Journal articles on the topic 'Fictitious writer'

The development of technology will be followed by the development of crime, one of which is the Grab online application mafia in the form of a fictional restaurant. Humans become objects so it must also be analyzed that the mafia experiences control by technology, it is an important subject when analyzing using the Herbert Mercuse theory. digitization. The research method used is qualitative, with a descriptive type of research. Descriptive is a type of qualitative research that describes problems that exist in society. The technique of determining the subject using purposive sampling. The analysis in this study uses Herbert Marcuse's theory of one dimension man and technological rationality. The findings of this study are the existence of a fictional restaurant by applying the mafia work system to take Grab promos with a crime system in the digitalization world. A fictional restaurant is a crime because stealing a Grab promo that is not carried out based on the system recommended by Grab. In fact, a fictitious order can be a profitable business between 3 parties. A number of drivers admit that the practice of fictitious orders is often deliberately carried out by the restaurant. According to them, Grab is not disadvantaged because the restaurant still does not pay taxes and sales traffic is high. Suggestions for the next writer related to this research are to focus on Grab bike drivers who often receive fictitious orders both in terms of receiving passenger orders, express and food delivery.

Realism attempts to discovering and expressing reality and replacing reality by imagination, dreaming, and legends, the realist writer uses his genius and modernity instead of a fictitious one in observing and expressing details. The school of realism is one of the most fundamental art schools that emerged in France in the mid-nineteenth century and expanded rapidly. Avoiding the imagination and inner inspirations of the romantics and addressing the realities of the universe outsidewere the most basic principles of this school that poets, writers and artists adopted and followed. In Iran and Iraq, poets and writers focused on social issues and the decline and backwardness of their own countries.The literature of each nation reflects the political and social conditions of the nation. Given that the socioeconomic conditions of Iran and Iraq have been affected by the same events in contemporary times, the thoughts and the literary themes of these two literatures are largely similar. Among the prominent contemporary poets of Iran and Iraq are: Nima Youshij and Siavash Kasraei in Iran, Badr Shakir al-Sayyab and Abdul Wahhab al-Bayati in Iraq, pointed out that intense tendencies towards freedom and support of workers and farmers have brought the situation to the attention of the country. This studyis limited to studying four poets (Nima Youshij, Siavash Kasraei, Badr shaker al-Sayyab and Abdul Wahhab al-Bayati). By analyzing realism in the poetry of those four poets, each writer believes in particular realism, describing and expressing the social, political, and the describing the nature from the language of each poet in his own way. In his realistic description, each poet expresses a socio-political dimension more prominently

Abstract In The Queen and I (1992), English writer Sue Townsend (1946-2014) satirically imagines the abolition of the British monarchy and the subsequent social, political and even personal trials generated by their new situation. This paper1 focuses on the hardships experienced by the royal family in their demoted condition, with special focus on aspects related to personal identity, such as emotional remoteness, displacement, disputes over the reputation of the (royal) name, re-naming, falsifying one’s name and the invention of another identity, illness, escape mechanisms and struggles to adapt to a new life - all of these fictitious tribulations depicting the royal family in a state of crisis

The representation of the urban space in the prose of the major Scottish writer A. Gray on the material of his key novels “Lanark” (1981), 1982, “Janine” (1982) and “Poor things” (1992) is analyzed in the article. It is noted that A. Gray made a significant contribution to the formation of the Glasgian novel, the specificity of which is defined more exactly in the works of M. Burgess and M. Gregorova. It is shown that, like other Glasgian writers, in his works A. Gray reflects on the consequences of the dehumanizing influence of the city on a person, however, in contrast to them, he makes a choice in favor of protagonists who are simultaneously representatives of the working and middle classes. The author note that in the novel “Lanark” the city is shown through the prism of three-time layers: a nostalgic past, a bleak present and an apocalyptic future. It is indicated that mortality becomes the thematic dominant, as a result of which Glasgow acquires the features of the underworld. It is proved that in A. Gray’s prose the Glasgian locus acts as a “place of memory”, while the motive of “recreating” memories from fragmentary facts of urban life plays a significant role in order to reconstruct the historical appearance of Glasgow or create fictitious memories of it in the reader.

Stories have been the source of moral lessons and entertainment, as far as the humankind of all the time, is concerned. The use of story- telling existed from the time immemorial. Stories appeared in the form of ballads and epics, in the ancient time, but later it took the shape of short and long fictions. The long fictions or novels varied in its theme and size. They are divided into many genres according to its subject matter- Gothic, Picaresque, Historical etc. The Ballad is nothing but a short story in verse. Its subjects are simple and memorable like adventure, love, war and the life etc. An Epic is a long tale in verse with famous heroes for its main characters. Iliad and Odyssey are examples. These stories gave the reader enjoyment and certain life-related ‘tips’. Hayden White, an American historian says, “the aim of the writer of a novel must be the same as that of the writer of the history”. Historians and Novelists wish to provide a verbal image of ‘reality’. A novelist may produce reality indirectly but this is meant to correspond to some sphere of human experience. He desires to pass the merits and demerits of such experience onto the readers, to enhance a better vision of life. Novelists are free to use fictitious characters and situations for the readers’ entertainment. Stories took its present prose form later in the middle ages. Decameron, a collection of stories by Boccaccio, was published in 1350. It deals with stories told by a group of people affected by Black Plague. They used these stories to get mental relief from the pandemic. ‘Canterbury Tales’ of Geoffrey Chaucer also, is telling the life-related stories by some pilgrims to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. All these show that men were, from the early ages itself, used to tell stories to recollect the past and go forward with lessons of reality for a better life. Actually these stories are ‘historical facts’ blended with the imagination of the writers.

In Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, her debut novel, Kiran Desai has experimented in the making of a comic fable. She presents a hilarious story of life, love, and family relationships - simultaneously capturing the vivid culture of the Indian subcontinent and the universal intricacies of human experience. The story is set in a small Indian but fictitious town called Shahkot. Sampath is the protagonist who belongs to a middle class family. After experiencing drastic boredom in his life, Sampath decides to spend his life in trees. And then after, the story reveals its real mood. At a deeper level, the novel displays the theme of alienation, magic realism, rebellion, etc. Desai is a masterful dialogue writer, and she uses this skill to great effect in Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. She infuses the dialogue with local idioms and paints a vivid portrait of life in a small city in India. With a clear objective of writing a comic satire, she also makes a satirical attack against the creation of gurus in Indian society.

In the context of the Ukrainian Gogol discourse of the 20th century, the paper analyzes fragments from the unfinished Yurii Kosach’s novel “Seignior Nicolo”, which deals with the history of Mykola Gogol. The researcher focuses on the peculiarities of Kosach’s understanding of Gogol and the worldview analogies of the two writers.
 The concept of symbolic autobiography is understood as a manifestation of the author’s self through the image and history of the other. Presenting the Roman episode in Gogol’s biography, Yurii Kosach tells his own symbolic story, and this relationship between fictitious and real stories functions as a certain way of the author’s symbolic self-representation in his text and through the text.
 The incomplete Yuri Kosach’s novel about Gogol is considered in the context of ideological discussions about the national and cultural identity of the writer, as a component of Gogol discourse in Ukrainian literature of the 20th century. The problem of Gogol’s duality, understood in ideological and psychological aspects, manifests a worldview split of Yurii Kosach himself, his own drama. Yuri Kosach’s re-thinking of Gogol’s figure must have been an attempt of destroying two main ideological myths: the Russian-imperial, based on the Soviet, socialist-realist Gogol’s cult, and the colonial one, rooted in the Ukrainian populist tradition.
 In addition, the paper pays attention to the sources of Kosach’s novel and clarifies the historical and psychological contexts of its creation, as well as its inter- and midtextual relations, both with Kosach’s works and Gogol discourse as a whole. It is argued that in the history of Gogol the writer considered the problem of cultural colonialism, both in the political and psychological aspects, in particular the problem of Gogol’s sexuality, ‘fear of sex’, which is associated with colonial subordination and the loss of masculinity.
 The main personal manifestation of Gogol in the novel by Kosach is a migrant, i. e. a man without ground, an artist without a motherland. The history of Gogol in Rome is examined through the relation of “Seignior Nicolo” to Gogol’s “Rome”, a comparison of the Roman text in Gogol’s and Kosach’s works

The novel “Magnus, the Danish Prince” by the Russian diaspora in Latvia writer Roald Dobrovensky is seen as a specific example of a biographical and historical genre, which embodies the historical experience of different eras and nations in the confrontation of globalisation and national self-determination. At the heart of the novel are the Livonian War and the historical role and human destiny of Magnus (1540–1683) – the Danish prince of the Oldenburg dynasty, the first and the only king of Livonia. The motif of Riga’s humanists is seen both as one of the main ideological driving forces of the novel and as a marginal reflection in Magnus’s life story. Acknowledged historical sources have been used in the creation of the novel: Baltazar Rusov’s “Livonian Chronicle”; Nikolai Karamzin’s “History of the Russian State”; Alexander Janov’s “Russia: 1462–1584. The Beginning of the Tragedy. Notes of the Nature and Formation of Russian Statehood” etc. In connection with the concept of Riga humanists, another fictitious document created by the writer Dobrovensky himself is especially important, namely, the diary of Johann Birke – Magnus’s interpreter, a person with a double identity, “half-Latvian”, “half-German”. It is a message of an alternative to the well-known historical documents, which allows to turn the Livonian historical narrative in the direction of “letocentrism” and raises the issue of the ethnic identity of Riga’s humanists. Along with the deconstruction of the historically documented image of Livonian King Magnus, the thematic structure of the novel is dominated by identity aspects related to the Livonian historical narrative. Dobrovensky, with his novel, raises an important question – what does the medieval Livonia, Europe’s common intellectual heritage, mean for contemporary Latvia and the human society at large? Dobrovensky’s work is also a significant challenge in strengthening emotional ties with Livonia (which were weakened in the early stages of national historiography due to conflicts over the founding of nation-states).

