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Bejing English Major Seeks Technical Lit.

Sitaram

Sitaram

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Beijing English Major Seeks Technical Lit.

I just received this request from an Internet acquaintance near Beijing China, working towards his Masters degree in English. I shall begin searching when time becomes available, but I thought some of you might like to see what is sought. Apparently, in many countries, is quite difficult for students of English to find such books as these. I had suggested last year that some program be established, perhaps with the aid of prosperous, powerful and influential people in business and government, to make such texts available to such students in such countries, on-line. I think much good might result from such a program.

1. Jean-François Lyotard. "After the Sublime: The State of Aesthetics." In David Carroll, ed., The States of `Theory': History, Art, and Critical Discourse, pp. 297-304. Irvine Studies in the Humanities. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
["This article was written in English, 'revisted' by Anne Tomiche."]

2. Jay, Martin. "The Ethics of Blindness and Postmodern Sublime: Levinas and Lyotard." In his Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought, pp. 543-586. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

3.Jean-François Lyotard. "Presenting the Unpresentable: The Sublime." In Sigmar Polke's Transit. Edited by Kornelia von Berswordt-Wallrabe. Ostildern-Ruit: Cantz, 1996.
[Published to accompany an exhibition held at the Staatliches Museum Schwerin, October 13-December 8, 1996.
See "Presenting the Unpresentable: The Sublime" (1982).]
Jean-François Lyotard, 1982 , "Presenting the Unpresentable: The Sublime." Translated by Lisa Liebmann. Artforum (April 1982), 20(8): 64-69.

4.Jean-François Lyotard. 1982, "The Sublime and the Avant-Garde." Translated by Lisa Liebmann. Artforum (April 1984), 22(8): 36-43.
Jean-François Lyotard. "The Sublime and the Avant Garde." Paragraph (October 1985), 6: 1-18. Revised translation of "The Sublime and the Avant-Garde" (1984) by Lisa Liebmann, Geoff Bennington and Marian Hobson.

5.Klinger, Cornelia. "The Concepts of the Sublime and the Beautiful in Kant and Lyotard." Constellations (October 1995), 2(2):207-223.

6.Huhn, Tom. Review of Jean-François Lyotard's Lessons in the Analytic of the Sublime. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (Winter 1995), 53(1):89-90.
 
This student, in Beijing, will probably be joining this forum. He uses the screen name Rex. We met at online-literature.com. I helped him on a project translating an article on the history of Kindergarten programs in America.

Rex mentioned to me that on one occasion, he visited every bookstore in Beijing, but could only find a few popular novels in English, but no technical or scholarly works on literary analysis, or such topics.
 
Maybe it's just my suspicious mind but, what about the university library? I would understand if he wanted the books because of a personal interest but, if he is doing a course, the books would either be recommended books for the taught courses -in which case they have to be available- or needed for his dissertation. In the last case, he would not have a completely free choice of subject matter (especially in Beijing, of all places) but would have to choose from a list or been given a topic.

I am very sympathetic to students who cannot afford resources and have collaborated in a website that provides free resources to students in several languages, but those resources were written especially for the site. We did not used published materials,which would have been copyrighted.
 
What about e-books? Much classic literature is available copyright free online. I'm a little unclear what he desires material on, but this could be a great place to start.
 
Rex never indicated to me that he is looking for anything for free. The problem seems to be that such books cannot easily be found at any price. I received his e-mail 10 minutes before I had to leave for work. I will not have time to search until much later. I thought I would be fun to post here, and suggest to Rex that he visit and perhaps join. Rex seems like a clever person. I rather imagine that he has exhausted all the possiblilites open to him, even the arcane and curious notion of visiting a library. Perhaps, he will come and join and post to explain in greater detail what his problems are, and what he has done to solve them.

I am saddened by the notion that something as wonderful as the internet and search engines should be frought with the terror and fear of copyright infractions with our every step and turn. Perhaps we should hold the search engines themselves liable for giving us the means to search for such links.

Let us hope that truth and justice shall triumph in this old world of ours.

If I am successful in locating copies of what he seeks, I shall discuss with Rex how to ship them to him.
 
Kookamoor wrote: What about e-books? Much classic literature is available copyright free online. I'm a little unclear what he desires material on, but this could be a great place to start.

(I am removing the quote tags, because once again my browser is hanging when I try to post this after an edit. I am curious if things will improve once quote tags are removed. And sure enough, when the quote tags are gone, it posts easily after an edit.)

The problem does not seem to be with books in public domain, available at gutenberg.com but with the sorts of obscure studies, analyses, critiques and dissertations that graduate students are asked to read. Shakespeare and Dickens are a piece of cake.

It occurs to me that, since scholars all use word processors nowadays to create their papers, that, at some point, the publish or perish world might consider posting them to a site which universities might access, possibly for a fee. Perhaps such a think already exists.

