The first two volumes of a four-volume study, destined surely to become the standard work in its field. Literary criticism in the broadest sense is the book's subject, but the author tries to avoid purely philosophical aesthetics at one extreme--Kant is given 3 pages to Schiller's 24--as well as unsubstantiated judgments of taste at the other. Since he tries to see the past as bearing upon and productive of the literary theory of the present, the book might be said (...) to be more an account of the sources and growth of contemporary thinking about literature and criticism than a "history" in the usual sense. Professor Wellek has a rich store of scholarly knowledge at his disposal, and his interpretive generalizations are well supported by references and texts; yet the argument moves easily and clearly. A fine piece of creative scholarship.--V. C. C. (shrink)

Das Heilige hat Konjunktur: Im Zuge des religious turn der Kulturwissenschaften erscheint es nicht mehr als Gegensatz zu einer säkularisierten Moderne, sondern als eines ihrer konstitutiven Momente. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes untersuchen Denkfiguren des Sakralen im 20. Jahrhundert - von Nietzsches Diagnose des ”Todes Gottes“ über geschichtsphilosophische Aneignungen jüdisch-christlicher Glaubensinhalte bis hin zu sprachphilosophischen Reflexionen über das Heilige. Sie arbeiten heraus, wie sich die ästhetische Moderne in Auseinandersetzung mit dem Traditionsbestand sakraler Erfahrungen bildet.

Investigating experimental and avant-garde works of art as literature, Gilbert probes what art can't see about the literary and what literature has overlooked in the arts.

The 'death of man', the 'end of history' and even philosophy are strong and troubling currents running through contemporary debates. Yet since Nietzsche's heralding of the 'death of god', philosophy has been unable to explain the question of finitude. Very Little...Almost Nothing goes to the heart of this problem through an exploration of Blanchot's theory of literature, Stanley Cavell's interpretations of romanticism and the importance of death in the work of Samuel Beckett. Simon Critchley links these themes to the (...) philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas to present a powerful new picture of how we must approach the importance of death in philosophy. A compelling reading of the convergence of literature and philosophy, Very Little...Almost Nothing opens up new ways of understanding finitude, modernity and the nature of the imagination. (shrink)

Among the most striking aspects of modern literature—expecially of modern German literature—are its frequent references to a notion called ‘reality’. The philosophical question this raises, ‘What is reality?’, is to one side of this enquiry, and so is the question whether or not this is a sensible question: this essay is intended as a contribution not to philosophy but to its connections with literary history and criticism. My present purpose, which determines my procedure, is to outline (...) the various closely related meanings of the word ‘Wirklichkeit’ throughout its very long history; to describe the polarization of meanings which occurred in the course of the nineteenth century, and Nietzsche's part in making the new polarity available to his literary heirs; to illustrate the way German literature became involved in this process in the first decade of our century; and, finally, to point to some of its political implications. My argument is part of a much larger topic, one that is not confined either to the German-speaking countries or indeed to literature. The topic, the ideologizing of ‘ reality ’, is relevant to all modern cultures. The present paper offers no more than a sketch of this development in one cultural area of our world. (shrink)

The interactions between literature and science and between literature and psychoanalysis have been among the most thriving areas for interdisciplinary study in recent years. Work in these 'open fields' has taught us to recognize the interdependence of different cultures of knowledge and experience, revealing the multiple ways in which science, literature, and psychoanalysis have been mutually enabling and defining, as well as corrective and contestatory of each other. Inspired by Gillian Beer's path-breaking work on literature and science, this volume presents (...) fourteen new essays by leading American and British writers. They focus on the evolutionary sciences in the nineteeth-century; the early years of psychoanalysis, from Freud to Ella Freeman Sharpe; and the modern development of the physical sciences. Drawing on recent debates within the history of science, psychoanalytic literary criticism, intellectual history, and gender studies, the volume makes a major contribution to our understanding of the formation of knowledge. Among its recurrent themes are: curiosity and epistemology; 'growth', 'maturity', and 'coming of age' as structuring metaphors ; taxonomy; sleep and dreaming and elusive knowledge; the physiology of truth; and the gender politics of scientific theory and practice. The essays also reflect Beer's extensive influence as a literary critic, with close readings of works by Charlotte Brontë, Alfred Lord Tennyson, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, H. G. Wells, Edith Ayrton Zangwill, Charlotte Haldane, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, and Karin Boye. (shrink)

