The Traditional Roots of Experimental Modernism-4

32 Idolization: What is Being Represented? Introduction In this chapter, I would like to explore a further context and consequence of words being things in both Gertrude Stein’s ​Tender Buttons​ and Islamic calligraphy. Based on chapter one, we know that Islam has a strict belief of anti-idolization, which is why Islamic calligraphy is seen as the mode of art in Islam. With this, I would like to refer back to Stein and ask, “Does Tender Buttons’ w ​ riting embody beliefs of anti-idolization?” However, it is important before we begin a discussion on examples of anti-idolatry in two very different forms of language, to define key terms surrounding idolatry. In his essay, “Idolatry: Nietzsche, Blake, and Poussin,” W.J.T. Mitchell asks, “What is an idol? What is idolatry” (Mitchell 58). Mitchell defines an idol as “an image of a god” (58). With “-atry” coming from its Greek origin, “latreia,” meaning “worship,” idolatry can be defined most simply as the worshiping of an idol (Mitchell 58; “Idolatry”). Frequently, when the word idolatry is present, iconoclasm is close behind as its “evil twin” (Mitchell 56). Iconoclasm is defined as the destruction of icons, symbols, idols, and images. In his essay, Mitchell situates iconoclasts and idolaters as opposing sides. Thus, for the purpose of this chapter, I will be defining anti-idolatry in terms of iconoclasm, in which the act of worshiping idols is forbidden and/or excluded. Stein and Idolatry As we saw in chapter one, idolatry is forbidden in Islam. Of the Abrahamic religions, Islam is not the only one to follow an iconoclastic belief system. In Judaism, believers follow a similar theme of anti-idolatry. Specifically, in the the Hebrew Bible, anti-idolatry is referenced, such that, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in 33 heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (​Holy Bible,​ Exod. 20:4). Similar to how Islamic beliefs of anti-idolatry are referenced in the Quran, Judaic beliefs of anti-idolatry are referenced in the Hebrew Bible. While Gertrude Stein was Jewish American, Stein was not particularly religious, or, at least, did not publicize her practices of faith. However, referencing James Elkins, I will be introducing religious topics and terms to Gertrude Stein’s ​Tender Buttons, ​a piece that is not apparently religious, in order to be able formulate a more nuanced reading. In other words, it would be foolish for me, as a reader seeking meaning from an author who withholds meaning, to dismiss a connection between Stein’s background and her writing that could provide me with new insight of reading ​Tender Buttons​. Islamic calligraphy developed as a form of iconoclasm. This term is used in Bob Perelman’s ​The Trouble With Genius, ​in which​ h​ e labelled Stein as an “iconoclast” (131), but we take his use of this term to mean something that is new and breaking from traditions. However, my version of Stein being an iconoclast is more than that definition, but parallel to the definition of iconoclasm in Islamic calligraphy. Her approach to writing avoids idolatry; therefore, I am portraying Stein as more than an avant-garde aesthete, but as an avant-gardist fueled by a practice of ethical and/or moral writing. In James Elkin’s essay, he introduces the idea that secular words are being brought into religious meanings and topics (“Iconoclasm and the Sublime” 146). Elkins points out that by adding religious meaning to an apparently secular piece, “the author’s and reader’s sense of their work” would be manipulated (148). But is that not a good thing for Stein? By doing this, we follow Stein. By distilling an ethical stance out of Islamic calligraphy, I am proposing that Stein 34 manifests this stance in ​Tender Buttons.​ As a result, by completing a “religious” reading of Tender Buttons,​ we once again show the ambiguity of meaning Stein has put forth for the reader. BOOK. Book was there, it was there. Book was there. Stop it, stop it, it was a cleaner, a wet cleaner and it was not where it was wet, it was not high, it was directly placed back, not back again, back it was returned, it was needless, it put a bank, a bank when, a bank care. Suppose a man a realistic expression of resolute reliability suggests pleasing itself white all white and no head does that mean soap. It does not so. It means kind wavers and little chance to beside beside rest. A plain. Suppose ear rings, that is one way to breed, breed that. Oh chance to say, oh nice old pole. Next best and nearest a pillar. Chest not valuable, be papered. Cover up cover up the two with a little piece of string and hope rose and green, green. Please a plate, put a match to the seam and really then really then, really then it is a remark that joins many many lead games. It is a sister and sister and a flower and a flower and a dog and a colored sky a sky colored grey and nearly that nearly that let. (​Tender Buttons​ 17) In my close reading of this excerpt, I begin by focusing on the title of the excerpt, “BOOK,” in which I immediately thought of the Hebrew Bible. This mention of “book” continued into the first two sentences of