history of literature has always been influenced by technological progress, as a transformative cultural power—threatening destruction or promising a luminous future—as a theme inspiring new narrative forms and plots, or as a force influencing the way authors conceive textuality and perform their creative work. The entanglement between literary and technological inventions is even recorded in the etymology of the word, which comes from the Greek “techne,” a term referring to arts as well as crafts. The way writers conceive this relationship, however, varies greatly: although some consider the work of technicians to be congenial to artistic creation, as they both demonstrate human creativity and ingenuity, others believe technology to be a dehumanizing and unnatural force, not only alien to literature but in competition with its own ethos. Therefore, depending on their position, the writer comes to embody the mythical figure of Prometheus, the first technician and defiant creator, or that of Orpheus, symbolizing the marriage between poetry and nature compared to any artificial creation. However, the opposition between nature and technology, with literature positioning itself either in one realm or the other, is only one of many possible critical perspectives. Indeed, when moving beyond the idea of technology as merely a kind of artifact, the affinities between texts and machines clearly emerge. A mutual relation connects technology and textuality, and this has to do with the complex nature of material and cultural objects, each shaped by social use, aesthetic norms, and power structures. This bond between discursivity and materiality is impossible to disentangle, as is the contextual relationship between literature and technology: Texts prescribe meanings to machines just as much as the latter shape their textuality. To recognize literature and technology as two different systems of meanings and sets of practices which are nevertheless always in conversation with each other is also to understand literature as technology. This stance has nothing to do with the likeness of the poet and the technician as creative minds but rather with the idea of literary texts functioning like technologies and, ultimately, offering a meta-reflexive analysis of their own textuality. According to this critical perspective, literature performatively enacts the changes in textuality brought about by technological progress, from the printing press to digital writing tools.

L'expérience d'être autres (que le reste de la nature) constitue un
aspect essentiel de notre vie quotidienne dans la nature et l'échange
avec celle-ci. Cette expérience corporelle intense et sans cesse
renouvelée qui, de par sa nature même, est très sensuelle laisse des
traces étroitement liées au caractere de cette expérience, à savoir le
sentiment d'être en situation de décalage, D'un côté et en tant que
créatures humaines, nous vivons l 'expérience d'être décalés par
rapport à autre chose tout en etant témoins de notre propre expérience,
Nous somrnes conscients de la vivre. L'altérité laisse des empreintes
que nous lisons ou vivons. Au moyen de notre corps et de nos
appareils et à travers notre capacité d' enregistrer ce sentiment de
décalage ou de disparité, nous sommes capables de déployer cette
expérience (ou lecture) la revivant, tant la nôtre que celle d'autrui, à
n' en pas finir.
C'est le cas, quand nous déployons notre experience grâce à la
langue, à un mode de vie ou à un habitat quelconque aussi bien qu' à
travers d'autres phenornenes qui, de ce fait, consciemment ou
inconsciemment (mais réellernent) témoignent de cet etonnement
renouvelé, qui colle à la peau, concemant I'identité particulière qui
est la nôtre plutôt que celle d 'un autre.
S' exprimer de facon linguistique concernant des phénomènes
linguistiques (de nature verbale ou au tre) - que ce soit de facon
analytique ou de facon théorique - étant convaincu que c' est la verité
qui parle, diffère tout à fait de la facon linguistique dont s' exprime le
dire à propos de ces mêmes phénomènes avec la conviction que c' est
la parole qui fait naître la verité. Le présent article a pour objectif de
discuter comment la littérature et la ville en tant que déploiements
discursifs se sont chargées de ce vieux probleme de la langue vis-à-vis
de la réalité.
Dans cet article, j'ai l'intention d'examiner principalement le
rapport du lecteur et de l' analyste avec la littérature et la ville
considérées comme langages, afin d'indiquer les facteurs qui
influencent favorablement les moyens dont le lecteur dispose pour
aborder les trace s de significations laissées dans le discours
linguistique par les experiences dépanouissements et de pertes
inhérentes à la mémoire, discours qui constitue l'endroit par
excellence du déploiement de telles expériences. A ce propos,
j'indiquerai la codification et les relations intertextuelles qui
représentent les chemins et fausses pistes suivis par la signification,
afin de souligner la symbiose qui existe entre les deux faces de toute
expérience et du déploiement linguistiques, à savoir celle de la
codification tributaire de la culture et de la socialisation d'une part, et
celle qui, dans une large mesure, peut etre désignée comme
symbolique de l'autre. A titre d'exemple, je traîterai donc le fait que
la littérature autant que la ville simultanément fait semblant d'être et
est ce qu' elle paraît être.