How does modern writing in French grapple with the present absence and absent presence of lost loved ones? How might it challenge and critique the relegation of certain deaths to the realm of the unmournable? What might this reveal about the role of the literary in the French and francophone world and shifting conceptions of the nation state? Essays from the Revolution to the present day explore these questions from a variety of perspectives, bringing out the ways in which (...) mourning blurs the boundaries between the personal and the historical, the aesthetic and the ethical, the self and the other, and ultimately reasserting its truly critical resonance as a concept. (shrink)

Part of the greatness of great literature consists in the profound, philosophic ideas the works contain. These ideas may not be unknown to philosophy but, when rendered in literary form, they gain an aesthetic force often lacking in the philosophic treatise with its careful train of reasoning.In this insightful study, Burton Porter explores the philosophic content of some outstanding literary works, analyzing and evaluating the ideas that drive the narrative.Porter first examines the concept of free will and determinism in Melville's (...) Moby Dick, placing the quest for the white whale within the context of foreordination, hubris, prophecy, and defiance of divine power. Connections are also drawn to Euripides' Medea and Shakespeare's King Lear as well as the Old Testament.The good and the right are traced in Anouilh's Antigone and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, showing the philosophic antagonisms in the literature and in the conflicted minds of the authors.Voltaire' Candide and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov are then explored insofar as they express the problem of evil--the tension between human suffering on earth and belief in a benevolent, wise, almighty God.Finally, the nature of the self is investigated in Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge and Kafka's The Metamorphosis, focusing on identity and the mind-body problem.Porter makes philosophy come alive by showing its expression in art and revealing the depth of ideas that make literature compelling.Burton Porter (Springfield, MA) is currently professor of philosophy at Western New England College and a visiting professor of philosophy at Mt. Holyoke College. He is the author or editor of numerous books including Philosophy Through Fiction and Film, The Voice of Reason, and Reasons For Living. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Latin Literature. A HistoryRichard F. ThomasGian Biagio Conte. Latin Literature. A History. Translated by Joseph B. Solodow. Revised by Don Fowler and Glenn W. Most. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. xxxiii 1 827 pp. $65.00.The work under review is a translation of Gian Biagio Conte’s 1987 book Letteratura latina; Manuale storico dalle origini alla fine dell’ impero, a book whose title page acknowledged (...) the collaboration of Alessandro Barchiesi, Emanuele Narducci, Giovanni Polara, Giuliano Ranucci, and Gianpiero Rosati. In the translation these scholars have been moved into C.’s “Acknowledgements,” making room for the new group on the title page, as given above. Of these, Don Fowler provided a bibliography and “in a sense has helped to direct the whole editorial enterprise,” while Glenn Most (like Solodow, one of C.’s English translators), rewrote sections on reception. Elaine Fantham introduces the work with an encomiastic “blurb” and general appreciation of the scholarship of C. C.’s own preface adds to the “gang of five” original collaborators a new group of three (Mario Labate, Alessandro Schiesaro, Rolando Ferri) who “have freely given me the support of their attentive and considerate criticism.” One recent reviewer talks of “the thorough control of the material by the single mind of the original author” (Robert P. Sonkowsky, The Key Reporter 61.3 [1996] 13), as does another for whom “the book is the production of a single mind” (J. Griffin, “The Long Latin Line,” review in New York Review of Books [Oct. 6, 1994] 43); it therefore seems only right to register my dissent from such a judgment.Much in Latin studies right now seems to involve a pack mentality: teams toil away for their grex, writing encomiastic and disingenuously uncritical reviews, or footnotes acknowledging the help of other teammates, attending conferences, organizing group-solidifying essay collections, even new series and manifestoes promising a “New Latin”—a term that seems to have no particular theoretical or intellectual content, nor a purpose other than to appeal vaguely for some sort of postmodernist approval. Barbara F. McManus’ summary of a paper on the uses of e-mail for mobilizing interest groups, delivered at a conference on computers and the classics by the very editor of the book under review, Don Fowler (“The Scroll and the Screen: Computers and Classical Literary Criticism”), gives a clear account of procedure and techniques in use:Electronic communication allows small groups with strongly related interests to form, cohere, and influence the larger disciplinary community; because such groups start with fundamental agreement on intellectual frameworks and approaches, they can develop ideas rapidly and in depth.(2/8/97 )What happens when other, less organized and more individual, insights fail to coincide with the “fundamental agreement” of the “group,” and how, we might wonder, will such individualism hold up in the face of this mission to “influence the larger disciplinary community”? [End Page 471]Be all this as it may and whatever the realities of authorship, the achievement of Gian Biagio Conte’s volume is a signal one. Latin Literature is a work of considerable value, a work which I have already used with success in teaching the history of Latin literature. Whatever the state of its authorship, I would now move to a review of some of its merits, which are considerable, and in which C. himself is obviously a participant throughout. The book begins with the origins of Latin literature and extends to Bede and the national literatures that were to transmit Latin literature into the vernaculars, that would in turn connect the essential themes and fundamental concerns of classical Latin literature to the cognate and evolving experiences of later antiquity and the middle ages. The original authors worked to a formulaic scheme: generally “Life,” “Works,” some treatment of cultural/political/social context, “Literary Success” (for the Italian “Fortuna”—I would have preferred “Reception”), and bibliography. This latter, again by Fowler, is developed from the Italian version and is generally made more international, often with the result that it sits somewhat uneasily with the original articles, which are largely unchanged, and whose authors presumably made... (shrink)

