Huntsman Program

Different types of interventions have been used in the treatment of Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) such as music therapy and dance/movement therapy (DMT). The Schlachte Method is a new pediatric occupational therapy program that implements ballet into its curriculum. Currently, no randomized control trials or studies of rigor have been conducted on the Schlachte Method (Rapport and Schlachte, 2019). All evidence supporting the benefits of the Schlachte Method come from DMT research, ASD research, and parent testimonials-reporting the changes they notice in their children's behaviors. A paired t-test was used to determine if the Schlachte Method has a statistically significant impact on the severity of Autistic behaviors as rated by the Social Responsiveness Scale-Second Edition (SRS-2). The dancers' behaviors were scored on the SRS-2 form on two different occasions, 5 weeks apart, to collect data on the baseline severity of their Autistic behaviors and their severity's progression. Statistical data analysis, using a 1-sample t-test 1 tail t-test, concluded that the Schlachte Method does have a statistically significant impact on the class' total score, motivation, cognition, and repetitive behaviors SRS-2 subscale categories. Therefore, it was concluded that the Schlachte Method does indeed have an impact on the severity of Autistic behaviors. However, as a result of COVID-19 preventing the completion of this study, and the limited subjects available in the New York City classes more trials need to be administered.

This paper explores the ways in which the Maoist ideology of continuous struggle was manifested in the linguistic changes that arose in Chinese society following the Communist victory in proclaiming the People􏲉s Republic of China in 􏲑􏲒􏲓􏲒􏲈 1949. The paper begins with a brief introduction to the worldview associated with the Chinese brand of Marxism-􏲔Leninism that formed the core of Mao Zedong Thought and the propaganda system engineered to promote it, as it is in this context that the political was able to triumph in all spheres including linguistic. The formalization of language into set phrases will then be considered, along with its precedent and efficacy. Once this is established, specific linguistic changes will be analyzed in the pattern of two general themes: identity, especially political identity, and military-style rhetoric.

My translation and transcription with introduction for the Global Medieval Sourcebook of Stanford University. Link above: https://sourcebook.stanford.edu/text/efrosins-tale-solomon-and-kitrovas.

I am deeply indebted to Professor Julia Verkholantsev, my instructor of Old Church Slavonic at the University of Pennsylvania, for her generous guidance in this project.

“Efrosin's Tale of Solomon and Kitovras” is part of a collection compiled by the priest-monk Efrosin of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (St. Cyril of Beloozero’s Monastery) in the late 15th century CE. The monastery is located north of Moscow and originally functioned as a place of exile for elites and clergymen in disgrace. In 1446 CE, Grand Prince Vasily II came to the monastery, where the Father Superior, Tryphon, absolved him from the oath he had taken not to fight for the Muscovite throne. Following Vasily’s victory in the Muscovite Civil War, the Kirillo-Belozerky Monastery was granted special status and received an inflow of generous donations. The monastery became a place of broad intellectual activities and its prestige within the Muscovite state made it an attractive place for monks. It retained its high status through the reign of Grand Prince Ivan III (r. 1462-1505 CE) during which Efrosin composed the present text.

The manuscript, a book of encyclopedic content that includes writings from the Paleia, was part of Efrosin’s personal notebooks and may have been used for pedagogical purposes. It is absent from the book catalogue of the monastery’s library, which suggests that it was likely kept in Efrosin’s own cell.  The book is thick but compact, approximately 14 x 10 cm and covered in leather bindings.

Efrosin is one of the most remarkable men of letters of the Grand Duchy of Moscow but information about him is sparse. One of the few references to him outside his own notebooks mentions that he departed the monastery for over a year. In addition to religious texts, Efrosin’s collections include subjects such as geography, history, medicine, astronomy, and lexicography, and this breadth is representative of an encyclopedic trend in writings of the period. (See also Efrosin’s version of the “Tale of Dracula” in this sourcebook.) While Efrosin appears to have been in good standing with the Church, he did have a particular interest in texts, such as this story, which had been denounced as “false” or “of little use.” Of the texts he copied, he edited many to his own liking, with revisions, additions, and personal notes. In rewriting the texts in this manner, Efrosin often provided his own interpretations, thus creating original versions.

