Aesthetics Commons^™

The Aesthetic And Its Resonances: A Reply To Kathleen M. Higgins, Carolyn Korsmeyer, And Mariana Ortega, Monique Roelofs

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This essay offers replies to the critical commentaries on The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic presented by Kathleen M. Higgins, Carolyn Korsmeyer, and Mariana Ortega. The essay shows how the probing questions and criticisms that the three commentators raise bring out details in the framework of relationality, address, and promises through which the book theorizes the aesthetic.

Macabre Fascination And Moral Propriety: The Attraction Of Horror, Marius A. Pascale

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Why does the horror genre serve as a source of pleasure, given its aim to induce fear in the audience? I examine two general solutions to this phenomenon, referred to as the paradox of horror, which differ based upon their position regarding the possibility of deriving pleasure from fear. Each of the possible solutions contains significant flaws. I argue that, by adjusting a meta-theory originally proposed by Susan Feagin, it is possible to craft a solution that addresses the paradox while preserving the idea that, at times, fear can be enjoyed. The article concludes by considering the moral status of …

Absolute Pitch And Tone Identification, Gilead Bar-Elli

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Absolute pitch (AP), besides the psychological and neurological interests it has, raises some conceptual difficulties that can teach us about the richness of our notion of musical tone and various aspects of its identification. It is argued that when AP is conceived under a slim notion of identifying the pitch of a crude sound, it is hardly meaningful and has no significance in music comprehension. The rich notion, which is the meaningful and important one, involves knowing the position of a tone in a tone-space and its relations. This is presented as experiential: hearing and identifying tones under concepts and …

Report On The Xxth International Congress Of Aesthetics " Aesthetics And Mass Culture" Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea, 24-29 July 2016, Michael Ranta, Jale N. Erzen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Photos of the Congress.

Aesthetics And Autobiography: Emotion And Style In The Book Of Disquiet By Fernando Pessoa / Bernardo Soars, Mikel Iriondo Aranguren

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

At the beginning of The Book of Disquiet, Bernardo Soares writes: “In these random impressions, and with no desire to be other than random, I indifferently narrate my factless autobiography, my lifeless history. These are my Confessions, and if in them I say nothing, it’s because I have nothing to say.”

Written a century ago, these words illustrate a great distance from the traditional way of writing an autobiography. They confront, however, the same paradox, which is how can any of our lives, constituted by different and unrelated events, be structured as a linear story looking for a meaning, …

The Aesthetic Experiences Of Aura, Awe, And Wonder: Reflections On Their Nature And Relationships, Russell Quacchia

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The aim of this essay is to examine the semantic nature and linkage between the experiential phenomena of aura, awe, and wonder, central to matters of the aesthetic experience. In aesthetic commentary these terms are generally used rather loosely, often independently of each other and, most often, without regard to the connections between them. It would seem worthwhile to examine the nature of each of these terms to move toward understanding them and their mutual relationships. The conclusions drawn are that the aura effect appears to operate universally at the cognitive level of the aesthetic experience while those of awe …

The Plight Of Aesthetics In Iran, Majid Heidari

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Richard Rorty believes that philosophy in the West is the result of a conflict between religion and science. In fact, philosophy seeks to clarify the border between religion and science, so neither of them would be able to overstep its explanatory or predictive potentialities. He remarks that we do not have such a thing as philosophy in the East. This paper intends to ask two questions: what is the nature of the comparable conflict in an Eastern country, Iran, and what are its effects on aesthetic studies? I will draw on the idea of the conflict between theology and mysticism. …

Human Nature And Aesthetic Ecosystem Services: Nature In The Service Of Humankind And Humankind In The Service Of Nature, Yrjö Sepänmaa

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The term “ecosystem services” refers to the material and spiritual benefits and goods that we receive from nature, or, in a broad sense, from all kinds of environment. The various forms of such benefits have begun to be called services. Nature serves people by producing the material and spiritual (intangible, non-material) prerequisites for life. This is also the foundation of our aesthetic well-being. Does humankind reciprocally serve nature, or only itself through nature, with the intention of exploiting it? We see when nature suffers or flourishes, and we also observe our own effect on its state. As much as our …

Humor And Enlightenment, Part I: The Theory, Peter H. Karlen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Part I of this article advances a new theory of humor, the Enlightenment Theory, while contrasting it with other main theories, including the Incongruity, Repression/Relief/Release, and Superiority Theories. The Enlightenment Theory does not contradict these other theories but rather subsumes them. As argued, each of the other theories cannot account for all the aspects of humor explained by the Enlightenment Theory. The discussion is illustrated with examples of humor and explores the acts and circumstances of humor, its literary and artistic expressions, and its physical reactions. Part II shows how the Enlightenment Theory meets challenging issues in humor theory where …

Humor And Enlightenment, Part Ii: The Theory Applied, Peter H. Karlen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Part I of this article advanced a new theory of humor, the Enlightenment Theory, while contrasting it with other main theories, including the Incongruity, Repression/Relief/Release, and Superiority Theories. The Enlightenment Theory does not contradict these other theories but rather subsumes them. As argued, each of the other theories cannot account for all the aspects of humor explained by the Enlightenment Theory. Part II shows how the Enlightenment Theory meets challenging issues in humor theory where other theories falter, including failed humor, motivation for humor, tickling, laughing gas, and sadistic humor. Also mentioned are the Enlightenment Theory's application to literary and …

