Ovidiu Matiu | "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu (original) (raw)
Papers by Ovidiu Matiu
Religions, Jan 24, 2024
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
Religions, 2024
This paper analyses Jack Kerouac’s brief but intense conversion to American pseudo-Buddhism and t... more This paper analyses Jack Kerouac’s brief but intense conversion to American pseudo-Buddhism and the artistic effect of this biographical development, arguing that his conversion was total from a spiritual point of view and that its almost immediate effect was the production of a literary piece which should be read as a (fictional) pseudo-Buddhist hagiography, or a pseudo-ojoden. The article investigates Jack Kerouac’s life as the life of a modern American Buddha, as a person engaged in a constant quest for spiritual enlightenment, who imbued his work with a spiritual feeling derived from his personal, direct, albeit limited experience with spirituality. His novel, The Dharma Bums, is a (fictional) pseudo-Buddhist hagiography because it is (auto)biographical, and the central characters are portrayed as enlightened, “holy” beings.
Transilvania
This paper is an analysis of Jack Kerouac’s 1954-letter to Robert Lax and it emphasizes that the ... more This paper is an analysis of Jack Kerouac’s 1954-letter to Robert Lax and it emphasizes that the American author’s (temporary) conversion to Buddhism was not a mere reaction against his Christian belief and tradition, but the result of a natural, informed realization of the possibility to accept, to celebrate distinction, to bridge the differences through compassion. The analysis partly mirrors Jack Kerouac’s own etymological method and highlights the differences between his own and the traditional interpretation of the terms karuna and agape. The conclusion is that, even though Kerouac’s understanding of certain religious concepts might sound subjective, it provides the reader with a valuable perspective on the two spiritual traditions which enabled the American author to naturally turn to Buddhism, albeit temporarily; it also facilitates the analysis of his writing.
East-West Cultural Passage
This article analyzes the documentation available in an attempt to settle the controversy over th... more This article analyzes the documentation available in an attempt to settle the controversy over the “true” date and place of birth of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavo Vassa, the African. Several original documents are analyzed, and the data is compared to the information provided by the author himself in his The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself, first published in London, in 1789. According to these documents (a baptismal record and a muster book), he was not born in Africa, in Igboland (in today’s Nigeria) as he argued in his autobiography, but in South Carolina, as he declared before those who recorded the information in the official documents. The issue of authenticity is more relevant for historical research than for literary criticism; in the case of the latter, the accuracy of the data does not significantly impact upon the literary value of his work. In conclusion, the dispute is pertinent only in the liminal s...
Les politiques budgétaires en union monétaire doivent être relativement autonomes, nous évoqueron... more Les politiques budgétaires en union monétaire doivent être relativement autonomes, nous évoquerons les fondements et le contenu de deux types de règles: celles qui interdisent le financement des trésors publics par les banques centrales et celles qui définissent un mode de surveillance des déficits publics excessifs.
Studies in Business and Economics, 2010
This article presents the results of an experiment conducted on two distinct groups of students a... more This article presents the results of an experiment conducted on two distinct groups of students attending our ESP classes in the academic year 2009-2010. The first group was formed of second year students majoring in business and the second group first year students majoring in ...
Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe - HAL - SHS, 2014
East-West Cultural Passage, 2021
This article analyzes the concept of food in Cormac McCarthy's dystopian, (post-)apocalyptic fict... more This article analyzes the concept of food in Cormac McCarthy's dystopian, (post-)apocalyptic fiction, aiming to prove that in the American writer's universe the act of eating is deprived of its social and spiritual dimension, being restricted to its basic functionality similar to that of a meal-replacement product. The analysis draws a parallel between the concept of manna in the Exodus and the types of foodstuffs and their functionality in the novels Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West and The Road , showing that food is one of the constituent ingredients of McCarthy's desert imaginary and is interpreted as a crucial weapon in the fight against death and dehumanization.