Etude du phénomène du kitsch à travers les littératures et cultures d'Europe, d'Amérique du Nord et du Sud et du Japon.

Essays over onder meer lichtheid en zwaarte in de literatuur.

The French philosopher Jacques Rancière has influenced disciplines from history and philosophy to political theory, literature, art history, and film studies. His research into nineteenth-century workers’ archives, reflections on political equality, critique of the traditional division between intellectual and manual labor, and analysis of the place of literature, film, and art in modern society have all constituted major contributions to contemporary thought. In this collection, leading scholars in the fields of philosophy, literary theory, and cultural criticism (...) engage Rancière’s work, illuminating its originality, breadth, and rigor, as well as its place in current debates. They also explore the relationships between Rancière and the various authors and artists he has analyzed, ranging from Plato and Aristotle to Flaubert, Rossellini, Auerbach, Bourdieu, and Deleuze. The contributors to this collection do not simply elucidate Rancière’s project; they also critically respond to it from their own perspectives. They consider the theorist’s engagement with the writing of history, with institutional and narrative constructions of time, and with the ways that individuals and communities can disturb or reconfigure what he has called the “distribution of the sensible.” They examine his unique conception of politics as the disruption of the established distribution of bodies and roles in the social order, and they elucidate his novel account of the relationship between aesthetics and politics by exploring his astute analyses of literature and the visual arts. In the collection’s final essay, Rancière addresses some of the questions raised by the other contributors and returns to his early work to provide a retrospective account of the fundamental stakes of his project. _Contributors_. Alain Badiou, Étienne Balibar, Bruno Bosteels, Yves Citton, Tom Conley, Solange Guénoun, Peter Hallward, Todd May, Eric Méchoulan, Giuseppina Mecchia, Jean-Luc Nancy, Andrew Parker, Jacques Rancière, Gabriel Rockhill, Kristin Ross, James Swenson, Rajeshwari Vallury, Philip Watts. (shrink)

Friedman continues an old and longstanding love: a poetics of dialogue with modern literature. Such a poetics sees literature and its interpretation in terms of what philosopher Martin Buber calls "meeting" or "the between." Friedman's powerful study boldly asserts that meaning can be reached through an engagement with classic works of world literature to arrive at a more powerful and purposeful affirmation while holding the tension with what is negative.

