Journal articles on the topic 'Christian fiction books'
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1
Moskowitz, David. "The Rediscovered 20th Century Boy Scout Dust Jacket Artwork of New Jersey Pulp Artist Chris Schaare." New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 9, no. 2 (July 25, 2023): 314–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.14713/njs.v9i2.335.
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Christian Richard “Dick” Schaare Jr. (pronounced Shar) was arguably New Jersey’s most prolific and perhaps greatest pulp artist of the 20th century. His iconic artwork would grace hundreds of book covers, dust jackets, comic books, magazines, cigar boxes, calendars, milk cartons, and advertisements for more than 40 years from the 1920s to the 1960s. His pulp fiction artwork is well-known except for 18 dust jackets commissioned by the A. L. Burt Company for their Boy Scout fiction series books published in the mid to late 1920s. That he illustrated these dust jackets, brimming with action, adventure, and drama, has been largely forgotten by time, but they highlight his iconic pulp fiction style early in his career.
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Colot, Blandine. "Historiographie chrétienne et romanesque: Le De mortibus persecutorum de Lactance (250–325 ap. J.C.)." Vigiliae Christianae 59, no. 2 (2005): 135–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1570072054068320.
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AbstractThe DMP written by Lactantius and published after the 'Edict of Milan' (313), is an unclassifiable book. It was regarded as the first Christian historiography in latin but recent study has defended that the first was really the H.E. by Eusebius which was translated in latin at the end of the IVth century. We have analysed the romantic character of Lactantius' narration through emotional, existential features and its narrative movement. We have compared the prologues of the two books and managed to show that the DMP is surely a Christian history, authentic in many aspects, but discredited in favour of the « canonic » historiography by Eusebius which, even if it contains features of fiction too, is closer to the historic presuppositions of today's readers.
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Caldas, Carlos. "SPACE ANGELS: ANGELOLOGY IN C. S. COSMIC LEWIS’S TRILOGY." Perspectiva Teológica 52, no. 2 (September 1, 2020): 417. http://dx.doi.org/10.20911/21768757v52n2p417/2020.
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The Northern Irish author C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) was one of the outstanding Christian thinkers of the last century. A prolific author, he moved through different areas, such as literary criticism, youth literature, science fiction, and texts of theological exposition and of apologetics. In science fiction there is his remarkable “Cosmic Trilogy”: Beyond the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. In these three books, Lewis presents a vast array of themes. Among these is angelology,the systematic study of heavenly beings known as angels. The aim of this article is to present the major influences that Lewis used to build his angelology: old Jewish literature, exemplified in texts such as the Ethiopian Enoch (or the Book of Enoch or First Enoch), and the biblical tradition itself. The article will seek also to defend the hypothesis that, using fiction, Lewis builds an imaginative and suggestive theology that is a critique of the rationalism of continental theology of his day.
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Ahokas, Pirjo. "Jewish/Christian symbolism in Bernard Malamud's novel God's grace." Nordisk Judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies 7, no. 2 (September 1, 1986): 84–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.30752/nj.69408.
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Besides being one of the major American authors of the postwar period, Bernard Malamud is also one of the leading representatives of contemporary Jewish fiction. When God's Grace was published, it received very mixed reviews and the novel is likely to remain one of Malamud’s most controversial books. Part of the audience’s puzzlement derives from the fact that with its grotesque characters and strange events God’s Grace seems to defy definition. The novel is filled with literary references and biblical symbolism that mainly draws on Genesis and on the apocalyptic tradition fused with elements of Messianism. The author discusses the genre problem of God’s Grace by outlining some of its background in contemporary America fiction and then analyzing the meaning and effect of Malamud’s use of Jewish/Christian symbolism to enhance the valuable aspects of the Jewish inheritance.
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Conţac, Emanuel. "The Reception of C. S.Lewis in Post-Communist Romania." Linguaculture 2014, no. 2 (December 1, 2014): 123–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/lincu-2015-0021.
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Abstract This paper presents the circumstances surrounding the publication of the Romanian translations of C. S. Lewis’s best known works. In the first part, the author gives information about the Romanian authors who were acquainted with Lewis’s writings during Communism, when the translation and printing of books on religious topics was under the tight control of a totalitarian government. In spite of that control, two Lewis titles-The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Mere Christianity-which were translated in the US, were smuggled into Romania. The second part of this paper deals with the remarkably changed situation after the emergence of a new regime in 1990. Since then Lewis’s books have been published, often in multiple print runs, by secular as well as Christian publishers, with a total of 12 fiction and 13 non-fiction titles, indicating a wide popular reception of his work.
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Tamcke, Martin. "VIOLENCE IN THE CLASSROOM. INTEGRATION OF MIGRANTS IN GERMANY." Вестник Удмуртского университета. Социология. Политология. Международные отношения 6, no. 2 (June 27, 2022): 266–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.35634/2587-9030-2022-6-2-266-269.
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The text reviews a few books, written by muslim migrants in Germany. The kurdish author Balci speaks about the violence in the submilieu of some muslim migrants with special respect to turkish and arab (and kurdish) differences and the violence against the christian migrants. As she had a job in social work with migrants, she relies on facts, but call her book a "novel". The two Iraqis present two ways to think about IS. The one, who never lived for a longer time in the Orient, tries to imagine, how the radicalisation can come into being in Germany among muslim migrants, that leads them to terrorism. The other is coming form this experience, but dont focus on the facts, that pushed him into migration. So the paper give an insight into the sub-milieu of islamists in Germany. Fiction and facts are not easy to differentiate, but each of these books shows aspects of the current debate among them.
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Vint, Sherryl. "Science Fiction." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 74, no. 3 (September 2022): 191–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf9-22vint.
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SCIENCE FICTION by Sherryl Vint. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2021. 224 pages. Paperback; $15.95. ISBN: 9780262539999. *Science Fiction is the story of the romance between fiction and science. The goal of the book is not to define the history or essence of science fiction, but rather to explore what it "can do" (p. 3). How does fiction affect scientific progress? How does it influence which innovations we care about? In the opposite direction, what bearing does science have on the stories that are interesting to writers at a point in time? Science Fiction references hundreds of books to paint a cultural narrative surrounding science fiction. Throughout the book, Vint refers to the fiction as ‘sf' in order to avoid distinctions between science fiction and speculative fiction. The dynamic between science and fiction is a relationship defined by both scientific progress and by forming judgments of the direction of development through a lens of fiction. Fiction is cause and effect; we use fiction to reflect upon changes in the world, and we use fiction to explore making change. *Vint, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and of English at the University of California, Riverside, gives overviews of different areas of sf. These include some of the most common sf elements, such as utopias and dystopias (chap. 2), as well as relatively recent concerns, such as climate change (chap. 7). Through these questions, she is navigating one question: how does sf engage with the world? It is more complex than the commonly reflected-upon narrative that sf is an inspiration to inventors--it is a relationship moving in both directions and involves value judgments as well as speculation about scientific possibilities. *The book also navigates the attitudes at the root of sf. Vint presents sf as a fundamentally hopeful, perhaps even an optimistic, genre. She describes sf as "equally about frightening nightmares and wondrous dreams" (p. 13). Yet even dystopian stories require hope for a future. Showing the world gone wrong still requires "the seeds of believing that with better choices we might avoid these nightmares" (p. 32). This is certainly true in the discussion of climate change sf. Where nonfiction writing often focuses on the impartial mitigation of disasters, the heart of fiction offers "the possibility to direct continuous change toward an open future that we (re)make" (p. 136). *The most surprising chapter is the penultimate one, focusing on economics (chap. 8). Vint discusses the recent idea of money as a "social technology" (p. 143) and the ways our current economy is increasingly tied to science, including through AI market trading and the rise of Bitcoin. The chapter also focuses on fiction looking at alternative economic systems--how will the presence or absence of scarcity, altered by technology, change the economic system? Answers to this and similar questions have major implications on the stories we tell and the way we seek to structure society. *As Christians, we have stories to help us deal with our experiences in life and our hope for the future. Science Fiction discusses sf as the way that our communities, including the scientific community, process life's challenges and form expectations for the future. We must not only repeat the stories from scripture, but also participate in the formation of the cultural narratives as ambassadors of Christ. While Science Fiction does not discuss the role of religion in storytelling, the discussion of our ambitions and expectations for the future is ripe for a Christian discussion. *Vint describes sf as a navigational tool for the rapid changes occurring in the world. Science Fiction references many titles that illustrate the different roles sf has played at historical points and that continue to form culture narratives. While some pages can feel like a dense list of titles, it is largely a book expressing excitement about the power and indispensability of sf. I would recommend this book for those who want to think about interactions between fiction, science, and culture, or learn about major themes of sf, as well as those interested in broadening the horizons of their sf reading. *Reviewed by Elizabeth Koning, graduate student in the Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801.
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Patterson, Dilys N. "Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative." Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 36, no. 3-4 (September 2007): 601–3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000842980703600317.
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Cronshaw, Darren. "Beyond Divisive Categorization in Young Adult Fiction: Lessons from Divergent." International Journal of Public Theology 15, no. 3 (October 27, 2021): 426–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15697320-01530008.
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Abstract Veronica Roth’s Divergent is a young adult fiction and movie franchise that addresses issues of political power, social inequity, border control, politics of fear, gender, ethnicity, violence, surveillance, personal authenticity and mind control. It is possible a large part of the popularity of the series is its attention to these issues which young Western audiences are concerned about. The narrative makes heroes of protagonists who become activists for justice and struggle against oppressive social-political systems. What follows is a literary analysis of Divergent, evaluating its treatment of public theology and social justice themes, and discussing implications for Christian activism, especially for youth and young adults. It affirms the ethos in the books of resisting oppression, and questions assumptions about gender and abuse, violence and imperial control, personal authenticity and categorization, and difference and sameness.
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Sorensen, Sue. "“He thinks he’s failed”." Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 43, no. 4 (May 20, 2014): 553–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0008429814526145.
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This survey of clerical characters in Canadian English fiction from Ralph Connor (1901) to Marina Endicott (2008) indicates that our literary ministers, which have been very little studied, deviate significantly from British and American traditions. Writers such as Sinclair Ross (1941) , Margaret Laurence (1964) , Robertson Davies (1970 , 1981), and Warren Cariou (1999) present ministries that thrive when they are plural, communal, spontaneous, or feminine. Christian leadership in these books is surprising and eccentric, often shaped by pastors who do successful ministry in spite of themselves. Their lack of faith or confidence is often a key component of their ministries. Additionally, ministry arises from unexpected sources not sanctioned by ecclesiastical authority and is nevertheless effective and resilient.
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Oltolini, Maria Chiara. "Children’s fiction and anime: The case of Shōkōjo Sēra." Journal of Screenwriting 12, no. 3 (September 1, 2021): 287–305. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/josc_00068_1.
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This article considers the case of Shokojo Sera (1985), a Japanese animated series based on the novel A Little Princess, within the context of the World Masterpiece Theater, a television staple that popularized the practice of adapting classic children’s books into long-running anime. The analysis identifies the changes occurring in the adaptation, casting a light on the creative and productive choices undertaken by the Japanese staff. In doing so, the original novel and its reception in Japan are taken into account, with regard to the role of translated literature for local children’s and girls’ fiction. The study thus demonstrates that the alterations found in the series are both genre-related and explicable in terms of cultural-filtered interpretations, as can be seen in the negotiation of the protagonist as a Christian damsel-in-distress, combining melodramatic tropes, a signifier of westernization and a domesticating rationale of her alleged passivity.
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Klikauer, Thomas, Norman Simms, Marcus Colla, Nicolas Wittstock, Matthew Specter, Kate R. Stanton, John Bendix, and Bernd Schaefer. "Book Reviews." German Politics and Society 40, no. 1 (March 1, 2022): 104–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/gps.2022.400106.