East-West Cultural Passage
This article analyzes the concept of food in Cormac McCarthy's dystopian, (post-)apocalyptic ... more This article analyzes the concept of food in Cormac McCarthy's dystopian, (post-)apocalyptic fiction, aiming to prove that in the American writer's universe the act of eating is deprived of its social and spiritual dimension, being restricted to its basic functionality similar to that of a meal-replacement product. The analysis draws a parallel between the concept of manna in the Exodus and the types of foodstuffs and their functionality in the novels Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West and The Road, showing that food is one of the constituent ingredients of McCarthy's desert imaginary and is interpreted as a crucial weapon in the fight against death and dehumanization.
This paper deals with language and its impact upon the business environment, with special focus o... more This paper deals with language and its impact upon the business environment, with special focus on the way inwhich English is emerging as an interlanguage of a United Europe. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate thatthe knowledge of English, the common dialect of the EU and of any other European language, is crucial to business.Moreover, people doing business in Europe and elsewhere in the world should learn foreign languages or improvetheir linguistic competences in their attempt to conquer new markets and to establish new partnerships. If nowadaysspeaking a foreign language is quite enough and thus very common, in the near future good linguistic competencewill be defined as knowledge of two or more foreign languages.
Few writers depend so heavily on the intricacies of a given language as the poet, for whom each w... more Few writers depend so heavily on the intricacies of a given language as the poet, for whom each word is often essential. We can find examples of fine poetry in all cultures, poetry rich in the demeanour and presence of language, filled with the richness that makes a language unique and interesting. Some would argue that without the variance found in· dissimilar languages poetry, would fail us as a comprehensive art; could we have the peculiar grammar of Emily Dickinson beside the lyricism of Baudelaire if both poets were constrained to use the same language? Great poetry cannot survive the process of translation, namely it cannot preserve alf its initial qualities after having been translated. Surprisingly enough, this is not due to the difficulty of translating the metrical pattern, but to the nature of poetry itself. The usefulness of the debate on translating is that it compels us to look more critically at the task of the poet and the function of poetry. Poetry is neither just w...
Review of Ecumenical Studies Sibiu
This paper is an attempt to answer the question whether Bible translation may help building a com... more This paper is an attempt to answer the question whether Bible translation may help building a community or communities, which would contribute to creating the framework for a commonality of faith. The answer is not difficult to state, since translation is about bridging gaps, about creating communities, as steps forward in this process. It is impossible to understand the process and to formulate an adequate and articulate answer to the initial question without taking a journey through the complex field of Translation Studies, and of Bible translation, in particular. The method of study involves analysis and use of concepts such as the paradox of translation, dynamic equivalence and (essentially) literal translation, in a dialog with authors such as Ricoeur, Berman, Nida or Ryken. This analysis shows that a linguistic oikumene, as a step towards a commonality of faith, is achievable through the translator’s hard work of producing linguistic hospitality, as a sine qua non condition fo...
Studies in Business and Economics, 2011
Visual vocabulary or visual language is a set of symbols used to describe a system or a process; ... more Visual vocabulary or visual language is a set of symbols used to describe a system or a process; it refers to all graphical representations that supplement a brand image, a logo, and build a brand identity that is bound to remain invariable even when the sign undergoes fundamental changes. The article is a presentation of the concept of visual vocabulary/language and of its relevance to branding and marketing. We argue that these symbols are culturally dependent and a key element in brand design.
In the Introduction to “the only book about Kerouac worth reading”, according to The San Francisc... more In the Introduction to “the only book about Kerouac worth reading”, according to The San Francisco Chronicle (qtd. in Clark, the front cover), Carolyn Cassady argues that Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac was attracted by Buddhism’s apparent ability to provide him with answers that Roman Catholicism had not been able to verbalize clearly enough: “Chaos was the rule until Buddhism came along and supplied the answers he sought – or so he believed. The tenets of Buddhism became a balm to his emotional and spiritual aspirations and fit his own psyche, but they related very little to the demands of daily life nor did they provide practical help. He ignored the rule against alcohol, for it too, provided escape from reality” (xvi). Ironically, it was love, not alcohol which provided him with the reason for giving up Buddhism later on, a reason he revealed to Alfred Aronowitz for Escapade in 1960: “Also, wisdom is heartless. I quit Buddhism because Buddhism — or Mahayana Buddhism preaches agains...
