Yana Agafonova

The article examines the problem of the construction of a common reader in the second half of the 19thcentury in the context of the popular educational practice of public readings. One of the key educational methods was the popularization of literary classics. The specially created Committee on the Organization of Reading for the masses aimed to adapt classic literature for uneducated people who were unfamiliar with this literature. The strategy of adaption undertaken by the Committee makes it… Mostrar más

The article examines the problem of the construction of a common reader in the second half of the 19thcentury in the context of the popular educational practice of public readings. One of the key educational methods was the popularization of literary classics. The specially created Committee on the Organization of Reading for the masses aimed to adapt classic literature for uneducated people who were unfamiliar with this literature. The strategy of adaption undertaken by the Committee makes it possible for us to identify the state’s attitudes toward a common reader, as well as the desire to define its special national identity, and to incorporate the national education of the masses into the general European educational context. Mostrar menos

This article discusses the details of a state project of public education initiated by the Commission for the Arrangement of Public Readings, held under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Education. The publication of education literature and plans for the construction of central auditoriums for public reading made it possible to identify a shared value system, in accordance with which it was required to transform the body of the people, as well as early mechanisms of indirect state control… Mostrar más

This article discusses the details of a state project of public education initiated by the Commission for the Arrangement of Public Readings, held under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Education. The publication of education literature and plans for the construction of central auditoriums for public reading made it possible to identify a shared value system, in accordance with which it was required to transform the body of the people, as well as early mechanisms of indirect state control over the semi-literate mass of people. Mostrar menos

This paper revisits the receptive theory in the context of computational creativity. It presents a case study of a Paranoid Transformer—a fully autonomous text generation engine with raw output that could be read as the narrative of a mad digital persona without any additional human post-filtering. We describe the technical details of the generative system, provide examples of output, and discuss the impact of receptive theory, chance discovery, and simulation of fringe mental state on the… Mostrar más

This paper revisits the receptive theory in the context of computational creativity. It presents a case study of a Paranoid Transformer—a fully autonomous text generation engine with raw output that could be read as the narrative of a mad digital persona without any additional human post-filtering. We describe the technical details of the generative system, provide examples of output, and discuss the impact of receptive theory, chance discovery, and simulation of fringe mental state on the understanding of computational creativity. Mostrar menos

This article investigates public readings in late Imperial Russia, which became both an official and popular educational practice following the establishment of the Standing Commission of Public Readings by the State Ministry of Public Enlightenment in 1872. Public readings, done by an authorized person who would read aloud useful and entertaining texts in front of an audience, represent a significant democratization of the practice of reading. The content of such readings, both textual and… Mostrar más

This article investigates public readings in late Imperial Russia, which became both an official and popular educational practice following the establishment of the Standing Commission of Public Readings by the State Ministry of Public Enlightenment in 1872. Public readings, done by an authorized person who would read aloud useful and entertaining texts in front of an audience, represent a significant democratization of the practice of reading. The content of such readings, both textual and visual, was heavily controlled by the state authorities which inevitably led to the shaping of a very specific addressee, the so-called common reader, whose official image was supposed to reflect the ordinary citizen, and is emblematic of the complex problem of nation-building in Russian history. The study enquires how the visual context of public readings contributed to the general image of the common reader. The article examines the representation of the common reader in the media of the time, the limitations imposed by the censorship, and the strategic choices of images for the magic lantern slides to illustrate the public readings. It provides a deeper perspective on the figure of the common reader, which became an ideological construct of importance for both domestic and foreign policy. Mostrar menos

The article names the key manufacturers of magic lantern projectors in late imperial Russia, it also describes the main usage of the lantern in the public education sphere. The author examines the case of illustrating public readings with magic lantern slides and shows a specific approach of the organisers to choosing illustrations for public narratives for common people. The approach implies a combination of national and foreign concepts in the public educational project.