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Heinrich Detering, Was heißt hier “wir”? Zur Rhetorik der parlamentarischen Rechten (Dietzingen: Reclam Press, 2019).Clare Copley, Nazi Buildings: Cold War Traces and Governmentality in Post-Unification Berlin (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).Tobias Schulze-Cleven and Sidney A. Rothstein, eds., Imbalance: Germany’s Political Economy after the Social Democratic Century (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021).Benedikt Schoenborn, Reconciliation Road: Willy Brandt, Ostpolitik and the Quest for European Peace (New York: Berghahn Books, 2020).Tiffany N. Florvil, Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2020).Ingo Cornils, Beyond Tomorrow: German Science Fiction and Utopian Thought in the 20th and 21st Centuries (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2020).Christian F. Ostermann, Between Containment and Rollback: The United States and the Cold War in Germany (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2021).
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Setyowati Putri, Ratna, Rosma indriana Purba, and Donna Imelda. "HARRY POTTER" AND MORAL VALUES LEARNING: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF THE RESPONSE OF CHILDREN AGED 11-13 YEARS AGAINST J.K. ROWLING BOOKS." Dinasti International Journal of Education Management And Social Science 1, no. 3 (February 11, 2020): 282–305. http://dx.doi.org/10.31933/dijemss.v1i3.147.
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"Harry Potter" and Moral Value Learning is a qualitative study of the response of students aged 11-13 at an international Christian school in Bekasi, Indonesia, towards the phenomenal J.K Rowling text. Through the hermeneutic method, this research tried to seek the influence of Harry Potter texts, which are suspected of bringing adverse effects for their young readers. Besides, this research offers rational considerations to the authority in schools, especially regarding matters related to book censorship. Three things investigated in this study were the ability of students to think critically in making a distinction between fiction and facts in the Harry Potter text, the influence of the Harry Potter text on students' tendencies of violence and occultism, and finally about student learning of moral values contained in the text. The data was collected through in-depth interviews with two male respondents and three female respondents aged 11-13 years with a high religious background, mediocre, and less significant religious background. It was found that all respondents were able to distinguish between fiction and facts in the Harry Potter texts, and there was no significant evidence that the texts influenced respondents' tendency for violence nor respondents' interest in occultism. This study also found that respondents were able to identify the moral values contained in the text.
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Sergienko, Inna. "“DEMONS SWARMED LIKE THIS”: ALIEN IN THE CHILDREN’S FICTION OF YULIA VOZNESENSKAYA." Children's Readings: Studies in Children's Literature 24 (2023): 447–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.31860/2304-5817-2023-2-24-447-470.
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The main research question of the article is related to the representation of the category “alien” in the novels by Julia Voznesenskaya (1945–2015) written between 2002 and 2007: “Cassandra’s Way or Adventures with Macaroni”, “Julianna and the Game of Kidnapping”, “Julianna and Dangerous Games”, and “Julianna and the Game of ‘Stepmother and Daughter’”. These books represent a sample of Orthodox acute fiction for children and teenagers that emerged in the post-Soviet period. The article briefly characterises the context of the emergence of Voznesenskaya’s children’s prose, examines the specificity of artistic techniques and genre uniqueness. The author of the article notes that despite the fact that these works are certified by Voznesenskaya herself as “Christian” or “Orthodox fantasy,” they are devoid of the genre-forming features of fantasy, they use only certain techniques characteristic of the genre. The main attention is paid to the analysis of the image of the spatial and subjective opposition of “us” and “strangers”. The “alien” in the analyzed works coincides with the image of the enemy, there is no way for him to turn into “ours” and dialogue with him is impossible. To create the image of the “alien” Voznesenskaya uses an artistic detail marking the disgusting, false and malicious.
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Wildemuth, Barbara M. "The Types of Publications Read by Finnish Scholars Vary with Their Purposes for Reading." Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 15, no. 1 (March 13, 2020): 229–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.18438/eblip29667.
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A Review of:
Late, E., Tenopir, C., Talja, S., & Christian, L. (2019). Reading practices in scholarly work: From articles and books to blogs. Journal of Documentation, 75(3), 478-499. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-11-2018-0178
Abstract
Objective – To closely examine the role of reading in scholarly work, with particular attention to the relationships between reading practices and characteristics of the scholars, the types of publications they read, and the context of reading.
Design – Survey.
Setting – Universities in Finland.
Subjects – 528 academics (research directors/managers, professors, post doctoral researchers, doctoral students, lecturers, and researchers).
Methods – An online survey was distributed in Finland, October-December 2016. The first part of the survey asked about scholars’ general reading practices; the second part asked about their most recent reading of two particular publications, one a journal article and the other a different publication type. In relation to these two readings, the scholars provided information about the documents read, the reading process and context, how the document was identified and obtained, and the effect of the reading on their work.
Main Results – On average, the scholars read 59 publications per month: 20 journal articles, 3 books, 5 conference proceedings or research reports, 17 newspaper articles, 9 magazine articles, 4 blogs, and 2 non-fiction/fiction books. There was no statistically significant difference in the number of journal articles read across disciplines, but the number of books read was highest in the humanities and social sciences and lowest in the sciences and medical sciences. Frequency of reading of particular publication types also varied by work focus (research vs. teaching/administrative) and by the nature of the scholar’s research (basic vs. applied).
The scholars were also asked about the importance of reading different publication types. Overall, scholarly journals and article compilations were rated as most important for scholarly reading. Differences in these ratings were found across disciplines, work focus, nature of the research, and scholar rank/status.
Part 2 of the survey focused on the most recent items read by the scholars. Their reading of journal articles, scholarly books, and conference proceedings/research reports was mainly for the purpose of research and writing. Their reading of newspaper articles, magazine articles, and blogs was mainly for current awareness and continuing education. Their reading of non-fiction/fiction books was mainly for their personal interest or pleasure. None of these publication types was specifically focused on supporting the scholars’ teaching.
Over 70 percent of the recent readings were new, rather than re-readings. Across all publication types, the scholars read at least parts of the item “with great care”. Almost half of the journal articles recently read have been or will be cited in the future; this proportion was also high for scholarly books and conference proceedings/research reports, but not for the other publication types.
The most recently read journal articles were brought to the scholar’s attention primarily through searching; they became aware of scholarly books and conference proceedings/research reports through both searching and because another person told them about the item. Scholars mainly obtained journal articles and scholarly books from their libraries, but they also obtained articles on the Internet and scholarly books from another person.
Forty percent of the scholars read journal articles by printing a downloaded copy, but over half read them on a computer, mobile phone, or e-reader. Over half of the scholarly books were read from published/printed copy, but 18% read the book in an electronic version. Most reading occured in the scholar’s office or lab.
Over half the journal articles and conference proceedings/research reports read were published within the last year; just under half the scholarly books read were published within the last year. While these scholars worked in Finland, 91% of the journal articles and 73% of the scholarly books they read were published in English.
Conclusion – The results from this study confirmed and extended findings from previous studies (e.g., Tenopir et al., 2010, 2015). They demonstrated that scholars read a variety of types of publications for a variety of purposes. However, journal articles still dominated the reading and the perceptions of importance among the various publication types, particularly for the purposes of research and writing. This paper provides a first look at scholars’ uses of the other publication types and the influence of work tasks on reading practices; further research is needed to understand these relationships more fully. In general, the disciplinary differences in reading practices found in this study mirror the different publishing practices of the disciplines and so may be affected by future evolution toward open access and social media use for scholarly communication.
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MACHOR, J. L. "READING THE RINSINGS OF THE CUP." Nineteenth-Century Literature 59, no. 1 (June 1, 2004): 53–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ncl.2004.59.1.53.
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Although a widely shared critical perception is that Herman Melville's first two books, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), received comparable responses from reviewers in the late 1840s, the antebellum reception of the second novel was anything but a mirror of the response to the first. Not only did Omoo sell fewer copies and receive fifty fewer reviews than Typee, but reviewers also read Omoo through an altered set of interpretive assumptions that turned it, in their view, into a problematic and ultimately disappointing sequel. Part of this shift involved a marked increase in objections to Melville's critique in Omoo of Christian missionaries. A major factor in this response was that reviewers, after having struggled with the question of Typee's authenticity, were inclined to take Omoo as a prima facie work of fiction. Such an assumption meant that, in the logic of antebellum reading formations, Omoo's credibility as social critique was suspect by virtue of its fictional status. This impugning of the novel's authority, in turn, helped pave the way for reviewer responses that questioned the author's own morality. Adding to the problem was the fact that several key reviewers found Omoo to be disappointing because it failed to mark an advance on Typee. Such turns in audience response were significant in repositioning Melville in the antebellum literary marketplace, not only in terms of the public perception of his writings but also in the way in which he conceived his relation to his audience with his next novel, Mardi (1849).
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MILLER, BONNY H. "Augusta Browne: From Musical Prodigy to Musical Pilgrim in Nineteenth-Century America." Journal of the Society for American Music 8, no. 2 (May 2014): 189–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1752196314000078.
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AbstractAugusta Browne Garrett composed at least two hundred piano pieces, songs, duets, hymns, and sacred settings between her birth in Dublin, Ireland, around 1820, and her death in Washington, D.C., in 1882. Judith Tick celebrated Browne as the “most prolific woman composer in America before 1870” in her landmark study American Women Composers before 1870. Browne, however, cast an enduring shadow as an author as well, publishing two books, a dozen poems, several Protestant morality tracts, and more than sixty music essays, nonfiction pieces, and short stories. By means of her prose publications, Augusta Browne “put herself into the text—as into the world, into history—by her own movement,” as feminist writer Hélène Cixous urged of women a century later. Browne maintained a presence in the periodical press for four decades in a literary career that spanned music journalism, memoir, humor, fiction, poetry, and Christian devotional literature, but one essay, “The Music of America” (1845), generated attention through the twentieth century. With much of her work now easily available in digitized sources, Browne's life can be recovered, her music experienced, and her prose reassessed, which taken together yield a rich picture of the struggles, successes, and opinions of a singular participant and witness in American music of her era.
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Rorato, Laura. "Narratives of Displacement: The Challenges of Motherhood and Mothering in semi-fictional works by Laura Pariani, Mary Melfi, and Donatella Di Pierantonio." International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies 6, no. 1 (January 31, 2018): 75. http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijclts.v.6n.1p.75.
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This article analyses the representation of the impact of migration on family dynamics in three autobiographical works: Laura Pariani’s Il piatto dell’angelo (2013), Mary Melfi’s Italy Revisited. Conversations with my Mother (2009), and Antonella Di Pietrantonio’s Mia madre è un fiume (2011). All three authors were directly or indirectly affected by the wave of emigration that took place in Italy between the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Pariani extends her observations to the present by focusing also on those South American women who are currently moving to Italy to work as cares for old people, often leaving their families behind. Motherhood and mothering are central themes in all three books. These works problematise the patriarchal notion of motherhood and highlight the need to move towards alternative concepts of motherhood that do not imply the subordination of women. Additionally, this article offers a reflection on the role that creative writing can play in challenging some of the most engrained stereotypes, such as those of the good mother versus the bad mother, partially related to our Christian tradition. Building on Podnieks and O’Reilly’s notion of “maternal texts” (1-2), this article argues that through fiction women are less inhibited in exploring the thornier aspects of motherhood as a social construction than they seem to be in everyday life.
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Hiestand, Gerald, and Todd A. Wilson. "Technē: Christian Visions of Technology." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 75, no. 2 (September 2023): 148–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf9-23hiestand.