TRANSYLVANIAN REVIEW, 2019
This paper argues that the translation of Romanian literary criticism, as a field of its own, req... more This paper argues that the translation of Romanian literary criticism, as a field of its own, requires the development of terminological databanks meant to provide the terminological standard, not in the sense of a “standardized” glossary of terms, but in that of “harmonized” terminology, organized in community-specific technolects, as defined by the promoters of socioterminology and the sociocognitive theory. This argument is supported with evidence derived from the research results of a case study focused on several samples of Romanian literary criticism originally published in Romanian and subsequently translated into English in Romania in the late twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, before and in the wake of great social,
political and cultural changes. The analysis of the research results shows that dynamic terminological “harmonization,” as opposed to mere “standardization,” is not only possible but also a sine qua non requirement, given its potential to trigger improvements in the quality as well as in the quantity of translations of Romanian literary criticism into the lingua franca of today’s world.
![Research paper thumbnail of [Review of Ecumenical Studies Sibiu] Welcoming the Other Translating Truth for the Post-truth World.pdf](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/58371748/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](This paper is an attempt to answer the question whether Bible translation may help building a com... more This paper is an attempt to answer the question whether Bible translation may help building a community or communities, which would contribute to creating the framework for a commonality of faith. The answer is not difficult to state, since translation is about bridging gaps, about creating communities, as steps forward in this process. It is impossible to understand the process and to formulate an adequate and articulate answer to the initial question without taking a journey through the complex field of Translation Studies, and of Bible translation, in particular.
Revista Transilvania, 2018
This article analyses Jack Kerouac’s religious and literary “apostasy” from the forms of organize... more This article analyses Jack Kerouac’s religious and literary “apostasy” from the forms of organized religion and the established norms of prose writing, in an attempt to prove that his turn to Mahayana Buddhism and “spontaneous prose” were the immediate expression of both his struggle to transcend the mundane and (re)create reality through art. He was ready to embrace everything but unwilling to give up anything, and thus he embarked on the Buddhist vehicle(s) to enlightenment, which allowed him to pursue his art and aspire to spiritual awakening. Kerouac’s life and work played a crucial role in the program of personal, social and literary transformation of America developed and implemented by the Beat Generation. Keywords: Kerouac, Buddhism, Christianity, religion, spontaneous prose, Beat Generation.
Religions, Jan 24, 2024
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
Religions, 2024
This paper analyses Jack Kerouac’s brief but intense conversion to American pseudo-Buddhism and t... more This paper analyses Jack Kerouac’s brief but intense conversion to American pseudo-Buddhism and the artistic effect of this biographical development, arguing that his conversion was total from a spiritual point of view and that its almost immediate effect was the production of a literary piece which should be read as a (fictional) pseudo-Buddhist hagiography, or a pseudo-ojoden. The article investigates Jack Kerouac’s life as the life of a modern American Buddha, as a person engaged in a constant quest for spiritual enlightenment, who imbued his work with a spiritual feeling derived from his personal, direct, albeit limited experience with spirituality. His novel, The Dharma Bums, is a (fictional) pseudo-Buddhist hagiography because it is (auto)biographical, and the central characters are portrayed as enlightened, “holy” beings.
Transilvania
This paper is an analysis of Jack Kerouac’s 1954-letter to Robert Lax and it emphasizes that the ... more This paper is an analysis of Jack Kerouac’s 1954-letter to Robert Lax and it emphasizes that the American author’s (temporary) conversion to Buddhism was not a mere reaction against his Christian belief and tradition, but the result of a natural, informed realization of the possibility to accept, to celebrate distinction, to bridge the differences through compassion. The analysis partly mirrors Jack Kerouac’s own etymological method and highlights the differences between his own and the traditional interpretation of the terms karuna and agape. The conclusion is that, even though Kerouac’s understanding of certain religious concepts might sound subjective, it provides the reader with a valuable perspective on the two spiritual traditions which enabled the American author to naturally turn to Buddhism, albeit temporarily; it also facilitates the analysis of his writing.