This is an introductory course centred around the concept of practice. It aims to offer a general overview of the so-called practice turn in the social sciences, compare and contrast the most important theories of practice in sociology, and examine a series of case studies in practice research informed by recent developments in cultural anthropology, ethnomethodology, discourse analysis, and science and technology studies.

The intent of this chapter is to suspend the belief in the goodness of literacy -- our chirographic bias -- in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the engagement with texts structures human consciousness, and particularly the minds of children. In the following pages literacy (a term which in this chapter refers to the ability to read and produce written text) is discussed as a consciousness altering technology. A phenomenological analysis of the act of reading shows the child’s engagement with texts as a perceptual as well as a symbolic event that builds upon but also alters children’s speech acts. Speaking and reading are both forms of language use, but with different configurations of perceptual and symbolic qualities. Children’s literature uses textual technology and, intentionally or not, participates in structuring children’s pre-literate minds. Some of its forms, such as picture books and early readers, are directly intended to bridge the gap between the pre-literate listener and the literate reader and ease the transition into the literate state. It is my hope that the phenomenological analysis of the experiences of speaking and reading might help us understand more clearly how children’s literature impacts the minds of children. Such an analysis can awaken a critical awareness of the power that letters wield as they shape the reader’s psychological reality, and it can sharpen our sense of wonder about the metamorphosis of language from speaking to writing.

Rabbi Judah Leib Alter of Ger, a famed nineteenth-century Hasidic master, wrote an influential collection of Hebrew homilies. But it seems that R. Judah Leib’s sermons were also transcribed by his students, some of whom recorded their teacher’s words in the original Yiddish rather than Hebrew translation. This monograph builds upon a newly-discovered Yiddish manuscript of sixty pages. It presents a synoptic edition of the Yiddish text alongside the Hebrew version, thus enabling comparison of the witnesses and demonstrating the development of the various texts. The introduction uses this manuscript to explore broader historical and theoretical issues such as the relationship between written texts and oral culture, the development of written Yiddish, the nature and boundaries of translation, and the complex pathways of transmission from teachers to their students.

This paper examines the formation and development of the Abu Saʿid Abuʾl-Kheyr hagiographic tradition. It shows how reports about the eleventh-century saint circulated within a shrine community of his descendants and disciples, both orally and in ad hoc notes, before being set down in writing. It argues that the Asrār al-towhid, the largest and best-known hagiography devoted to Abu Saʿid, is not a natural outgrowth of this oral material, but a reworking for a broad audience of outsiders in light of the shrine community’s destruction by the Ghuzz Turks in the 1150s. In the case of the Asrār, textualization involved substantial rhetorical and linguistic changes in order to open up the material to a literary public of non-initiates; it also implied a new understanding of how Abu Saʿid’s blessings would manifest themselves in the world.

https://doi.org/10.1163/18747167-12341330

Jeg vil i denne artikel undersøge primært læserens og analytikerens forhold til litteraturen som sprog og byen som sprog og pege på, hvad der forøger læserens muligheder for at komme på talefod med de betydnings-spor som erindringens tab- og fyldeoplevelser afsætter i de sproglige forløb, hvor sådanne oplevelser kommer til udfoldelse. I den forbindelse vil jeg pege på kodificeringen og de intertekstuelle relationer, som de veje og vildveje betydningen har gået og understrege, hvordan to sider af al sproglig oplevelse og udfoldelse, den kulturelt og socialisationsmæssigt betingede kodificering og den i bred forstand symbolske lever af hinanden. Altså jeg vil eksempelvis beskæftige mig med det forhold, at litteraturen og byen på én gang lader som om, at de er og er det, de lader som om, de er.

The goal of this paper was to take critical look at representations of the body as text or surface of writing and the implications of such metaphors in contemporary critical theory and gender studies. I considered the sacrificial transformation of the body through writing in Kafka's story "In the Penal Colony" in view of Foucault's political theorizing about the body, the notion of the signifying body in the psychoanalytic work of Freud and Lacan, and finally the idea of the imprinted body for post-structuralist feminist critics, including Judith Butler. I ultimately argued that while problematic, the textual representation of the body as text may still hold promise for its very potential to complicate and destabilize interpretive strategies, by calling into question where the boundaries of the body are located, and thus the basis for any clear, discernible division between self and other.

"Jutta of Sangerhausen. A ‘new saint’ in the wake of Elizabeth of Thuringia?