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TECHNĒ: Christian Visions of Technology by Gerald Hiestand and Todd A. Wilson, eds. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022. 236 pages. Hardcover; $49.00. ISBN: 9781666704228. *The product of their 2019 conference of the Center for Pastor Theologians, Technē consists of fourteen contributed essays that seek to articulate important elements of the relationship between Christianity and contemporary technology. *The book is organized into two sections: Theological Reflections on Technology, and Technological Reflections on Theology. However, while one might expect a section of articles by theologians reflecting on technology, and then a section of articles by engineers and scientists reflecting on the implications of theology for their work, this is not what the reader will find. Instead, the sections are best understood as "theoretical," focusing primarily on questions about the nature of technology and its relationship to the church, and "applied," focusing on specific technologies, fields of study, or theological methodologies. *The "theoretical" section of the book illustrates the divide between thinkers who are optimistic about the potential for technology to advance the faith (chap. 4) and those who are concerned about the impact that technology might have on the church or the Christian life (chaps. 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6). The book is relatively one-sided. Douglas Estes (chap. 4) and Jennifer Powell McNutt (chap. 14) both defend the adoption of digital technologies by the church, and while she does not make the argument in these terms, McNutt's article suggests that pastors should begin developing relationships with engineers working in information technology. However, Joel D. Lawrence (chap. 1), Nathan A. Brendsel (chap. 2), Andy Crouch (chap. 3), Christopher J. Ganski (chap. 5), Jonathan Huggins (chap. 6), Karen Swallow Prior (chap. 12), and Felicia Wu Song (chap. 13) are all much more cautious about the adoption of technology. *Estes claims that "the rot at the root [of Christian scholarship on technology] is the uncritical acceptance and appropriation of Martin Heidegger's ideas about technology" (p. 66). Certainly, Estes is correct that the discussion is heavily influenced by Heidegger's thought. However, this still allows for an array of views ranging from Lawrence's claim that we need to learn from the Amish (p. 13) to Crouch's distinction between technē as "the artful, cultural engagement in God's world" (p. 58) and technology (though perhaps "technologism" would be better) as a dream for a life of total ease and complete control brought about by near-magical technological artifacts. Certainly, we do need to critically interact with the Heideggerian roots of much contemporary writing on technology, and Estes's critique of Heidegger's thought is helpful, but perhaps we do not need to simply "exorcise Heidegger from our thoughts" (p. 74). *There is also a significant divide between two approaches that authors take to thinking and writing about technology. First, some want to speak of technologies or artifacts such as CRISPR, Digital Readers, or Virtual Reality Technologies. Second, others want to speak in terms of a technological worldview, social imaginary, culture, or society that shapes our motivations in interacting with technology. The concern of authors like Lawrence or Crouch is not primarily that eReaders are bad for our brains or that dishwashers are making us lazy. It is primarily that we have developed a milieu that prioritizes comfort, convenience, and ease as the highest good. The development of modern technologies has enabled a socio-culture perspective that enables and reinforces our idolatry of comfort, convenience, and ease. *The "applied" section addresses three specific contemporary technologies: AI (chap. 8 and 9), biotechnology (chap. 10 and 11), and social media (chap. 13). Neal D. Presa (chap. 8) defines AI as "a robot that functions autonomously" (p. 131) and focuses on the applications of AI in robotics. Missy Byrd DeRegibus (chap. 9) distinguishes between weak, strong, and super AI and focuses on the theological implications of strong and super AI. Nathan A. Barczi (chap. 10) and Jeff Hardin (chap. 11) both focus on applying theological insights to biotechnology. However, Barczi, a theologian, focuses on explaining the functional view of the image of God while Hardin, a scientist, focuses on explaining the process of embryonic development. However, their articles could both go much further in relating those subjects to the development of biotechnology. Song (chap. 13) provides a clear explanation of the ways in which social media is personally and morally deformative. *The three remaining articles are somewhat harder to categorize. Bruce Baker (chap. 7) provides a set of catechetical questions raised by new technologies and then attempts to answer them. Prior (chap. 12) argues for the importance of print reading over and against electronic mediums for reading. Finally, McNutt provides a detailed description of the important role that printers and the printing press played in the Reformation and claims that the same kind of relationship could be developed with the wide variety of digital technologies. *Some of the articles are excellent. For instance, Crouch and Wong both provide very persuasive and detailed arguments for their positions, and Estes gives an impassioned argument in defense of the adoption and use of technologies of many kinds by the church. However, some of the articles in the book miss the mark. As one example, Baker's catechism could be much more clearly organized. At the end of each question, he includes several scripture verses, but it is not always clear how they relate to his topic. This is perhaps most evident in question 8, which asks whether AI can be spiritual, but it is unclear how the passages he cites (Isa. 40:13, Job 5:9, and John 1:18, which appeal to the greatness of God) are related to the question. Further, the questions that he poses are good, but the answers he provides could be more clearly explained and supported. For instance, Baker argues against hard and soft materialism and dualism about the human person. He then endorses an "irreducible, intrinsic interdependence" of the human person, but if this is neither a version of soft materialism nor dualism, it is unclear what his position entails. *I was also surprised by what was not included in this book. The articles interact with two major streams of thought: (1) the Heideggerian analysis of a technological society read through a theological lens, and (2) what Evgeny Morozov labeled "technological solutionism," coming primarily through futurist writers and science fiction.1 It is important to note that neither Estes nor McNutt are technological solutionists insofar as they do not claim that all human problems can be solved through advanced technologies. However, significant movements in the philosophy of information and technology are entirely ignored. *Two directly relevant examples are worth mentioning here. First, in the study of information and computer ethics, there is an important push to consider this field within the model of environmental ethics. The Italian philosopher Luciano Floridi has been a primary proponent of this view and has, at times, explicitly connected it with the idea of stewardship prominent in Christian environmental ethics.2 Second, there is a turn toward the methodology of virtue ethics that is expressed both in scholarly and in professional work. Shannon Vallor has connected the ethics of technology with the Aristotelian virtue tradition, which has had many classical and contemporary Christian contributors.3 *Further, the code of ethics of the Association for Computer Machinery places an emphasis on the moral character of computer engineers and opposes this to the common emphasis on strict rules to be followed.4 There is, in turn, a strong Christian tradition of virtue thought, both Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian, that could be put into meaningful conversation with this turn to an ethic of virtue and character. *Finally, it is also worth noting that the book is preoccupied with digital and biotechnical technologies. While understandable, this preoccupation risks ignoring the significance of other areas of technological development such as transportation, energy, or construction technologies. This suggests to me that Christian theologians are, to some degree at least, overly focused on what we already know. We interact with important, but familiar, sources such as Jacques Ellul, Marshall McLuhan, and Neil Postman, but many of us are ignorant of the significant developments in both the philosophy and ethics of technology, and the actual potential of developing technologies. This book provides a helpful cross-section of current trends in Christian theological thought on technology, but it also suggests the need for Christian theologians to branch out. *Notes *1Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013). *2Luciano Floridi, "Information Ethics," in The Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics, ed. Luciano Floridi (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 95. *3Shannon Vallor, Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016). *4Don Gotterbarn, Michael S. Kirkpatrick, and Marty J. Wolf, ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct: Affirming Our Obligation to Use Our Skills to Benefit Society (New York: Association for Computing Machinery, ACM Committee on Professional Ethics, 2018). *Reviewed by K. Lauriston Smith, Adjunct Instructor, Department of Theology, Grand Canyon University, Phoenix, AZ 85017.
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Zvonska, Lesia. "UKRAINIAN TRANSLATIONS OF ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE: ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROSPECTS." Bulletin of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Literary Studies. Linguistics. Folklore Studies, no. 30 (2021): 17–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.17721/1728-2659.2021.30.5.
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The article presents the history of Ukrainian translations of ancient Greek literature and describes the translation work of Ukrainian classical philologists, poets and prose writers. The reception of literary works of antiquity is represented by texts of different styles, poetic schools and Ukrainian language of different periods, which demonstrate the glorious tradition of domestic translation studies. It is noted that Ukrainian translations have a long history (from the first translation in 1788 and the first textbook in 1809); they were published in separate periodicals, collections, almanacs, as well as complete books and in textbooks and anthologies. Ukrainian translations of literature in the ancient Greek language of the аrchaic, сlassical and Hellenistic periods are analyzed. Translations of poetry (epic, elegy, iambic, monodic and choral lyrics, tragedy, comedy, folk lyrics, mimiyamb, epilium, bucolic, idyll, epigram) and prose (fable, historiography, philosophy, rhetoric, fiction, ancient novel, New Testament and Septuagint, early Christian patristic) are described. Significant in the history of translations are the achievements of the brilliant connoisseur of antiquity I. Franko. The high level of linguistic and stylistic assimilation of ancient Greek prose and poetic texts is demonstrated by the creative style of such outstanding translators as Borys Ten, V.Svidzinsky, M. Bilyk, G. Kochur, A. Smotrych, V. Derzhavуn, V. Samonenko, P. Striltsiv, A. Tsisyk, Y.Mushak, A. Biletsky, V. Maslyuk, J. Kobiv, Y. Tsymbalyuk, L. Pavlenko.The glorious traditions are continued by well-known antiquaries, writers and poets, among whom A. Sodomora has a prominent place. At the level of world biblical studies there are four translations of the Holy Scripture in Ukrainian (P. Kulish, I. Pulyuy, I. Nechuy-Levytsky, I. Ogienko, I. Khomenko, R. Turkonyuk). Іt is summarized that despite numerous Ukrainian translations of various genres of ancient Greek literature there is a need to create a corpus of translations of ancient Greek historiography, rhetoric, philosophy, natural science texts, Greek patristic.
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Takho-Godi, Elena A. "Raskolnikov's Personality as a Symbol: A.F. Losev and F.M. Dostoevsky." Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 3 (2022): 133–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2022-3-133-146.
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The article is devoted to the analysis of the philosopher Alexei F. Losev’s (1893–1988) perception of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s works, especially of his novel Crime and Punishment. The author notes the thinker’s permanent interest in Dostoevsky’s legacy, starting from the 1900s and to the last days of his life. Special attention is paid to the reflections on Dostoevsky in Losev’s books The Dialectics of Myth (1930) and The Problem of Symbol and Realistic Art (1976), as well as in the report On Mythology in Literature (1983). Equally important are his epistolary legacy of 1932-1933 when Losev was imprisoned in a correctional labor camp on the construction of the White Sea Canal, and his fiction of the 1930s–1940s (the short story Life, the novel The Woman-Thinker). The central problem is the identification of Losev’s implicit understanding of Rodion Raskolnikov’s personality as a symbol – and the connection of this interpretation with Losev’s historiosophic concept of the formation of a “holistic universal human mythology”. Alongside this central problem other questions, no less significant, are addressed in the article: Losev’s understanding of Dostoevsky’s mythological realism as a whole and his attention to the early models determining the style of Dostoevsky’s ideological novels; both authors’ comprehension of the metaphysics of crime and their attitude to the Christian understanding of the concepts of “sacrifice” and “suffering”. Another important issue is Losev’s autoprojection on the novel Crime and Punishment, revealed in correspondence with his wife during his imprisonment in the labor camp. This auto-projection was due to the fact that the philosopher suffered from the “crime & punishment” syndrome firsthand, biographically, so to speak, which actualized the penal colony experience of Dostoevsky and of his literary hero in Losev’s own subconscious.
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Dekker, Cees, and Corienvan den Brink Oranje. "Dawn: A Proton's Tale of All That Came to Be." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 75, no. 1 (March 2023): 61–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf3-23dekker.