Novelistic Intimacies: Reading And Writing In The Late Age Of Print, Vincent Michael Haddad

Wayne State University Dissertations

In Novelistic Intimacies, I consider the political and aesthetic structure of intimacy in a diverse set of narrative forms produced in the so-called digital age, or the late age of print—from encyclopedic and metafictional novels to graphic storytelling and Afrofuturist fantasy. As an organizing principle, intimacy forces us to consider, at once, how novelists have attempted to restore language and narrative with personal meaning after postmodernism—often termed New Sincerity or post-irony. At the same time, intimacy allows us to see how novelists have experimented on the materiality of the book and the eroticism of language to invent new, impersonal modes …

V.1 2016-2017, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The 2016-2017 issue contains articles on Kara Walker, Women's March, "Look at Art, Get Paid" program, #pizzagate, the Mutual Encounters exhibition, and smartphones.

A Moral Problem For Difficult Art, Antony Aumann

Journal Articles

Works of art can be difficult in several ways. One important way is by making us face up to unsettling truths. Such works typically receive praise. I maintain, however, that sometimes they deserve moral censure. The crux of my argument is that, just as we have a right to know the truth in certain contexts, so too we have a right not to know it. Provided our ignorance does not harm or seriously endanger others, the decision about whether to know the truth ought to be left to us. Within this limit, therefore, difficult art is morally problematic if it …

The Groundwork For Food Criticism: How Normative Aesthetic Judgments Are Possible With Regards To Tastes, Jacob Caldwell

Senior Independent Study Theses

Issues of tastes and smells are often relegated to an ancillary or minor rank of importance in the domain of aesthetics, if recognized at all as legitimate objects of aesthetic inquiry and experience. This essay aims, firstly, to carve out a space of legitimacy for the aesthetics of tastes, and secondly, to clarify what aesthetic inquiry with regards to tastes must look like. In order for the above to be decisively established, the following positions will be argued for: (1) tastes are real, (2) our ordinary or scientific conception of what tastes are, upon which our reasons for doubting the …

Catching All Passions In His Craft Of Will: Portraits And Pater In Oscar Wilde’S “The Portrait Of Mr. W. H.”, Rebecca E. Jones

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Oscar Wilde’s “The Portrait of Mr. W. H.” as the product of Wilde’s long interest in critic Walter Pater’s literature and scholarship. From its first iteration published in 1889, through Wilde’s ongoing revision and expansion into the version commonly anthologized today, “The Portrait of Mr. W. H.” is an evolving work that mirrors Wilde’s enduring relationship with the art and ideas of his former teacher. This relationship is explored in three contexts: Pater’s contribution to Wilde’s understanding of the Renaissance period; the steady influence of Pater’s ideas and persona on Wilde’s other major works from the period …

Antithetical Commentaries On X, Y And The Disruption Of Being, Eva Rocha

Theses and Dissertations

Through discursive essays and poetic narrative, Antithetical Commentaries on X, Y and the Disruption of Being explores the tenuous relationship between modes of measurement and the struggle for human relevance in the post-contemporary digital age. In the introductory essay, “Not the Feather, but the Bird”, I give an overview of the inherent problems of object-oriented ontology, and how it relates to aesthetics and social issues of our times. In the Developmental Overview, I detail how I developed my installation approach and techniques, particularly with regard to the three-way dynamic of the artist:work:viewer relationship and how it can encourage …

The Aesthetic Experience, Flow, And Smart Technology: Viewing Art In A Virtual Environment, Carol Ikard

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Smart technology can support art educators and museum professionals in mediating the aesthetic experience. It can also increase museum attendance, enrich the viewer's delight and engagement with artworks and art collections, and provide an avenue for extending art on a global level. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which a mobile art app with text-based narrative influences scores on an aesthetic experience questionnaire. This quantitative research measured the difference in pretest and posttest human-computer interaction scores on the Aesthetic Experience Questionnaire Form after participants used two versions of a mobile art app. Csikszentmihalyi's flow was …

The Institutional Margins Of Aesthetics: A Study Proposal, Jozef Kovalčik, Max Ryynänen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

A considerable number of classical texts in aesthetics and cultural philosophy were originally published outside of the framework of institutionalized academic scholarship. One can begin the modern story with two loners, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, then continue with the Frankfurt School and end the short list with the French “wave” (Blanchot, Bataille). Contemporary aesthetics benefits also from the work of thinkers like Susan Sontag and Nicolas Bourriaud, who have a huge scholarly impact but who built their careers outside academia. We intend to 1) sketch out a short historical overview of the scholars within aesthetics who could be considered to have …

Address And The Lure Of The Aesthetic: Reflections On Monique Roelofs, The Cultural Promise Of The Aesthetic, Carolyn Korsmeyer

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Monique Roelofs argues that some of the aesthetic power of art is traceable to the way that works address their audiences, promising the creation of cultural community. Such communities become exclusionary when modes of address presume and perpetuate social hierarchies. This paper explores this notion in works where moral and aesthetic precepts seem to conflict and whose address induces attitudes that one would reject in “reality” but that are required for the full appreciative grasp of a narrative.

Introduction, Stefan Deines, Mario Wenning

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.