本书系作者一系列关于后现代理论衰落后新出现的批评流派的论文集。其内容和体例分为五编。第一编的两章分别对九十年代以来国际学术界关于后现代主义问题的讨论作出总结性的评述;第二编“后殖民主义”应当说是本书的 重点,在首先对后殖民理论的源起以及后殖民地文学的概况作一“鸟瞰式”的评价。.

Through essays, Mount Mary College professors from various disciplines analyze several pieces of literature from a variety of genres and authors to show how ...

This cutting-edge collection of essays showcases the work of some of the most influential theorists of the past thirty years as they grapple with the question of how literature should be treated in contemporary theory. The contributors challenge trends that have recently dominated the field--especially those that emphasize social and political issues over close reading and other analytic methods traditionally associated with literary criticism. Written especially for this collection, these essays argue for the importance of aesthetics, poetics, and aesthetic (...) theory as they present new and stimulating perspectives on the directions which theory and criticism will take in the future. In addition to providing a selection of distinguished critics writing at their best, this collection is valuable because it represents a variety of fields and perspectives that are not usually found together in the same volume. Michael Clark's introduction provides a concise, cogent history of major developments and trends in literary theory from World War II to the present, making the entire volume essential reading for students and scholars of literature, literary theory, and philosophy. (shrink)

First published in 1933. The purpose of this work was to bridge a gap in English philosophical literature by completing the elaborate history of Bosanquet and to stimulate and enrich the whole study of aesthetics by means of his personal destructive and constructive criticism. This title will be of interest to students of philosophy.

First published in 1933. The purpose of this work was to bridge a gap in English philosophical literature by completing the elaborate history of Bosanquet and to stimulate and enrich the whole study of aesthetics by means of his personal destructive and constructive criticism. This title will be of interest to students of philosophy.

Dieses Buch konzipiert Virtualität in Anlehnung an Gilles Deleuze nicht im Gegensatz zu Realität, sondern zu Aktualität und verknüpft dieses Verhältnis mit den Begriffen von Medium und Form bei Niklas Luhmann. Sand fungiert dann als metaphorisches Modell für Virtualität, da er besonders 'medial', d. h. offen für die Bildung und Auflösung von Formen ist. Diese Prozesse werden inkl. ihrer Implikationen in Literatur, Theorie und Kunst untersucht.

