Sivistyksestä sivilisaatioon. Kulttuurikäsitys J. V. Snellmanin historiallisessa ajattelussa

From Bildung to Civilisation. Conception of Culture in J. V. Snellman’s Historical Thinking The research explores Johan Vilhelm Snellman’s (1806–1881) conception of culture in the context of his historical thinking. Snellman was a Finnish, Swedish-speaking journalist, teacher and thinker, who held a central position in the Finnish national discourse during the nineteenth century. He has been considered as one of the leading theorists of a Finnish nation, writing widely about the themes such as the advancement of the national education, Finnish language and culture. Snellman is already a widely studied person in Finnish intellectual history, often characterised as a follower of G. W. F. Hegel’s philosophical system. My own research introduces a new kind of approach on Snellman’s texts, emphasising the conceptual level of his thought. With this approach, my aim is to broaden the Finnish research tradition on conceptual history. I consider my study as a cultural history of concepts, belonging also to the field of intellectual history. My focus is on one hand on the close reading of Snellman’s texts and on the other hand on contextualising his texts to the European intellectual tradition of the time. A key concept of Snellman’s theoretical thinking is his concept of bildning, which can be considered as a Swedish counterpart of the German concept of Bildung. The Swedish word incorporated all the main elements of the German concept. It could mean education or the so-called high culture, but most fundamentally it was about the self-formation of the individual. This is also the context in which Snellman’s concept of bildning has often been interpreted. In the study, I use the concept of bildning as a starting point of my research but I broaden my focus on the cognate concepts such as culture (kultur), spirit (anda) and civilisation. The purpose of my study is thus to illustrate how Snellman used and modified these concepts and from these observations to draw a conclusion about the nature of his conception of culture. Snellman was an early Finnish philosopher of history but also interested in the practice of the writing of history. He did not write any historical presentations himself but followed the publications in the field of history and introduced European historical writing to the Finnish, Swedish-speaking reading audience in his newspapers. The primary source material consists of different types of Snellman’s texts, including philosophical writings, lecture material, newspaper articles and private letters. I’m reading Snellman’s texts in the context of other texts produced both by his Finnish predecessors and contemporaries and by Swedish, German and French writers. Snellman’s principal philosophical works, Versuch einer spekulativen Entwicklung der Idee der Persönlichkeit (1841) and Läran om staten (1842), were both written abroad. Both of the works were contributions to contemporary debates on the international level, especially in Germany and Sweden. During the 1840s and 1850s Snellman had two newspapers of his own, Saima and Litteraturblad, which were directed towards the Swedish-speaking educated class. Both of the newspapers were very popular and their circulations were among the largest of their day in Finland. The topics of his articles and reviews covered literature, poetry, philosophy and education as well as issues concerning the economic, industrial and technical development in Finland. In his newspapers Snellman not only brought forth his own ideas but also spread the knowledge of European events and ideas to his readers. He followed very carefully the cultural and political situation in Western Europe. He also followed European magazines and newspapers and was well acquainted with German, French and also English literature – and of course Swedish literature to with which he had the closest ties. In his newspapers Snellman wrote countless number of literary reviews and critics, introducing his readers to European literature. The study consists of three main chapters in which I explore my research question in three different, yet overlapping contexts. In the first of these chapters, I analyse Snellman’n theoretical thinking and his concepts of bildning, kultur, anda and civilisation in the context of earlier cultural discourse in Finland as well as the tradition of German idealistic philosophy and neo-humanism. With the Finnish cultural discourse I refer to the early cultural discussion in Finland, which emerged after the year 1809, when Finland became an autonomous entity of its own as a Grand Duchy of Russia. Scholars of the Academy of Turku opened a discussion on the themes such as the state of national consciousness, the need for national education and the development of the Finnish language as a national language of Finland. Many of these academics were also Snellman’s teachers in the early years of his academic career and Snellman clearly formulated his own ideas in the footsteps of these Finnish predecessors. In his theoretical thinking Snellman was a collectivist; according to him an individual should always be understood in connection with the society, its values and manners, as well as to the traditions of a culture where an individual belongs to. In his philosophy of the human spirit Snellman was in many ways a Hegelian but his notion of education or ‘bildning’ includes also elements that connect him with the wider tradition of German intellectual history, namely the neo-humanist tradition and, at least to some extent, to the terminology of J. G. Herder or J. G. Fichte, for example. In this chapter, I also explore Snellman’s theory of history. In his historical thinking Snellman was an idealist, believing in the historical development of the human spirit (Geist in German language). One can