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DAWN: A Proton's Tale of All That Came to Be by Cees Dekker, Corien Oranje, and Gijsbert van den Brink. Translated by Harry Cook. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2022. 166 pages, discussion questions. Paperback; $22.00. ISBN: 9781514005668. *Imagine that you could witness the entire history of the universe first-hand, from the big bang to the end of time. Perhaps, if you were a sentient yet patient proton, you would have the necessary longevity and attention span, and this idea could become your reality. Such is the premise of Dawn: A Proton's Tale of All That Came to Be. "Pro," as the proton protagonist is known to his chatty neighboring subatomic particles, is born from quarks in the first second after the big bang, blind and knowing nothing, but with an insatiable curiosity about what is happening, and why. Conversations with other particles born a split-second earlier soon produce in Proton a deep admiration for a skilled Creator, and a sense of wonder and anticipation about what they have seen and what will happen next. *Throughout several chapters, Pro confusedly and vividly experiences the onset of light, nuclear fusion, a supernova, and incorporation into a molecule as part of a carbon nucleus. Pro ends up in the dust cloud that forms Earth, eventually witnessing the origin of terrestrial life as part of an RNA molecule. A rumor among the subatomic particles that the Creator wants to make personal contact with one of the creatures generates a guessing game as they witness the progress of evolution. Which lifeform will it be? *When Homo sapiens arrive on the scene, the story shifts to tracking biblical narratives, and the subatomic particles begin asking each other more theological questions. The Creator makes contact with two humans, a chieftain couple in Africa. The Fall ensues when the couple and their tribe reject the Creator's instructions, much to the subatomic particles' surprise and horror. Pro and his neighbors are then able to witness key moments in the progress of redemption, becoming fly-on-the-wall observers to events in the lives of several important biblical characters. "How is the Creator going to fix things?" the particles ask each other. *At this point it becomes apparent what a colossal challenge the three authors (a nano scientist, a novelist, and a theologian)1 have taken upon themselves. They have tried to produce a gripping narrative in which the protagonist does not know the outcome, but Christian readers will. They have set out to tell an entertaining story of the history of the universe from a Christ-centered perspective, filled with imaginative details that are consistent with modern science but also with the biblical witness. They have charged into a literary no man's land between fiction and nonfiction. *Do they succeed? In many ways, admirably so. The merging of science and biblical witness is skillfully accomplished, respecting the integrity of each source of knowledge. To readers of this journal, the idea of a Creator patiently guiding the evolution of the universe and of life over billions of years in order to generate Earth and its humanity, followed by the increasingly intimate involvement of that Creator in redeeming humanity, is familiar. To many others, this idea will be revelatory. *If evaluated as a work of fiction, it would be safe to say that Dawn is wildly imaginative, yet it is also strangely hindered by the passivity of the narrating subatomic particles. "Imagine that you yourself could determine where you would like to go" (p. 28), they muse just before the first protocell develops. Pro witnesses and experiences history but cannot intervene. The subatomic particles can react, but they have no agency in the macroscopic world. They do not embark on a quest or a voyage of self-discovery. "Just go with the flow" (p. 29), one advises. The tropes of fiction, however, are probably the wrong standards for evaluating this book. *Dawn succeeds, in the end, as creative nonfiction--the memoir of a proton. Along the way, it retells the old, old story in an imaginative way. The authors have created one of the most accessible books on science and Christianity to come out in recent years. Even young adults will be able to enjoy it. *Note *1Cees Dekker, distinguished nano-scientist at Delft University of Technology; Corien Oranje, novelist/theologian and author of Christian children's literature; and Gijsbert van den Brink, theologian and holder of the Chair of Theology and Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. *Reviewed by David O. De Haan, Professor of Chemistry, University of San Diego, San Diego, CA 92110.
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Budner, Keith. "How Does a Moorish Prince Become a Roman Caesar? Fictions and Forgeries, Emperors and Others from the Spanish "Flores" Romances to the Lead Books of Granada." Medieval Globe 5, no. 2 (2019): 149–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.17302/tmg.5-2.8.
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This article reads the two Spanish versions of the Flores romance as ideologically embedded in the conflict and contact between Christians and Muslims in medieval Iberia, as well as after the "Reconquista" of 1492 and the subsequent renegotiation of Spanish-Morisco relations. It argues that the printed version of the romance, published in 1512 and frequently reprinted, imagines a fictional resolution to the problem of the Moriscos' socio-political status by making its Morisco protagonist an emperor of Rome. It contrasts this successful fiction with a failed contemporary forgery that had a similar goal: the Lead Books of Granada.
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Brittingham. "“Millions of Jews Died in That War… It Was a Bad Time”: The Holocaust in Adventures in Odyssey’s Escape to the Hiding Place." Genealogy 3, no. 4 (November 15, 2019): 63. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genealogy3040063.
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In 2012, the Christian evangelical organization Focus on the Family published Escape to the Hiding Place, the ninth book in Adventures in Odyssey’s Imagination Station book series. This short children’s book is a creative reimagining of Corrie ten Boom’s Holocaust memoir The Hiding Place (1971). Corrie was a Christian who lived in Haarlem during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Corrie and her family helped hide Jews and non-Jews from arrest and deportation at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Corrie’s story has played a significant role in the evangelical Christian encounter with the Holocaust. Like every Imagination Station story, Escape to the Hiding Place features two cousins, Patrick and Beth, from the fictional town of Odyssey. They travel back in time to help Jews escape the Nazis, all so they can learn a lesson about their ability to aid others in need. A harrowing adventure ensues. This paper does not criticize the valuable rescue work undertaken by Christians during the Holocaust, nor does it criticize the contemporary evangelical desire to draw meaning from Christian rescue work. Rather, the fictional narrative under consideration skews toward an overly simplistic representation of the Christian response to the murder of Jews during World War Two, contains a flat reading of Dutch society during the war, and fails to address antisemitism or racism. This paper situates Escape to the Hiding Place within a wider evangelical popular culture that has struggled with the history of the Holocaust apart from redemptive Christian biographies.
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Mordzilovich, Anna. "The Image of Pius XII in Modern Cinema (on the Example of the Film «Pius XII: Under the Roman Sky»)." Metamorphoses of history, no. 24 (2022): 0. http://dx.doi.org/10.37490/mh2022247.
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The article is dedicated to the formation of the image of Pope Pius XII (1939–1958) in modern cinema. The author focuses on the film «Pius XII: Under the Roman Sky» («Sotto il cielo di Roma», 2010, directed by Christian Duguay), which tells about the story of the events during the German occupation of Rome in World War II. Besides, the article traces the evolution of the Pope’s image in cinema from the 1940s/1950s to the present day. The first films about Pius XII appeared already during his lifetime and created a positive image of the Pope. For instance, the Italian director Romolo Marchellini portrayed the pontiff as a mediator of peace between peoples and as a «living saint». Since the 1960s a negative image of Pius XII is being formed in the cinema. The reasons are the beginning of a critical rethinking of the Nazi past and the trials of Nazi criminals, during which new details of the Holocaust were revealed. The silence of Pius XII was criticized in a number of fiction books (Rolf Hochhut, Robert Katz), which later was used as a basis of several films. Among them, the most popular is the film «Amen» (2002, directed by Costa-Gavras). The film «Pius XII: Under the Roman Sky» (2010) is one of the first attempts to overcome the negative image of Pius XII that has developed in cinema over the past years. Unlike previous films, here the pontiff is portrayed not only as a political, but also as a spiritual leader. Since the film is based on beatification documents, the Pope appears as an active defender of the Jews. This film and the features of the Pius XII’s image are analyzed in detail in the article. It is concluded that the opening of Vatican archives on the pontificate of Pius XII may contribute to the further development of this Pope’s image in cinema.
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Gleeson-White, Jane Lee. "Country and climate change in Alexis Wright's 'The Swan Book'." Swamphen: a Journal of Cultural Ecology (ASLEC-ANZ) 6 (March 7, 2017): 29–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.60162/swamphen.6.11503.
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Alexis Wright’s novel, The Swan Book (2013), set one hundred years in the future on a climate-changed Earth, introduces a new note into her fiction: that of doubt about hope. Extending postcolonial discussions of Wright’s fiction, this essay uses ecocriticism to consider Country and climate change in this novel. It argues that the element of doubt about hope, of despair even, evident in The Swan Book derives from the fact that for the first time in Wright’s fiction the essence of the land—Country—has been altered, by anthropogenically-caused climate change. Drawing on the work of ecocritics Timothy Clark and Adam Trexler, the essay argues that to engage with climate change Wright has introduced formal innovations in her novel; and more overtly figured Western culture in terms of its global manifestation, that is, as Christianity conflated with capitalism. I argue that The Swan Book writes a book of Country into the Christian and other stories of the planet, telling a new story of the earth for an age of climate change.
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Martynov, D. E. "The Ancient Past and Fiction, or about the Construction of Worlds by Humanities Scholars: A Review of Books." Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye Nauki 163, no. 1 (2021): 190–205. http://dx.doi.org/10.26907/2541-7738.2021.1.190-205.
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This paper reviews three novels by different modern authors, all published in 2020 and applying to the realities of Ancient Rome. Marik Lerner’s science fiction novel “Practical Ufology” fits within the subliterary genre of “accidental travel”, and any background information from the Roman-Byzantine life is not very appropriate in the adventure text. The new novel “The Triumphant” by Olga Eliseeva, a professional historian, can be labeled as a form of the “science novel” genre, because it has numerous references and “anchors” that only an educated person is able to understand. The main canvas of O. Eliseeva’s novel is a synthesis of the personalities and actions of Julius Caesar and Constantine the Great, so the writer used the motif of the fantasy world, in which the Roman Republic and Rome are replaced by Latium and Eternal City with the Nazarenes (i.e., Christians) playing an important role in its future. The trilogy “Divine World” by Boris Tolchinsky, a professional politologist, is the most radical inversion of the reality with its own alternative history. The world of the Amorian Empire is a synthesis of the ancient Mediterranean and the ancient Egyptian civilizations. These texts can be considered as “imperial literature” tied to the post-Soviet realities and projects aimed to find a better future.
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Flemming, Christina. "A Chat with Patricia Leavy on “RE/INVENTION: METHODS OF SOCIAL FICTION” BY PATRICIA LEAVY (2023)." Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal 8, no. 1 (August 25, 2023): 352–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.18432/ari29738.
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Within this conversation, Patricia Leavy discusses her new book Re/Invention: Methods of Social Fiction. As a leading artful scholar, Leavy shines a light on the slippage between fiction and nonfiction, and the long history of merging scholarship with the literary arts. Within the paradigm of arts-based research, Leavy views social fiction as a method. She speaks about how crafting academic fiction allows for research to become both an act of discovery and a pathway toward personal healing. Christina Flemming is delighted to hear more about Leavy’s daily writing practice, her thoughts on writing as rewriting, and the metaphorical blender that is required to take one’s lived experiences and transform them into academic fiction. You can learn more about Re/Invention: Methods of Social Fiction via the Guilford Press website. To read more about Patricia Leavy, visit her website: https://patricialeavy.com/
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Sukina, L. B. "The First Comprehensive Study of the Thanatological Discourse of Russian Literature." Язык и текст 8, no. 3 (2021): 75–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.17759/langt.2021080310.
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The article is a review of the collective monograph "Thanatological Theme in Russian Literature of the 11th-21th centuries", prepared by well-known experts in the field of Russian literature V.A. Voropaev, I.V. Dergacheva, E.L. Konyavskaya and V.V. Milkov. The peer-reviewed book publishes the results of a comprehensive study of ideas about death and posthumous life based on data from Old Russian written monuments and the most significant works of Russian fiction of the 18th-21th centuries. According to the authors of the book, the basis of literary thanatology in Russian culture was the Christian doctrine. But it also absorbed elements of autochthonous pre-Christian views on the afterlife and external impulses that came in the process of intercultural communication with Byzantium and the countries of Europe.
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BOZÎNTAN, Georgiana. "The Norwegian Cabin in Christian Valeur’s Steffen tar sin del av ansvaret." Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia 68, no. 4 (December 30, 2023): 207–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2023.4.10.
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"The Norwegian Cabin in Christian Valeur’s Steffen tar sin del av ansvaret. The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of the representation of the hytte or the Norwegian cabin in Christian Valeur’s 2009 novel Steffen tar sin del av ansvaret (“Steffen Takes His Share of the Responsibility”). Discussing the topos of the hytte, I seek to show how the novel offers a commentary on the Norwegian cabin tradition in the context of the climate crisis in particular and, more generally, on the paradoxical ideas of closeness to nature through consumerism. Drawing on Ellen Rees’s study about cabins in Norwegian literature (2014) and understanding this locus as a heterotopia (Foucault 1986), I discuss how the cabin ironically loses its value of being an “environmentally friendly” form of dwelling, and therefore cannot accomplish its potential role as a heterotopia of compensation. On the other hand, the cabin becomes a place of refuge and self-reflection for the narrator and therefore functions as a heterotopia of crisis. Finally, I suggest we can read the novel in relation to the hyttebok (“cabin book”) conventions, underlining the satirical and subversive nature of the novel towards ecological attitudes in Norwegian society. In this way, I aim to propose a new interpretation of the novel as a work of climate fiction. Keywords: Norwegian cabin, heterotopia, Christian Valeur, hyttebok, climate fiction."