Analysis of the story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11:1–12:25 reveals that it possesses several layers. The report of the second Ammonite War, which represents the initial content of 2 Samuel 11:1–12:31 and serves as the basis of the original Bathsheba Affair story, glorified David as a great warrior and gracious king, who married the widow of his fallen-in-action officer, Uriah the Hittite, and adopted Uriah’s newborn son, Solomon. The later Bathsheba Affair story, written by a pro-Solomonic author during Solomon’s reign, introduced the arbitrary taking of Bathsheba, Uriah the Hittite’s wife, by David before her husband met a natural warrior’s death. According to this version, Bathsheba remained with David in his palace and conceived there. The story demonstrates that Solomon, Bathsheba’s firstborn child, was not Uriah’s son but rather, by claiming direct royal lineage to King David, was David’s legitimate successor to the Throne of Israel. The next three revisions of the story 1) introduced Nathan the Prophet’s accusations against David, presumed to have been written between the late ninth and late eighth centuries B.C.E. by a prophetic author; 2) replaced Solomon with a fictitious firstborn child, written by a Deuteronomistic writer in the exilic period; and 3) introduced David’s second transgression – the murder of Uriah – written by an anti-Davidic author in the post-exilic period.

Historiographic metafiction and autofiction: different commitments with the referentiality in Estação das Chuvas by José Eduardo Agualusa and Soldiers of Salamina by Javier Cercas. This article offers a comparative analysis of the novels Estação das Chuvas (1996) by the Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa (born in 1960) and Soldados de Salamina (2001) of the Spaniard Javier Cercas (born in 1962). The two novels belong to different geographical and cultural contexts. Nevertheless, a common sensibility – due perhaps to the same generational affiliation or to the prevalence of topics in force in the 1990s – makes evident the emergence of both a historical theme and the presence of a subject involved in historical processes. Ultimately, in both novels, we come across a subject that makes history although in quite different ways: involved firsthand in historical events with tragic implications, in the case of Agualusa, and absorbed in a reflection on apparently distant events in the case of Cercas. However, the result of the emphasis on the presence of a subjectivity within historical processes causes the two novels to share a common element, that is, a double generic affiliation. Both Estação das Chuvas and Soldados de Salamina actually share semantic traits that make it possible to classify them at the same time as autofictional novels and historiographic metafictions.
 Despite their common architectural matrix, the two novels represent two very different expressions within these genres. This manifests itself at different levels: first, the treatment of the autofictional character and, secondly, the treatment of the other characters. Through the analysis of the characters that populate these two novels, I will try to show how the two writers adopt divergent attitudes regarding the degree of referentiality in their works and how they end up proposing two different poetic options. In the analysis of the characters, I consider it useful to introduce a taxonomy that, in addition to including already existing types (referential, historical, fictitious characters), introduces other types hopefully useful to the study of the currently abundant number of fictions that, through an ambiguous narrative pact, are located between fiction and faction.

The paper offers a detailed analysis of Dostoevsky, a historical and biographical feature TV serial (in eight episodes), produced in 2011, when the writer’s 190th anniversary was celebrated. The film was directed by V. I. Khotinenko, the script was written by E. Ya. Volodarsky. The authors of the series claimed that their objective was to create an image of “Dostoevsky beyond the textbook”, wholly (or largely) unknown to today’s audience. But the authors did not explain what they meant by “Dostoevsky beyond the textbook”, nor, for that matter, by the “textbook” version. Professional expertise had found numerous gross distortions of both Dostoevsky’s biography and Russian history in the script. Nevertheless, after certain corrections by the film director, the flawed script was accepted as the basis for the series, which, in the end, proved to be as flawed. The objective of the film, as defined by the director, was to show the “human dimension” Dostoevsky, was realized in a very peculiar manner: for the sake of pseudo-dramatization, the writers’ real experiences in the fatal moments of his life were replaced with fictitious experiences; many events, well known and well documented, were deliberately misrepresented. For the film director, Dostoevsky was chiefly interesting as a person burdened with many vices, whose biography had been full of extraordinary striking episodes. The film director, by his arbitrary will, ascribed to Dostoevsky the desires, passions and actions of some of his fictional characters; this dubious, though frequently employed, technique has been readily utilized in the series. Numerous erotic episodes were supposed to demonstrate to today’s audience that nothing human was alien to Dostoevsky. His literary activity, his public readings (which he liked so much) were presented as bait used to lure the victims of his male lust. The series showed, as it were, that the writer had rehearsed, in his private space, the would-be crimes of his characters. The real, wellknown, Dostoevsky has remained outside the series. Viewers will not find his work on the novel The Possessed, the creative history of The Brothers Karamazov, the inauguration of the monument to Pushkin in Moscow, Dostoevsky’s Pushkin speech, his dramatic relations with Pobedonostsev, his friendship with S. A. Tolstaya (the widow of Alexei K. Tolstoy), the severe illness of his last days, his death, or his funeral, unprecedented in Russia.

The paper is devoted to the issue of nonverbal explication of emotions in literary texts of a flash fiction. Nonverbal means of communication are studied in several directions. There are works reflecting this problem from the perspective of semiotics, linguistics, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. A number of scientists is engaged in lexical description of paralinguisms. The study of linguostylistic problems of paralinguisms in literary works presents a special interest. The appeal to this problem is explained by the fact that adequate interpretation of a literary text is impossible without the corresponding reader’s understanding of nonverbal means of emotional expression since this requires nontrivial intellectual operations and a certain breadth of knowledge. The study is based on the analysis of three short stories by a famous German writer Thomas Mann: Der kleine Herr Friedemann (1898), Tobias Mindernickel (1898) and Tristan (1902). The rationale of the study is caused by the immaturity of this subject in German. The novelty is defined by the study of paralinguistic units in literary texts of T. Mann. The purpose of the paper is to describe nonverbal means and to define their functional yield in a literary text. To achieve this purpose, the paper deals with continuous sampling methods, contextual analysis and interpretation. The study showed that Thomas Mann uses paralinguisms to describe the main characters generally applying characterizing, evaluation, text-forming and forecast functions. Paralinguisms ensure text cohesion, integrity of its perception and are always aimed to implement the author’s plan and create the fictitious world of a literary work and consequently, contribute to the expression of an idea and a subject. The materials of the given paper may be used in theoretical courses of German lexicology, stylistics and in practical classes on literary text interpretation.

The postcolonial fiction of the 21st century has developed a new version of family chronicle depicting the life of several generations of migrants to demonstrate the complexity of their experience, different for each generation. This article aims at investigating this tradition from the perspective of three urgent problems: trauma, postcolonial experience, and the “female” theme. The author uses the most illustrative modern women’s postcolonial writings (Z. Smith, Ju. Chang) to show the types of trauma featured in postcolonial literature as well as the change in the character of traumatic experience, including the migrant’s automythologization from generation to generation. There are several types of trauma, or stages experienced by migrants: historical, migration and selfidentification, more or less correlated with three generations of migrants. Historical trauma is the most severe and most often insurmountable for the first generation. It generates a myth about the past, terrible or beautiful, depending on the writer’s intention realized at the level of the writer or the characters. A most expanded form of this trauma can be found in the novel Wild Swans by Jung Chang, where the “female” experience underlines the severity of the historical situation in the homeland of migrants. The trauma of migration manifests itself as a situation of deterritorialization, lack of place, when the experience of the past dominates and prevents the migrants from adapting to a new life. This situation is clearly illustrated in the novel White Teeth by Z. Smith, where the first generation of migrants cannot cope with the effects of trauma. The trauma of selfidentification promotes a fictitious identity in the younger generation of migrants. Unable to join real life communities, they create automyths, joining fictional communities based on cultural myths (Muslim organizations, rap culture, environmental organizations). Such examples can be found in Z. Smith’s White Teeth and On Beauty. Thus, the problem of trauma undergoes erosion, because, strictly speaking, with each new generation, the event experienced as traumatic is less worth designating as such. Compared to historical trauma or the trauma of migration, trauma of self-identification is rather a psychological problem that affects the emotional sphere and is quite survivable for most of the characters.