Can subjective taste regulate social norms or political practices? This book argues that from the late seventeenth century to the present national cultures have sought to regulate the democratic subject through the academic form of arguments about the proper relations of aesthetics to ethics and politics. In so doing it offers a radical reconsideration of the history of modernity, tracing the emergence of criticism as a socio-cultural practice across all the major European nations, and drawing on an extensive (...) range of European literature and philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reflections on Beardsley's AestheticsProblems in the Philosophy of CriticismDonald Crawford (bio)Monroe Beardsley's Aesthetics was published the year I was a junior philosophy major at the University of California, Berkeley, and by the end of that academic year, I had completed semester courses in the history of ancient as well as modern philosophy, logic, ethics, and the philosophy of religion. The requirements remaining for me in philosophy in (...) my senior year were a course in either epistemology or metaphysics, plus five elective philosophy courses. I had fairly developed interests in literature, especially poetry, classical music, film, and the visual arts, so it seemed natural for me to select a course in aesthetics as one of my remaining electives. Nonetheless, I had no idea what aesthetics was. When I looked up the word in the dictionary, I found the following definition: "The branch of philosophy dealing with beauty or the beautiful, especially in the fine arts." Even today, the Berkeley philosophy course catalog entry for aesthetics simply says, as it did then, "Aesthetics: Visual arts/literature and music. Form, expression, representation, style; interpretation and evaluation."Interpretation and evaluation sounded worth pursuing. At that time I had no doubt that almost any music by Bach was better than that by Offenbach, that Van Gogh's Starry Night was in a different class than Norman Rockwell's covers for the Saturday Evening Post, or that Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957) was a far better film than Attack of the Crab Monsters of the same year. And I was fully convinced that some poems lent themselves to more interesting and profound readings—that is, interpretations—than others and therefore were better poems. So a course that dealt with the interpretation and evaluation of the visual arts, literature, and music was enticing. The class lectures were rather dull, however, and I began to have regrets for enrolling. Besides, the required text was brand new and had several drawbacks: there were no used copies available so it was expensive ($7.50!), and its 591 pages were bound in hardback and heavy. [End Page 19]Yes, the text was Beardsley's Aesthetics, and my now well-worn copy is complete with my original revealing and indelible underlines that remind me of my naiveté. I recall being immediately struck by the book's epigraph—a quotation from David Hume: "I am uneasy to think I approve of one object, and disapprove of another; call one thing beautiful, and another deform'd; decide concerning truth and falsehood, reason and folly, without knowing upon what principles I proceed." This encouraged me to think that this book and course would teach me the principles that underlay my unreasoned critical comparative evaluations of poems, films, and other works of art. Was this false optimism? After glancing at the table of contents, I quickly turned to chapter 10, "Critical Evaluation," where I read on page 454: "The problems to which we now come have been put off as long as possible in the hope that a circumspect approach would make them more vulnerable." I wasn't quite sure what that meant ("vulnerable" to what?), but it seemed to imply that it was necessary to start at the beginning of the book.1 So I did just that. To my delight, almost immediately, on page 3, Beardsley provided his definition of "aesthetics," saying: "[A]esthetics consists of those principles that are required for clarifying and confirming critical statements. It can be thought of, then, as the philosophy of criticism, or metacriticism" (3-4; emphasis in the original). Unless by "critical statement" Beardsley meant judgments of beauty, this didn't really correspond with either Webster's definition or the course description of aesthetics. Beardsley's concept of a critical statement was much broader than that in common use today, and it reflected the attitude of the founders of the American Society for Aesthetics, who named their journal the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (JAAC). Beardsley said he would be "using the term 'critical statement,' very broadly, to refer to any statement about a work of art" (3) and that a critical statement "need not be a value judgment at... (shrink)