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Baker, Kelly J. "Getting Rapture Ready: The Materiality of the Rapture in North America." Studies in World Christianity 17, no. 2 (August 2011): 101–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/swc.2011.0015.
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Evangelical and fundamentalist belief in the Rapture, an event in which righteous Christians are called up to heaven, can be found in fiction, prophecy books, and on the internet, yet much of the scholarship on the Rapture focuses upon the rhetoric and beliefs of this impending beginning of the end. However, rapture readiness is also an act of faith with bodily practice, artifacts, and materiality. This article explores rapture practice, RaptureReady.com, and the work of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins to argue that the Rapture is more than words and requires material action to become ready for the end and avoid the cataclysm of the Tribulation period and judgment.
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Ungureanu, James C. "Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 73, no. 3 (September 2021): 173–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf9-21ungureanu.
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SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND THE PROTESTANT TRADITION: Retracing the Origins of Conflict by James C. Ungureanu. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019. x + 358 pages. Hardcover; $50.00. ISBN: 9780822945819. *Mythical understandings about historical intersections of Christianity and science have a long history, and persist in our own day. Two American writers are usually cited as the architects of the mythology of inevitable warfare between science and religion: John William Draper (1811-1882) and Andrew Dickson White (1832-1919). Draper was a medical doctor, chemist, and historian. White was an academic (like Draper), a professional historian, and first president of the nonsectarian Cornell University. Ungureanu's objective is to show how Draper and White have been (mis)interpreted and (mis)used by secular critics of Christianity, liberal theists, and historians alike. *Ungureanu opens by critiquing conflict historians as misreading White and Draper. The conflict narrative emerged from arguments within Protestantism from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, and, as taken up by Draper and White, was intended not to annihilate religion but to reconcile religion with science. Consequently, the two were not the anti-religious originators of science-versus-religion historiography. Rather, the "warfare thesis" began among sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant historians and theologians attacking both Roman Catholics and each other. By the early nineteenth century, the purpose of conflict polemics was not to crush religion in the name of science but to clear intellectual space for preserving a "purified" and "rational" religion reconciled to science. Widespread beliefs held by liberal Protestant men of science included "progressive" development or evolution in history and nature as found, for example, in books by Lamarck in France and Robert Chambers in Britain. For Draper, English chemist and Unitarian minister Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) was a model of faith without the burden of orthodoxy. *So conflict rhetoric arose not, as we've been taught before, in post-Darwinian controversies, but in contending narratives within generations of earlier Protestant reformers who substituted personal judgment for ecclesial authority. Victorian scientific naturalists and popularizers often rejected Christian theological beliefs in the name of a "natural" undogmatic "religion" (which could slip into varieties of Unitarianism, deism, agnosticism, or pantheism). In effect, the conflict was not between science and religion, but between orthodox Christian faith and progressive or heterodox Christian faith--a conflict between how each saw the relationship between Christian faith and science. Draper, White, and their allies still saw themselves as theists, even Protestant Christians, though as liberal theists calling for a "New Reformation." Given past and present anti-Christian interpretations of these conflict historians with actual religious aims, this is ironic to say the least. *Ungureanu's thesis shouldn't be surprising. In the Introduction to his History of the Warfare, White had written: "My conviction is that Science, though it has evidently conquered Dogmatic Theology based on biblical texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in hand with Religion … [i.e.] 'a Power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness' [quoting without attribution Matthew Arnold, who had actually written of an 'eternal power']." *As science advanced, so would religion: "the love of God and of our neighbor will steadily grow stronger and stronger" throughout the world. After praising Micah and the Epistle of James, White looked forward "above all" to the growing practice of "the precepts and ideals of the blessed Founder of Christianity himself" (vol. 1, p. xii). Ungureanu quotes White that the "most mistaken of all mistaken ideas" is the "conviction that religion and science are enemies" (p. 71). *This echoed both Draper's belief that "true" religion was consistent with science, and T. H. Huxley's 1859 lecture in which he affirmed that the so-called "antagonism of science and religion" was the "most mischievous" of "miserable superstitions." Indeed, Huxley affirmed that, "true science and true religion are twin-sisters" (p. 191). *Chapter 1 locates Draper in his biographical, religious, and intellectual contexts: for example, the common belief in immutable natural laws; the "new" Protestant historiography expressed in the work of such scientists as Charles Lyell and William Whewell; and various species of evolutionism. Comte de Buffon, Jean Baptiste Lamarck, John Herschel, Thomas Dick, Robert Chambers, and Darwin are some of the many writers whose work Draper used. *Chapter 2 examines White's intellectual development including his quest for "pure and undefiled" religion. He studied Merle d'Aubigné's history of the Reformation (White's personal library on the subject ran to thirty thousand items) and German scholars such as Lessing and Schleiermacher who cast doubt on biblical revelation and theological doctrines, in favor of a "true religion" based on "feeling" and an only-human Jesus. As he worked out his history of religion and science, White also absorbed the liberal theologies of William Ellery Channing, Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, and Lyman Abbott, among others. *The resulting histories by Draper and White were providential, progressive, and presentist: providential in that God still "governed" (without interfering in) nature and human history; progressive, even teleological, in that faith was being purified while science grew ever closer to Truth; and presentist in that the superior knowledge of the present could judge the inferiority of the past, without considering historical context. *Chapters 3 and 4 situate Draper and White in wider historiographic/polemical Anglo-American contexts, from the sixteenth-century Reformation to the late nineteenth century. Protestant attacks on Roman Catholic moral and theological corruption were adapted to nineteenth-century histories of religion and science, with science as the solvent that cleansed "true religion" of its irrational accretions. Ungureanu reviews other well-known Christian writers, including Edward Hitchcock, Asa Gray, Joseph Le Conte, and Minot Judson Savage, who sought to accommodate their religious beliefs to evolutionary theories and historical-critical approaches to the Bible. *Chapter 5 offers a fascinating portrait of Edward Livingston Youmans--the American editor with prominent publisher D. Appleton and Popular Science Monthly--and his role in promoting the conflict-reconciliation historiography of Draper and White and the scientific naturalism of Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and John Tyndall. *In chapter 6 and "Conclusions," Ungureanu surveys critics of Draper's and White's work, although he neglects some important Roman Catholic responses. He also carefully analyzes the "liberal Protestant" and "progressive" writers who praised and popularized the Draper-White perspectives. Ungureanu is excellent at showing how later writers--atheists, secularists, and freethinkers--not only blurred distinctions between "religion" and "theology" but also appropriated historical conflict narratives as ideological weapons against any form of Christian belief, indeed any form of religion whatsoever. Ultimately, Ungureanu concludes, the conflict-thesis-leading-to-reconciliation narrative failed. The histories of Draper and White were widely, but wrongly, seen as emphatically demonstrating the triumph of science over theology and religious faith, rather than showing the compatibility of science with a refined and redefined Christianity, as was their actual intention. *Draper's History of the Conflict, from the ancients to the moderns, suggested an impressive historical reading program, as did his publication of A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe (rev. ed., 2 vols., 1875 [1863]). But one looks in vain for footnotes and bibliographies to support his controversial claims. White's two-volume study, however, landed with full scholarly apparatus, including copious footnotes documenting his vivid accounts of science conquering theological belief across the centuries. What Ungureanu doesn't discuss is how shoddy White's scholarship could be: he cherrypicked and misread his primary and secondary sources. His citations were not always accurate, and his accounts were sometimes pure fiction. Despite Ungureanu's recovery of German sources behind White's understanding of history and religion, he does not cite Otto Zöckler's Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen Theologie und Naturwissenschaft (2 vols., 1877-1879), which, as Bernard Ramm noted in The Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954), served as "a corrective" to White's history. *Ungureanu certainly knows, and refers to some of, the primary sources in the large literature of natural theology. I think he underplays the roles of Victorian natural theologies and theologies of nature in reflecting, mediating, criticizing, and rejecting conflict narratives. Ungureanu seems to assume readers' familiarity with the classic warfare historians. He could have provided more flavor and content by reproducing some of Draper's and White's melodramatic and misleading examples of good scientists supposedly conquering bad theologians. (One of my favorite overwrought quotations is from White, vol. 1, p. 70: "Darwin's Origin of Species had come into the theological world like a plough into an ant-hill. Everywhere those thus rudely awakened … swarmed forth angry and confused.") *Ungureanu's is relevant history. Nineteenth-century myth-laden histories of the "warfare between Christianity and science" provide the intellectual framework for influential twenty-first century "scientific" atheists who have built houses on sand, on misunderstandings of the long, complex and continuing relations between faith/practice/theology and the sciences. *This is fine scholarship, dense, detailed, and documented--with thirty-seven pages of endnotes and a select bibliography of fifty pages. It is also well written, with frequent pauses to review arguments and conclusions, and persuasive. Required reading for historians, this work should also interest nonspecialists curious about the complex origins of the infamous conflict thesis, its ideological uses, and the value of the history of religion for historians of science. *Reviewed by Paul Fayter, who taught the history of Victorian science and theology at the University of Toronto and York University, Toronto. He lives in Hamilton, ON.
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Dunch, Ryan. "Christianizing Confucian Didacticism: Protestant Publications for Women, 1832-1911." NAN NÜ 11, no. 1 (2009): 65–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/138768009x12454916571805.
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AbstractThe printed Protestant missionary engagement with Chinese views of the role and proper conduct of women in society was more complex and ambiguous than scholars have often assumed. Publications targeted at women readers occupied an important place among Protestant missionary periodicals, books, and other printed materials in Chinese during the late Qing. Most publications for women and girls were elementary doctrinal works, catechisms, and devotional texts designed to introduce early readers to Christian belief, and light reading (fictional tracts and biographies) for women's spiritual edification, but there were some more elaborate works as well. After an overview of mission publications for women, this article focuses on two complex texts, one a compendium of practical knowledge and moral guidance for the Chinese Protestant "new woman," Jiaxue jizhen (The Christian home in China) (1897; revised 1909), and the other, a Protestant reworking from 1902 of the Qing dynasty didactic compilation Nü sishu (Women's four books). Together, these two texts give us a more multifaceted picture of how missionaries engaged with Chinese society and the role of women therein.
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Johnson, Jennifer Anne. "Beyond belief : the crisis of faith in A.S. Byatt's fiction." Journal of English Studies 10 (May 29, 2012): 81. http://dx.doi.org/10.18172/jes.182.
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A. S. Byatt’s Ragnarök (2011), a retelling of the Norse myth of the downfall of the gods and the end of the world, would seem to be a departure from her fictional narratives set in the nineteenth or twentieth century. However, this book is a natural development from her earlier novels that explored the Victorian crisis of faith resulting from the loss of religious certainty in the face of scientific discoveries. The author’s writing over the last twenty years has become increasingly involved with science, and she has long acknowledged her rejection of Christian beliefs. Byatt used the nineteenth century as a starting point for an exploration of twenty-first century concerns which have now resurfaced in the Norse myth of loss and destruction. This paper revisits "Possession" and "Angels and Insects" within the framework of her more recent writing, focusing on the themes of religion, spiritualism and science.
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Han, Chandra. "The Acts of The Apostles: Fact or Fiction?" Diligentia: Journal of Theology and Christian Education 2, no. 3 (September 30, 2020): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.19166/dil.v2i3.2554.
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<span lang="EN-ID">Acts of the Apostles is unique in the Bible. It serves as the transition between the Gospel and the Epistles. For Christians, Acts of the Apostles is a historical book that presents the fact of how Christianity is then widespread. Within the historical issues in the studies of Acts, one creative approach is to classify Acts as a Greco-Roman novel that is highly fictional, a popular treatise for entertainment purposes. The aim of this paper is to examine the historicity of the Acts. The issues of the historicity of the text, the reliability of sources used by Luke, chronology, and data accuracy will be examined. Here, I will argue that Luke’s theological-historical perspective to explain the passage is still better than the novel perspective. I will also demonstrate that the theological principles derived from the novel perspective are strongly disputed compared to those of the theological-historical perspective. Only several theological principles of the text from both historical novel and theological-historical perspective will be presented.</span>
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Parker, Matt. "Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 72, no. 4 (December 2020): 255. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-20parker.