Background. Numerous research conferences and scholarly papers show increased interest in the creativity of German composer, pianist and singer of the 19th century Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn. What is particularly noticeable is that her life and creativity are subject of non-scholarly discussion. Writers of biographical works are profoundly interested in the personality of this talented artist, as it gives them material for the discussion of a whole range of issues, in particular those pertaining to the phenomena of female creativity, new concepts of music and history of music with emphasis on its communicative character, correlation between music and gender, establishment of autobiographical character of musical creativity, expression and realization of female creativity under conditions of burgher society. Additional attention is paid to family constellations: Robert and Clara Schumann, brother and sister Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn. A very close relationship between Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny HenselMendelssohn opens a new perspective on the dialogical history of music, i. e. the reconstruction of music pieces based on close personal and critical contact in the Mendelssohn family. All these ideas, which researchers started articulating and discussing only recently, found their artistic expression in the biographical novel “Dear Fenchel! The Life of Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn in Etudes and Intermezzi” («Liebste Fenchel! Das Leben der Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn in Etüden und Intermezzi», 2011) by the German writer Peter Härtling (1933–2017). Peter Härtling was attracted to the image of Fanny Hensel primarily because she was working in the Romantic aesthetics, which the writer considered the backbone of his own creativity. While working on the novel about Fanny Hensel, Peter Härtling was constantly reading her diaries and listening to her music as well as the music by her brother Felix Mendelssohn. He discovered “a fascinating composer” who was creating music “bravely” through improvisation, even more so, who improvised her own life in a similar fashion. Her “courageous steps” into “female reality” struck the biography writer. Objectives. The research aims at studying the literary image of Fanny Hensel using the ideas of contemporary music scholars regarding creativity of this still little researched artist. Literary reflection of the life and creativity of musician based on combination of fiction and real life is a productive addition to her creative image. Methods. Since the research is centered on the image of a female composer, in many respects it is following the theoretical premises of music gender studies. The complexity of literary recreation to the personality and creativity of composer in the novel was required the sophisticated narrative situation and structure, that justifies the use of narratology as a method of literary criticism’ analysis. Results. Peter Härtling is a well-known master of biographical novel, who has his own creative concept of re-construction the life story of famous artists. When creating a biographical novel, the writer walks on the verge of reality and fiction, rediscovering and creating. The artistic element serves the purpose of amplification and image-creation; it helps to reveal distinctive properties, characteristics and elements of personality of the biographic novel hero. Gaps in documented materials help the narrator behave freely, give a chance for open associations and subjective vision. When outlining the personality lineaments, the narrator follows chronology of the most important events. Yet, plot development in an autobiographical novel is based on separate motifs. Certain life stages and events of a person’s life are depicted in detail in specific chapters and are shown more accurately within the general plot. By running ahead and looking back, the narrator makes it clear that he is above the narrative situation and arranges the depicted events according to the principle of their development. The narrator plays the role of an accompanying of a person portrayed, helping the writer approach to latter in order to understand him. Peter Härtling defines the key narrative principle in the following way: the narration is centered on the relationship of the talented brother and sister, as well as the motives of a mothering care and self-assertion, which are creating the backdrop for the biography of Fanny Mendelssohn. As such, we can see the ways that helped a talented young woman stand against her competitor-brother and get out of his shadow. The author claims that since childhood, the brother and the sister got along with the help of music and it was music that created a tie between them. The novel pays close attention to their discussions of music and the Sunday concerts, which took place at their house. As it is known from letters, it was very important for Felix Mendelssohn to include music into private communication forms. Researchers emphasizes that it made hard for him to be involved in social processes, in which such form of communication was impossible. Based on what Felix Mendelssohn himself said, it is possible to conclude that he was making an opposition between private musical communication as “the world of music” and social music life “as the world of musicians”. Fanny Hensel was not the embodiment of “detached musical practice” of autonomous art for him; on contrary, her creativity was directly linked to real life. Inside the bourgeois home and amid “private circulation of texts”, Fanny Hensel’s music was directly connected to communication, holidays and family rituals, in which the roles of music performer and music listener were “not cemented”, presupposing active inclusion of “amateurs” into music. Private musical practice meant the successful musical communication, the direct communication in music, which was not possible in anonymous publicness. Composer individuality had a chance of growing without being stripped of meaning and understanding. Inside the burgher house and within her immediate circle, Fanny Hensel was the symbol of “illusion of non-detached music”. Peter Härtling attests to autobiographical character of Fanny Hensel’s musical writing. Conclusions. Peter Härtling’s novel shows a cultural change, which stipulated an extended understanding of music as a dynamic process of human activity in a specific, historically varied cultural field. In this respect, Fanny Hensel’s literary portrait touches upon important aspects of female music creativity, actualizing its achievements in contemporary cultural space. Approaching the talented artist in literature is a special combination of art and life, fictitious and real, past and present.

<p><strong>Resumo</strong>: O texto refere-se a um estudo dos processos de construção do romance Vícios e virtudes, de Helder Macedo, objetivando a retomada e a discussão do conceito de ironia romântica. Essa ironia, em especial, desmistifica os jogos da representação artística clássica, que entende o texto literário como imitação do real. Ao contrário disso, favorece a expressão do fazer literário com todas as suas limitações, elaborações e reelaborações de linguagem, legitimando o caráter de arte, de natureza fictícia e, pois, de exercício de experimentação presentes na literatura. O escritor Helder Macedo parece propor, no referido romance, uma reflexão acerca do processo criativo – reflexão que se ocupará fundamentalmente da construção da obra literária, compreendida enquanto criação permanente. Acreditamos que a ironia romântica potencializa essa reflexão, na medida em que desvela o fazer literário como encenação, como fingimento. Pensando na estrutura paradoxal da ironia, acreditamos que ela acaba por dizer sempre mais do que fica expresso e, nesse sentido, aproxima-se da literatura de um modo geral, mas, sobretudo, do estilo lírico. O elemento lúdico parece caracterizá-los, na medida em que ambos – a ironia romântica e o lírico – partem de uma espécie de jogo que contraria o pragmatismo da linguagem convencional. Para Antonino Pagliaro, “A ironia participa ao mesmo tempo do caráter agonístico do enigma e do jogo poético.” O romance Vícios e virtudes, do escritor português Helder Macedo, cria um espaço importante para o estudo das questões colocadas, já que expressa um projeto literário no qual se exibe uma intensa valorização do estético, do ficcional e do poético.</p> <p><strong>Palavras-chave</strong>: Ficção; ironia romântica; lirismo; representação.</p> <p><strong> </strong></p> <p><strong>Abstract</strong>: This study approaches the processes of construction of the novel Vices and virtues by Helder Macedo, aiming to discussthe concept of romantic irony. This irony, in particular, demystifies the games of classic artistic representation, which considers the literary text as an imitation of the real. In contrast, it favors the expression of literary writing with all its limitations, elaborations, and reworking of language, legitimizing the art and fictitious character and, therefore, of experimentation in literature. In the novel writer Helder Macedo seems to propose a reflection on the creative process that essentially works on the construction of the literary work, which is understood as a permanent creation. We believe that romantic irony enhances this reflection as it reveals the literary writing as staging and pretense. Thinking about the paradoxical structure of irony, we believe it always ends up saying more than what is expressed, thus, it approaches the literature in general, but especially the lyrical style. The playfulness seems to characterize them once both – the romantic irony and the lyrical aspect – run by a kind of game that contradicts the pragmatism of conventional language. To Antonino Pagliaro, “Irony is simultaneously involved in the agonistic character of the puzzle and in the poetic game”. The novel Vices and virtues by the Portuguese writer Helder Macedo, creates an important space for the study of the issues raised, once it expresses a literature project in which there is intense appreciation of the aesthetic, the fictional and the poetic characters.</p> <p><strong>Keywords</strong>: Fiction; romantic irony; lyricism; representation.</p>

The reputation of Alexander and the judgement on his character have oscillated between two extremes down the ages. At times he was taken by ancient moralists as the prime example of one corrupted by power and ambition. At other times, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he has been seen as the ideal leader of men in war and peace. These extremes of interpretation are possible because his brief and incomplete career contained a number of highly dramatic episodes of different kinds, which can be enhanced or explained away to produce either effect. The most extreme instance leading to an adverse judgment is the massacre of the Branchidae, and it is not surprising that Tarn, whose work on Alexander represented a peak of eulogy, argued strongly for the view that: the event was entirely fictitious. He has been followed by most writers since then, who usually do not try to account for this episode; in fact they simply omit it. This is strange, for the evidence that it occurred goes back to Callisthenes, the earliest to write on Alexander's campaigns, and an eye-witness of the happening, if it occurred.

Tilføjelse til “Grundtvig og censuren ” i Grundtvig-Studier 2007[Supplement to “Grundtvig and censorship ” in Grundtvig-Studier 2007]By Flemming Lundgreen-NielsenThe supplement to “Grundtvig and censorship” in Grundtvig-Studier 2007 (44-90; 281) presents the discovery that Grundtvig’s idea from 1831 about an age limit for young writers may have been influenced by Ludvig Holberg’s description of academic restrictions in the fictitious state of Potu in his Latin novel Niels Kliim, 1741, chapter 8, recycled in his essay Epistle No. 395, 1750. A polite protest against Holberg by C. B. Tullin was published posthumously in 1773, emphasising the freedom of printing and the advantage of competition among writers. Grundtvig regrets his strange elitist conception already in 1836, but the point may be that he has in fact been inspired to some of his discussions on education and freedom of speech and printing by leading writers from the Danish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century in spite of his often proclaimed general dissociation from that period.

Over the past two centuries, countless writers in the United States and abroad have adopted noms de plume to exploit the literary marketplace. By definition a name either legally owned by another person or fictitiously derived, a pseudonym “conceal[s] some essential fact[s]” about an author's personal identity that contradict expectations held by publishers, editors, other writers, or public readers (Popkin 343). Those concealed facts tend to be the author's actual name and its locus of associations, including gender, family, class, nationality, and racial identity.

Nicholas Curott attempts to correct some misrepresentations of Adam Smith’s monetary and banking analyses. However, failing to recognize Smith’s adoption of David Hume’s quantity theory of price levels and the price-specie-flow mechanism, Smith’s distinction between money and credit and their sources, and Smith’s suggestion of real, rather than “fictitious,” bills as safer for private bank lending, Curott denigrates Smith’s theory of money and banking as inferior to some modern writers’. Curott also mischaracterizes Smith’s money demand function, which is best represented as a rectangular hyperbola. I draw from the Wealth of Nations to correct Curott’s misrepresentations of Smith’s analyses.