Certainly, it is not the case that these writings need to be scanned into files. The already exist as files. There just needs to be some more generous and compassionate spirit at work in the hearts of academia, to make things accessible to all, perhaps at some reasonable subscription price.

When I first began publishing on the internet, for free, for fun, someone remarked to me that I probably reach a larger reading audience than paper monographs published in the 1980s and earlier.

I am just tossing out some ideas.

Perhaps some programs are already in place, and someone just need to enlighten Rex regarding them.

I was always under the impression that the invention of such things as speeck, alphabets, printing press and, now, the Internet, was intended for the purpose of sharing and spreading ideas, and not to sequester and cloister them.

In Jefferson's day, the notion of free public education was new and controversial. Jefferson realized that a government in the hands of the people would not be viable unless the majority were literate and well-educated.
 
The last article on the list is on the web, because the publication is an academic journal. I have not looked at the site, so I don't know if he needs to pay a subscription fee. The article before that is from a magazine. That could be on the web too, but most of the others are books. I don't think they are available in the Internet.
The problems with copywright is not always the authors but the publishers. Unless the book publishers produce e-books, books with a current copywright will not be on the web, at least legally. Journals and magazines are different. Most have an online edition, whether free or by subscription.
 
Did I just understand that in the world of Beijing there are required readings that are unavailable? :confused:
 
I just remember something about Journals and academic papers databases. They usually have a subscription policy but, for institutions like university, the subscription is not personal but made to the organisation. It's the same as buying a computer programme for a company and getting X number of licenses. Any English Department should have a few subscriptions to these type of publications and databases. These are available to staff and usually - at least in my university they were - to research students. Even if he could not access them himself, he should be able to ask a member of staff to download papers for him.
 
Rex never indicated that the readings are required. It is hard to imagine that an institution would require the reading of books which are impossible to purchase or borrow.

Perhaps Rex will come and join and shed more light.

I can post here the link at online-literature.com that documents all my correspondence with Rex regarding his translation of the history of kindergarten programs in America. There were misconceptions regarding the translation which I found quite startling. Initially, Rex asked me what I knew of "infant schools",

Through the child trained in the infant school the adult poor would be instructed in the mores of the dominant society. Here "the dominant society" refers to the ruling class, or the mass, or most of the people in a society?


It took me a while to understand that all this was about kindergarten. I explained that the word "infant" means, "not speaking", and that a child of kindergarten age is no longer considered an infant. I did some research, and discovered that there was a brief time, after the slaves were freed, when kindergarten was seen as a way to help parents enter mainstream society, but there were isolated instances.
 
Hello, friends. This is the REX mentioned above speaking.

Firstly, the books or papers are not required by teachers, i.e. not assignments, but necessary for my research.

Secondly, I asked Sitaram only after I have tried the China National Library, and some of other University Libraries, of course big ones.

Thirdly, even such a paper called "Presenting the Unpresentable: The Sublime." I find no means to download it. For the academic papers are mainly from Chinese magazines. Our university indded bought some English databases, but with almost no materials I need.

Fourthly, I tried to buy them from the Amazon.com but it is extremely inconvenient to pay for them. And I have also propose a piece of advice that they should provide easier means to pay for them in China, or they open stores in China.

In Chinese Universities, the most difficult part often appears to be the necessary materials (often from foreign languages) are hard to find, I mean when you are doing some research. This is the situation.
 
Rex and I have been discussing this matter. It seems that it should not be difficult for me to locate a number of the books he needs and ship them to him. And he shall reimburse me for the expense. Apparently, it is hard to use a charge card from China, and have amazon.com ship there, unless, as Rex said, it is a special international credit card.

I shall update this thread as I find the books on his list. Rex is writing about postmodernism, which interests me. I would like to read these books too.
 
Amazon opened a Chinese site 5 or 6 months ago. It's called www.joyo.com

I don't know how much can you find in it. If it's like the other international sites, you should still be able to order English books from it.
 
I've got a copy of that journal article for you, Sitaram (no. 6 on your list). PM me your email address and I'll send it to you.
 
Kookamoor

Thanks for attachement which I just received (I am at work) and forwarded to rex_yuan in China.

I shall examine attachment tonight.

I learned from a Chinese nurse in the states that Western Union is a handy way to exchange money between China and US. I hope to go shopping in book stores this weekend for the books on Rex's list.
 
I shoudl express the highest appreciation for you. Thank you. I know Yoyo. It contains no books I need. But I will try it once more.
 
Rex, I don't know how joyo works, because I don't understand Chinese. I thought it would be the same as the other foreign branches of Amazon, where I can still search for books in English and get them.
 
I contacted the yoyo customer service office again. They told me that we can not buy books of Amazon from yoyo. Yoyo is a company most of whose stocks are hold by Amazon, but run separately. It formerly was a Chinese company (website). Amazon bought it several months ago.
 
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