Jutta of Sangerhausen (Thuringia/Germany) is a less known representative of the religious movements of the 13th Century Western Europe, a lay woman who spent the last four years of her life as anchoress in the neighborhood of the town Kulm in Prussia (today: Poland) and probably died in 1260. There is no reference to her neither in HERBERT GRUNDMANN’s standard work about the “Religious movements in the Middle Ages” (Berlin 1935/Darmstadt 1977) nor in the books written by KURT RUH and BERNARD MCGINN about the history of mysticism in Western Europe (see Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, Vol. 2, München 1993 and The Flowering of Mysticism, New York 1998). Not even ANNEKE B. MULDER-BAKKER mentioned Jutta in her recent publication about the “Lives of the anchoresses” (Philadelphia 2005). The reason for this ignorance may be the lack of a modern edition of the sources about Jutta. Now, that a new edition appeared last year (ed. by PETER GERLINGHOFF, Sangerhausen 2006) we finally have the opportunity to situate Jutta in her historical context. Some scholars are of the opinion that Jutta modelled herself on the Hungarian princess and Thuringian countess Elizabeth, a contemporary and compatriot of Jutta who died in 1231 and was canonized as early as 1235. The purpose of this paper is to prove the validity of this claim. My methodological procedure will be a textcritical one. Such an approach is inevitable because all the sources came from the 16th and 17th century. The question is: Couldn’t have been Jutta a ‘new Elizabeth’ before the 17th century? Or do we have to do with a ‘falsification’? In other and less provocative words: Is Jutta a ‘sainte construite’?"

"Megaleh Temirin (Revealer of Secrets), ed. Jonatan Meir, Three volumes, Mosad Bialik, Jerusalem

Megaleh Temirin (Revealer of Secrets), first published in Vienna in 1819, is one of the sharpest and wittiest pieces of Jewish literature written in the first half of the nineteenth century, and is perhaps the most important piece of Hebrew prose composed before the stories of Mendele Mocher Seforim. A sly and complex story deriding Hasidism and Hasidim, it is told through the correspondence between the beadles of Hasidic courts and contemporary rabbis, and it presents a dark picture of  avaricious frauds and swindlers whose main concern was control over territory and the souls of believers, a goal achieved by beguiling the authorities and attacking all opponents. Perl lends his book a ‘Hasidic’ feel both in its physical design and in its language, presenting a Maskilic version of In Praise of the Ba’al Shem Tov that lays Hasidism bare so that no reader will ever be able to look at that, or any other Hasidic book, in the same way again. In addition to the book’s satiric sting, which would have been enough to bring its readers a dual pleasure, Perl’s hints at contemporary people and places, hidden within anagrams and numerological tricks. With the unraveling of these clues, which also include the use of actual Hasidic sources, the book is a valuable, contemporary view of historical reality. A meticulous reading of the book may therefore open a window on the hidden worlds of Hasidism and the Haskalah at the start of the nineteenth century.


The first volume (Imagined Hasidism) serves as an introduction to the complex satirical writings of Josef Perl of Tarnopol (1773-1839). At the center of the book stands an analysis of the satires, Megaleh Temirin (1819) and Bochen Tzadik (1838), including a systematic treatment of the ‘characters’ in the central works and a discussion of the dozens of manuscripts to be found in the Perl Archive in Jerusalem. Perl’s writings are analyzed here in the fuller context of Hebrew and Yiddish literature in general and Maskilic and Hasidic literature in particular, as well as other polemical writings and governmental records critical of Hasidism. The study thus presents a complex and nuanced picture of the relationship between literature and history, between the anti-Hasidic reports and the more complicated historical reality, and lays the groundwork for further research into the genre of nineteenth-century Maskilic satire.

The second and third volumes (Megaleh Temirin) present for the first time an annotated edition of Megaleh Temirin. It is based on the first edition and the scattered manuscripts and it includes a comparison to its Yiddish translation. The book is accompanied by appendices on its origins and contents, including fundamental treatments of several passages: an explication of the encoded names, the Hasidic sources used by the author, and the variants found in the manuscripts and in the only edition of the book in Yiddish.

The editor of the book, Professor Jonatan Meir, teaches in the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University. He has published several articles on the Haskalah of Eastern Europe, Hasidism, and a number of varied topics in twentieth-century Kabbalah.