Science today is mainly communicated through standard written academic English (SWAE). In this paper, I apply the postulations of Gramsci, Bourdieu and Canagarajah to show how domination structures are reproduced in scientific communication worldwide. I argue that these structures do not allow nondominant epistemologies and ways of producing and communicating science to participate in the international arena. I apply a critical lens to interpret each one of the terms present in SWAE. I propose that a critical appraisal of each one of these terms is the first step towards a more democratic conceptualization of science communication where the standards are not only seen as a means of innocuous communication but also as ideologically charged fictitious universals. It is my claim that understanding the arbitrary nature of these universals and the influence that language has on knowledge construction will give space to nondominant ways of producing and communicating knowledge.

Letters from psychiatrists to general practitioners (GPs) should provide an appropriate content in a format which is easy to write and assimilate. For content, GPs have requested “key items” (diagnosis, suicide risk, treatment, prognosis and follow-up), and an explanation which is educational (Williams & Wallace, 1974; Pullen & Yellowlees, 1985; Margo, 1982). For format, GPs preferred a one page letter with two or three sub-headings in a survey based on one fictitious case (Yellowless & Pullen, 1984). Real letters from psychiatrists in one district averaged one and three quarter pages with four subheadings (Prasher et al, 1992). GPs' opinions about actual changes in the format and content of letters sent to them have not been reported.

Abstract This essay examines the way Baudelaire and Proust respond to music in terms of trying to account for being ‘touched’ or ‘struck’ by it. I contrast dramatic music, as it figures in Baudelaire’s writing on Wagner, with the newly emergent notion of ‘absolute music’, as it manifests itself in the fictitious chamber music of Vinteuil in Proust’s novel. The essay thereby demonstrates how emptying music of referential meaning allows writers to fill up that blank space with a verbal reply to the call of music, which itself becomes an act of aesthetic creation. Such an approach to listening, which emerged in the nineteenth century, still resonates with contemporary accounts by scholars working between musicology and literary studies, and shapes their account of aesthetic subjectivity.

ABSTRACT The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (2016) indicates that asset misappropriation is the most common form of occupational fraud. Based upon a real company, this case contains six frauds: collusions, commissions, fictitious sales, rebates, refunds, and write-offs. It also includes several asset misappropriation (e.g., theft of cash, misuse of inventory, and fraudulent reimbursement) schemes. Furthermore, four of the six frauds are not found in other published case studies. The case seeks to enhance learning by having students (1) examine multiple fraudulent schemes within a single company, (2) identify frauds after examining firm procedures and documents, (3) suggest applicable fraud protection procedures, (4) identify internal control weaknesses, and (5) apply the fraud triangle. Undergraduate and graduate students from two universities performed well on the case.

Censorship as a literary subject has sometimes been necessary in times of change, as it may show how the flaws in power relations influence, sometimes very dramatically, the access to and the production of knowledge. The Woman in the Photo: a Diary, 1987-1989 by Tia Șerbănescu and A Censor’s Notebook by Liliana Corobca are two books that deal with the issue of censorship in the 1980s (the former) and the 1970s (the latter). Both writers tackle the problem from inside the ruling system, aiming at authenticity in different ways. On the one hand, instead of writing a novel, Tia Șerbănescu kept a diary in which she contemplated the oppression and the corruption of the time and their consequences on the freedom of thought, of expression and of speech. She thoroughly described what she felt and thought about her relatives, friends and other people she met, about books and their authors, in a time when keeping a diary was hard and often perilous. On the other hand, using the technique of the mise en abyme, Liliana Corobca begins from a fictitious exchange of emails to eventually enter and explore the mind of a censor and reveal what she thought and felt about the system, her co-workers, her boss, the books she proofread, their authors and her own identity. Detailed examinations and performances of the relationship between writing and censorship, the two novels provide engaging, often tragi-comical, insights into the psychological process of producing literary texts. The intention of this article is to compare and contrast the two author’s perspectives on the act of writing and some of its functions from four points of view: literary, cultural, social and political.

Abstract While the only extensive discussion of music in Kierkegaard’s work is the famous treatise based on Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni in the first part of the pseudonymous Either/Or (1843), Kierkegaard did write other brief passages, in which he made comments on musical aspects. Two recent articles have pointed to attitudes toward music in such passages which seem to differ from the negative evaluation of music as a religious or theological medium in the first part of Either/Or by the fictitious aesthete A. With a point of departure in the two mentioned articles, I attempt to further discuss the possible relationship between the ethical and the aesthetic in Kierkegaard’s musical thought, involving passages from both parts of Either/Or as well as a few journal-entries. Finally, Erika Fischer-Lichte’s distinction between staging and performativity is brought to bear on these issues.

Psychoanalytic criticism has often relied on pathography in order to cast women writers such as Sylvia Plath as “crazed” authors who “suffered” from mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. The critics have used and appropriated these authors’ impairments in order to explain their writing abilities and productivity, arguing that their works were only possible through their mental differences. Particularly in Plath’s case, critics have psychoanalyzed her works using diagnostic language, pathologizing her using the language of the medical model of disability. The article argues that these readings are driven by patriarchal norms and institutions and are a product of an attempt to control and diminish the voices of disabled women. Using a framework of feminist disability studies articulated as madwoman theory, the argument is that scholars of literature should refrain from using diagnostic terminology to describe fictitious characters and their real-life authors. The article interrogates ableist readings of Sylvia Plath and negotiates a madwoman theory analysis of her works, including The Bell Jar and the bee poems in Ariel. A madwoman theory analysis privileges the voices of disabled women writers over critics’ ableist readings. Further, the article argues that analyzing writing about lived experiences with disability enables a future in which the voices of disabled women are privileged over these diagnostic categories.

Nominative symbolism in fantasy is a tool to attribute certain traits to literary characters and thus to convey meaning which enriches the readers’ comprehension of the fictitious personality. Proper names in the English naming tradition are not generally seen as means of alluding to the character of a person, yet they have sometimes been chosen purposefully by writers so as to reveal the idea that a symbolic name tries to convey. The paper therefore aims at investigating the origin and author’s intended meaning behind the names of some recurrent literary characters in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series from the viewpoint of their structure and the allusions they evoke in the reader’s imagination. The analysis includes five names presenting three different structures: neologisms based on syntactic composition, imitations of borrowed structures that are foreign to the English model of naming, and typical English naming models where name symbolism is due to the lexical choice of the components in the name.

This article re-examines three books published between 1937 and 1946: Diary of a Surgeon, Surgeon’s Mate and Man Midwife. They purported to have been edited and annotated by Ernest A. Gray from an old journal written by a John Knyveton (1729–1809) who had served as a surgeon’s mate in the Royal Navy between 1752 and 1762, after a short training in surgery in a London hospital. The books had been criticised and their authenticity doubted. Now additional errors have been revealed, making it certain that the books are essentially fictional and written in the twentieth century. Although drawing inspiration from a biography of the eighteenth century Dr Thomas Denman (1733–1815), and very readable, the stories are marred by errors, altered dates and events taken from other periods of time. These books have been cited by many writers and researchers who mistakenly believed them to be eighteenth century sources. We hope that this article will make their unreliability and fictitious content more widely known.

Wine marketers and restaurateurs have a vested interest in helping novice wine drinkers to learn more about wine, with the goal of encouraging them to purchase more wine and higher quality wine (with its higher price tag). The question posed here is how best to conduct that educational effort, using a perceptual approach or a conceptual approach. Most wine promotions tend to be perceptual, in the form of tastings and printed tasting notes. However, the two experiments described in this article demonstrate the greater benefit of conceptual learning, which involves explaining how the wine is produced generally and discussions of wine varietals in particular. In the first experiment, three groups of participants (novices, intermediates, and experts) were served a sample of zinfandel and then asked to identify that exact wine from a group of five, four of which had been adulterated with sweetener. Some participants were allowed to write down a description of the wine, and all were subjected to a fictitious advertising campaign designed to sway their choice on the matching test. In general, novices relied more on the terms offered by the advertising, and intermediates who have more perceptual learning than conceptual learning were also swayed when they were not given an opportunity to activate their conceptual knowledge (but not swayed as much when conceptual knowledge was activated). Experts paid no attention to the advertising whatsoever. The second experiment compared the educational experience of novices only, with a similar testing procedure, except this time the test groups were given either conceptual or perceptual educational sessions. The conceptual training was a twenty-five-minute tutorial in wines, while the perceptual training involved sensory aspects of wine (i.e., color, smell, and taste). Once again, all groups saw a fictitious advertisement for the “X” zinfandel. Those with conceptual learning were more likely to match the original sample and were less swayed by the fictitious advertising than those who had perceptual training. These respondents were also likely to rate the wine as being higher quality and willing to pay a higher price for it. One conclusion for wine marketers is that perceptual learning (as in tastings) is just the beginning of the process of developing wine consumers. Conceptual learning, where people learn about the process and details of wine production, is also essential.

UNDER THE DIRECTION OF ITS FIRST EDITOR, William Maginn, Fraser’s Magazine purveyed popular images of literary life in the 1830s through its Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters — Daniel Maclise’s engravings of contemporary literary figures accompanied by Maginn’s irreverent textual commentary — and through humorous depictions of the supposed staff meetings of “The Fraserians” themselves (figure 1), whom Miriam Thrall described as “care-free scholars, who laughed so heartily, and drank so deeply, and wrote so vehemently around their famous editorial table” (16). Composed by Maginn in imitation of Blackwood’s wildly successful Noctes Ambrosianae, which he had helped to write prior to the founding of Fraser’s in 1830, these imaginary meetings of London literati present a comic conception of authorship as a clubby activity, rebelliously bohemian and exclusively male. Patrick Leary’s 1994 essay on the actual management of Fraser’s as a literary business demonstrates just how inaccurate these highly fictitious accounts were and thereby contributes significantly to our understanding of the history of authorship in the 1830s. But if we are examining the influence Fraser’s had on its contemporary readers, then the facts of literary life which Leary discovers “beyond the imagery” of the magazine may be less important than the fictions which such representations of authorship communicated (107).