the excerpt, both indicating a presence of a “book,” which I interpreted as the Hebrew Bible. The next sentence ends with multiple mentions of a “bank,” where I then 35 attributed it to some sort of wealth of information. In the next line, “a man” might refer to a religious figure, particularly the prominent Jewish figures, which include Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac. In the same sentence, we read, “no head” and “soap,” which I referred to my background in Islamic anti-idolatry, such that artists have withheld detailed faces or whole heads in their work to avoid forming idols. The “no head” is a nod toward anti-idolatry and “soap” is reference towards purity. In the sentence that mentions “a pillar,” I considered the pillars of beliefs in Judaism. In the next sentence, “be papered” sounds like “be prepared.” I understood this to mean that the written word in Judaism has allowed for the religion to grow through language and reflect on its recorded history. Then, we see the word “hope” in the next line, which I immediately attributed to faith. Finally, in the last sentence of the excerpt, I linked “flower” to “dog” to “sky,” where life and the divine exist at the most basic and lowest parts of the earth flowing through those who exist on earth to the heavens. This religious reading of Stein, in reference to Elkins, manipulates meaning and/or lack of meaning. This follows core beliefs of Stein’s, in which, “she aspired to more than a simple fame as an iconoclast ... it needs to be remembered how opposed to, or indifferent to, general ideas of exactitude, efficiency, and “good writing” her own writing is” (Perelman 131). By applying religious meaning to Stein’s secular writing, the reader forms yet another interpretation of ​Tender Buttons,​ thus, reinforcing the distance between “exactitude” and ​Tender Buttons.​ The Practice of Linguistic Representations There are competing thoughts on the status of linguistic representation in regards to religion. Some argue that the effect of language is much different than the effect of an idol (i.e. sculpture, drawing, painting, shrine, etc.), such that the words produced in language do not 36 produce an object to worship unlike the actual physical objects created by pictorial representations. This is then complicated by Halbertal and Margalit by saying, actually, we see so many representations of objects using linguistic representation that we begin to form ideas of what they are. Thus, when language is used, the word is a symbol with an idea, this idea blurs reality and permits a sense substitution of what is being worshipped (​Idolatry ​52-53). These abstract words result in an “‘idea’ of an object,” in which the word is a “tag” that provides linguistic representation. The example used in the book is of a painting with a tag attached to it with the word “Peter” and how easily the idea of the painting will be changed when the tag is switched out for “Judas” (53). The linguistic representation is thus distanced from the concrete object because it depends upon an idea that is created from the repeated appearance of sense data. This distance between language and object is mediated by the “idea,” which is an internal image that a person has of an object, and this mediation produces the feeling that the linguistic description is less intimate and more distanced from direct contact of the senses, with respect to the object being described. Those philosophical standpoints which attacked this empiricist view of language, and described language as the mediator between objects and sense data, did not accept the approach that distances the linguistic representation from the represented object. (​Idolatry​ 53) In this excerpt, Halbertal and Margalit have recreated Blanchot’s theory on words as images when words serve as symbols. Ultimately, as the anti-idolatry forbids representations in the form of images, pictures, scultures, etc., this excerpt shows that language creates the same effect of 37 idolatry, in which reality is blurred by the representational piece. In other words, just as these visual representation are forbidden, Halbertal and Margalit explain how some can say linguistic representations should also be forbidden (​Idolatry 5​ 4). So far in this chapter, we have explored anti-idolatry and the intertwining of religious and secular terms to excavate meaning. Furthermore, I would like to answer Jan Assmann’s question, “but how does one answer images” with both secular and religious works (“What’s Wrong with Images?” 31). In ​Idolatry, H ​ albertal and Margalit state, “error of substitution… occurs when a representation acquires the features of the thing represented. The mechanism of such an error involves forgetting that it is a representation and seeing it as something autonomous” (​Idolatry 42). When read in light of insights offered by Blanchot and Brown, Stein’s words in ​Tender Buttons ​do not fit as images because they come with no idea. Therefore, when Jan Assmann asks, “but why forbid images,” we see that Stein has bypassed this and has removed her words from being images (“What’s Wrong with Images?” 