East-West Cultural Passage
This article analyzes the documentation available in an attempt to settle the controversy over th... more This article analyzes the documentation available in an attempt to settle the controversy over the “true” date and place of birth of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavo Vassa, the African. Several original documents are analyzed, and the data is compared to the information provided by the author himself in his The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself, first published in London, in 1789. According to these documents (a baptismal record and a muster book), he was not born in Africa, in Igboland (in today’s Nigeria) as he argued in his autobiography, but in South Carolina, as he declared before those who recorded the information in the official documents. The issue of authenticity is more relevant for historical research than for literary criticism; in the case of the latter, the accuracy of the data does not significantly impact upon the literary value of his work. In conclusion, the dispute is pertinent only in the liminal s...
Les politiques budgétaires en union monétaire doivent être relativement autonomes, nous évoqueron... more Les politiques budgétaires en union monétaire doivent être relativement autonomes, nous évoquerons les fondements et le contenu de deux types de règles: celles qui interdisent le financement des trésors publics par les banques centrales et celles qui définissent un mode de surveillance des déficits publics excessifs.
Studies in Business and Economics, 2010
This article presents the results of an experiment conducted on two distinct groups of students a... more This article presents the results of an experiment conducted on two distinct groups of students attending our ESP classes in the academic year 2009-2010. The first group was formed of second year students majoring in business and the second group first year students majoring in ...
Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe - HAL - SHS, 2014
East-West Cultural Passage, 2021
This article analyzes the concept of food in Cormac McCarthy's dystopian, (post-)apocalyptic fict... more This article analyzes the concept of food in Cormac McCarthy's dystopian, (post-)apocalyptic fiction, aiming to prove that in the American writer's universe the act of eating is deprived of its social and spiritual dimension, being restricted to its basic functionality similar to that of a meal-replacement product. The analysis draws a parallel between the concept of manna in the Exodus and the types of foodstuffs and their functionality in the novels Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West and The Road , showing that food is one of the constituent ingredients of McCarthy's desert imaginary and is interpreted as a crucial weapon in the fight against death and dehumanization.
East-West Cultural Passage
This article analyzes the concept of food in Cormac McCarthy's dystopian, (post-)apocalyptic ... more This article analyzes the concept of food in Cormac McCarthy's dystopian, (post-)apocalyptic fiction, aiming to prove that in the American writer's universe the act of eating is deprived of its social and spiritual dimension, being restricted to its basic functionality similar to that of a meal-replacement product. The analysis draws a parallel between the concept of manna in the Exodus and the types of foodstuffs and their functionality in the novels Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West and The Road, showing that food is one of the constituent ingredients of McCarthy's desert imaginary and is interpreted as a crucial weapon in the fight against death and dehumanization.
This paper deals with language and its impact upon the business environment, with special focus o... more This paper deals with language and its impact upon the business environment, with special focus on the way inwhich English is emerging as an interlanguage of a United Europe. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate thatthe knowledge of English, the common dialect of the EU and of any other European language, is crucial to business.Moreover, people doing business in Europe and elsewhere in the world should learn foreign languages or improvetheir linguistic competences in their attempt to conquer new markets and to establish new partnerships. If nowadaysspeaking a foreign language is quite enough and thus very common, in the near future good linguistic competencewill be defined as knowledge of two or more foreign languages.
Few writers depend so heavily on the intricacies of a given language as the poet, for whom each w... more Few writers depend so heavily on the intricacies of a given language as the poet, for whom each word is often essential. We can find examples of fine poetry in all cultures, poetry rich in the demeanour and presence of language, filled with the richness that makes a language unique and interesting. Some would argue that without the variance found in· dissimilar languages poetry, would fail us as a comprehensive art; could we have the peculiar grammar of Emily Dickinson beside the lyricism of Baudelaire if both poets were constrained to use the same language? Great poetry cannot survive the process of translation, namely it cannot preserve alf its initial qualities after having been translated. Surprisingly enough, this is not due to the difficulty of translating the metrical pattern, but to the nature of poetry itself. The usefulness of the debate on translating is that it compels us to look more critically at the task of the poet and the function of poetry. Poetry is neither just w...