„Książka dr Marzenny Cyzman stanowi na gruncie literaturoznawstwa współczesnego niezwykle cenne opracowanie problematyki badawczej, skupionej wokół teorii nazw własnych w dziele literackim. Choć autorka podejmuje głównie refleksję teoretyczną, nie brak w jej pracy znakomitej prezentacji materiału analitycznego w postaci przywoływanych przykładów artystycznej funkcjonalizacji nazw własnych w konkretnych utworach literackich". Z recenzji wydawniczej prof. Joanny Ślósarskiej, Katedra Teorii Literatury, Uniwersytet Łódzki „Praca dr Marzenny Cyzman należy do tego nurtu teorii literatury, który rozwija się w bliskim związku z filozofią. Dlatego sądzę, że (...) pracą będą zainteresowani nie tylko teoretycy literatury czy językoznawcy, ale i filozofowie, szczególnie zajmujący się filozofią języka i ontologią. Praca Pani dr Cyzman dostarcza bowiem ciekawej ontologicznie koncepcji antroponimów i to nie tylko z punktu widzenia ontologii dzieła literackiego, ale i samej ontologii, gdyż to w ontologii rozstrzyga się kwestie związane z istnieniem i naturą przedmiotów intencjonalnych, w tym fikcyjnych". Z recenzji wydawniczej prof. Urszuli Żegleń, Instytut Filozofii, Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950, Volume 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European Criticism, 1900–1950Eva L. CorredorA History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950, Volume 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European Criticism, 1900–1950, by René Wellek; xvii & 458 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991, $42.50.The seventh volume of René Wellek’s history of modern criticism may well be (...) the most interesting of his eight-volume monumental oeuvre. Devoted to German, Russian, and Eastern European criticism between 1900 and 1950, it exemplifies most strikingly Wellek’s personal battles with critics who were roughly his contemporaries and closest to his own European background. “I should like to think of my History as ‘elucidatory,’ as not ‘argumentative’ or ‘polemical’” (v, xxi), Wellek writes, but he does not shrink from expressing his own critical perspective usually in a gentlemanly humorous or ironical, but occasionally also quite harsh and stubborn fashion. He insists on the importance of individual value judgments in critical analysis, particularly when they are his own: “I do not believe that... my views and those of my contemporaries will be replaced by completely different assumptions” (“Reflections on my History,” The Attack on Literature, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982, p. 145).Since Wellek rejects the idea of a historical determinism and thinks that “an evolutionary history of criticism must fail” (The Attack, p. 144), he provides less a history than a collection of essays in which he offers succinct appraisals of writers, thinkers and critics both as individuals and as participants in the broader literary movements of the century. He presents “portraits” (p. xv), which he also calls “doxographies” (The Attack, p. 143), containing a vast amount of quotations carefully selected to support the authority of his own views or to let them speak for themselves when he would rather not comment.More than any previous work, this volume embodies Wellek’s will and determination to carry on against all odds even when he can no longer do so on his own. An accident in 1986 left him bedridden and dependent on students and secretaries to help him with his research and writing. He was able to draw on a wealth of previously published essays, some of which had been written more than three decades ago. There are some arguable inaccuracies and shortcomings (his canon includes obscure writers but not Adorno and [End Page 259] again no women writers), and problems with his bibliographies and references. Yet Wellek’s unique talent to assemble in one volume half a century of critical commentary on the literatures of half a dozen different cultures appears intact. So do his well-known critical positions.Among his most interesting essays are those on Spitzer, Auerbach, Ingarden, Bakhtin, and Benjamin, highly erudite men in whose company Wellek enjoys moving. On the other hand, some extraordinarily fertile minds and their enormous influence on the post-1950 critical discourse are often quickly dismissed or treated with unnecessary condescension. Young Roman Jakobson “should be forgotten” (p. 372). Freud’s psychoanalysis “seems forced and mistaken” (p. 79). Heidegger “often ascribes a meaning which seems to me absent in the text itself” (p. 89). Wellek’s low tolerance of any but his own interpretation of Dostoevsky appears repeatedly in this volume: Thomas Mann’s views are called “strange” and “distorted” (p. 12), Freud’s “deeply flawed” (p. 79), Bakhtin’s “simply wrong” (p. 357), and Lukács’s “simply... [those] of Communism” (p. 232). Wellek’s anti-historicism is dramatized in essays on Auerbach and his “historical perspectivism” (p. 132), vs. Spitzer who “always saw that there is a point at which historicism must fail” (p. 144). The vacuum of German criticism during the Nazi period is hauntingly demonstrated. The essays on Walter Benjamin, Bertholt Brecht, and in particular György Lukács reveal best Wellek’s notorious feuds with Marxists. Wellek indulges in a sarcastic critique of the Marxist Lukács’s “doctrinaire limitations” (p. 245) and attempts, wrongfully, to “prove” the Hungarian philosopher’s “exaltation of Socialist Realism” (p. 244). When in the mid-eighties and after much encouragement Wellek finally writes an essay on the early Lukács, he... (shrink)

