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An Orchid In The Land Of Technology: Embodied Presence In A Mediatized World, Kevin Dodd

Masters Theses

This thesis applies the Aesthetic philosophy of John Dewey to the current discourse about mediatization and performance in an effort to explain how a Deweyan conception of embodied aesthetic experience can contribute to meaningful experience and human flourishing in a mediatized culture. The relationship between live presence and technological mediatization is often characterized as oppositional. Through an explication of the process of mediatization and manifestations of presence, this relationship can instead be viewed as reciprocal. An overview of Dewey's theories of experience and aesthetics refutes dualistic thinking and demonstrates how faculties of perception can be engaged and our capacity for …