Contents

Volume 1  - Critical Edition

Concerning this edition
Key personalities
Sefer Megale Temirin – Critical Edition


Volume 2 - Appendixes:
1. Glossary, Abbreviations, Acronyms
2. Explanation of the Speaking Names
3. Perl’s Hasidic Sources
4. Manuscripts of Sefer Megale Temirin
5. Yiddish Introduction to Sefer Megale Temirin
Bibliographic Abbreviations

-------------------------------
Reviews:
(1) Dan Meron, 2013, ‘Megaleh Temirin’, Kivunim Hadashim 29, 55 pages (Hebrew)
(2) David Assaf, 2014, ‘Hasidim will not Read it but Tear it’, Haaretz, Tarbut ve-Sifrut, p .6 (Hebrew) http://onegshabbat.blogspot.co.il/2014/04/blog-post_18.html
(3) Eliezer Brodt, 2014, 'New book Announcement- Megale Temirin', The Seforim Blog http://seforim.blogspot.co.il/2014/01/new-book-announcement-megale-temirin.html
(4) Matan Hermoni, 2014,  הסבתא המופקרת של הספרות העבריתHaaretz, Sfarim (Hebrew) http://www.haaretz.co.il/.premium-1.2382365
(5) Shinichi Yamamoto, 2015, 山本　伸一, "ヨナタン・メイール編著『想像のハシディズム』", ユダヤ・イスラエル研究　第28号  http://www.waseda.jp/assoc-jsjs/jistudies.html
(6) David Biale and David Assaf,, 2015, 'Revealer Revealed', Jewish Review of Books, pp. 17-21  http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1454/revealer-revealed/
(7) Hillel Halkin, 2015, "Sex, Magic, Bigotry, Corruption- and the First Hebrew Novel', Mosaic Magazine,  http://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2015/05/sex-magic-bigotry-corruption-and-the-first-hebrew-novel/
(8) Tomer Persico, 2015, "Interview", Lula'at haEl Blog, http://tomerpersico.com/2015/08/10/meir_perl/

Critical Days is a late antique compilation of passages from four Hippocratic treatises. This is the first study to consider it seriously as an independent text. I conclude that Critical Days values practical considerations over theory and texts over clinical observation. Critical Days sheds light not only on late antique medicine but also on compilation as a literary activity.

Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary in which multiple and selective perspective of culture can be drawn to examine the relation between culture and power, in which concern lies on practices and institutions, systems classification and ideas or beliefs of particular that are concerned, and connected with routine and social habits or conducts. Diversity of cultural studies explores, colonialism, gender, race and relation between power, that changes the way of thinking about culture, ideology and beliefs. This paper will discuss Stuart Hall’s influence on cultural studies, and to reconstruct the term  “Cultural Studies” and its impact on society, and the role of media in cultural hegemony, contrasting with Marxist theory of Culture, which broadly created impact on contemporary and literary studies of culture. I will take the representation of media and its role in influencing the ideology, through its hegemony to the cultural and cultural classes. In addition this paper will analyze the theoretical assumptions regarding culture and semiology.

Revisions to the Greek NT in NA28 are restricted to the Catholic Epistles—the product of the Münster Institute’s ongoing work on the Editio critica maior. The text of the rest of the NT remains unaltered. The updated manuscript data, however, spans the apparatus of the entire NT and signals a new day for its textual history. The revised correctors of the Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus make the point. The proposed revisions have direct and far-reaching implications for the book’s textual history. Corrections once placed in the fourth through sixth centuries now occupy the seventh. The changes appear slight, even inconsequential—“touch ups” in support of the task of reconstruction. The clarification and re-dating of the correctors, though, represent a material shift with instant repercussions. The inclusion of new and additional witnesses—alongside of and in juxtaposition to the corrections—further portend altered textual alignments and disclose forgotten chapters in the history of textual criticism. The clarity of the new data also facilitates an examination of their limitations and unclutters the landscape for renewed textual research. The stage is set for a reappraisal of the Apocalypse’s textual history.

Ausgehend vom performativen Verständnis von Textualität bei Jacques Derrida (unhörbare, nur lesbare différance; textuelle Spur als "Störung der Ordnung"; Temporalität des Futur antérieur als Ausdruck von Wagnis, Bekenntnis, Antwort und Verantwortung) wird gezeigt, inwiefern Texte nicht einfach "entziffert / decodiert", sondern daraufhin "gelesen" werden müssen, was "in ihnen zum Ausdruck kommt". Die dekonstruktive Aufmerksamkeit auf semantische Brüche sowie auf narrative und grammatische "Inszenierungen" eröffnet in den monotheistischen Schriften der biblischen Tradition wie auch des Qur'an den Horizont zur Wahrnehmung textueller Aussagen als gewagtes Zeugnis von dem, was sich dem beschreibenden Zugriff entzieht. Der Text verantwortet sich so gegenüber dem Leser - und der Leser steht in der Verantwortung, dem Sagen des Textes in seiner nachträglichen Lektüre erneut "Stimme zu verleihen".