Dār al-Funūn Theology founded in 1924 was a modern educational institution which adopted both traditional and modern approach to Islamic Sciences. The changes in the field of hadīth during the process of transition to the university caused a change in the definitions and the titles of the courses such as from hadīth al-sharīf and usul al-hadīth to hadīth and the history of hadīth and the time allocated to each course was gradually reduced. The preparation of the texts (...) by the teachers in the hadith history courses and their content will answer the question of whether there is a transformation in the field of hadīth in the early years of the Republic of Turkey. As a matter of fact, Izmirli İsmāʿīl Ḥaqqī’s History of Ḥadīth and Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ Arapkīrli’s al-Buġya al-Hasîs fī Tārīh al-Hadīth which were written in this period, pioneered the studies based on the field of the history of hadīth in Turkish hadīth literature. In addition, these works are the main source in understanding the period. In this study, the mentioned works will be textually analysed through the induction method. Therefore, the subjects that would reflect the ideas of the teachers will be discussed. Thus, it will be tried to determine whether the courses of the history of hadīth are closer to tradition or modern ideas and, how the education of hadīth is practised.Summary: After the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the Faculty of Theology was opened at Istanbul University as a result of the abolition of madrasas issuing a law regarding to the Unification of Education announced in 1924. With the opening of this faculty, the education in the field of Religious Sciences continued its presence on a new foundation, which can be considered modern, until 1933. In this study, it was attempted to trace the courses of Ḥadīth and the History of Ḥadīth given in the Faculty of Theology at Istanbul University between 1924 and 1933. Firstly, a brief history of the courses will be given, and then it is among the purposes of this study to perform a textual analysis of the works written by the teachers of these courses. While doing this, Izmirli Ismail Hakkı's History of Ḥadīth, which was written as course notes and Huseyin Avni Arapkirli's al-Buġya al-Hasîs fī Tārīh al-Hadīth, which has not been known until discussed it this article for the first time, were focused on. These works are very important in terms of initiating the History of Ḥadīth literature. Furthermore, these are the first works in the field of hadīth in the Turkish Republic, and they are very important sources for revealing the ideological infrastructure of the period. To begin with, it is necessary to attract attention to the change in the course names and duration if there is a need to briefly mention the history of hadīth courses in University. In the universities founded before the opening of the Faculty of Theology, the courses were named as Ḥadīth al-sharīf and usul al-hadīth. Besides, these courses were included in the curriculum for four years, which constituted the duration of the education. In the university founded in 1924 after the proclamation of the Republic, the name was changed as Ḥadīth and the History of Ḥadīth. It is seen that the courses of Hadīth and the History of Hadīth were taught three hours a week for two years from the opening of the Faculty of Theology until 1931. From 1931 until 1933, when the faculty was closed, the courses continued to be given two hours a week. When the content of the works is viewed, it can be seen that Izmirli İsmāʿīl Ḥaqqī followed a historical system in his work History of Ḥadīth. Beginning the subject with the classification of sciences, Izmirli touches upon the topics such as the writing and codification of hadīths. Afterwards, he also deals with the methodology of in detail. He then mentions about the history of hadīth by Shiʿā and draws a general map of the history of hadīth as of the third century of the Islamic calendar. This work differs from the previous tradition of the education of hadīth in terms of including the Shiʿā’s the history of hadīth and especially of ahl al-raʾy’s understanding of the hadīth. In addition, the detailed discussion of hadīth practice in the work is significant in terms of showing that the content of the course did not only cover the history of hadīth.Moreover, it is observed that Izmirli touched upon controversial topics in his work such as the writing of hadīth, Bukhari's criticism and hadīth-history relation. However, Izmirli does not express his approach to these topics so clearly. In doing so, he hides his views between lines, using ambiguous statements related to the topics while trying to base the views on authority. For instance, he says that the hadīths were written on the special pages of the companions in the early periods when it comes to writing hadīths, which was one of the most important topics of the history of hadīth. Even though this gives an impression that the hadīths were written in the companion period, it is stated in the following explanations that the hadīths had not been gathered and written down in one place. Izmirli also says that they refer to the hadīths in the hearts of the companion. In another example, he mentions that there is no doubt about the accuracy of the narrations in Bukhārī's work. However, in the following pages, he states that there are narrators, who are not trustworthy, in Bukhārī's work and says Dāraqutnī's criticisms related to Bukhārī. When the aforementioned two examples are examined, it can be stated that Izmirli acted a bit more cautiously especially in controversial topics. When it comes to Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ Arapkīrli, who starts his work with the classification of sciences as Izmirli does, it is seen that he discusses the part of practice much more briefly. Additionally, he gives more attention to Prophet Muhammad and companion period of the hadīth history. In his work, he also provides detailed information about the formation of the hadīth literature in the third century of the Islamic calendar and afterwards. When the issue is reviewed within the scope of the topics discussed by Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ in his work, it is necessary to mention that the topics related to the history of hadīth were more dominant in the work. Unlike Izmir, he does not allocate much space to controversial topics in his work. However, it should also be noted that he partly touched upon some controversial topics such as hadīth -history relation and writing of hadīths. Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ considers the history of hadīth as a sub-heading of history. Regarding the writing of hadīths, he states openly that the hadīths generally were not written down because of the possibility for them to be mixed up with the Qur’ān in the early periods, and this continued until the time of caliphate ʿÖmer bin ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Thus, it can be said that both writers, who applied different methods in their works, looked for a new method. However, it should be remembered that these names were a part of the Ottoman educational system and included in a new system together with their background. Consequently, the fact that they were somewhere between old and new. (shrink)