This case requires you to resolve a fictitious yet realistic ethical dilemma as you assume the role of audit manager in a large, national CPA firm. You will be presented with a scenario whereby you learn from the CFO of Bell Manufacturing, an audit client, that the CFO entered the United States and worked a number of years under false pretenses for the audit client while he was an illegal alien. Although the CFO recently obtained U.S. citizenship, subsequent audit work revealed that Bell Manufacturing failed to obtain the documents required under federal law to certify his eligibility for employment. Before addressing specific case requirements, you will be introduced to a primer on professionalism and ethical decision making in an audit environment. Case requirements first ask you to establish a baseline position by outlining your initial reaction regarding the impact of this information on your auditor responsibilities. You will then be asked to electronically search the authoritative literature covering illegal acts by a client, as well as standards on fraud and the Code of Professional Conduct. After researching the issue, you will be asked to write a memo to the audit partner detailing your recommendation for resolution of this issue. Completion of this case will contribute to development of your ethical, analytical, research, and communication skills, better preparing you for practice and the new CPA exam.

The use of compound actuators in both magnetic and optical disk files has become a means of achieving increased servo actuator bandwidths. A compound actuator, comprised of a fine actuator mounted “piggyback” on a coarse actuator, positions the read/write transducers above a radial track. This paper describes a design methodology for a discrete-time feedback control system for a compound actuator in which the dynamic interaction between the actuator stages is directly considered. The performance of the servosystem, including the range and bandwith limitations of each actuator, is specified in terms of the desired frequency response of the closed-loop transfer functions from the reference track position to the tracking error and to the relative position between the coarse and the fine actuator. Parameter uncertainties and structural resonances are quantified using singular value techniques to form a robustness criterion which sets limits on the attainable tracking performance. Compensator design techniques using linear-quadratic Gaussian optimal control combined with loop transfer recovery are described. The state feedback portion of the compensator is calculated using an automatic procedure, while the state estimator is calculated by solving an associated Kalman filtering problem with colored fictitious noise. The noise is colored to shape the frequency spectrum of the input energy to each actuator, the relative motion between the stages, and the position of the transducer.

For non-native English learners to successfully manage authentic intercultural and international communication, their pragmatic competence should be considered as fundamental as their linguistic capacity (Bachman, 1990). As the foundation for developing language skills, English textbooks provide EFL learners with preliminary exposure to real-life situated pragmatic interactions. However, there is limited empirical research on the authenticity and appropriateness of the pragmatic representations in Vietnamese EFL textbooks at present. To fill in the gap, this paper provides a content analysis designed to quantitatively and qualitatively investigate a cross-culturally written textbook used for secondary EFL learners in Vietnamese context. It aimed to examine (1) types and distribution of speech acts the textbook covered, (2) meta-pragmatic information accompanying the linguistic realizations of those speech acts, and (3) appropriateness and authenticity of such pragmatic representations in relation to Vietnamese social context. The results revealed a variety of speech acts introduced in the contents but also highlighted their problematic distribution and sequence. Despite their occurrences, the linguistic patterns to achieve the speech acts were limited and accompanied by decontextualized and oversimplified meta-pragmatic information. From a Vietnamese cultural perspective, the attempts to reflect Vietnamese conventions of daily communication were spotted but the inappropriateness of the linguistic choices in the real social interactions was also indisputable. Therefore, some pedagogical implications were suggested to further improve the EFL textbook, reflecting the authentic social encounters rather than disseminating the textbook writers’ prescribed fictitious responses.

Abstract Black American women writers were side-lined by the literary canon as recently as the 1980s. Today, as a result of their agency, a distinct literary tradition that bears witness to black women’s particular expressiveness is recognized. Bernard Bell observes that the defining features common to most literary works by black American women are a focus on racist oppression, black female protagonists, the pursuit of demarginalization, women’s bonding, women’s relationship with the community, the power of emotions, and black female language. Although these elements refer predominantly to novels, they are also present in Paule Marshall’s memoir Triangular Road (2009) and Gloria Naylor’s fictionalized memoir 1996 (2005). Moreover, the two works are fitting examples of racial art, the point of departure of which, according to Black Arts Movement advocates, should be the black experience. Actually, since through memoirs the authors offer significant insights into themselves, the genre seems closer to this objective of racial art than novels. At the same time, taking into consideration the intricate plot structures, vivid images, and emotional intensity, their memoirs evidence the quality of literariness i.e., in formalist terms, the set of features that distinguish texts from non-literary ones, for instance, reports, articles, text books, and encyclopaedic biographical entries. Moreover, Marshall and Naylor utilize creative imagination incorporating fabulation, stories within stories, and people or events they have never personally encountered, which dramatizes and intensifies the experiences they relate. In Marshall’s memoir, the fictitious elements are discernable when she imagines the historical past. Naylor demarks imagined narrative passages with separate sections that intertwine with those based upon her actual life experience.

Background Uncertainty is integral to evidence-informed decision making and is of particular importance for preference-sensitive decisions. Communicating uncertainty to patients and the public has long been identified as a goal in the informed and shared decision-making movement. Despite this, there is little quantitative research on how uncertainty in health information is perceived by readers. Objective The aim of this study was to examine the impact of different uncertainty descriptions regarding the evidence for a treatment effect in a written research summary for the public. Methods We developed 8 versions of a research summary on a fictitious drug for tinnitus with varying degrees (Q1), sources (Q2), and magnitudes of uncertainty (Q3). We recruited 2099 members of the German public from a web-based research panel. Of these, 1727 fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were randomly presented with one of these research summaries. Randomization was conducted by using a centralized computer with a random number generator. Web-based recruitment and data collection were fully automated. Participants were not aware of the purpose of the study and alternative presentations. We measured the following outcomes: perception of the treatment effectiveness (primary), certainty in the judgement of treatment effectiveness, perception of the body of evidence, text quality, and intended decision. The outcomes were self-assessed. Results For the primary outcome, we did not find a global effect for Q1 and Q2 (P=.25 and P=.73), but we found a global effect for Q3 (P=.048). Pairwise comparisons showed a weaker perception of treatment effectiveness for the research summary with 3 sources of uncertainty compared to the version with 2 sources of uncertainty (P=.04). Specifically, the proportion of the participants in the group with 3 sources of uncertainty that perceived the drug as possibly beneficial was 9% lower than that of the participants in the group with 2 sources of uncertainty (92/195, 47.2% vs 111/197, 56.3%, respectively). The proportion of the participants in the group with 3 sources of uncertainty that considered the drug to be of unclear benefit was 8% higher than that of the participants in the group with 2 sources of uncertainty (72/195, 36.9% vs 57/197, 28.9%, respectively). However, there was no significant difference compared to the version with 1 source of uncertainty (P=.31). We did not find any meaningful differences between the research summaries for the secondary outcomes. Conclusions Communicating even a large magnitude of uncertainty for a treatment effect had little impact on the perceived effectiveness. Efforts to improve public understanding of research are needed to improve the understanding of evidence-based health information. Trial Registration German Clinical Trials Register DRKS00015911, https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00015911 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) RR2-10.2196/13425

In this research, a novel methodology based on the simulation of a call for research projects was applied for the training of STEM secondary school teachers, with results raised and analyzed to determine the response of the students to this new methodology. The activity was applied in the same course during two academic years with student groups from very different teaching specialties such as mathematics, physics and chemistry, biology and geology, technology and health processes who were studying the Master’s Degree in Secondary Education, specifically, the 3 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) course of Initiation to Educational Research (IER), this Master’s course being mandatory for working as a secondary professor. The Master’s students are asked to write their own research project proposals for a fictitious call on a topic freely chosen by them, which might have been related to the research line of the final Master’s thesis. In it, they had to propose all the contents studied in the course (such as writing a brief state of the art, establishing a research team, setting objectives, a description of the methodology for educational research, instruments, a plan for the dissemination of the results, the needed resources, etc.). The students’ perceptions of the usefulness and reality of what they had learned for their professional development and for writing their final theses were assessed. The results based on the perceptions of the students demonstrate that the activity had been useful for assimilating concepts related to educational research in the context of secondary education (research skills), which will be useful for improving the critical sense of the students (teacher candidates) and for their professional future in the context of applied research in day-to-day secondary teacher activities. Furthermore, the results show the activity was useful for the development of the final Master’s thesis. The difficult aspects that the activity presented for them were analyzed. The results were statistically compared for the students of the different specialties, deducing, in all cases, a homogeneous good acceptance with slight differences between them.

