Talk:Franz Baermann Steiner

This may qualify as a WP:OR note but is harmless, and factual.

Before the curtain comes down, I thought I'd better check over some notes for improvement (no time to do the full Taboo analysis or paraphrase)

Conradi doesn't mention it but in her much later novel The Accidental Man, Murdoch clearly uses the incident of Steiner losing his manuscript while writing of Garth Gibson Grey, the American draft-dodger's English friend, who has his suitcase misplaced by the airline in a flight from New York to London.

Perhaps one could write:(=endnote to the text note 18)

'A similar incident is recounted in Iris Murdoch's much later novel, An Accidental Man, where the son of the central figure, Austin Gibson Grey, loses the manuscript of his novel when his suitcase is lost, or, he suspects, stolen from the baggage carousel after a flight from New York to London. See Iris Murdoch, An Accidental Man,(1971), Book Club Associates ed., London 1973 p.55'Nishidani (talk) 15:46, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it works better as part of the current endnote discussing other such instances. Ill add it wherever, but do you want it as an endnote to the actual story or with the instances of Murdoch using Steiner in her books? nableezy - 06:59, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Anywhere will do, Nab. In any case, it will likely be taken down eventually by someone who likes applying the letter of the law, rather than its spirit, which here consists in simply providing a reader with good reliable information.Thanks Nishidani (talk) 08:19, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would remove it since we have a clear consensus for WP:IAR on this. --JGGardiner (talk) 08:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thats why we use all these tricky templates, they, and maybe you, will never figure it out. nableezy - 08:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Bibliography

I get a bit confused about this. Both Srinivas and Mary Douglas were used for the opening personal peer-professional memoir in vols.1 and 2 of his collected works. But, for example vol.1 on Truth and Taboo, though prefaced by Douglas's memoir, then has Adler and Fardon's very lengthy memoir following. In academic works one would say Mary Douglas, in 'Memoir of Franz Baermann Steiner, ' in Adler and Fardon, Taboo, Truth and religion: Collected Works of FBS, vol.1, Routledge 1999 pp.1-11 Adler and Fardon, 'The Life of FBS' in Adler and Fardon, Taboo, Truth and religion: Collected Works of FBS, vol.1, Routledge 1999 pp.12-111.

In my last edit I copied the template from the Mary Douglas volume, but I am actually citing (p.37) Adler and Fardon whose lengthy biographical memoir follows Douglas in the same volume. Ya see, Nab, that's what I mean by being too old for wiki. I can't get the danged hang of that template thingamijig. I should have used the Adler Fardon 1999 (same volume) template. It was so much easier in the good old days when you just had to learn how to use a copper chisel to wedge in cuneiform marks on wet clay.Nishidani (talk) 16:25, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll take care of this. nableezy - 17:50, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Juggle

Nab/JGG. I think some infra-page shifting may be required, hauling lines or pieces from one section to another. If you feel that stuff is better relocated, go ahead. I'm thinking that the life section can be pared down, while stuff in it about his views can go below?Nishidani (talk) 16:17, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Last edit re Gandhi letter

I hope I got the right template. All those ciotations come from the Orientalist vol.2 by Adler and Fardon which I suppose is the one =Adler & Fardon 1999?Nishidani (talk) 20:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Dont worry about that stuff, just cite as you normally would and I will take care of it. nableezy - 22:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The volume one stuff is Adler|Fardon|1999. As this one also would be the same I made the first author Fardon and the second Adler so that the link given in the ref goes to the correct full reference. nableezy - 04:36, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh fuck it. I must have used that template when I was citing all yesterday from Fardon, Richard; Adler, Jeremy (1999). Adler, Jeremy; Fardon, Richard. eds. Orientpolitik, Value, and Civilisation: The Anthropological Thought of Franz Baermann Steiner. Franz Baermann Steiner: Selected Writings. 2. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-57181-714-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=lOTGbU0a6r8C&lpg=PR1&pg=RA1-PA6-IA5. I'll try and figure things out later today.Nishidani (talk) 09:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Ill check the cites from the last days edits before it goes up on the main page. I already changed all the ones in the Gandhi letter section, were you using it elsewhere as well? nableezy - 10:48, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I dunno. Two days ago my wife threw a rolling pin my way because the autumnal leafage was three metres deep outside the house, as wintry airs breezed magic figures not unlike hulking monsters from Disneyland or horror movies up against the window. All the while I was relaxing at an armchair near this computer for days, reading. So most of yesterday, desperate for a return to normal kitchen fare since she'd gone on strike, with rake and shovel I cleared four gardens, shoved the leafage into a mulchheap I'd dug, and only stopped to come in here everywhile, for a smoko and to dash in notes from vol.2. I think I edited in from the same volume the clarification that in Ruthenia he was interested in Gypsy communities which I linked to Rom (hoping those in Ruthenia aren't Sinti). You're a real slave-driver Nab. If I'm divorced, I'll use the Nab gambit to prove good will in a higher cause for whatever documentation comes the court's way to demonstrate the reasons justifying my ostensible lack of commitment to the institution of conjugal slavery!Nishidani (talk) 13:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Eventually