characterise his theory of history by stating that it is a mixture of a Hegelian triumph of the spirit and Herderian emphasis on humanity (Humanität) and the relative nature of ‘Bildung’. For Snellman, the process of ‘bildning’ or ‘Bildung’ is being realised in historical development through the actions of human beings. Snellman believed in the historical development of the human civilization. Still Snellman himself considered that he had abandoned Hegel’s idea about the process of world history. Snellman – rightly or wrongly – criticised Hegel of emphasising the universal end of history (the realisation of the freedom of spirit) at the expense of the historical plurality and the freedom of each historical era. Snellman accused Hegel of neglecting the value and independency of different historical cultures and periods by imposing the abstract norm, the fulfilment of the freedom of spirit, as the ultimate goal of history. The historicist in Snellman believed in the individuality of each historical period; each historical era or culture had values, traditions and modes of thought of its own. This historicist in Snellman could not accept the talk about one measure or the end of history. On the other hand Snellman was also a universalist. He believed that mankind had a common task and that task was the development of ‘Bildung’, freedom or humanity. The second main chapter consists of two parts. In the first part, I explore the Finnish nationalistic discourse from the cultural point of view by analysing the notions such as a nation, national spirit or national language and showing how Snellman formulated his own ideas in a dialogic situation, participating in the Finnish discourse but also reacting to international discussions on the themes of the nation and nationality. For Snellman nationality was to a great extent the collective knowledge and customs or practices of the nation. Snellman stated that nationality is to be considered as a form of ‘bildning’. This could be seen not simply as affection for the fatherland but also for the mental identity of the nation, its ways of thinking, its practices, national language, customs and laws, the history of the nation. The simplest definition of nationality that Snellman gives is that nationality is the social life of the people. In the second part of the chapter I exam Snellman’s historical thinking and his understanding about historical development, interaction between different nations and cultures in the course of history, as well as the question of historical change; how do cultures or civilisations develop and who are the creators of culture? Snellman did not believe in one dominating culture but understood the course of history as a dialogue between different cultures. On the other hand, his views are very Eurocentric – here he follows the ideas of Hegel or for example the French historian François Guizot – for Snellman Europe represented the virtue of pluralism; in Europe one could see the diversity of cultures which, on the other hand, were fundamentally based on a common Christian tradition. In the third main chapter, my focus is on the writing of history, more precisely on Snellman’s ideas on the nature of history as a science and on the proper way of writing historical presentations. Snellman wrote critics on the works of history and introduced his readers to the writing of history especially in France, Sweden and German-speaking area – in some extend also in Britain. Snellman’s collectivistic view becomes evident also in his reviews on historical writing. For Snellman history was not about the actions of the states and their heads, nor about the records of ruling families and battles fought. He repeatedly stressed that history is a discipline that seeks to provide a total view of a phenomenon. A historian should not only collect information on historical events, since this information touches only the surface of a certain epoch or civilisation; he has to understand an epoch as totality. This required an understanding about the major contours in history, connections between civilisations and an awareness of significant turning points in historical development. In addition, it required a holistic understanding about a certain culture or historical era, including also the so-called inner life of a specific nation, a common people and their ways of life. Snellman wrote explicitly about ‘cultural history’ in his texts, referring to this kind of broad understanding of a society. In historical writing Snellman found this kind of broader view from the works of the French historians such as François Guizot and Jules Michelet. In all of these chapters, I elaborate the conceptual dimension of Snellman’s historical thinking. In my study I argue that Snellman not only adopted the German concepts of Bildung or Kultur in his own thinking but also developed the Swedish concepts in a way that include personal and innovative aspects. Snellman’s concept of bildning is not only a translation from ‘Bildung’ but he uses the Swedish concept in a versatile way that includes both the moral aspect of human development and social dimension of a human life. Along with ‘bildning’ Snellman used also the terms ‘kultur’ and ‘civilisation’ when referring to the totality of a certain nation or historical era, including both the so-called high culture (arts, science, religion) and the modes of thought as well as ways of life of the people as a whole. Unlike many of his Finnish contemporaries, Snellman did not use civilisation as a negative concept, lacking the moral essence of German term ‘Bildung’ or ‘Kultur’. Instead, for Snellman civilisation was a neutral term and here he comes close to the French tradition of using the term. In the study I argue that Snellman’s conception of culture in fact includes a synthesis of the German tradition of ‘Bildung’ and the French tradition of ‘civilisation’.