An overview of the variety of textual differences that exist between the Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus and the book in modern critical editions, thereby offering a window into the book's early readership. There is also a YouTube link to the lecture version of this paper, which was recently delivered at Samford University for their Holley Hull Lecture Series: https://vimeo.com/878444925/a35492dd8b?share=copy&fbclid=IwAR10Iu7HKuAjjcEcDdxgfT7XKqe2F6W6Bwb1cVHafNO0Yz6g4VhsIhXHMz4

What makes a narrative text a narrative?
This is the central question of the paper which functions as an introduction to the edited volume "Perspectivization on narrativity and narrative perspectivization" (2016, John Benjamins). Based on an overview of narratological and linguistic approaches to narrativity, it argues for a dynamic account that sees narrativity as a specific constellation of perspectivization that dynamically emerges from the interaction between the textual structure and the recipient’s interpretation.

Studiul urmăreşte încadrarea prozei lui Gheorghe Crăciun în două sisteme literare, respectiv în cadrul optzecismului şi ulterior în cel al postmodernismului. Punctul de pornire, teoretic, motivează înţelegerea deja canonică a optzecismului drept fenomen postmodern. Analiza romanelor lui Gheorghe Crăciun, a principalelor teme şi puncte de rezistenţă, precum şi judecata axiologică în contextul literaturii româneşti contemporane completează profilul unui scriitor care îşi percepe stilul ca pe propriul trup.

The subject of the article is Dependency Grammar (DG) as a tool of didactics of Italian as FL for Chinese speaking learners. We will obviously refer to the model developed by Francesco Sabatini for the didactics of Italian grammar started by Tesnière. The analysis
was carried out on texts by learners attending a syntax course at Sichuan International Studies University (SISU) in Chongqing, China, held by the author in 201 5.
  In the first part (§§ 1 -2.4) the subject is treated inside a reasoning upon the principal aspects of the relationship between language and theory and teaching of the language. This part will devote attention to the intricate relationship between system of language and texts.
  The second part (§§ 3-3.5) will focus on the comparison between conceptual and didactic tools of DG and socio-cognitive and cultural characteristics of Chinese-speaking learners.
  In the last section of the third part (§§ 4-5.1 ) a revision of the acquisition sequences of dependency documented in literature is proposed, a revision suggested by the analysis of the written productions of the learners throughout their whole educational path.

Orthographic variation within the manuscripts of the Greek NT is seldom a cause célèbre beyond the ranks of diehard textual critics. Even among these most will concede that orthographic irregularities amount to little more than evidence of scribal incompetency or inconsistency in their spelling practices. To find the same word both spelled correctly and misspelled with a single manuscript b the same scribe is not uncommon. It approaches the  norm. The critical editions of our Greek NTs have therefore opted, on good grounds, to exclude textual variants displaying non-standardized spelling. To include them would make it impossible for anyone to use the critical apparatuses in a meaningful way. The deluge of senseless errors would drown out variants of demonstrable textual significance.

The publication of Josef Schmid's landmark work on the textual history of the Apocalypse seemingly established the Andreas Text Type as a fourth-century product. The primary evidence for Schmid's claim came from the fourth-century corrections of the Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus, corrections which bore a close resemblance to the Andreas text of the Apocalypse. Schmid's reconstruction, however, is flawed. The fourth-century corrections he identified are actually from the seventh-century. The data supporting a fourth-century Andreas text type does not exist. Schmid's widely influential error appears to have been based on a misreading of Milne and Skeat's "Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus."

A short article on the origin and development of the longer Trinitarian text of 1 John 5:7-8 as found in the Textus Receptus. The typos that are present in this draft will be corrected before the final version is submitted for publication. These include: Lachman > Lachmann; 1881 > 1831; Montifortianus > Montfortianus; [Ayuso] Ionneum > Ioanneum; [Bludau 1903-1] Bibeldruchen > Bibeldrucken; [Bludau 1919-1] den Glaubensbekenntnis > dem Glaubensbekenntnis; [Fischer] pseudo-autustinischen > pseudo-augustinischen; obiectarum. > obiectarum.’; [Rivière] es trois > des trois. Thanks to Jeff Cate, Peter Gurry, and especially Jan Krans for alerting me to these when it was originally posted on academia in 2015. The data of this DRAFT will also fully updated and footnoted in the 2020 peer-reviewed version in "Early Christianity."