The author of the article carries out an analysis of texts by two writers who present the Shoah from different perspectives. At the onset he points out two layers of looking at theHolocaust in fantasy writing. The first one results from the said theme filtering through into the genre directly, the second is an intermediary one, namely, through the popular after the Second World War post-apocalyptic narratives where the Shoah is thematised as, for instance, the annihilation of the human race resulting from nuclear conflict or the spread of a deadly virus. The article analyses both mentioned layers using particular examples.
 Polaroidy z Zagłady [The Shoah/Annihilation Polaroids] by Paweł Paliński is a tale of an individual Shoah. What constitutes the analytical framework here are the titular pictures, which translate into a genre, nowadays rarely practised, called the literary picture. In the course of reading one recognises the triangle of attitudes: victim – witness – torturer. Even if the said triangle has been criticized by historians, it nonetheless decisively appears in the text owing to its layout.
 Requiem dla lalek [Requiem for Dolls] and Holocaust F written by Cezary Zbierzchowski are, respectively, a short-story collection and a novel, set in the fictitious world of Ramm. It is known from the very beginning that the world is doomed to be annihilated, the harbinger of which is God’s departure. In the short stories other signs of extinction are, among other things, euthanasia, the problem of immigration etc. The plains of annihilation recognized in the course of interpretation: metaphysical, social, and personal, compose a part of philosophical reflection on consequences of catastrophes being one of the spheres of the analysis undertaken. What also arrests our attention, and thereby is reflected upon, is the highly intertextual background of Zbierzchowski’s oeuvre. A prominent place is given to the analysis of the novel’s final chapter entitled Heart of Darkness, both referring to the famous novella written by Joseph Conrad and more than sufficiently justified by the text composition itself.
 The article’s conclusions both position the texts in relation to other works of Polish fantasy genre and indicate their role as examples of various absorption by popular culture (here fantasy) of the Shoah-related issues.

Historians of premodern Chinese urbanism have long assumed that the origins of the Chinese imperial city plan stem from a passage in the Kaogong Ji (Record of Trades) section of the classical text Rituals of Zhou which describes the city of the King of Zhou. Taking this description as the single source of all Chinese capitals, these historians have gone on to write that any Chinese imperial city constructed during the last 2,000 years not only has much in common with any other one, but that all have been built according to a single scheme. Yet the plans of the two most important Chinese imperial cities, Chang'an in the 7th to 9th century, and Beijing after the 14th century, indicate that a crucial feature of the Chinese imperial urban plan, the position of the imperial palaces, is in the north center at Chang'an and roughly in the exact center at Beijing, thereby dispelling the myth of the direct descent of all Chinese imperial city plans from the King of Zhou's city. Moreover, an examination of excavated cities of the first millennium B. C. shows that the Chang'an plan, the Beijing plan, and a third type, the double city, have their origins in China before the 1st century A. D., when the Kaogong Ji is believed to have been written. Moreover, all three city plan types can be traced through several thousand years of Chinese city building. After stating the hypothesis of three lineages of Chinese imperial city building, the paper illustrates and briefly comments on the key examples of each city type through history. More than 20 cities are involved in understanding the evolution of the imperial Chinese plans. Thus this paper also includes many Chinese capital plans heretofore unpublished in a Western language. The plan of Chang'an is different from that of Beijing because the latter city was built on the ruins of a city designed anew by the Mongol ruler of China, Khubilai Khan, with the intent of adhering to the prescribed design of the Kaogong Ji; whereas Chang'an was built according to a plan used by native and non-Chinese rulers of China only until the advent of Mongolian rule (with one exception.) Finally, this paper examines the assumption that there was little variation in Chinese imperial city building. A main reason for the assumed uniformities in Chinese capitals is because the imperial city is traditionally one of the most potent symbols of imperial rule, such that digression from it might imply less than legitimate rulership. Thus it can be shown that Chinese and non-Chinese dynasties had their actual city schemes amended for the historical record through the publication of fictitious city plans.

Background:The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the delivery of face-to-face teaching especially bedside teaching for medical students in the hospitals. Rheumatology outpatient clinics have mostly become virtual or telephone consultation clinics which prevent medical students from seeing patients in person. Students are deprived of the opportunities to take rheumatology history, examining patients and seeing signs of rheumatologic diseases. New adaptations have to be made to ensure equitability and that students still receive the relevant teaching in line with their learning curriculum and to help them prepare for their examinations.Objectives:Our aims are:1)To adapt bedside teaching in the wards to simulated teaching in the classroom using trained simulated ‘patients’; and2)To create simulation teaching of patient journeys in Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) format known as Clinically Observed Medical Education Tutorials (COMET) (Nair et al., 2001).Methods:1)For simulated teaching in the classroom, we have trained our teaching colleagues as simulated or standardized patients (SPs). We write up fictitious patient histories which simulate common presentations at rheumatology clinics. We train the SPs to give as accurate a history as possible and to simulate pains in different joints (e.g. pain at the metacarpophalangeal joints and proximal interphalangeal joints in rheumatoid arthritis) on clinical examinations. For clinical presentations that are not easily simulated, we use photographs of the relevant signs. This method is used not only as formative assessments but also as end-of-placement summative assessments.2)COMET comprises 3 OSCE-style stations with a tutor each where the students perform different tasks based on a patient’s clinical problem (e.g. acute hot swollen joint). The first station is initial A-to-E assessment of the patient (using a simulator), followed by investigations and interpretations of lab results and imaging (station 2) and lastly, management (including prescribing medications) and communication skills (e.g. explain arthrocentesis to the patient).Results:The overall feedback from students is very positive. We use Likert scale to assess confidence level before and after the teaching session, and pre-session and post-session multiple choice questions to assess learning and knowledge gained.Conclusion:While simulated teaching cannot replace encounters with real patients, students do enjoy these sessions as they get to ‘experience’ a large variety of rheumatologic cases and practice their clinical skills which at times are limited with real patients due to reluctance and pain of the patients.References:[1]Nair, R., Morrissey, J., Carasco, D., Desilva, S. & Patel, V. (2001) COMET: Clinically Observed Medical Education Tutorial - a novel educational method in clinical skills. International Journal of Clinical Skills[2]Van der Vleuten, C.P.M. & Swanson, D.B. (1990) Assessment of clinical skills with standardized patients: state of the art. Teach Learn Med, 2: 58-76.Disclosure of Interests:None declared

“Castles in the clouds, flying by;
 men will build them till they die;
 don’t they know it’s all a lie,
 tumbling castles make them cry;
 still they try…1”
 
 Identity is shaped by thoughts, ideas, feelings and emotions; expressed in words, actions and expressions; and recorded for posterity in mentifacts and artifacts. “Paper” (or “plastic”) identity, found on various identification cards, electronic databases, resumés and curriculum vitaes, is not necessarily be the same as the “flesh and blood” or real-life identity known best to those with whom face-to-face interaction takes place over long periods of time in various day-to-day situations.
 
 Status is both achieved and ascribed, and the degree to which one or the other contributes more draws the thin line between the real and apparent. To achieve means “to carry out successfully (accomplish);” “to get or attain as a result of exertion (reach),” or “to attain a desired end or aim (to become successful).”2 To ascribe, on the other hand, comes from the restored spelling of the Middle English ascrive, etymologically derives from the Old French. ascrivre, "to attribute, inscribe," and the Latin ascribere "to write in, to add to in a writing," from ad- "to" + scribere "to write."3 To ascribe is to refer to a supposed cause, source, or author, and “suggests an inferring of cause, quality or authorship” as in the case of “forged paintings formerly ascribed to masters.”4
 
 Achievement rightfully bestows an earned “headship,” implied in its etymology from the Old.French. achever "to finish," from the phrase à chef (venir) "at an end, finished," the Vulgate Latin *accapare, from the Latin ad caput (venire). Literally, both the Old.French and Latin phrases mean "to come to a head," from the Latin caput "head.”5 Ascription is flattery at best; but worse when self-generated and perpetuated. Are vicarious experiences that become “personal accomplishments,” casual visits and observations that become “further training and fellowships,” comments and editing (even supervisory positions) that metamorphose into “research and co-authorships” any different from the fictitious medals of a dictator? Awards beget awards. Those who are thus preceded by reputation may loom “larger than life.” Do such giants stand on feet of clay?
 
 Our circles are a microcosm of the nation and world around us. Public servants who believe the fictions crafted by themselves and their coutillons continue to claim the right to rule (rather than the obligation to serve). Are we dazzled by the dream? What do we aspire for? Et tu? _________________________
 
 The first meeting of the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors (APAME) was held in Seoul, the Republic of Korea last May 4-5, 2008 co-hosted by the World Health Organization Western Pacific Regional Office.6 APAME’s vision, it was agreed, would be to promote health care through the dissemination of quality health information in the Asia Pacific Region. The association also established the following aims:
 
 To upgrade publishing standards of health journals and books, paper-based or electronic;
 To develop an aggregated indexing system for health articles published in the Asia Pacific Region; and
 To enhance optimal access to health articles.
 
 
 The development of the Western Pacific Region Index Medicus (WPRIM) and the Global Health Library (GHL) are much-needed efforts to ensure the dissemination of and
 universal access to reliable health information essential to health development. These efforts will level the playing field for authors, editors, peer reviewers, publishers and subscribers in developing countries, elevating loco-regional research and publishing to the global arena. Following our continued compliance with established standards, we anticipate inclusion of the Philipp J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg in the WPRIM.
 
 Through its President Gil M. Vicente, and the Board of Trustees, our Society blazes new trails to lead us beyond the confines of self-directed concerns toward new horizons of hope for our various publics, present and future. Efforts aimed at health-promotion and disease-prevention, side by side with involvement in ecological and environmental concerns may prove to be as, or even more important, than the equally quixotic pursuit of cutting-edge diagnostic and therapeutic advances. What use are these when they are beyond the reach of most?
 