Michael Hornyansky Fonds,

Michael Sands Hornyansky was the son of well-known artist, Nicholas Hornyansky and a cellist. He attended Oakwood Collegiate, Toronto; University College in Toronto and Merton College, Oxford where he was a Rhodes scholar. He won the Newdigate prize for poetry in 1951. Dr. Hornyansky taught English Language and Literature at Carleton University, Ottawa for 10 years before moving to Niagara in 1964. He was the founding chairman of the English Department of Brock University where he remained until his retirement in 1993. Some of his achievements include:The Golden Phoenix, a retelling of French Canadian folk tales and the publishing of papers on children’s literature and the discriminating use of the English language. He also reviewed poetry for the University of Toronto Quarterly. Michael Hornyansky died on May 14th, 2008 in Alberta at the age of 81. The annual Michael Hornyansky prize for creative writing was established at Brock University.

Arthur A. Schmon fonds

Arthur Albert Schmon was born in 1895 in Newark, New Jersey. During his studies at Barringer High School in Newark, he met Eleanore Celeste Reynolds who was to become his wife in August of 1919. Mr. Schmon studied English literature at Princeton and graduated with honours in 1917. That same year, Mr. Schmon joined the United States Army where he served under Colonel McCormick as an adjutant in field artillery in World War I. In 1919, he was discharged as a captain. Colonel McCormick (editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune) offered Schmon a job in his Shelter Bay pulpwood operations. Mr. Schmon accepted the challenge of working at this lonely outpost on the lower St. Lawrence River. Schmon was promoted to Woodlands Manager in 1923. In 1930, he became the General Manager. This was expected to be a seasonal operation but the construction of the mill led to the building of a town (Baie Comeau) and its power development. All of this was accomplished under Schmon’s leadership. In 1933, he was elected the President and General Manager of the Ontario Paper Company. He later became the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Arthur Schmon made his home in St. Catharines where he played an active role in the community. Schmon was a member of the Founders’ Committee at Brock University and he was a primary force behind the establishment of a University in the Niagara Region. The Brock University Tower is named after him. He also served as Chairman of the St. Catharines Hospital Board of Governors for over 15 years, and was responsible for guiding the hospital through a 3 million dollar expansion program. He was a Governor of Ridley College and an Honorary Governor of McMaster University in Hamilton. Mr. Schmon died of lung cancer on March 18, 1964. He had been named as the St. Catharines’ citizen of the year just one week earlier. Mr. Schmon had 2 sons Robert McCormick Schmon, who was chairman of the Ontario Paper Co. Ltd., St. Catharines, Canada, and the Q.N.S. Paper Co., Baie-Comeau, Canada. He was also director of a Chicago Tribune Co. He died at the age of 61. Another son, Richard R. Schmon, was a second lieutenant in the 313th Field Artillery Battalion, 80th Infantry Division in World War II. He was listed as missing in action on November 5, 1944.

Believing in belief : the modernist quest for spiritual meaning (Croyer en croyance : la quête moderniste pour le sens spirituel)

Cette thèse défend l’idée que plusieurs auteurs modernistes ont utilisé des concepts centraux à la croyance religieuse traditionnelle afin de préconiser le changement social. Au lieu de soutenir l'hypothèse de la sécularisation, qui prétend que les modernistes ont rejeté la religion en faveur d'une laïcité non contestée, j'argumente en faveur de ce que j'appelle « la spiritualité moderniste, » qui décrie une continuité intégrale des concepts spirituels dans l'agitation de la période moderniste qui a déstabilisée les institutions qui avait auparavant jeté les bases de la société Occidentale. En me basant sur les écrit de Sigmund Freud, William James et Émile Durkheim concernant les fins poursuivis par la religion, je développe cinq concepts centraux de la croyance religieuse que les modernistes ont cherché à resignifier, à savoir la rédemption, la communauté, la sacralité, le spectre, et la liturgie, et, dans chaque cas, j'ai montré comment ces catégories ont été réinterprétées pour traiter des questions considérées comme essentielles au début du vingtième siècle, à savoir ce que l’on identifie aujourd’hui comme le féminisme, l'écologie, la biopolitique, les crises, et le rôle du poète. Le chapitre I se concentre sur la rédemption par le féminin telle qu’on la trouve dans le recueil de vers de H.D. portant sur la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Trilogy (1944-1946), qui projette un certain espoir grâce à un mélange synchrétique de Christianisme, de mythes anciens, d’astrologie, et de psychologie. Mon deuxième chapitre discute de The Grapes of Wrath (1939) de John Steinbeck, qui élargit le rôle de la communauté en avançant une écologie universelle qui concevoit tous les gens comme étant intimement liés entre eux et avec le monde. Le chapitre III traite de la notion du sacré dans The Light in August (1932) de Willam Faulkner et Nightwood (1936) de Djuna Barnes, qui préconisent une foi privatisée qui accentue l'illégitimité des concepts de sacralité et de pollution en élevant des individus qui sont marginalisés biopolitiquement. Le chapitre IV cherche à comprendre le retour des morts, et je soutiens que le topos a été utilisé par les modernistes comme un symbole de crises sociales; le chapitre enquête d'abord sur “The Jolly Corner” (1908) de Henry James, que j'ai lu comme la séquence rêvée d'un homme faisant face à son propre spectre, Ulysses (1922) de James Joyce, où Stephen Dedalus est hanté de façon répétée par le spectre de sa mère, et Mrs. Dalloway (1925) de Virginia Woolf, qui se concentre sur le motif caché de la Fête des Morts. Ma cinquième section traite de la liturgie, la langue poétique utilisée pour les rites religieux, dans la première poésie de Wallace Stevens, qui conçoit le rôle du poète comme une vocation de l'imagination.