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HUMBLE PI: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World by Matt Parker. New York: Riverhead Books, 2020. 336 pages. Hardcover; $27.00. ISBN: 9780593084687. *Humble Pi delivers a veritable potpourri of mathematical mistakes in the real world, as the title suggests. Consequently, the book may be of interest to a wide variety of readers. Mathematics educators who are looking for reasons why their students should pay attention in class will find plenty of examples to convince even the most skeptical student that mathematical mistakes can have real-world consequences. Meanwhile, readers who struggled in math class may be happy to see that even the supposed experts suffer the consequences of their own miscalculations. While the book is predominantly written in a light-hearted tone that makes it relatively easy to read for a broad audience, it occasionally is somber when real lives are put in danger due to the math going wrong. *The author, Matt Parker, is likely more well known as a YouTube mathematician. His channel "Stand-up Maths" has half a million subscribers and sixty million views. Parker's attempt to channel his high energy, "math is fun" persona into the written word is a challenging task, but he mostly delivers. For example, the page numbers count down until they reach 0, causing an error so the next page is numbered 4,294,967,295. This seemingly random large number happens to be 232 - 1; reading the rest of the book will explain why. The chapters count up from 0, except for a small chapter 9.49 which follows the chapter on rounding. Parker adds levity at the meta level as well as in the writing itself which builds on itself effectively. For this reason, readers who already are familiar with Parker's work on YouTube will likely catch some extra inside jokes. However, to be clear, the book is not simply fan fiction; it is a well-researched and thorough account of mathematical mistakes in various contexts and should appeal to a wide audience. *The content of the book is organized into chapters based on the types of mistakes: losing track of time, counting errors, geometry gone awry, unit conversions, and statistics, to name a few. If one chapter fails to capture interest, the next one delivers something fresh. While this feature is mostly true, it fails in one way. So many of the mistakes come down to computer programming errors. At the core, there is a mathematical idea at play, but the mistake comes from improperly coding that idea into a computer. The author did research a rich set of mathematical mistakes, but often it was not the mathematics that failed but the programming. As a mathematician, I was hoping for more mistakes that felt like mathematics itself going wrong. Yet I suspect that for most readers this is a distinction without a difference. *While the author is not writing explicitly from a Christian perspective, that does not mean that the book is therefore neutral or without perspective. Parker finds a deep joy in the doing of mathematics, a latent aspect of creation awaiting cultivation; he may not express it this way, but the joy is unmistakable. Many of the errors depicted in the book have led to the loss, or near loss, of human lives, sometimes in the hundreds. In a way, this book deeply values life, and one possible outcome would be that people could be more aware of mitigating such errors. In the final chapter, titled "So, What Have We Learned from Our Mistakes?," Parker writes: *"I've done a lot of research from accident-investigation reports that were publicly released, but that generally happens only when there is a very obvious disaster. Many more, quiet mathematical mistakes are probably swept under the rug. Because we all make mistakes. Relentlessly. And that is nothing to be feared. Many people I speak to say that, when they were at school, they were put off mathematics because they simply didn't get it. But half the challenge of learning math is accepting that you may not be naturally good at it, but if you put the effort in, you can learn it. As far as I'm aware, the only quote from me that has been made into a poster by teachers and put up in the classrooms is: 'Mathematicians aren't people who find math easy; they're people who enjoy how hard it is'" (p. 7). *This is a book which outlines mathematical mistakes in the hope that it could prevent some future mistakes; this hope is laudable, and it provides some levity along the way, which is sorely needed in 2020. However, the example of the UK government refusing to change the picture of an incorrect soccer ball on their signs suggests that many mathematical mistakes are likely to be commonplace. *Finally, it should be noted that the book is not only about mistakes, it also provides lots of "Wow, I didn't know that!" moments. Did you know that a year of "seasons" and a year of the earth's orbit are not the same thing? The book is peppered with vignettes such as this that keep the reader wanting more. In the end, the book is entertaining, includes a lot of fresh examples of math in the real world that STEM educators might find helpful, and is written for a broad audience. The fact that mathematics goes wrong in the modern world mostly in connection with computers is important to note; that there are so many ways for it to go wrong is fascinating. *Reviewed by Thomas J. Clark, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Dordt University, Sioux Center, IA 51250.
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Cook, Jonathan A. "Moby-Dick and Twenty-First Century Theodicy." Christianity & Literature 70, no. 4 (December 2021): 361–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/chy.2021.0047.
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Abstract: This essay examines Moby-Dick as a mid-nineteenth-century fictional response to the Christian tradition of theodicy, or the attempt to justify the goodness and justice of God in the face of evil and unmerited human suffering. Given Moby-Dick 's grounding in the traditions of theodicy going back to the book of Job, it is a potentially revealing exercise to compare Melville's novel to more recent examples of this form of discursive analysis, which have greatly proliferated over the last half-century. By examining a representative sample of early twenty-first century Christian theodicies by writers of varying denominational backgrounds, I seek to demonstrate that Moby-Dick dramatizes many of the same issues as discussed by these works, but by framing the issues in narrative and dramatic form, Melville's novel becomes significantly more compelling as an extended exhibition of the problem of evil than any discursive rationalization of its existence within the confines of Christian dogmatism.
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Kurysheva, Liubov A. "Fairy-tale fantasy in Russian handwritten fiction of the late 17th - first third of the 18th centuries." Sibirskiy filologicheskiy zhurnal, no. 3 (2022): 34–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.17223/18137083/80/4.
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The paper analyzes the changes in interpreting magic, fairytale fiction that occurred in translated and original stories of the late 17th - first third of the 18th centuries. A number of fiction works of this period show representations of magic closely linked to the Christian worldview, with some works appearing referring to magic and sorcery as a non-judgmental category. The first Russian translations of fairy tales by M.-C. d’Aulnoy’s made in the Petrine era contributed to the appearance of pure genre fiction free from judgment. These were “The Tale of Florine” (1700 - late 1710s, “L’oiseau bleu”) and “The History of Prince Adolf” (1720-1730s, L’Ile de la Félicité). A fairy was an entirely unfamiliar character to the Russian reader. In The Tale of Florine, the word “fée” was translated by “ega baba” (“yaga baba”) commonly used to refer to women with demonic forces. Magical abilities were designated by “vorozhenie” (divination) and “yagina mudrost’” (yaga’s wisdom). In the manuscripts of The History of Prince Adolf, fairies appear as “goddesses” and “gods”, and magical abilities - “l’esprit de féerie” - as “divine spirit”. When describing magical actions, Russian translators of French fairy tales use everyday vocabulary related to the sphere of folk magical beliefs or associated with the Russian folklore and book tradition. In the period under study, we observe the formation of the genre category of fairy-tale magic and a gradual replacement of the category of “miracle” by a genre-conditioned understanding of magic.
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Brue, Ethan J., and Derek C. VanderLeest Schuurman. "A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 75, no. 1 (March 2023): 71–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf3-23brue.
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A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers by Ethan J. Brue, Derek C. Schuurman, and Steven H. VanderLeest. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2022. 226 pages including discussion questions, endnotes, credits, and indices. Paperback; $28.00. ISBN: 9781514001004. *Finally! The long-awaited update to Responsible Technology: A Christian Perspective (Stephen V. Monsma, ed., Eerdmans, 1986) is here, and this new book is well worth the wait. Framed as a practical field guide for engineers, it is also adept at illuminating some of the philosophical issues that swirl around the interface of technology and Christian faith. Hearty pats-on-the-back to Ethan Brue, Derek Schuurman, and Steven VanderLeest for undertaking and completing this grand project in such fine fashion. *It begins with an inspiring discussion of the connections between humankind's technological hopes and dreams and our ultimate hope in our Maker. Historical accounts and personal stories by each author will surely be an encouragement to young people who are curious about technology from a Christian perspective. Indeed, this book would make a good text for a university-level "Introduction to Engineering" course. The book continues with an insightful survey of how technology relates to the biblical story. This includes a discussion of humanity's first great commission to steward the earth, as well as the influence of fall, redemption, and re-creation on our engineering enterprises. *It gets even more interesting (and philosophical) as the authors next address the popular false narrative that all technology is inherently neutral. Several examples help to expose myths about the universal usefulness and neutrality of tools, the ends justifying the means, and forms of technological determinism. This is followed by a discussion of what constitutes responsible and discerning design, including technological mediation and unintended consequences. This naturally leads into the real "meat" of the book, which deals with design norms, or guiding principles that designers should seek to follow. *The authors extend the original list of norms in Responsible Technology to include categories of analytical, cultural, clarity, social, stewardship, harmony, justice, caring, and faithfulness. Common ethical frameworks are then presented that build on these design norms. This is excellent background knowledge that will greatly benefit engineering students, as well as practitioners. Although a Christian worldview pervades the entire book, it is explicitly addressed in "Modern Towers of Babel" (chapter 6) which explores the results of sin on engineering and resulting technologies. A helpful distinction between finiteness and fallenness illuminates this discussion. *The engineering of electric vehicles provides a fascinating example of how important historical context and past industry contribute to understanding in current designs. With this background, the design norms are then applied to envision the responsible development of a future electric vehicle. A chapter on technology and the future follows, with discussions of technological optimism, pessimism, and transhumanism. A biblical view of the future of technology concludes this section by framing it all in a Christian perspective. I imagine this section will be exciting for young engineers as they envision how God is calling them to use future technologies to influence the world for good and not for ill.. *However, I found the second-to-last chapter (on technology for evangelism and missions) to be the most interesting. Here we are reminded that technological work is a legitimate Christian calling, since "Our worship does not start and stop with the formal service in a church building … worship can and should be an ever-present mindset and continuous act" (p. 175). And training as a technologist not only enables one to use technology in serving others physically, but it also provides access to the technological community where one can have an even more profound influence. The authors emphasize that "While Christians from a wide variety of vocational backgrounds can serve as missionaries in developing countries, only those with a highly technical education can serve as missionaries to this corporate mission field. Technical expertise opens doors" (p. 168). Readers are encouraged to develop their own unique and creative ways to use technology to love their neighbor. But this is about as close as the authors get to discussing what may be an important calling for many Christian engineers, that of the evangelist/apologist. I would like to have seen more discussion on how the expertise of engineers enables them to answer questions on science and faith apparent disagreements, questions asked by both skeptics and believers. Engineers are uniquely qualified to serve as mediators and peacemakers in the science and faith conversation, and unfortunately, perhaps due to size constraints, this aspect was not mentioned in the book. *Finally, I hope that readers make it to the last chapter since I found it particularly meaningful. It consists of a series of emails between a young engineer and his former engineering professor and mentor at a Christian university. Although the letters are fictional, they raise many questions that often arise within the first years of an engineering career. And the good professor dispenses his wisdom with keen insight and grace. Overall, I found this book to be a much-needed addition to the conversation on technology and Christian faith. And I think it should be widely considered as required reading in the first year of engineering programs at Christian universities. The questions for reflection and discussion at the end of each chapter are very thoughtful and provide a helpful resource in this regard. *Reviewed by Dominic Halsmer, Senior Professor of Engineering, Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, OK 74171.
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G.Chandu. "SOUL LONGING FOR AGAPE LOVE IN THE POEM “REMEMBER” BY CHRISTINA ROSETTI." Journal of English Language and Literature 10, no. 01 (2023): 92–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.54513/joell.2023.10111.