 “When the time of our particular sunset comes,
 our ‘thing,’ our accomplishment, won’t matter a great deal.
 But the clarity and concern with which we have loved others
 will speak with vitality of the great gift of life
 we have been to each other.”7

Theoretically, the Byzantine Emperor was, just like in the times of the Roman Empire, chosen on the basis of his personal qualities and merits ? by the grace of God, of course. Practically, the factors which determined the ascension of a person to the throne were much more complex, the methods of gaining power being multifarious. In consequence, the political philosophy was confronted with the question of whether it is virtue (aret?) or origin (g?noz) that defines an Emperor. Independently of this rather theoretical question, however, and despite the claims that the personal qualities are decisive in the choice of the Emperor, the origin of the ruler played an important role in the consciousness of the Byzantines of all epochs. This is why great attention was paid to the creation of family trees, especially in the cases when the Emperor was of low origin (homo novus) or when it was for some reason necessary to strengthen his legitimacy. The choice of the genealogy was not random: since it carried a clear political message, it was of utmost importance with whom the Emperor in power would be associated and whose historical deeds or legendary personality would serve as a moral model. Also important is the fact that the search of a "good family" was as a rule triggered by the need to confirm one's own virtue. Thus, genealogies often reflect a certain system of values, usually emphasizing morality, courage in war, care for the welfare of the country, piety, etc. The choice of the archetype depended, of course, on the needs of the ruler for whom the genealogy was created. All this allows us to consider legendary genealogies as an expression of the imperial ideology. Notwithstanding their chronological diversity, the Byzantine imperial genealogies display very similar characteristics, i.e. they contain stereotypical elements, many of which had been established already in the first centuries of the Eastern Empire. In the early Byzantine period, when Christianity was still young, Emperors were frequently associated with pagan gods and semi gods, like Jupiter, Mars or Hercules. The Roman tradition of the eastern part of the Empire is also reflected in the fictive genealogies, so that the Emperors often chose Western Emperors or illustrious personalities and families of the Republican Era as their ancestors. The convention of establishing genealogical relations with the past rulers or their families (e.g. Claudius Gothicus, Trajan, the Flavii) served on one hand to create the impression of continuity and legitimacy, and on the other, to affirm the proclaimed system of values, since individual Roman Emperors had by that time become the prototypes of certain values (so Nerva stood for tranquility, Titus for philanthropy, Antoninus for high morality, Hadrian for justice and legality, Trajan for a successful military leader). In the same fashion, the creation of the family ties with persons from the Roman republican past, like the members of the family of the Scipios or Gnaeus Pompeius, was instrumental in the emphasizing of not only noble origin but also virtue. Interestingly enough, whereas the bonds with the Roman state are permanently evoked, the exempla from the Greek history play only a minor role in legendary genealogies (mostly Corinthians and Spartans, sometimes even mythical nations, like Homer's Pheacians). The central position of the Roman ideology is also reflected in the tendency to establish direct geographical connections between the origin of the ruler and either Rome itself or one of the Western provinces, so that the motif of migration is often found in the genealogies. On the other hand, Byzantine writers sometimes tended to boast with their knowledge of the history of the Ancient Orient, connecting famous personalities (like Artaxerxes) or dynasties (Achaemenids, Arsacids) with the Emperor whose genealogy they were composing. A special place in legendary genealogies is occupied by Constantine the Great. Almost as a rule, the genealogies postulate a kinship with him, often confirming it with the alleged physical resemblance. Depending on the purpose of the genealogy, certain purported features of Constantine's character were emphasized, so that he is alternately mentioned as a protector of the Christian faith, a triumphant military leader, or as a wise administrator of the Empire. Apart from that, the motifs of founding the new Capital and the migration of the Roman patrician families to Constantinople represent important topoi in this literary genre. The two most fascinating specimens of legendary genealogies in the Byzantine literature ? those of Basil I the Macedonian and Nikephoros III Botaneiates ? show that the choice of the elements of which the genealogy is composed (personality, family, dynasty) is at the same time a strong indication of the reason why it was composed in the first place. The genealogy of Basil the Macedonian was doubtlessly conceived by more than one person. It is quite certain that the idea to compose it originally came from Photios and was taken over by Basil's descendents ? his son Leo VI and his grandson Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos. The core of Basil's legendary genealogy is the story of his origin from the Parthian-Armenian dynasty of Arsacids (an indication of the Armenian origin of the founder of the Macedonian dynasty?). Constantine Porphyrogennetos elaborated this story further, describing in some detail the fate of Arsac's descendents, to whom Basil was allegedly related on his father's side, in the Byzantine Empire. This, of course, does not mean that he forgot to create connections between his grandfather and the standard legendary ancestors, like Constantine the Great (on Basil's mother's side) and Alexander the Great (the common ancestors of both Basil's parents). This apocryphal family tree certainly has its roots in the fact that the founder of the Macedonian dynasty was a parvenu of low origin, whose ascent to the throne was maculated by the murder of his predecessor and benefactor Michael III: apart from providing Basil with the noble origin, the genealogy was supposed to strengthen his right to the crown. One should keep in mind, though, that Basil's genealogy was written in the time of "Macedonian renaissance", so that its content is doubtlessly partly a product of the erudition of the compilers. In the course of time, legendary genealogies were enriched with new elements, stemming from the Byzantine history in the narrower sense of the word. The genealogy of Nikephoros III Botaneiates, compiled by Michael Attaleiates in the second half of the 11th century, is a good illustration to this. In contrast to Basil the Macedonian's genealogy, it is interwoven with real historical data, so that it cannot be called 'legendary' in its entirety. It would probably be more appropriate to call it a genealogy of both the Phokades and the Botaneiatai, since its core is made up of an invented story of the origin of the famous Byzantine family of Phokades, from which the family of Botaneiatai purportedly stems. The genealogy is clearly divided into three parts. In the first part, Attaleiates develops a theory according to which the Phokades are descendents of the Roman patrician families of Fabii and Scipios. The second part is devoted to the elaboration of the genealogical connection between the Phokades and the Botaneiatai, a tour deforce achieved by the claim that the latter are direct descendents of Nikephoros II Phokas, who is not only the central figure of this part in his capacity as an ancestor of Nikephoros III, but also as a model of a virtuous Emperor. Comparable to the habit of other writers to single out one or another characteristic trait of Constantine the Great according to their needs, Attaleiates concentrates on Nikephoros Phokas' military qualities, which are similar to those possessed by his "descendent" Botaneiates, and emphasizes the physical resemblance between the two rulers. In all likelihood, the part on the genealogy of the Phokades, as well as the story of Nikephoros Phokas, were taken over from an earlier tradition dealing with this renowned family, which Attaleiates implicitly mentions when he says that he had used 'an old book' and some other writings. As indicated above, the last, third, part of the genealogy, devoted to the deeds of Nikephoros Botaneiates' father and grandfather, does not fit the narrow definition of a legendary genealogy, despite the exaggerations Attaleiates uses in order to satisfy the demands of the genre. The description of Nikephoros Botaneiates' family tree represents merely an excursus within Attaleiates' History, but its composition has nevertheless an internal coherence and logic. Namely, all parts of the genealogy (the histories of the Fabii/Scipios, Phokades, and Botaneiatai) have one characteristic in common: the stories of the military deeds of the members of these families are used as an illustration of the military virtues of Nikephoros III. Since the hidden intention of the panegyric for Nikephoros III Botaneiates is to justify his usurpation of the throne, it is clear that a genealogy in this form ? especially the section pertaining to Nikephoros Phokas and his kinship with the usurper's father and grandfather ? represents a good basis for a legalistic interpretation of the coup d'?tat of 1078. The permeation of legendary genealogies with the Byzantine history is not confined only to individual Emperors which, like Nikephoros II Phokas, get assigned the role of the ancestor and moral model: some aristocratic families, most often the Phokades and the Doukai, also became moral exempla, serving to prove the reputation and the nobility of the ruler. As in the case of the Phokades, there is also a legendary tradition surrounding the family of Doukai, which made them a kind of model family: Being related to them became a measure of nobility, since it allowed the less prominent families to occupy a more distinguished place on the hierarchy of the Byzantine nobility. The prominence certain family names achieved ? mostly those of the families which created a dynasty ? led from the beginning of the 12th century until the fall of the Empire to free adoption and combination of more different surnames (mostly Doukai, Komnenoi, Angeloi, Palaiologoi, Kantakouzenoi, etc.). This, in turn, led to the creation of fictitious family trees. This kind of apocryphal construction of one's own origin was characteristic not only of the Byzantine culture but rather represented a very common phenomenon in the medieval world. In the medieval Serbia, for instance, its dissemination was fostered by the translation of the writings of the Byzantine chroniclers (Georgios Monachos, John Malalas, Constantine Manasses, and John Zonaras), so that legendary genealogies, written according to the Byzantine pattern, became an expression of the wish to include one's own history into the flow of the world history. Finally, a note on the reception of this genealogical line of thought. Parallel to the fictitious genealogies, there also existed a consciousness about them: Just like the development and the functional load of genealogies reveals a lot about the attitudes of the Byzantines towards power, so do the Byzantine writers who often criticize and ridicule the genealogies of individual Emperors. .