19). Accordingly, I ask, does this allow us to consider Stein’s work in an ethical dimension comparable to the one of Islamic calligraphy? With this we consider the relationship between religion and secularism, which emphasizes reader/viewer tendencies to see religion and secularism as exclusive of each other. With Stein, we question if there are traces of religion in the secular. This, therefore, helps us to break down the binary between religion and secularism, in which the practice of ethics serves as the tool to do so. As we’ve seen, Stein’s words as things lose their reference to whatever they are conventionally supposed to symbolize. Her words do not lead to generalized traits attached to words because as we see both in idolatry and in Blanchot’s notion of a word holding an idea that neither the image through visual representation nor the word through its idea will form their 38 accurate reference. In Blanchot’s theory, the presence of an idea results in the loss of the real-world object, such that the word takes on the role of the symbol. In other words, we see the word and not the actual object. Consequently, although Stein’s writing is assumed secular, the ethics of writing we see here mimics both Blanchot’s and Stein’s attitude that the actual physical world cannot be completely represented in words. Interestingly, if we focus again on Islamic calligraphy, again, we answer Assmann’s question. It is that words lose their role as symbols by becoming parts of an image. Therefore, a new form of visual representation was created in order to deliver religious meaning through aesthetics without disobeying an iconoclastic belief system (“The Painter’s Breath” 46). As seen in chapter one, Islamic calligraphy serves as a mode of the visualization of faith without forming symbols and/or pictorial representations that encourages idolatry. However, in a critical sense, focusing on Islamic calligraphy also allows for the reader/viewer to consider the possibility of idolatry in linguistic representation that Halbertal and Margalit discuss. Does the qur’anic script fulfil some sort of iconographic or symbolic function for the Qur’an in the eye of the Muslim? ... The calligraphy employed for the Qur’an, it seems to me, ... is a symbol for Muslims. ... On the other hand, it is a physical environment. (Librande 42-43) Here, application muddies the idea, such that there is reversion to symbolism and idolatry with the representation of the holy word to Muslims. In other words, the thingification of calligraphic words is actually symbolic, and so the words are no longer exclusively things. While this is not a popular belief, Islamic calligraphy straddles the line between idolatry and iconoclasm. This conflict of effect relies on the attribution of meaning and importance placed upon words by those 39 who rely on these words as more than visual representation, but revelations (Librande 43). We see this in idolization, in which an, “idol takes the place of the god in the eyes of the worshiper” (​Idolatry​ 41). This leads me to ask if the symbolification of words is a fetishization rather than a conventional function. As Halbertal and Margalit explain, “A fetish is an object to which people attribute powers that it does not have” (​Idolatry​ 42). Consistently, we fetishize words and that leads a reader/viewer to add labels to words. Because words are core factors of communication, words then are required to represent meaning. As a result, in order to represent meaning, words become symbols (windows onto clarity) and are tools towards interpretation. To move beyond this, the reader/viewer must reject the fetishization of words as symbols. I say this because we have seen through Stein and Islamic calligraphy that words as things work just as well as words as symbols. Ultimately, words as things is not meant to confuse communication instead it adds depth to it. By reassigning the identity of a word, we potentially gain more meaning. With words being things in Islamic calligraphy, we take a step towards being okay with words being things in literature, such as we’ve seen in Stein’s ​Tender Buttons.​ This allows us to learn more about experimental literature, such that this supposedly new theme of words as things actually isn’t so new. 40 Experimentalism: A History and Future of Influence Gertrude Stein in the Contemporary World On Wednesday, December 15, 1934, the ​Ann Arbor News ​announced that Gertrude Stein would be speaking at the University of Michigan. The announcement depicted Stein as, “the founder of a conception of poetry origination which has caused controversy in the field of literature” (“Gertrude Stein to Talk Friday” 7). Gertrude Stein, who was simultaneously “the subject of harsh criticism, ridicule and profound praise,” wrote for decades before her work was actually widely popular outside of her own circle of writers and artists (7). Today, we see Stein, a modernist poet, influencing contemporary writers and artists. In other words, as Stein was influenced by pre-modern and modern aesthetic traditions, we see the practice of influence continue as Stein reaches the contemporary world of readers and writers. In Deborah Mix’s ​A Vocabulary of