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“Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.” says -Boris Pasternak. Several literary works engage readers deeply by the narratives they tell or the messages they convey. Readers are consistently motivated by biographies of notable people as well as true tales of bravery, selflessness, and other admirable traits. Such books act as both a bible of values and a window into the life of notable people for the general public. The main types of literature: Drama, Fable, Autobiography, Biography, Poetry, Prose, Science Fiction, and Journalistic Literature. Poetry is a great motivator when we try to learn it. It is rich in tradition, culture and language and gives a great opportunity to learn a language. The main function of poetry is to interpret life. There are poets who have pictured death as both a friend and an enemy. Some claim that passing away can provide relief from troubles and anguish, while others claim that it is cruel and robs a person of the fun and pleasure the world has to offer. In this paper, an attempt has been made to present Christina Rossetti’s longingness to be remembered even after death that separates her from her lover in the poem “Remember”.
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Chatterjee, Ronjaunee. "PRECARIOUS LIVES: CHRISTINA ROSSETTI AND THE FORM OF LIKENESS." Victorian Literature and Culture 45, no. 4 (November 8, 2017): 745–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1060150317000195.
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In its anonymous reviewof Christina Rossetti'sSpeaking Likenesses(1874), theAcademynotes rather hopelessly: “this will probably be one of the most popular children's books this winter. We wish we could understand it” (606). The reviewer – who later dwells on the “uncomfortable feeling” generated by this children's tale and its accompanying images – still counts as the most generous among the largely puzzled and horrified readership of Rossetti's story about three sets of girls experiencing violence and failure in their respective fantasy worlds (606). While clearly such dystopic plots are not out of place in Victorian literature about children, something about Rossetti's unusual narrative bothered her contemporaries. John Ruskin, for instance, bluntly wondered how Rossetti and Arthur Hughes, who illustrated the story, together could “sink so low” (qtd. in Auerbach and Knoepflmacher 318). In any case, the book still sold on the Christmas market, and a few months later, Rossetti would publishAnnus Domini, a benign pocketbook of daily prayers that stands in stark contrast to the grim prose ofSpeaking Likenesses.It is therefore tempting to cast this work of children's fiction as a strange anomaly in Rossetti's oeuvre, which from the 1870s, beginning withAnnus Domini, to her death in 1894, became almost exclusively dominated by devotional prose and poetry. In contrast, I argue in the following essay thatSpeaking Likenessespoints to a widespread interest throughout Rossetti's writing – but especially in her most well-known poems fromGoblin Market and Other Poems(1862) andA Prince's Progress(1866) – in alternative modes of sociality that refract a conceptual preoccupation with likeness, rather than difference. Following traditions of critical thought that have paid increasing attention to relations that resist oppositional logic – Stephanie Engelstein and Eve Kosovsky Sedgwick's late work comes to mind here – I establish the primacy of a horizontal axis of similarity in bothSpeaking Likenessesand Rossetti's most canonical poem, “Goblin Market.” For Rossetti, the lure of similarity, or minimal difference, manifests itself most often in siblinghood and more specifically, sisterhood, the dominant kinship relation throughout her lyrics fromGoblin Market and Other Poems. Sisterhood anchors the title poem I will examine in this essay, as well as shorter verses such as “Noble Sisters” and “Sister Maude.” At issue in such relations of likeness is the discreteness of a (typically) feminine self. For Rossetti, shunning oppositional structures of desire and difference that typically produce individuation (exemplified in the heterosexual couple form and the titles of her uneasy lyrics “He and She” and “Wife to Husband”) allows for a new (albeit perilous) space to carve out one's particularity as a gendered being.
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Zagzebski, Linda. "Divine Motivation Theory and Exemplarism." European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8, no. 3 (September 23, 2016): 109–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v8i3.1689.
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In this paper I summarize two versions of a new form of ethical theory in which all basic moral terms are defined by direct reference to exemplars of goodness. I call the Christian form Divine Motivation Theory in a book by the same name (Cambridge University Press, 2004), and the more general form I call Exemplarist Virtue Theory (Gifford Lectures 2015) or Exemplarist Moral Theory (forthcoming 2017, Oxford University Press). In the Christian form the supreme exemplar is God. In exemplarist virtue theory exemplars are superbly admirable persons or fictional characters, whose goodness is identified through the emotion of admiration rather than through the satisfaction of descriptive properties. In both versions of the theory the terms ‘good person’, ‘virtue’, ‘good life’, ‘admirable act’, and ‘right act’ are defined by the acts, motives, judgments, and attitudes of exemplary persons.
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LÉRTORA MENDOZA, Celina A. "Las disputas interreligiosas bajomedievales. Sus presupuestos teóricos: Ramón Llull / Interfaith Mediaeval Disputes. Theoretical Budgets: Raymond Llull." Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval 20 (October 1, 2013): 101. http://dx.doi.org/10.21071/refime.v20i.6008.
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In the late Middle Ages and especially in the ss. xiv and xv, we see a proliferation of interfaith disputes between Christians, Muslims and Jews, that although somewhat reissue previous practices have, for quantity, quality theoretical and practical consequences, a historical novelty. Can be classified as 1. preaching, 2. education and 3. dispute. Ramon Llull can be considered a pioneer of interreligious dialogue between Western monotheisms, in the sense of having proposed a new approach to the controversies that had centuries of experience when he wrote. While all his work, in a sense, it contributes to the idea of basing the rationality of Christian belief several works specifically devoted to interreligious dialogue, including Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men (Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis, 1274-1276) posed —fictional— as the reason and purpose of their efforts. An important reason to be interested in thinking luliano is that, in some respects, the problems involved in the dialogue are repeated throughout the centuries until today. There are three aspects of his thought that are interesting for their originality and the ability to compare and draw analogies and differences with the current project: 1.Integrate the debate in the context of rationality, but in a broader way than syllogistic correction or that the question of the truth or falsity of assertions isolated. 2.Find a specific objective, clear and can be shared by the partners. 3.Give agnosticism own space.
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Kharchenko, Oleg. "LITERARY JOURNALISM. PUBLIC SPEECHES. BIBLICAL MOTIFS." Scientific Journal of Polonia University 49, no. 6 (January 18, 2022): 35–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.23856/4905.
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This article focuses its attention on the functioning of the biblical motifs in American fiction and their penetration in American public speeches and non-fiction through literary journalism techniques. The findings of this work illustrate that biblical motifs and religious lexicon as a whole have been used steadily in the speeches of all U.S presidents. Taking into account that the majority of Americans (73%) relates to Christians, the biblical motifs belong to important rhetorical and stylistic tools of all U.S. presidents in their search for the support of voters. Since Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), there has been an apparent tendency to employ more religious words and biblical motifs. The most active users of them were Donald Trump, George H.W. Bush, and Barack Obama who applied 7.3, 4.8, and 4.1 religious words per one thousand in their speeches. While monitoring the biblical motifs in American mass media and multimedia, we identified the most periodically applied: God, All-Mighty, Lord, Supreme Being; Satan, Devil, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Baphomet; Saint Mary; Archangels; Angels; Four Horsemen of Apocalypses; The Three Wise Men; Messiah, the Chosen One; All-loving hero; Cain and Abel; Samson and Delilah; False prophet; Nephilim, giants. According to our findings 136 names of angels were determined in American fiction and non-fiction. As for the theological angels, whose names differ sometimes, their number is 123. The total number of Archangels, mentioned in America mass media, is 17. However, in the Bible and Enoch book just only seven archangels are named. The research results could be used by the specialists in media studies, journalism and philology, as well as by practical journalists and multimedia authors, including Ukrainian students, who plan to sharpen their skills in writing English content.
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Roos, Henriette. "The sins of the fathers: The missionary in some modern English novels about the Congo." Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 46, no. 1 (November 8, 2017): 58–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2309-9070/tvl.v.46i1.3464.
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This essay offers a discussion of some novels written in English in which the (Belgian) Congo forms the historical background to the fictional world, and that were published after that country became independent. Works by internationally well-known authors like Graham Greene (A Burnt-out Case, 1961) Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible, 1998), Robert Edric (The Book of the Heathen, 2000) and John le Carré (The Mission Song, 2006), fall under the spotlight, though references are also made to other and earlier relevant works. The texts represent different eras in a history of just more than a hundred years and all of these narratives relate, in a direct or implied manner, the nature and impact of a Christian missionary presence. Whilst genre, story line and narrative tone differ considerably in the individual books, the reader is exposed to a remarkable analogous range of subject matter and theme: amongst others the disappointments of the missionary ideal, the corruptive power of authority and the subservient part played by the female devotees. The plight of the Congo is narrated from a postcolonial point of view, though the story lines indicate that this vast country has always been, and still is, at the mercy of colonial exploitation, in which the missionary set-up played a crucial part. The novels also display a remarkable intertextual relationship through recurring motifs, titles, images and names and thus contribute to that body of work forming a tradition of (English language) Congo literature.
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Zvereva, Tatyana Vjacheslavovna. "“TWILIGHT OF GODS” IN SERGEY STRATANOVSKY'S POETIC BOOK “ANIMATION OF THE TAMBOURINE”." Yearbook of Finno-Ugric Studies 14, no. 4 (December 25, 2020): 651–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.35634/2224-9443-2020-14-4-651-658.
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The paper analyses the book Animation of the Tambourine by Sergey Stratanovskii. The research focuses on the poetic interpretation of the Russian peoples’ myths (Karelian-Finnish, Mari, Mordovian, Udmurt, Chuvash, Mansi , Tatar, Bashkir, Buryat, Chukchee, Nivkhi, Yakut, etc.). Special emphasis is made on the analysis of the poetry which refers to Finno-Ugric legends and myths. The author considers that S. Stratanovskii not only educes the unique character of certain cultures but also reveals universal archetypical structures which moderate surface differences on the primal level. The main conflict of the book is the clash between heathen beliefs and Christian faith which replaced them. Most texts deflect S. Stratanovskii’s ‘basic myth’, i.e. the ‘civilization myth’ about the Teacher’s arrival. Reference to fiction pretexts ( Calevala , A. Blok, K. Zhakov and Y. Rytkheu, etc. ) play an important role in sense making. Text analysis lets the author draw the conclusion of conventionality of artistic time continuum which correlates with past and present as well which means the hic et ubique situation rather than a given period in human history. Animation of the Tambourine raises a most important problem for the present-day Russia, namely the problem of interrelationship between the Russian and indigenous ethnic groups’ cultures. The fact ascending to folklore - fundamental variability of the book - is noted as there are a few copies of Animation of the Tambourine written by the author himself which differ in number of texts and genre composition.
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Van Remoortel, Marianne. "CHRISTINA ROSSETTI AND THE ECONOMICS OF PUBLICATION: MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE, “A BIRTHDAY,” AND BEYOND." Victorian Literature and Culture 41, no. 4 (October 25, 2013): 711–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1060150313000181.
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Impelled to seek relief from a “peccant chest” (L233) at the seaside, Christina Rossetti travelled to Hastings in December 1864, taking a carefully wrapped bundle of unfinished manuscript poetry with her. Throughout the winter until the following March, a series of letters to Cheyne Walk kept her brother Dante Gabriel abreast not only of her gradual recovery, but also of her efforts to complete her second book of poetry, two years after she had made a successful debut with Goblin Market. Shortly after her arrival, Rossetti reported that she was struggling to finish “The Prince's Progress,” the long narrative poem that was to lend its title to the new volume: [M]y Alchemist still shivers in the blank of mere possibility: but I have so far overcome my feelings and disregarded my nerves as to unloose the Prince, so that string wrapping paper may no longer bar his “progress.” Also I have computed pages of the altogether-unexceptionable, and find that they exceed 120: this cheers though not inebriates. Amongst your ousted I recognize sundry of my own favourites, which perhaps I may adroitly re-insert when publishing day comes round. . . . Meanwhile I have sent 3 (I hope) pot-boilers to Mac's Mag. (L233) In the past few decades, Rossetti's lifelong effort to see what critics have variously called “the divine spiritual essence of material beauty” (Harrison 56), the “moral and spiritual significance in physical signs” (Arseneau 279), and “the spiritual in the sensuous, the numinous in the material” (Kooistra, Illustration 38) has become a mainstay of Rossetti scholarship. This excerpt from her correspondence, in contrast, reveals her equally profound preoccupation with the materiality and economics of writing. Issues of textual ownership, authorial control, and literary marketability confronted Rossetti in the 1860s as her financial situation forced her to balance book publication with regular contributions to the periodical press, notably Macmillan's Magazine, the magazine owned by Rossetti's publisher Macmillan and Co., which carried more of her poetry than any other British periodical in the nineteenth century. These issues extended beyond Rossetti's personal dealings with Macmillan, however, shaping the material and interpretive consumption of her work throughout her career. This arc may be seen in the publication and adaptation history of one of her most popular poems, “A Birthday,” from its first appearance in Macmillan's Magazine in 1861 until her death. Over time, the poem underwent various types of mediation: reprints in gift books and poetry anthologies, musical adaptation, vocal performance, and quotations in fictional works. Finally, her reaction to the three parodies of her poems published in an 1888 comic magazine – particularly to “An Unexpected Pleasure,” the parody of “A Birthday” – demonstrate her perspective on the increased commodity value of the original poem.