AbstractThe two categories of »fiction« and »non-fiction« are most often conceived of – and treated as – disjointed and separate, not only in common sense but also in literary studies. This does not adequately reflect, however, the developmental trajectory of the non-fiction genre over the course of the twentieth century. After all, the popularization of expert knowledge has increasingly been effected with the help of narrative strategies which raise one crucial question: Just how much fiction can the factual nature – the dependence on facts – of non-fiction tolerate? However, as the more precise definition of the pertinent term, »fiction«, indicates, a distinction must be made between »fictionality«, on the one hand, and »fictivity«, on the other. »Fictionality«, that is to say, refers to narrative strategiesanalogous tothose of fiction, but which relate to historical facts. »Fictivity«, by contrast, refers to the representation of fictitious content. More precisely, then, the question is this: Just what degree of fictivity can the factuality of non-fiction writing tolerate? Since this question cannot be answered constructively from a quantitative but only from a qualitative point of view, we are faced with the ultimately crucial question: Just what kind of fictivity can the factuality of non-fiction tolerate?In trying to answer that question, it seems advisable to start from the structure of deductive-nomological explanation, in which a given phenomenon – the explanandum – is explained by deducing its description from regularities plus the antecedent conditions contained in them (the explanans). In the case of historical explanation, in particular, historical facts most often form the explanandum, while the antecedent conditions of the potentially explanatory regularity (i. e., of the explanans) are not historically documented. Even more specifically, the genre of biography presents a paradigmatic case of such historical explanations falling within the purview of literary studies as well. Not uncommonly, attempts to arrive at a coherent, psychologically convincing biographical portrayal are met with the problem that historically documented life events can be explained – as to their genesis or »coming about« – only by reference to ultimately fictitious – or, to take up the distinction introduced above, to ultimately fictive – assumptions regarding antecedent conditions. Literary biography may, therefore, be said to realize the desired combination of fictivity and factuality in the best possible way: namely, as fictivity in the service of factuality.To find a paradigmatic example of such a combination, one need look no further than the biography of the German chemist Clara Immerwahr, wife of the professor of chemistry, Dr. Fritz Haber, who during the First World War was in charge of German efforts to develop and deploy chemical combat agents such as poison gases. Clara Immerwahr demonstrably saw her husband’s work as a perversion of science but was completely isolated and powerless in her protest against it. Her suicide after the German gas attacks at Ypres in April and May 1915 may therefore be understood as a final and ultimate protest (attempt). There is no clear evidence for this, however, since Immerwahr’s farewell letters no longer exist. Accordingly, the path leading towards her decision to end her life has to be reconstructed using fictive assumptions (about decisive life events). This implies the following, central hypothesis: »Once a person breaks away from a religiously motivated rejection of suicide as an inadmissible interference in God’s plan, that person will, in a situation of hopeless, existential, despair, commit suicide.« In the example of a literary biography presented here, Immerwahr’s reaction to the papal encyclical of 1910 is posited as a fictive antecedent condition, for which no historical record exists. In particular, this involves the question whether Immerwahr was prompted by that experience to establish, in her own mind, the precedence of a scientific-humanistic ethos over any kind of religious ideology. That she did come to rank a scientist’s morality of a shared humanity more highly than religious dogma – particularly where self-determination over one’s own life (and the end of one’s own life) was concerned –, is, however, a highly probable developmental condition of her life story, considering its actual culmination in a highly demonstrative suicide.On the basis of this exemplary piece of biographical writing, the connection of fictivity and factuality may be considered in terms of its fundamental structures, and may be revealed as really a case of fictivity in the service of factuality. In fact, we are looking at an explanation of the »how it was possible that« type, in which the explanandum is a confirmed (historical) fact, while the antecedent condition of the explanatory regularity can only be postulated as a psychologically plausible, hermeneutically intelligible life event. It is this combination of factual effects (hence explained) and fictive conditions (thus explaining), or, otherwise put, of historical factuality and (psychologically) probable fictivity, which is meant to be captured by the term »real fiction«.Biography as a genre is particularly suitable for the elaboration of this concept of »real fiction«, because it has been seen as »fundamentally caught between facts and fiction« – between factuality and fictivity – for quite some time now. To justify the introduction of a new genre, however, the level of detail chosen must be such that it, on the one hand, allows us to apprehend the differences, in terms of literary theory, between this new model and other, established models of factuality, while at the same time giving a nuanced, structured account – one that meets the requirements of the philosophy of science– of how precisely fictivity might be said to be »in the service of factuality«. With regard to genre concepts already established in literary theory, one will have to consider the historical novel and the writing of the New Objectivity movement as well as documentary literature. In the case of the historical novel, writers’ »fictivity leeway« is much greater, since there is no requirement for a strict coherence with concrete factual explananda. As an antithesis to this, consider the writing of the New Objectivists, which is characterised by a predominance of factuality which is accompanied by a wholesale – if overgeneralised – rejection of aesthetic concerns and the demand for an unreserved critique of society and ideology. This same anti-ideological impulse also characterises documentary literature, in which the preferred narrative strategies are even fewer (being restricted to the modes of reportage, montage, etc.). The genre of »real fiction«, by contrast, is much more open and flexible, both in terms of (theoretical) content and narrative strategies. In return, however, it places significantly higher demands on the structural relation between fiction and factuality, insofar as an explanation of relevant historical facts has to be given. Thus, the concept of »real fiction« is characterised by a combination of openness (regarding its possible topics and content) with a formally concise explanatory structure. This is how »real fiction« particularizes the fictive in the service of the factual.In the end, »real fiction« can be explicated as a form of narrative explanation in the sense proposed by Danto. It is concerned with the historical explanation of developments – and in the case of biography, more specifically, with the explanatory reconstruction of a life story in ontogenetic terms. Thus, the reconstruction of fictive life events in the form of a narrative does indeed provide a causal explanation, but it does so employing narrative strategies. This permits an epistemological differentiation between »real fiction« and both explanatory narration and thought experiments, at the same time effecting a marked pragmatization (through recourse to the criterion of relevance) and a heightened flexibility of narrative strategies available. If one conceives of the combination of fictivity and narration as the source of literariness, we are ultimately confronted with a synthesis of (literary) art and science, of scientificity and literariness. Being, in the memorable phrase of Wilhelm Dilthey, a wissenschaftliches Kunstwerk (i. e., a »scientific« or »scholarly work of art«), »real fiction« is both: literature striving for the highest standards of scholarship – and scholarship given a literary form.

Ananda Devi is a francophone-Mauritian writer who lives (and creates) near Geneva. She is the author of numerous novels, short stories and volumes of poetry. Although the stories of her characters are fictitious, Devi’s texts are strongly inspired by her native island, its history and its ethnic, cultural and linguistic heterogeneity. In her novels, Devi employs numerous stylistic devices to empower individuals who are regarded as worse, excluded from the society due to their deficits.

The goal of this graduating paper is to know how the unconsciousness minds and habits linking to each other. It discusses the mind that triggers characters behavior in the Charlie and Chocolate Factory. The writer focuses on the children who get the golden tickets and the owner of the Chocolate Factory (Mr. Willy Wonka).According to Willbur S Scott with his Psychoanalysis Theory on Fictitious Characters, he stated that we can look further about the pattern which motivates the character to express something. It helps the present writer to analyze deeper, by identifying the showed which were done by the children in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and Chocolate Factory.After carying out the research, it shows that their (the five lucky children and Mr. Willy Wonka) subconscious mind triggers bad action which expelled the children from the chocolate factory and good action which made Charlie the champion.

In “The Postmodern Condition”, F. T. Lyotard argues that the logos is a myth with the concept of “sunset of metanarrative” and that the world can only be understood as a fictional story. Postmodernist aesthetics refers to this concept and puts forward the idea that the fictitiousness of a character in a literary work fictionizes its state and the events in which he participates. In this regard, in the context of the literary work, real space and characters are fictitious. Fictionality realizes in different ways, and we can see this in the analysis of British writer Jasper Fforde’s novels “Thursday Next”.

This article argues for the distinctive nature of cognition involved in correspondence, arguing that this cognition is highly creative and in corollary, arguing that this cognition is positioned within social and cultural conditions that must be considered in a full analysis. The author argues that letters are often written from the perspective of an “embodied epistolary present,” the letter writer’s temporal, spatial, and corporeal viewpoint depicted through the use of present tense and other markers. The author further elaborates the relationship between correspondence and common ground. The embodied epistolary present facilitates the “imagined copresence” of writer and recipient (possible through conceptual blending), which the author describes as “the fictitious conceit that a recipient is present to serve as an interlocutor during the writer’s embodied compositional present.” Like the face-to-face conversation that it simulates, epistolary discourse depicted with imagined copresence relies on the common ground shared by the writer and recipient; the author argues that the common ground also shapes other discourse modes present in correspondence including narrative episodes and reporting. The author further shows that epistolary discourse reflects cultural norms, shaping what writers include and elide. To demonstrate all these points, the author draws examples from the letter collection Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, 1795–1821, edited by Margaret Law Callcott (1992). Calvert was a plantation mistress in postrevolutionary Maryland who corresponded with intimate relatives in Belgium; as such, Calvert’s letters demonstrate both the imaginative work that letters deploy and the common ground that shapes epistolary content.

AbstractWith regard to the historical »quarrel« between rhetoric and poetic concepts, this essay, firstly, reports the linguistic, literary and social innovations in letter-writing during the 18th-century. The letter writer’s fictitious role-play between the addressee and himself leads to a detailed description of body language as to further emotionalizing strategies. Thus, literary concepts linked to the letter are in demand which bring the epistolary novel into play. In a comparison of Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (1787) and Ugo Foscolo’s Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis (1817) it will be shown that the staged conversation between letter writer and addressee and the represented conversation between the letter writer and another character follow the same conversational attitude for each novel: either the principle of sympathy or the principle of divergence. This can be partly explained by a different historical development of aesthetic concepts in Germany and Italy. Besides, the different way of communicating emotions can be also attributed to the epistemic presuppositions: a mimesis which refers to naturalness is in opposition with an autonomous mimesis that breaks with the former tradition.

Purpose – This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach – This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings – This paper examines gender issues in management by looking at perceptions of male and female bosses. Italian masters students were presented with the case of a fictitious company in which some respondents believed the CEO to be a man, others that she was a woman. Some surprising results emerge as a result of the students’ differing, gender-oriented perceptions. Practical implications – The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations. Originality/value – The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.