«Oroonoko» d'Aphra Behn en traduction française (1745-2009)

Ce projet offre une analyse des traductions en langue française du roman d’Aphra Behn, Oronooko, or The Royal Slave (1688). Dans cette œuvre, la première femme à vivre de sa plume présente une des premières formulations du discours abolitionniste de la littérature anglaise et met au défi des idées reçues sur l’esclavage depuis le XVIIe siècle. Le texte a été traduit vers le français pour la première fois par Pierre-Antoine de La Place (Behn, 1745), dont l’interprétation s’inscrit dans la tradition des belles infidèles. Sa version connaît un succès fulgurant jusqu’à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, avec de nombreuses rééditions parues entre 1745 et 1799. En 1990, Bernard Dhuicq publie une retraduction dans le but de faire connaître Behn aux lecteurs français du XXe siècle. En 2008, il contribue à la préparation d’une nouvelle édition de La Place, et une réédition de sa propre traduction parue en 1990. Pour sa part, Guillaume Villeneuve adapte le texte au lectorat francophone d’aujourd’hui avec une édition critique comprenant un important appareil critique publiée dans la collection « GF » des Éditions Flammarion en 2009. Les traductions de La Place, d’Dhuicq et de Villeneuve affichent chacune des variations par rapport à l’original, variations qui reflètent l’intention de ces traducteurs et de leurs éditeurs ainsi que les pratiques traductives et éditoriales de leur époque.. Cette étude montre notamment comment le récit de Behn a contribué à changer la conception occidentale de l’esclavage. Elle analyse la réception des propos idéologiques d’Oroonoko dans la culture littéraire et philosophique française, depuis le XVIIIe siècle jusqu’à nos jours. À travers le cas Oronooko, le présent mémoire offre aussi une réflexion d’ordre méthodologique sur l’étude des retraductions dans une perspective historique. L’étude des retraductions vise aujourd’hui des objectifs plus vastes sur le plan historique que ne l’indique l’hypothèse du progrès en retraduction, selon laquelle un texte est retraduit pour être corrigé ou amélioré. Notre travail montre qu’en associant à l’étude des traductions celle de leur paratexte, de leur péritexte et des sujets (traducteurs et éditeurs) qui les produisent, et ce afin de resituer chaque retraduction dans son contexte historique propre, on parvient à faire entrer ces retraductions dans un dialogue interculturel et « transhistoriciste » (Nouss, 2007).

From Dante to the Romantics : The Reception History of Leigh Hunt's "The Story of Rimini"

1816 was arguably the most significant year in Leigh Hunt's career as a Romantic poet. After a two-year imprisonment, he had spent much of 1815 going back to the theatre and seeing Edmund Kean, the actor whom Hazlitt had praised so highly in the pages of The Examiner. [...]

Representing Leigh Hunt’s Autobiography

That study attempted to elaborate the problematic of [Leigh Hunt's] position within the London literary and political scene between the years 1805 and1828, the contributions he made to British literature and journalism, and his public standing at the end of the romantic period. Since Hunt's life is obviously too complex to be rendered fully in any single study, the idea was not to attempt an exhaustive history, but rather to present a starting point for further inquiry into Hunt's career as a writer and public figure under the reign of Queen Victoria. [...]