Derrida powerfully critiques a certain philosophical view of language—logocentrism—and the ideal of translation it implies. According to this ideal, the function of language is to express meaning while the task of translation is to find an equivalent expression for this meaning in the target language.

Derrida’s critique consists, first, in showing that logocentrism entails thinking of meaning as radically transcendent to language and, secondly, that such transcendental meanings are impossible. Meaning is necessarily language-like; therefore it cannot anchor language, nor assure the possibility of successful linguistic equivalence between languages. The philosopher John Searle has argued that if we accept Derrida’s claim about meaning, we must also accept the nonsensical view that language is a meaningless game of reference between signifiers without resolution.

According to Derrida, this interpretation of the claim that meaning is textual assumes what it ought to contest: the absolute difference between signifier and the signified. In fact, the signified element is not “outside” the text, depending on language users to give and restore meaning—it is inscribed on the “inside.” Derrida argues that language is “parasitically” structured—or iterable, one set of differential elements encode another, texts are nested in other texts. The difference between signifier and signified, then, is something like the difference between negative and positive space, latent and manifest content, or again, as Derrida suggests between a parasite and host. “Meaning” is the inter-modal effect of differences resonating in other differences.

Deconstructively speaking, translation is not a derivative linguistic practice with respect to establishing meaning but essential and primary. Indeed, texts are defined by their capacity to “translate” heterogeneous texts. More narrowly, deconstructive theories of translation help us to see how the ideal of inter-linguistic equivalence masks the productive role of translation and the power of translational practices to enrich and shape language.

Megaleh Temirin (Revealer of Secrets), first published in Vienna in 1819, is one of the sharpest and wittiest pieces of Jewish literature written in the first half of the nineteenth century, and is perhaps the most important piece of Hebrew prose composed before the stories of Mendele Mocher Seforim. A sly and complex story deriding Hasidism and Hasidim, it is told through the correspondence between the beadles of Hasidic courts and contemporary rabbis, and it presents a dark picture of  avaricious frauds and swindlers whose main concern was control over territory and the souls of believers, a goal achieved by beguiling the authorities and attacking all opponents. Perl lends his book a ‘Hasidic’ feel both in its physical design and in its language, presenting a Maskilic version of In Praise of the Ba’al Shem Tov that lays Hasidism bare so that no reader will ever be able to look at that, or any other Hasidic book, in the same way again. In addition to the book’s satiric sting, which would have been enough to bring its readers a dual pleasure, Perl’s hints at contemporary people and places, hidden within anagrams and numerological tricks. With the unraveling of these clues, which also include the use of actual Hasidic sources, the book is a valuable, contemporary view of historical reality. A meticulous reading of the book may therefore open a window on the hidden worlds of Hasidism and the Haskalah at the start of the nineteenth century.

The first volume (Imagined Hasidism) serves as an introduction to the complex satirical writings of Josef Perl of Tarnopol (1773-1839). At the center of the book stands an analysis of the satires, Megaleh Temirin (1819) and Bochen Tzadik (1838), including a systematic treatment of the ‘characters’ in the central works and a discussion of the dozens of manuscripts to be found in the Perl Archive in Jerusalem. Perl’s writings are analyzed here in the fuller context of Hebrew and Yiddish literature in general and Maskilic and Hasidic literature in particular, as well as other polemical writings and governmental records critical of Hasidism. The study thus presents a complex and nuanced picture of the relationship between literature and history, between the anti-Hasidic reports and the more complicated historical reality, and lays the groundwork for further research into the genre of nineteenth-century Maskilic satire.

The second and third volumes (Megaleh Temirin) present for the first time an annotated edition of Megaleh Temirin. It is based on the first edition and the scattered manuscripts and it includes a comparison to its Yiddish translation. The book is accompanied by appendices on its origins and contents, including fundamental treatments of several passages: an explication of the encoded names, the Hasidic sources used by the author, and the variants found in the manuscripts and in the only edition of the book in Yiddish.

The editor of the book, Professor Jonatan Meir, teaches in the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University. He has published several articles on the Haskalah of Eastern Europe, Hasidism, and a number of varied topics in twentieth-century Kabbalah.