Thinking: Gertrude Stein and Contemporary North American Women's Innovative Writing​, she considers a study of contemporary North American feminist writers. Mix focuses on Stein’s vocabulary and how different aspects of her vocabulary have allowed contemporary writers to experiment in their own work (Mix 3). Utilizing her unique work, “at the level of the word, the sentence, the paragraph, the genre,” Mix acknowledges that contemporary writers have gained insight from Stein’s own writing (3). Her book covers a study of contemporary writers who, like Stein, have pushed beyond traditional classifications of writing and language. In this book, we are being shown how Stein’s literary experimentalism has pioneered a movement of literary experimentalism in contemporary feminist writers. In her book, Mix clarifies that she is not seeking to create a straight path from Gertrude Stein to contemporary North American feminist writers. This is because to show that this subset 41 of contemporary writers are “repeating the same patterns of thought and action” as Stein, is to diminish not only the validity of these writers, but also is to misguidedly reshape and “mute” Stein’s work (Mix 17). Thus, instead of forming a pathway, Mix is forming a relationship, one of implicit and explicit connections, between Stein and contemporary North American feminist writers. In this excerpt from Mix’s book, we see that the reader of Stein is encouraged to recreate Stein’s work, but in respect to both understanding Stein’s strategies and the subjective meanings of her work. For Stein, any reader may be capable of ‘doing the same work’ that she has done, and in order to read Stein successfully, a reader must do the same kind of work Stein has done. That is to say, Stein asks her readers to participate actively in her writing, to create their own meanings in her work. (Mix 5) Mix’s book provides a link from Stein’s ​Tender Buttons​ to contemporary works. Even more so, through research of contemporary artists,19 it is clear that there is a large market for words in contemporary art. Words in contemporary art has become widely popular and continues to bloom with time and audiences. A series of articles in “Circa 104” study the links between word and image, as, “Word/image encounters are as inevitable in contemporary art as they are in our lives” (Lerm Hayes 31). In the article, “Word and Image,” Lerm Hayes emphasizes the benefits of “word/image encounters” as these methods of artwork allow for the blurring of boundaries between genres (Lerm Hayes 31). We’ve seen this “blurring of boundaries between genres” throughout this thesis between visual and linguistic art and will continue to do so in the contemporary Islamic calligraphers presented in the subsequent section. 19 Such as (but not limited to) Jenny Holzer, The Guerrilla Girls, Martin Creed, Tracey Emin, and Dread Scott. 42 Contemporary Islamic Calligraphy When thinking of the perspective Gertrude Stein had of Islamic calligraphy, it is important to question whether or not Stein thought of Islamic calligraphy as a static art. While Picasso and Stein were close, the way she wrote about him in ​Picasso​ represented a level of exoticism. Not only this, but when describing Islamic calligraphy, Stein had chosen the term “Saracen,”(​Picasso ​33) an othering term, in place of “Islamic.” This emphasis of Stein’s habit to exoticize foreignness is not to emphasize a flaw that exists within everyone at some level, but is to emphasize that this otherness could lead me to assume that Stein did not realize Islamic calligraphy, like western literature, was subject to progression. Decidedly, Islamic calligraphy was not immune to contemporary influences as Stein was not immune to Picasso’s influences, therefore, opening the conversation to contemporary Islamic calligraphy in the cycle of influence we’ve seen thus far. In other words, I have shown how Stein's work can be seen as a modernist art form that reflects the same iconoclastic impulse that informs Islamic calligraphy, and now I am showing how contemporary calligraphy reflects a similar non-traditional application of this impulse. As a result, not only is Islamic calligraphy linked to influencing experimental modernism, but we can now see the generative potential of Islamic calligraphy. Contemporary Islamic calligraphers differ from traditional Islamic calligraphers most obviously in a modern progression of form and style. Some have taken traditional forms of Islamic calligraphy and have added personal touches to the style. Contemporary Islamic calligrapher Nihad Dukhan has created his own “modern” style, which resembles the traditional Islamic calligraphy forms, but differs in that Dukhan attempts to make his letters more “stylized” and “simple.” This allows the letters to remain embedded in their original forms, but also allows 43 the letters to “achieve new organic forms” (“Modern and Traditional Arabic Calligraphy”). Another contemporary Islamic calligrapher, Haji Noor Deen, has also created his own style of Islamic calligraphy, in which he incorporates both Arabic and Chinese calligraphic style into one Islamic calligraphic piece. The resulting