Throughout its history of almost a millennium and a half, Sanskrit kāvyaśāstra was resolutely obsessed with the task of unravelling the ontology kāvya. Literary theoreticians in Sanskrit, irrespective of their spatio-temporal locations, unanimously agreed upon the fact that kāvya was a special mode of expression characterized by the presence of certain unique linguistic elements. Nonetheless, this did not imply that kāvyaśāstra was an intellectual tradition unmarked by disagreements. The real point of contention among the practitioners of Sanskrit literary theory (...) was the prioritization of certain formal elements as the ‘soul’ of literature. This strong sense of intellectual disagreement on the question of what constituted the soul of kāvya eventually paved the way for the emergence of new frameworks of criticism and extensive scrutiny of the existing categories, thus playing a vital role in keeping this tradition alive and new.But towards the turn of the 20th century, Sanskrit kāvyaśāstra tradition underwent an epistemic rupture primarily because of a change in the way the idea of literariness was understood. During this phase, the traditional Formalistic notions about literature underwent a radical transformation, and the style and language of literature eventually became similar to everyday speech. This trend played an important role in severing Sanskrit kāvyaśāstra’s natural tie with literature. Eventually, the vigour in which new treatises in Sanskrit literary poetics were produced also dwindled. This did not mean that the scholarship in Sanskrit poetics vanished. Scholars in Sanskrit poetics continued to flourish in India, but in a different form and shape. In other words, the focus of scholars in Sanskrit poetics slowly got shifted from the production of new treatises in Sanskrit poetics to the creation of the intellectual history of this field and the application of these theories to evaluate the literary merit of modern literary texts. Though these two approaches played a vital role in disseminating the knowledge about Sanskrit poetics in modern times, they were caught up in an ontological certitude. In other words, neither of these two directions attempted to study these theoretical positions from a standpoint other than that of literary theory. To borrow a Barthian terminology, these two approaches treated Sanskrit poetics as a ‘work,’ instead of a ‘Text.’ This paper aims to intervene in this lacuna of scholarship by proposing the Derridian idea of ‘play’ as a methodological framework to unearth the potentialities lying dormant in these theories and to move beyond the ontological certitude traditionally imposed on these theoretical positions. The new methodological praxis that I put forward in this paper is further exemplified through a non-canonical reading of Ānandavardhana’s avivakṣita-vācya-dhvani. (shrink)