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Peckham, Jeremy. "Masters or Slaves? AI and the Future of Humanity." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 73, no. 4 (December 2021): 244–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-21peckham.
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MASTERS OR SLAVES? AI and the Future of Humanity by Jeremy Peckham. London, UK: Inter-Varsity Press, 2021. 256 pages. Paperback; $31.99. ISBN: 9781789742398. *Will humans maintain their status as masters of their own creation or will they inevitably become slaves to these creations? Jeremy Peckham's book is another Christian analysis of the progress in artificial intelligence (AI) and a warning to the world of the dangers AI poses for the individual and for society at large. Peckham believes that the unregulated research and development of AI coupled with the laissez-faire usage of AI systems will result in humanity's degradation. *In the first chapter, Peckham captures the reader's attention by presenting a short fictional account of the Jefferson family starting their day in a world saturated with computer technology. This introductory story highlights the new technological reality in which we need to seriously explore AI's influence on humanity. In chapters two and three, Peckham presents a quick historical overview of computer and AI development. Chapter two begins with how computers and AI started as simplistic number-crunching machines that went from "winters" of technological disappointment to rapid progress with massive global impact. With this rapid evolution of AI, a necessary change is needed to determine whether AI can be considered morally neutral. *To address the growing danger and influence AI has on humanity, Peckham builds his argument in chapter four on the foundation that there is something special and unique about humanity. Humans are not only flesh and blood creatures but also bearers of God's given imago Dei ("image of God"). This imago Dei is what separates humans from other nonliving and living things. In addition, as part of the imago Dei, Peckham affirms that humans have true freedom of choice. While Peckham does not provide a comprehensive examination of various philosophical stances regarding free will, he suggests that the ability of human beings to make choices freely is crucial to understanding how they are created in God's image. Beginning with the foundation of human's imago Dei, Peckham develops a Christian critique of AI by examining technology's effect upon this most important aspect of humanity. *Following his chapter on humanity's imago Dei, Peckham's main argument is further developed in chapters five to ten where he identifies six key areas of technology which threaten or have the possibility of threatening the imago Dei. In chapter five, Peckham is concerned that the continued reliance on AI to make decisions based on the premise that AI is unbiased is dangerous. Trusting AI technology in this manner further distances our relationship with other humans and elevates AI "reasoning" to human-like levels. In chapter six, human relationships with chatbots and digital assistants are the focus. Here, Peckham fears that the increasingly human (and often female) personification of digital assistants will lead to a distortion of emotional attachment and even to the illusion that we owe these artifacts ethical treatment. In chapter seven, Peckham considers whether the increased convenience and perceived general safety offered by state-controlled AI is worth the cost of restricting individual freedoms. For Peckham, the cost of individual freedom is too high a price to pay for the convenience which the state or the "Big Tech" companies now wield with substantial power and influence over the individual. *Chapter eight highlights the moral dilemma of whether an autonomous machine (such as a self-driving car) should be held morally responsible for its actions. Peckham believes that moral responsibility must ultimately remain with a human rather than placed on a machine. In chapter nine, Peckham addresses the growing concern that continued AI progress will result in fewer jobs available or in jobs that require higher technological proficiency. To address this growing concern, Peckham briefly explores the possibility of a UBI (universal basic income) and encourages a reexamination of a theology of work. Finally, Peckham's last critique of AI centers on its implementation in video games and virtual reality. Peckham fears that these digital realities present a slippery slope for users who will be unable to differentiate between true reality and digital reality. *In the final two chapters (eleven and twelve), Peckham considers a Christian response to AI progress along with developing a Christian manifesto toward AI research and usage. Rather than utilizing AI technology mindlessly or carelessly, Peckham exhorts the reader to seriously consider the substantial influence AI has upon the individual and how AI development should be regulated moving forward. To properly consider and regulate AI, Peckham argues that a Christian worldview provides the best framework with which to understand humanity and our relationship with technological artifacts. Thus, his brief Christian manifesto serves to introduce how Christians can have a voice in the AI conversation. *Peckham's educational and vocational background in computer technology serves him well in writing this book. He has worked on computer and AI technology in both the government and commercial sectors. With his background in various AI technologies, Peckham understands how AI technology is built, how it functions, and the intentions behind the design. This is a strength of the book since many Christians who discuss AI often lack the requisite training and expertise. *Although Peckham does understand AI technology well, he does not examine the ontological considerations of AI. Peckham looks mostly at the effects of AI technology and then tries to develop a critique of that technology rather than relying on more philosophical arguments. Peckham's critique throughout the chapters would be stronger if he considered an ontology of AI or provided a more detailed explanation of what AI is before presenting his critique. At several points throughout the book, Peckham implores the reader to consider the harmful consequences of AI technology, but he does not look into the deeper fundamental philosophical presuppositions. *In addition, chapter ten, addressing video game AI and virtual reality technology, comes across as outdated, restating many of the traditional Christian arguments against video games. While Peckham does helpfully highlight the new AI technologies used in video games (such as augmented and virtual reality), his criticisms of video games ignore the numerous variations of games as well as the communities built around video games. By presenting a familiar Christian critique, Peckham risks dismissing some of the more-recent developments in the video game industry as well as alienating readers who are active within that community. *Overall, Masters or Slaves? is a welcome addition to the growing Christian literature on AI. In comparison to other recent Christian publications on AI, such as Jason Thacker's The Age of AI or John Lennox's 2084, Peckham's contribution has a stronger technical foundation due to his extensive background in the technology. Peckham expresses moral concerns similar to those of other authors about the development of AI, while covering a large number of areas that AI currently, or will inevitably, affect. Although Peckham could certainly provide even more background on specific AI technologies, his book serves as an excellent introduction to a Christian response to AI. *Reviewed by Eddy Wu, IT Operations Manager and PhD student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, NC 27587.
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Werle, Dirk, and Uwe Maximilian Korn. "Telling the Truth: Fictionality and Epic in Seventeenth-Century German Literature." Journal of Literary Theory 14, no. 2 (September 25, 2020): 241–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2020-2006.
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AbstractResearch on the history of fiction of the early modern period has up to now taken primarily the novel into consideration and paralleled the rise of the novel as the leading genre of narrative literature with the development of the modern consciousness of fictionality. In the present essay, we argue that contemporary reflections on fictionality in epic poetry, specifically, the carmen heroicum, must be taken into account to better understand the history of fiction from the seventeenth century onwards. The carmen heroicum, in the seventeenth century, is the leading narrative genre of contemporary poetics and as such often commented on in contexts involving questions of fictionality and the relationship between literature and truth, both in poetic treatises and in the poems themselves. To reconstruct a historical understanding of fictionality, the genre of the epic poem must therefore be taken into account.The carmen heroicum was the central narrative genre in antiquity, in the sixteenth century in Italy and France, and still in the seventeenth century in Germany and England. Martin Opitz, in his ground-breaking poetic treatise, the Buch von der Deutschen Poeterey (1624), counts the carmen heroicum among the most important poetic genres; but for poetry written in German, he cites just one example of the genre, a text he wrote himself. The genre of the novel is not mentioned at all among the poetic genres in Opitz’ treatise. Many other German poetic treatises of the seventeenth century mention the importance of the carmen heroicum, but they, too, provide only few examples of the genre, even though there were many Latin and German-language epic poems in the long seventeenth century. For Opitz, a carmen heroicum has to be distinguished from a work of history insofar as its author is allowed to add fictional embellishments to the ›true core‹ of the poem. Nevertheless, the epic poet is, according to Opitz, still bound to the truthfulness of his narrative.Shortly before the publication of Opitz’ book, Diederich von dem Werder translated Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme liberata (1580); his translation uses alexandrine verse, which had recently become widely successful in Germany, especially for epic poems. Von dem Werder exactly reproduces Tasso’s rhyming scheme and stanza form. He also supplies the text with several peritexts. In a preface, he assures the reader that, despite the description of unusual martial events and supernatural beings, his text can be considered poetry. In a historiographical introduction, he then describes the course of the First Crusade; however, he does not elaborate about the plot of the verse epic. In a preceding epyllion – also written in alexandrine verse – von dem Werder then poetically demonstrates how the poetry of a Christian poet differs from ancient models. All these efforts can be seen as parts of the attempt to legitimate the translation of fictional narrative in German poetry and poetics. Opitz and von dem Werder independently describe problems of contemporary literature in the 1620s using the example of the carmen heroicum. Both authors translate novels into German, too; but there are no poetological considerations in the prefaces of the novels that can be compared to those in the carmina heroica.Poetics following the model established by Opitz develop genre systems in which the carmen heroicum is given an important place, too; for example, in Balthasar Kindermann’s Der Deutsche Poet (1664), Sigmund von Birken’s Teutsche Rede- bind- und Dicht-Kunst (1679), and Daniel Georg Morhof’s Unterricht von der Teutschen Sprache und Poesie (1682). Of particular interest for the history of fictionality is Albrecht Christian Rotth’s Vollständige Deutsche Poesie (1688). When elaborating on the carmen heroicum, Rotth gives the word ›fiction‹ a positive terminological value and he treats questions of fictionality extensively. Rotth combines two contradictory statements, namely that a carmen heroicum is a poem and therefore invented and that a carmen heroicum contains important truths and is therefore true. He further develops the idea of the ›truthful core‹ around which poetic inventions are laid. With an extended exegesis of Homer’s Odyssey, he then illustrates what it means precisely to separate the ›core‹ and the poetic embellishments in a poem. All these efforts can be seen as parts of the attempt to legitimize a poem that tells the truth in a fictional mode.The paper argues that a history of fictionality must be a history that carefully reconstructs the various and specifically changing constellations of problems concerning how the phenomenon of fictionality may be interpreted in certain historical contexts. Relevant problems to which reflections on fictionality in seventeenth-century poetics of the epic poem and in paratexts to epic poems react are, on the one hand, the question of how the genre traditionally occupying the highest rank in genre taxonomy, the epic, can be adequately transformed in the German language, and, on the other hand, the question of how a poetic text can contain truths even if it is invented.
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Raj, Greeshma. "Literature and Mythology: Exploring Mythological Elements and Archetypes in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”." International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences 9, no. 1 (2024): 148–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.91.20.
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This article delves into the intricate relationship between literature and mythology, exploring how C.S. Lewis skilfully intertwines mythological elements and archetypes in his classic children's book, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." The author examines the use of Christian symbolism, the resurrection motif, and characters inspired by traditional myths to create a timeless narrative. The essay explores the subversion of myths within the story, emphasizing the nuanced characterization of figures like the White Witch and the unexpected transformation of flawed heroes. Additionally, the article analyses the thematic implications and character development in the novel, highlighting the central themes of good vs. evil, redemption, sacrifice, heroism, and friendship. Furthermore, it discusses how Lewis subtly subverts mythological elements, challenging preconceptions and providing a fresh perspective on timeless tropes. The Narnian setting itself is examined, with its disruption of time and diverse array of magical creatures challenging conventional expectations. In conclusion, the article asserts that "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" stands as a testament to the enduring impact of the legendary genre on fiction, showcasing Lewis's ability to transform familiar myths into a thought-provoking and timeless masterpiece.