piece is a modern composition that includes various parts of his own identity through “Chinese traditions and Islamic art” (​Haji Noor Deen Master Calligrapher​). In their own ways, both these contemporary Islamic calligraphers have achieved representing a divine message through their work, where, “The outward appearance of this art form represented an inward significance of spiritual purpose incessantly making of a page of Arabic script the magic mirror that arrests the desert voice” (Zakariya xi). They have done this by altering the traditional script and forming styles modern to their audiences and to themselves. In turn, they have allowed their work to follow the genre while also following a method of personalization, which is a stamp of contemporary artists as a whole in a generation that seeks for their voices to be heard. We see this method of personalization in my first interpretation of “A PETTICOAT” from ​Tender Buttons​ upon considering “A PETTICOAT” in relation to Stein’s own personal style of dress. 44 Figures 7, 8, and 9: (7) ​Mother,​ (8)​ Coffee,​ (9) ​Oh Allah In the first two examples of contemporary Islamic calligraphy, we see Nihad Dukhan’s modern work. The first piece, is the arabic script for “Mother,” while the second is the Arabic script for “Coffee.” By the form of the calligraphy, the reader, with or without the ability to read Arabic, has a high chance of knowing the meaning of the script. In the first piece, the mother is the ​alif​ (straight line) and the child wrapped around her is the ​meem.​ Together, the letters spell “Mother” in Arabic, pronounced “Em.” In the second piece, the Arabic letters begin at the top of the script and work their way down, from the steam of the coffee to the coffee cup it resides, with the pronunciation of the Arabic word for “Coffee” being “Qahwah.” The third piece is by contemporary Islamic calligrapher Haji Noor Deen, whose work fuses both Arabic and Chinese script styles. As a result, the audience is presented with what looks like Chinese script, but is actually Arabic letters that spell “Oh Allah (God),” which is pronounced as “ya Allah.” Other contemporary Islamic calligraphers like Mouneer El Shaarani and Yazan Halwani have followed along modern pushes to be political. In Mouneer El Shaarani’s work, we see that the Islamic calligraphy is embedded in the form and style of traditional Islamic calligraphy, while the context of his words differ in purpose (“Mouneer El Shaarani”). Meanwhile, Yazan Halwani, a Lebanese artist, is possibly the most extreme of the contemporary Islamic calligraphers presented in this study of artists. Halwani is one of many artists who are a part of a “calligraffiti” movement. Calligraffiti is a new art form that combines traditional Islamic calligraphy and “Western graffiti” in attempt to do more than either can do alone (Stoughton). Here, the messages of a divine unity is used in a provocative way in order to highlight politically 45 driven messages under a cloud of sacred practices. Like Gertrude Stein’s method of writing in literature, we see this method of art as highly experimental both in calligraphy and in graffiti. Figures 10 and 11: (10) ​What Subtle Methods of Oppression (​ 11) ​The Flower Salesman Above, we see pieces by Mouneer El Shaarani and Yazan Halwani, respectively. The first piece, El Shaarani’s, is a contemporary Islamic calligraphy piece that combines the traditional style of Islamic calligraphy and the contemporary thoughts of activism in response to the current Syrian refugee crisis. He writes, “What subtle methods of oppression,” in Arabic using the colors of the Syrian flag, red and green (“Mouneer El Shaarani”). The second piece, Halwani’s, is a mural of a little Syrian boy, Fares al-Khodor, killed by airstrikes (Stoughton). Paradoxically, Halwani, along with other contemporary calligraphers, have brought representation back into their work, meanwhile, still upholding the traditional practice of calligraphy. Inspired by a book of traditional Islamic calligraphy that belonged to his uncle, Yazan Halwani began at the age of fourteen to combine this calligraphic practice with messages relevant to his time and environment. His work diverged from divine words to politically and socially driven words. 46 Contemporary Islamic calligraphers break the rules of traditional Islamic calligraphy by stepping beyond the artification of Islam and the conveying of religious messages. These contemporary artists have put their identities into their work. These artists have made a non-political art practice political. The practice has not lost its religious ties, but instead, the divine and unifying thoughts observed through the implications of traditional Islamic calligraphy is recreated with these contemporary Islamic calligraphers. In the contemporary Islamic calligraphers we have looked at, they’ve differed from the standard use of Islamic calligraphy such that, “The reader is not meant to glean the calligrapher’s personality from the script” (​Islamic Calligraphy​ 7). Fundamentally, contemporary Islamic calligraphy not only loses the conventional function of a word we’ve seen in Gertrude Stein and