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Contents


Introduction                                                                                     
Scholarship on the anti-Hasidic writings of Josef Perl • Hasidic hagiography and the emergence of satire • Two-fold reading of Perl’s writings and the gematriyot • Satire, literature, and history • ‘Holy Books’ and subversive books

Chapter 1: Josef Perl, Rabbi Nathan of Nemirov, and the ‘Holy Books’
Prayer of the fall of Hasidism and the expungement of their books • Sefer Shivhe ha-Besht and the critique of hagiography • Sefer Sipurey Ma‘asiyot and the parodic response to it • Rabbi Nathan of Nemirov, ‘heretical books’ and the ‘Holy Books’ • In praise of the true Tsaddikim • ‘Laughter of the heretics’: testimonies about the polemics against Sefer Shivhe ha-Besht • ‘Holy Books’, ‘sacredness of hagiography’, and parodies of hagiography • Appendix: Parodic manuscript about an opponent of the ‘Holy Books’ who was reborn as a horse

Chapter 2: Speaking Names in Sefer Megale Temirin                             
Time of the composition of Megale Temirin, censorship, and a note on the Buch • Hasidic books and the emergence of parody • Structure of Sefer Megale Temirin • The Introduction to Sefer Megale Temirin • Main Hasidic courts • The court in Żołyń (Łożne) and the peregrinations of the Buch • The court of Dishpal (Międzyboż), moneyboxes of the Besht, the holy relics • The court in Aklo (Olika) and the ritualized reading of Sefer Shivhe ha-Besht • Function of the footnotes and the parodic hagiography • History of the rabbis – clandestine opponents of Hasidism • The Besht in Tarnopol • Rabbi Meir Jacob of Zasław and the letters from Galicja  • Zaddikim in Galicja • Ciphered stories • ‘Holy Places’: reincarnations of a praise from Sefer Shivhe ha-Besht • The revelation of the Buch and the death of the secretary • ‘Gang of criminals’: another death and an escape to the Land of Israel • The End: Ovadia Ben Petahia and the rabbi of Opatów

Chapter 3: Joseph Perl, Hirsh of Zydaczów, and the Polemics of Gematriyot
Reb Zevi Hirsh of Zydaczów and Hasidism in Galicja • Maskilic opposition to the Zydaczówer • Letters concealed in Sefer Megale Temirin • A manuscript about the misdeeds of the Hasidim • Books, education, and a note on Reb Nathan of Nemirov • Zydaczówer’s ban on the Maskilim and the first Gematria • Parodic letter of Perl and the second Gematria • About the parodic letter and the jumble of gematriyot • Denunciation and expulsions of R Zevi Hirsh • ‘Father of impurity’: Joseph Perl and the writings of the rabbi of Komarno • Final note • Appendix: Parodic letter against the Zydaczówer

Chapter 4: Speaking Names in the Book of Sefer Bohen Zaddik               
The manuscript of Sefer Bohen Zaddik and the difficulties with its publication • Structure of the book • In search for the true Zaddik and the rabbi of Opatów • Travels of Ovadia Ben Petahia between the towns of Galicja • Kromcza Ruska (Zaleszczyki) or the entrance to Galicja • ‘Briks’ (Tarnopol): Rabbi Jehoshua Heschel Babad and the school • ‘Bicik’ (Lemberg) Rabbi Jacob Orenstein and a ban on the Maskilim • ‘Abdera’ (Brody) Rabbi Ephraim Zalman Margaliot and Sefer ha-Zoref • The explanation of the names of the rabbis • Utopia and dystopia • The hidden butcher and his kabbalistic writings • The discovery of the colonies • The image of the disciples of the Gaon and the ‘true Hasid’ • ‘The solution for the East’ or heterotopia •  The will to flee and the emissary

Chapter 5: The Imaginary Influence of Sefer Megale Temirin                     
The myth about the success of the book • Pamphlet Megale Sod • The manuscript about the misdeeds of the Hasidim • Dialogues about Sefer Megale Temirin • For whom Sefer Megale Temirin was intended and who read it • Note concerning Sefer Megale Temirin in Yiddish • Influence real and imagined • Was Sefer Shivhe ha-Besht written by a parodist? • Temerl Bergson and Sefer Megale Temirin • Writ of defense of Hasidism • Sefer Megale Temirin and the Hebrew literature • Appendix: writ of defense of Joseph Judah Lob Sossnitz