There would have to be a section on his relationship with Elias Canetti, both affective and intellectual. I don't like to do this part, since I'm strongly tempted by personal readings, I know Canetti's works fairly thoroughly, and would be hampered by personal interpretations. (I tried to keep this out of the bit re Murdoch. For example, Saward is, pace Conradi, not simply Steiner: he is Steiner mischievously reimagined in terms of the figure of Peter Kien in Canetti's masterpiece, Die Blendung, on of my favorite novels etc.etc.) But, ad futuram memoriam.Nishidani (talk) 18:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Slav-slavery

I'm a bit worried about this. Mack is the secondary authority. But what he reports is, if Steiner's dissertation view, extremely misleading about the conceptualization of slavery in both the Greek and Latin worlds. Those words are technically a very late reflex in Greek and Latin, post-classical, from I suspect a Germanic term for their eastern neighbours. I.e. they are terms from the period 600-800 CE. Well we are just sayingwhat FS is reported to have said, but the way his secondary source reports this, the impression is given that the Greek institution of slavery, and its Roman variant, is related to the Slavic peoples, something that is not true, and which one would be surprised to read in Steiner given his immense erudition. I'll look up Grimm's German dictionary on Sklave tonight (must borrow it from another house) to clarify this, independently of what the secondary source says. It mustn't of course influence the wiki text, but one should have this in mind in phrasing things not to give the naive reader misleading impressions.Nishidani (talk) 18:51, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting article

This is an interesting article about someone of whom I knew very little. I was just looking at some of the sources however in order to get a wider concept of Steiner's thinking and noticed this: "Indeed he considered Western civilization as 'fundamentally predatory, in terms both territorial and epistemic, upon civilizations that differ from it.'[25] The ref appears to be from Adler and Fardon pg 23, but it does not appear on that page. Further, a search for the terms "predatory" and "epistemic" in the book does not turn up any hits. Perhaps I am doing something wrong? Stellarkid (talk) 17:16, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It's on page 23 of the companion volume Selected Writings: Orientpolitik, value, and civilisation,(with a memoir by M.N. Srinivas) ed. by Adler. As usual, I fucked up, messing with templates. I'm too stupid to figure out how to change the template to the correct one.Nishidani (talk) 17:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. nableezy - 17:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

(out) Thanks for fixing. This reference is clearer with respect to his thinking. It is nuanced.  :) Stellarkid (talk) 21:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Read Theodor Adorno's Negative Dialectics and it will become even clearer. Perhaps there are several footnotes which switch sources. Any checking that reveals that would be most welcome.Nishidani (talk) 21:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I went through whatever was cited to Adler and Fardon; only one needed to be changed to Fardon and Adler. nableezy - 23:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Apologies for the trouble and waste of time this required. I'll have to get you a free invitation to a cricket match in Chicago to make amends. At least there you can see some real sport, played by real men.Nishidani (talk) 11:09, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

No worries. And slap yourself for calling cricket a "real sport", thankfully my people were never so successfully colonized that we think that is either entertaining or enjoyable. nableezy - 16:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Shame on you! Have you forgotten John Traicos, and his world-class off-spin bowling? Poor chap had to play for other countries because Nasser, in one of the few bad moves of his revolutionar life, discouraged a flourishing cricket culture because it was associated with the corrupt monarchy. They don't play girlie iron there, either, though. Which means that its manlihood in this regard is guaranteed. Nishidani (talk) 17:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)