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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
An Exploration Of Literary Mimesis Through The Perspective Of Mirror Neurons, Huibin He
An Exploration Of Literary Mimesis Through The Perspective Of Mirror Neurons, Huibin He
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Mirror neurons are discovered by Italian scientists Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues, which are not only active while people are acting, but also active when they are observing others' action. Mirror neurons, which imitate the action of others just like mirrors, can lead to "motor equivalence" between readers and characters. Human imitation, which is often accompanied by anthropocentrism and egocentrism, can be divided into simple ones and complex ones, and can also be divided into imitation of content and imitation of form. Mimesis, which traditionally means the writer's imitation of the world, can by extended into the field of the …
From "Phenomenological Body" To "Reversible Flesh": The Transformation Of Merleau-Ponty's Aesthetic Theory, Zhifeng Shu
From "Phenomenological Body" To "Reversible Flesh": The Transformation Of Merleau-Ponty's Aesthetic Theory, Zhifeng Shu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Merleau-Ponty's philosophical thinking is also aesthetics. Such an openness is vital for him, since it concerns the sensitivity and becoming of selfhood philosophy, without being trapped in the dilemma in traditional philosophy. With the transition from the "phenomenological body" to the "reversible flesh" in his philosophy, Merleau-Ponty' aesthetics shifts from perception and sensibility to ontology and "element". In his early works Cézanne's Doubt, Indirect Language and The Voice of Silence, and late work Eye and Mind, painting is always central to Merleau-Ponty's aesthetic thinking, because the pure "vision" in painting refers to the visual dimension that is ignored and marginalized …
What's Wrong With Star Wars, Star Trek And Žižek?: A Marxist Analysis, Gregory Mahoney Josef
What's Wrong With Star Wars, Star Trek And Žižek?: A Marxist Analysis, Gregory Mahoney Josef
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Star Trek and Star Wars are two of the most popular science fiction franchises in commercial history. This essay examines these two franchises from a critical Marxist perspective. Both offer fantastic visions of human development, which I will argue prove all too familiar to the reified consciousnesses of contemporary consumers. How and why do these films appeal, and how do they repackage the "end of history" in ways that normalize current logics of hegemony for a future that remains founded, nevertheless, on forms of injustice and commodity fetishism as familiar to us now as they were to Marx in the …
The Predicament Of Anglo-American Aesthetic Experience And Its Extrication, Yu Zhao
The Predicament Of Anglo-American Aesthetic Experience And Its Extrication, Yu Zhao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The concept of "aesthetic experience" has fallen into a serious predicament since the late 20th century, especially in Anglo-American philosophy. Sometimes this concept is put in the core position in aesthetics and art theories, while other time even its existence is questioned, only being taken as phantom or myth; According to some philosophers, this concept is commendatory and represents only those affective experiences, while in other philosophers' eyes, this concept is purely descriptive and can also contain those experiences without any affects or emotions. Underlying this predicament is the wrong binding of aesthetic experience with the definition of art, and …
A Reinvestigation Of Kant's Concept Of "Interesse": A Reinterpretation Of The Chief Element Of The Power Of Judgment, Xianliang Xu
A Reinvestigation Of Kant's Concept Of "Interesse": A Reinterpretation Of The Chief Element Of The Power Of Judgment, Xianliang Xu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This article takes Immanuel Kant's concept of "interesse", and investigates its meaning for understanding of Critique of the Power of Judgment. According to Kant, interesse does not mean that the judging subject is disinterested in beauty, but in the real existence of the object of judgment. Within such a frame, the freedom internal to aesthetic judgment is highlighted. Because interest always concerns the real object, aesthetic judgment without interest is free from subjective preference. Under such circumstances, the subject is entitled to the request of the same judgment from others and thus together they reach universal identity. The freedom is …
Retrospect And Re-Exploration Of Structuralism, Qichao Zhou
Retrospect And Re-Exploration Of Structuralism, Qichao Zhou
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The cross-disciplinary and multi-lingual theoretical journey of "structuralism" is one of the essential topic in contemporary international literary criticism and comparative poetics. Is "structuralism" a school or ideological trend? Roland Barthes argues that structuralism is neither a school nor a movement but an activity. Is "structuralism" a theory or a methodology? Structuralist Jan Mykarovsky believes that structuralism is neither a theory nor a methodology but a cognitive position independent from both. Structuralism de facto is not only a construction activity but a cognitive position and even an ideological paradigm. It is the structuralist criticism belonging to dialogue and interactivity, contrast …
The Tension Of Expression And Ways To Balancing, Yue Jiang
The Tension Of Expression And Ways To Balancing, Yue Jiang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The "crisis of expression" in the humanities and social sciences is caused by the imbalance of expression tension. The phenomenon of expression tension is very common; it is not only found in the same text and different texts of the same object, but also in the process of understanding, expression and re-understanding the same text. The text tends to be successful when the various expression tensions are balanced. When one of the tensions is too strong to keep balance, it either leads to the failure of the expression, or produces texts of aggressive expression. The purpose of analyzing the expression …
"Cultivating Our Own Garden": How Does Art Face The Imperfect World?, Yun Fan
"Cultivating Our Own Garden": How Does Art Face The Imperfect World?, Yun Fan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The term "utopia" as semiotic discourse pays a crucial role in contemporary culture and art practices. Since the "play" theory raised by Schiller, art has been perceived as a vehicle to escape the reality and a weapon to resist it. Subversion becomes the major form of Art's utopia, especially in contemporary culture: artists try to offset the rotten world with innocent artistic imagination. Utopian alienation or subversion is not the only way that artworks adopt to solve the problem of the imperfect world. By confronting the imperfect reality, art can help us to mature into personhood without being cynical and …
Engaging Or Not: The Theoretical Divergence Between Roland Barthes And Jean-Paul Sartre, Songlin Jin
Engaging Or Not: The Theoretical Divergence Between Roland Barthes And Jean-Paul Sartre, Songlin Jin
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In What's Literature?, Sartre put forward the literary viewpoint of engagement, suggesting that writers should engage with the social life by writing actively, and express their own positions for social or political issues, so as to protect the freedom of individual existence. Roland Barthes, then a young literary figure, criticized seriously Sartre's viewpoint in Writing Degree Zero, contending that such writing not only was polluted by arbitrary ideology, but also burdened itself with the weight of ethics. In order to liberate literature, Barthes tried his best to propose the writing at degree zero or the neutral writing, and to establish …
Symmetries In The Semiosphere: A Typology, Leone Massimo
Symmetries In The Semiosphere: A Typology, Leone Massimo
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The article points out that the current expansion of the semiotic focus from signs and texts to whole cultures needs the development of a coherent method. It therefore proposes to establish the method through an application of the topological theory of fractals to the analysis of different kinds of symmetries in the semiosphere. Having defined fractals as resemblance between two topological structures, the article first dwells on what "resemblance" means in the comparison of both visual and conceptual patterns; it then proposes a typology of fractal similarities, based on the topological operations of rotation, translation, and reflection. Examples of each …