Review of Ecumenical Studies Sibiu
This paper is an attempt to answer the question whether Bible translation may help building a com... more This paper is an attempt to answer the question whether Bible translation may help building a community or communities, which would contribute to creating the framework for a commonality of faith. The answer is not difficult to state, since translation is about bridging gaps, about creating communities, as steps forward in this process. It is impossible to understand the process and to formulate an adequate and articulate answer to the initial question without taking a journey through the complex field of Translation Studies, and of Bible translation, in particular. The method of study involves analysis and use of concepts such as the paradox of translation, dynamic equivalence and (essentially) literal translation, in a dialog with authors such as Ricoeur, Berman, Nida or Ryken. This analysis shows that a linguistic oikumene, as a step towards a commonality of faith, is achievable through the translator’s hard work of producing linguistic hospitality, as a sine qua non condition fo...
Studies in Business and Economics, 2011
Visual vocabulary or visual language is a set of symbols used to describe a system or a process; ... more Visual vocabulary or visual language is a set of symbols used to describe a system or a process; it refers to all graphical representations that supplement a brand image, a logo, and build a brand identity that is bound to remain invariable even when the sign undergoes fundamental changes. The article is a presentation of the concept of visual vocabulary/language and of its relevance to branding and marketing. We argue that these symbols are culturally dependent and a key element in brand design.
In the Introduction to “the only book about Kerouac worth reading”, according to The San Francisc... more In the Introduction to “the only book about Kerouac worth reading”, according to The San Francisco Chronicle (qtd. in Clark, the front cover), Carolyn Cassady argues that Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac was attracted by Buddhism’s apparent ability to provide him with answers that Roman Catholicism had not been able to verbalize clearly enough: “Chaos was the rule until Buddhism came along and supplied the answers he sought – or so he believed. The tenets of Buddhism became a balm to his emotional and spiritual aspirations and fit his own psyche, but they related very little to the demands of daily life nor did they provide practical help. He ignored the rule against alcohol, for it too, provided escape from reality” (xvi). Ironically, it was love, not alcohol which provided him with the reason for giving up Buddhism later on, a reason he revealed to Alfred Aronowitz for Escapade in 1960: “Also, wisdom is heartless. I quit Buddhism because Buddhism — or Mahayana Buddhism preaches agains...
TRANSYLVANIAN REVIEW, 2019
This paper argues that the translation of Romanian literary criticism, as a field of its own, req... more This paper argues that the translation of Romanian literary criticism, as a field of its own, requires the development of terminological databanks meant to provide the terminological standard, not in the sense of a “standardized” glossary of terms, but in that of “harmonized” terminology, organized in community-specific technolects, as defined by the promoters of socioterminology and the sociocognitive theory. This argument is supported with evidence derived from the research results of a case study focused on several samples of Romanian literary criticism originally published in Romanian and subsequently translated into English in Romania in the late twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, before and in the wake of great social,
political and cultural changes. The analysis of the research results shows that dynamic terminological “harmonization,” as opposed to mere “standardization,” is not only possible but also a sine qua non requirement, given its potential to trigger improvements in the quality as well as in the quantity of translations of Romanian literary criticism into the lingua franca of today’s world.
This paper is an attempt to answer the question whether Bible translation may help building a com... more This paper is an attempt to answer the question whether Bible translation may help building a community or communities, which would contribute to creating the framework for a commonality of faith. The answer is not difficult to state, since translation is about bridging gaps, about creating communities, as steps forward in this process. It is impossible to understand the process and to formulate an adequate and articulate answer to the initial question without taking a journey through the complex field of Translation Studies, and of Bible translation, in particular.
Revista Transilvania, 2018
This article analyses Jack Kerouac’s religious and literary “apostasy” from the forms of organize... more This article analyses Jack Kerouac’s religious and literary “apostasy” from the forms of organized religion and the established norms of prose writing, in an attempt to prove that his turn to Mahayana Buddhism and “spontaneous prose” were the immediate expression of both his struggle to transcend the mundane and (re)create reality through art. He was ready to embrace everything but unwilling to give up anything, and thus he embarked on the Buddhist vehicle(s) to enlightenment, which allowed him to pursue his art and aspire to spiritual awakening. Kerouac’s life and work played a crucial role in the program of personal, social and literary transformation of America developed and implemented by the Beat Generation. Keywords: Kerouac, Buddhism, Christianity, religion, spontaneous prose, Beat Generation.