Totally Clueless : Heckerling and Queer Sexuality in Austen’s « Emma »

This chapter offers a new reading of the sexual politics that are at play in Jane Austen's 1816 "Emma" through the exploration of film director Amy Heckerling's retelling of Austen's original story. Heckerling's 1995 film, "Clueless", can be understood as a free translation of "Emma" which allows an interrogation of some of the novel's received readings, especially those related to its male characters. [...]

Gender, Authorship and Male Domination : Mary Shelley’s Limited Freedom in "Frankenstein" and "The Last Man"

Ever since Ellen Moer's "Literary Women" (1976), "Frankenstein" has been recognized as a novel in which issues about authorship are intimately bound up with those of gender. The work has frequently been related to the circumstance of Shelley's combining the biological role of mother with the social role of author. [...]

Performing Leigh Hunt’s 1840 Play "A Legend of Florence"

Leigh Hunt's authorship of "A legend of Florence" (1840) — a drama inspired by the rich cultural, intellectual, and political climate of Italy — reflects, as Michael Eberle-Sinatra demonstrates in the final essay of the first section, not only a literary exchange between England and Italy, but argues that during the creation of his play, Hunt engaged in his own version of border crossing as he managed the transition between writing about and writing for the stage. A complex maneuver that required Hunt to rech beyond his own intellectual boundaries, the shift from critic to dramatist challenged and enriched his thoughts regarding the work of the theater.

Crisis or failure of hegemonic masculinities in David Lodge’s Campus Trilogy

This bachelor’s thesis examines the crisis of hegemonic masculinities in David Lodge’s Campus Trilogy. In the course of the thesis, I demonstrate that the male characters in the novels aspire to hegemonic ideals of masculinity, but that ultimately most of them fail in their aspirations. However, I also show that this does not lead to the abandonment of this pursuit, but merely to its reformulation and a continued attempt of male characters to aspire to this reformulated ideal. In order to achieve this, I conduct a close reading of the novels and based on this, first determine the predominant types of hegemonic masculinities in each novel, and then whether certain characters aspire to these hegemonic ideals. Next I analyze whether or not they are successful. This analysis is chiefly based on the sociological concept of hegemonic masculinities developed by Connell. With the help of this concept, this thesis shows that several types of masculinities can be identified in the novels and that these exist in hierarchical relation to each other. Furthermore, it shows that these aspirations and the ideals themselves are always prone to crises that are brought on by societal changes in their environment. However, it is also demonstrated that in most cases these crises do not lead to the collapse of the ideal or the failure of its pursuit, but rather to the reformulation and continuation of both.

La pelota no se mancha: Un estudio histórico sobre el desarrollo y la política en FIFA

Esta investigación se centra en la Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) como organización política. Intenta responder dos interrogantes primordiales: 1) ¿cómo la FIFA ha constituido el poder que tiene actualmente y, así, hacerse del monopolio indiscutido del fútbol? Y 2) ¿cómo ha cambiado en el tiempo la política interna de FIFA y su vínculo con la política internacional? Para lograr esto, se realiza un estudio histórico, basado principalmente en documentos, que intenta caracterizar y analizar los cambios de la organización en el tiempo. Se enfatizan las últimas dos presidencias de FIFA, de João Havelange y Joseph Blatter, como casos de estudio.

Women and writing c1340-c1650; the domestication of print culture

The transition from medieval manuscript to early printed book is currently a mmajor topic of academic interest, but has received little attention in relation to women's involvement. The essays in this volume both add female names to the list of those authors who created English Literature, and examine women's responses to older texts. Taking its cue from the advances made by recent work on manuscript culture and book history, this volume also includes studies of material evidence. These reveal women's participation in the making of books, and also the traces they left behind when handling individual volumes. Finally, studies of women's roles in relation to apparently ephemeral texts, such as letters, pamphlets and almanacs, challenge traditional divisions between public and private spheres and between manuscript and print.

The "freedom to frame questions... worth asking" or three stories and three (other) fragments of research

In our state of centralised control of the curriculum and high-stakes testing an examination subject's assessment objectives have become high profile. Some of the anomalous effects of this profile are shown in the teaching, question-setting, and marking of English literature. Glimpses of earlier times are revealed, all three secondary school key stages are considered, examination performances are discussed, and the views of beginning teachers about teaching to the test are sought.