A Possible Connection between the Philosophy of the Castilian king Alfonso X and the Risālat ayy ibn Yaqān by Ibn ufayl

This article explores the textual connections between two narratives: Ibn ufayl's (581/1185–6) Risālat ayy ibn Yaqān and a brief history of religions present in two works – the General Estoria and the Stenario – produced in the Castilian court of king Alfonso X (1221–1284). Both literary narratives deal with the intersection of philosophy and metaphysics. First, Alfonso X's cultural renaissance is contextualized. Under Arabic influence, Alfonso's collaborators created a cultural synthesis that was denounced by his son Sancho in the 1290s. Second, we compare Ibn ufayl's and Alfonso X's narratives. Ibn ufayl's model was probably adapted to justify a cultural programme that blended Christianity and Pagan inheritance. Unfortunately, there is no physical evidence to prove that Alfonso's circle was familiar with Ibn ufayl's work. Nevertheless, the analysis of a common genre – following A.W. Hughes's theory – allows us to contend that Alfonso X reproduced this type of text within a Christian context.     

The Origin of Language and its Link with Music according to the Theory of Jābir ibn [Hdot]ayyān

Jābir ibn [Hdot]ayyān took advantage of the vast translation enterprise of Greek scientific works into Arabic. He quotes from these sources, including several whose Greek originals are lost. His works can be likened to the encyclopedia of Ikhwān al-[Sdot]afā’, the most important transmission of Pythagorean tradition. In this Epistle on Music the Ikhwān followed Jābir's method, and perhaps were influenced by him, in analysing the relationship between language and music, together with the arithmetical speculations that were widely influential. In this article, I have attempted to collect Jābir's scattered ideas on the origin of language and music trying to assemble the major ones in a coherent exposition.     

《通志》“梵竺四曲”考略

郑樵《通志》所录梵竺四曲,《舍利弗》是中土善声沙门截取《妙法莲华经》中世尊所说的偈并裁减经中的一些情节而成的呗声,与西域所传梵剧《舍利弗传》并无关系;《法寿乐》是文惠太子为配合自编舞蹈《法乐梵舞》的演出而令王融创作的乐歌,非呗声或徒诗;《阿那》为蠕蠕国遗存的佛曲,此曲名非原曲名,后来的好事者用此曲填写新词歌蠕蠕主阿那的事迹,于是就用阿那的名字为曲名,取代了旧的曲名;《摩多楼子》则是从西域传入的佛曲,今传歌词肯定不是其原歌词,只是在它传入中土后,才有好事者沿用其名写了歌词,借以言＂征战行役之苦＂,并非是因梵剧《舍利弗传》中有征戍情节而拟述之。     

Otherness ‘without ostracism or levelling’: towards fresh orientations to teacher foreigners in early childhood education

Abstract

This article attempts to conceptualise the notion of the foreigner in relation to immigrant early childhood teachers. Sparked by Kristeva’s challenge, to live with and as others without ostracism or levelling, it highlights tensions that arise in a juxtaposition of the Aotearoa/New Zealand early childhood curriculum document, Te Whāriki and other guidelines for cross-cultural practices, with perspectives on the foreigner and foreignness. Situated in the neoliberal sociopolitical and cultural landscape of Aotearoa/New Zealand, the analysis foregrounds and re-frames orientations towards immigrant teachers as they may play out in the early childhood realm. Kristeva’s insights into foreigners’ raw and intimate experiences provide a freeing lens to emphasise influences on and consequences of a foreigner’s otherness. While Kristeva’s challenge may be a never-ending story of a utopian future in education, its use in this analysis is intended to provoke an awareness of complex conceptualisations of foreignness and of tensions that could subvert the aim of working towards this, possibly elusive, ideal.     

‘To teach the natives English’: James Pope’s 1880 native schools code

From their inception in New Zealand in 1816, until the end of the century in some cases, most mission schools in the colony maintained instruction solely in the Māori language. However, from the 1840s, successive colonial governments promoted a secular schooling system in which English would be the language in which students were taught, principally because Māori was seen as an impediment to the governments’ assimilationist ideology. The 1880 Native Schools Code, devised by the first Inspector of New Zealand’s Native Schools, James Pope, was one of the final major steps in this era in advancing this assimilationist ideal through the country’s education system. Pope’s initiative was partly a continuation of state policy that had existed in some form since the 1840s, but it also served as the most explicit statement to that time of how the government intended to use schooling to incorporate Māori into colonial society.     

‘We are family’: Māori success in foundation programmes

This paper considers the question: What constitutes an optimal learning environment for Māori learners in foundation programmes? Using Kaupapa Māori methodology, nearly 100 adult Māori (Indigenous) students in Aotearoa/New Zealand were interviewed from a range of tertiary providers of foundation programmes. State-funded foundation programmes that scaffold adults into tertiary education are a partial response to Ministry of Education concerns about unsatisfactory high school statistics for some sections of the community. Connecting with Māori voices enabled the researchers to gain a deeper awareness of the reality of study experiences for these adult learners. It is argued that academic participation and success for adult Māori learners is increased when the learning and teaching environment mirrors the connectedness and belonging of a whānau (family) environment.     

客观因素对译者风格的影响——比较竺法护和鸠摩罗什的佛经翻译

作为中国佛经翻译史上两位的著名翻译家,竺法护和鸠摩罗什分别是翻译手法中直译和意译的代表。该文从两人所处的客观条件的不同对其翻译特点进行分析,以说明客观因素对译者风格的影响。     

Amalfitans in the Caliphate of Cordoba – Or Not?

This article concerns itself with the references in Ibn Ḥayyān's Muqtabis, Book V, to an Amalfitan presence at the court of Cordoba in the middle of the fourth/tenth century. It will be argued that these isolated references to a precociously early, Italian, mercantile presence in Spain, taken largely at face value by the text's editor and all but neglected in Amalfitan historiography, need to be interrogated to determine whether they fit the fourth/tenth-century context of Amalfitan–Muslim relations, or should be read against their fifth/eleventh-century context as evidence for a golden age of the Caliphate which, by Ibn Ḥayyān's day, was already passing into memory and myth. Using contemporary, comparative evidence from Barcelona, the article examines the possibility of communications between Italy and Spain in the earlier period, and concludes that the conditions were probably right for an Amalfitan arrival, but rapidly changed by Ibn Ḥayyān's day to exclude them from further contacts.     

Te Kotahitanga: Addressing educational disparities facing Māori students in New Zealand

The major challenges facing education in New Zealand today are the continuing social, economic and political disparities within our nation, primarily between the descendants of the European colonisers and the Indigenous Māori people. These disparities are also reflected in educational outcomes. In this paper, an Indigenous Māori Peoples' solution to the problems of educational disparities is detailed. Te Kotahitanga is a research and professional development project that seeks to improve the educational achievement of Māori students in mainstream secondary schools. Students ‘voices’ were used to inform the development of the project in a variety of ways: firstly to identify various discursive positions related to Māori student learning; secondly, to develop professional development activities, and thirdly, to create an Effective Teaching Profile. The paper concludes by identifying how implementing the Effective Teaching Profile addresses educational disparities.