traditional Islamic calligraphy, but the conventional function of Islamic calligraphy as a whole. This practice, similar to Gertrude Stein’s writing, is a clear stray from the norm of which it lives in. In other words, this contemporary radicalization of Islamic calligraphy mimics Stein’s radicalization of literature. Closing Thoughts At this point, we have considered the relationship between Islamic calligraphy and Gertrude Stein’s ​Tender Buttons​, regarding both functions and effects. In essence, Islamic calligraphy presents a method of reading ​Tender Buttons​. This relationship between the two serves as a teaching model for both Stein and experimental modernism. I believe the surface layers of words in poetry and in linguistic representation has morphed through time, but the core function of a word in the examples I have shown do not submit to a depth of experimentalism. Instead, they submit to a play on traditions. This isn’t to summarize what I have said so far, but to validate a longstanding tradition of influence I have discovered in both traditional and 47 experimental practices. Therefore, this is to bring in a multitude of examples of writers and artists from different eras of expression and to show the stability of influence through time. In other words, we are forming a generalization that the basic premises underlying a traditional religious culture (Islam) can find unexpected resonances in modern, experimental art forms. Naturally, we begin to follow an idea that experimentalism is rooted in an exploration of traditions and reusing/recreating them. An effect, one of many, of such an idea are what we’ve seen in chapter three, idolization. Because of this, we gain a deeper insight into supposedly uncrackable writers and artists. In light of what Stein’s relationship to Islamic calligraphy tells us, I consider the potential of this thesis as a reframing of Ezra Pound’s phrase, “Make it new” (Pound). The assumption that each artist exists in their own eras as innovators, leads to a “before and after” mentality. Stein had this mentality with the distinction between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, specifically in terms of Picasso. She drew this distinction with the invention of the airplane in the twentieth century, which symbolizes a whole new perception of the world (i.e. from the ground vs from a bird’s eye-view) (​Picasso ​50). This distinction signified Picasso’s distinction from every artist before him, such that Picasso was the “after” image in the exclusivity of eras of expression. However, this mentality proves to be false as we have just seen how Stein draws from traditional Islamic calligraphy and how contemporary Islamic calligraphy draws from both traditional Islamic calligraphy and experimental modernism. More so, the continuous effort to categorize writers and artists represents the self-imposed bold lines between each era of expression. With the influences of old and new forms of expression, our classification of writers within their respective eras is blurred. This build up of distinctions between eras, centuries, 48 writers, artists is all intentional. Even so, while these distinctions are real and important for progression, we must question whether they are truly as defined as we have made them. For example, we consider Gertrude Stein’s joy, “when later she was told that Eliot had said in Cambridge that the work of Gertrude Stein was very fine but not for us” (​The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas​ 202). It was in this situation that not only is the distinction between Stein and other poets created by T.S. Eliot, but is perpetuated by Stein, herself. Therefore, marking a level of superficiality to the bold lines between writers and their eras of expression. Altogether, I have been able to enter the conversation on the identity and function of words in Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons​ through a unique lens that tests both literary and social norms. This leads me to revise Pound’s quote from “Make it new” to “Make the old new.” In other words, the unfamiliar (experimental) is diluted with the familiar (traditional) in order to achieve a familiarity by association. This practice of anchoring new concepts with already known concepts is a part of the Social Representation Theory20 (Wagner 97). Inherently, through this type of anchoring, traditions continue their presence in conception, application, and in periphery criticism by viewers and readers. 20 This theory asserts that the unfamiliar (i.e. ideas, objects, etc.) “... can only be properly understood if they are seen as being embedded in historical, cultural and macrosocial conditions” (Wagner 96). 49 What is the difference between a thing seen and what do you mean. -Gertrude Stein, ​Mrs Reynolds ​(1940-1943) 50 Works Consulted “A Monumental Qur'an | Freer|Sackler.” ​Freer​, 20 Nov. 2017, www.freersackler.si.edu/a-monumental-quran/. Al-Khamis, Ulrike. “Four Calligraphic Scrolls by Haji Noor Deen Mi Guangjiang in the National Museums of Scotland.” ​Journal of Qur'anic Studies​, vol. 8, no. 1, 2006, pp. 160–164. 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