Efrosin’s creative synopsis of the “Tale of Solomon and Kitovras” is an original version of a longer tale which Efrosin had copied as part of the “Judgements of Solomon” cycle found in the Paleia, a major Old Russian interpretative text that retells much of the Old Testament with apocryphal additions and comments. Based on the image of the biblical king renowned for his wisdom and portrayed as a great holder of knowledge, tales of King Solomon formed a genre with a storied tradition that became a hallmark of Slavic Orthodox literary culture. Legends of Kitovras, a Slavic derivative of “Centaur”, occupy an important place in this tradition. Efrosin’s version takes considerable liberty with the tale and includes themes not present in his source, which he himself copied and included in the same book.

In the source version, Solomon captures Kitovras to help him with the construction of the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem. While held in captivity, Kitovras exhibits the ability to know the fates of several people. He tells Solomon how to obtain the Shamir stone needed to build the temple and stays with him through its completion. When Solomon doubts Kitovras’ strength, Kitovras throws him to the edge of the promised land. Upon his return, Solomon orders sixty bodyguards around his bed for protection against Kitovras.

In his edition, Efrosin added, for example, a description of the beast, but gave him cow legs instead of the horse legs depicted in the miniature drawn by the icon-painter Ephraim Trebes in section 127 of the same manuscript and in Nicetas of Heracleia’s commentary on Achilles and the Centaur, copied in the Kirillov Mythographer. The dialogue and Kitovras’s response to Solomon that, “Best of all is one’s own freedom,” is also Efrosin’s personal addition, and a deliberate choice for emphasis. Specialists have suggested that this line can be read in the context of the trend for monks, like Efrosin, to leave the monastery for extended periods of time, thereby living with a sense of independence that is reflected in the writings of the period as a whole. The modifications and additions that Efrosin made to the dialogue between Solomon and Kitovras and to the plot itself thus make his retelling stand out among other versions of this classic tale.

This paper will investigate early Christian-Buddhist literary dialogues in order to understand how the Jesuit message diverged from acceptable discourse prior to its prohibition by the Tokugawa government in 1614. It will be particularly focused on how the Jesuits presented their faith as both alternatively similar and diametrically opposed to Japanese traditions, and how, in turn, their message was received by Japanese intent on protecting their homeland from an infection of Christian heresy. This term, heresy (Jap. jaho), was, after all, the label applied to the “teaching” – “religion” was not yet an established concept in East Asia – in the 1614 decree that ended their official mission. As Josephson-Storm has elucidated in his book, The Invention of Religion in Japan, “heresy” is invoked to rebuke not that which is radically different but that which is similar yet unassimilable. At first glance, this appears to explain how the Jesuit approach of “accommodation” in certain respects and confrontation in others made their teaching into a pariah of a centralizing Japanese state. Since the True Pure Land sect of Buddhism, by way of its message of salvation through faith, is most similar to the promise of Christianity, this paper will focus on how writers on both sides of the divide staked their positions on the key questions separating faith in Amida Buddha and faith in the Christian God. From this investigation it will be shown that the language of similarity from both sides in the end functioned to weaken the Christian position by making it replaceable by a more “pure” version calibrated to the conditions of Japanese society.

In the period marking about a half-century after the Qianlong emperor’s blitz into Central Asia, profound shifts occurred in regional power dynamics. It was during this time that, in great part due to its profitable relationship with Qing Xinjiang, Khoqand rose to dominate the Ferghana Valley. In borders and boundaries, as evidenced and brought about by the Qing’s dealings with nomadic groups, this period saw a shift from a personal principle emphasizing the relationships of all parties to the Qa’an in the form of the Qing emperor to a territorial principle that encompassed stricter control over a more defined set of boundaries. In the Qing imperial messages to each Central Asian ruler, while a broad ejen-albatu relationship was emphasized as its foundation, this gradually became an excuse for non-intervention that morphed into disinterest, provided that the security of its now-entrenched position in Xinjiang was not threatened. As the Qing retreated from Central Asia, the court ceded more authority to officials in Xinjiang and, implicitly, the sedentary power it had helped the most to promote, laying the foundations for a new era at the dawn of the new century.