Afterword: Note on the Anti-Hasidic Outlook                                       

Bibliographic Abbreviations   

Reviews:
(1) Dan Meron, 2013, ‘Megaleh Temirin’, Kivunim Hadashim 29, 55 pages (Hebrew)
(2) David Assaf, 2014, ‘Hasidim will not Read it but Tear it’, Haaretz, Tarbut ve-Sifrut, p .6 (Hebrew) http://onegshabbat.blogspot.co.il/2014/04/blog-post_18.html
(3) Eliezer Brodt, 2014, 'New book Announcement- Megale Temirin', The Seforim Blog http://seforim.blogspot.co.il/2014/01/new-book-announcement-megale-temirin.html
(4) Matan Hermoni, 2014,  הסבתא המופקרת של הספרות העבריתHaaretz, Sfarim (Hebrew) http://www.haaretz.co.il/.premium-1.2382365
(5) Shinichi Yamamoto, 2015, 山本　伸一, "ヨナタン・メイール編著『想像のハシディズム』", ユダヤ・イスラエル研究　第28号  http://www.waseda.jp/assoc-jsjs/jistudies.html
(6) David Biale and David Assaf,, 2015, 'Revealer Revealed', Jewish Review of Books, pp. 17-21  http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1454/revealer-revealed/
(7) Hillel Halkin, 2015, "Sex, Magic, Bigotry, Corruption- and the First Hebrew Novel', Mosaic Magazine,  http://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2015/05/sex-magic-bigotry-corruption-and-the-first-hebrew-novel/
(8) Tomer Persico, 2015, "Interview", Lula'at haEl http://tomerpersico.com/2015/08/10/meir_perl/
(9) Ariel Evan Mayse, 'Review', Jewish History (2015)ת  http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10835-015-9245-2
(10) Review - Gal-Ed

Despite the increasing interest in textual structure and the specific use of linguistic means in narratives, the concept of Narration has so far not been an issue of theoretical concern within linguistics and has been rather used than defined or problematized. In this respect, the chapter aims at a closer look at the concept of Narration itself. Starting point is the basic assumption that the analysis of Free Indirect Discourse (FID) – a phenomenon which seems to be restricted to Narration only – will offer insights with respect to characteristics of the underlying narrative structure when read “against the grain”. In this regard, the alignment of formal approaches of context shift and cognitive approaches of perspectivization leads to the conclusion that the narratological differentiation between narrator and character can be seen as a projection of the grammatical differentiation between speaker vs. observer, which is reflected on the different linguistic levels in a recursive manner. In consequence, it is argued that it is the complex unfolding of different layers of discourse that allows for poly-perspectival resp. metarepresentational effects on the textual macro-structure and hence constitutes a core characteristic of Narration. Against this background, the proposed model is not only able to align micro- and macro-structural accounts of Narration, but also allows for a new perspective on the specific use of grammatical means in narrative discourse mode. In this respect, it will become clear that Narration does indeed matter for linguistics.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events mirrors the scholarly praxis of the common law, encoding a doctrine of virtue from diligent study. This doctrine promotes critical literacy as a means of achieving justice, linking with the textual adjudication of state power found in the archive and practice of the common law. The doctrine also requires at the same time that this literacy be inhabited by its readers. In its translation to a Netflix series, this doctrine is misinterpreted: the TV series does not inculcate the cinematic or televisual literacy required by its form, but presents an appearance of bookish study and scholarly endeavour in lieu of its actual undertaking. Within a broader context of the marketisation of higher education-including legal education-in which space for the undertaking of scholarly endeavour is increasingly compressed, the misinterpretation of such a valuable doctrine should not pass without concern.

RESUMEN. En este artículo abordamos la evaluación de textos especializados, con fines docentes, mediante un estudio experimental basado en los rasgos de textualidad que hacen que el texto resulte coherente para sus lectores. Se comprueba, empíricamente, que existe una correlación positiva entre la adecuación del texto a los rasgos de textualidad y su comprensión por parte de los alumnos de ingeniería de Minas que han formado el grupo experimental. Queda patente cómo textos que en un primer análisis se pudiera afirmar que cumplen los criterios de textualidad, aplicados a otro contexto situacional distinto de aquel para el que fueron escritos, pueden no cumplir con los mismos criterios, resultando inadecuados o no totalmente inteligibles. Se constata que la coherencia textual no depende exclusivamente de factores intratextuales, sino también de aquellos otros extratextuales relacionados con la comunidad receptora. PALABRAS CLAVE. Coherencia textual. Textualidad. Materiales de lectura para el IPA. Lingûística del texto. Didáctica del texto. ABSTRACT. This article deals with the evaluation of specialised texts for eduactional purposes. It reports on an experimental study based on those textuality feactures which make a text coherent to the readers. It is empirically tested that there exists a positive correlation between textuality features of a given text and its reading comprehension by engineering students participating in the experimental study. It is shown how texts, that initially comply with textuality features, taken into a different context from that for which they were written, may become inadequate or even non understandable. It becomes evident that textual coherence does not depend exclusively on intratextual elements but on those extratextual ones related to the receiving community as well.