Arts and Humanities Commons^™

John Carvalho’S Thinking With Images, An Enactivist Aesthetics, Sonia Sedivy

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

John Carvalho’s Thinking with Images, an Enactivist Aesthetics argues that puzzling artworks can draw us into a special activity – thinking when we don’t know what to think – which is valuable because it takes us beyond our skills and understanding. Enactivism is the theory of mind that best explains such thinking. The book illustrates this proposal with four chapters that detail Carvalho’s highly personal or individual encounters with enigmatic works of art. I raise two concerns. First, the four illustrative chapters say that they are enactivist, but they do not show this. The illustrative chapters detail considerations about …

Thinking With Film: On John Carvalho’S Reading Of Godard’S Le Mépris, Deborah Knight

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In Thinking with Images, John Carvalho is especially interested in situations where we do not know what to think about a work of art — where it perplexes us, where we cannot find answers to the questions it raises. I will focus on Carvalho’s final chapter which discusses Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 film, Le Mépris (Contempt), adapted from the novel by Alberto Moravia. I argue that Le Mépris is not primarily about its literary content involving the collapse of a marriage during the filming of an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey. I recommend that instead we think about such …

Against Theory—Again (Though With Reservations), Ivan Gaskell

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In Thinking with Images (2019), John Carvalho proposes an “aesthetics without theory,” a phrase to be taken rhetorically rather than literally, for he accepts that percipients of artworks bring a theoretical knowledge to their encounters. He seeks to balance appropriate theoretical knowledge, notably Gibson’s theory of affordances, with reliance on empirical engagement with artworks to produce what he terms an “enactivist aesthetics.” He explores this proposal through discussion of four case studies: works by Francis Bacon, Duane Michals, Marcel Duchamp, and Jean-Luc Godard. This overview challenges Carvalho’s concern with meaning above making and use; and his apparent reluctance to offer …

Elgin's "Native Tongue": A "Me Too" Universe?, Amir Barati

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Suzette Haden Elgin’s novel Native Tongue (1984) provides a fascinating critique of the ideologies inscribed into patriarchal language and evokes an extremely valuable linguistic and political awareness. This article will examine the liability of the ways the novel revolts against the patriarchal society via the introduction of a gynocentric linguistic intervention. I claim, Elgin’s novel showcases an invaluable instance of how it is possible for women to revolt against the pillars of patriarchy through manipulations at the gestalt and schematic level of language and most specifically, the bodily metaphoric quality of the English. This proposed transformation of the schematic and …

“A Levinasian Reading Of Grendel By John Gardner, The Retold Narration Of Beowulf Myth”, Negar Basiri

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

No abstract provided.

Shinran As Global Philosopher, Sarah Mattice

UNF Faculty Research and Scholarship

Gutoku Shinran (1173-1263) is one of Japan’s most creative and influential thinkers. He is the (posthumous) founder of what ultimately became Jōdo Shinshū, better known today as Shin Buddhism, the most widely practiced form of Buddhism in Japan. Despite this, his work has not received the global attention of other historical Japanese philosophical figures such as Kūkai (774-835) or Dōgen (1200-1253). The relationships of influence between Shin Buddhism in general—or Shinran’s work more specifically—and earlier Chinese sources, especially non-Buddhist sources, are complex, rarely examined in much detail, and often buried under layers of interpretive difficulties, made all the more challenging …

Theory Of Knowledge In The Tretise Of Al-Gazali “Al-Kistasu-Lmustakim” (Right Scales), Kodirov Davronbek

The Light of Islam

Today, one of the urgent tasks of the social sciences is the construction of the Third Renaissance in our country, the transfer of the heritage of our ancestors to the younger generation, and their education in the spirit of moral and spiritual ideas based on Islamic philosophy. Therefore, it is important to study and research the sources that underlie the religious and philosophical views that have been formed and consolidated in our country for centuries. One of these philosophical writings is Al-Qistasu-l-Mustakim (Right scales) by Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad alGhazali, a thinker, lawyer, philosopher, and mystic who lived and …

2022 Mlk Keynote Address: Eddie Glaude Jr. Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Eddie Glaude Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

One of the nation’s most prominent scholars, Eddie Glaude, Jr. is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and passionate educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His writings, including his most recent—the New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own—take a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy.

In his writing and speaking, Glaude is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting history and bringing our nation’s …

2022 Mlk Keynote Address: Eddie Glaude Jr. Pre-Event Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Eddie Glaude Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

One of the nation’s most prominent scholars, Eddie Glaude, Jr. is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and passionate educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His writings, including his most recent—the New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own—take a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy.

In his writing and speaking, Glaude is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting history and bringing our nation’s …

P/A Forum Symposia Animal Labour A New Frontier Of Interspecies Justice?, Jishnu Guha-Majumdar, Diego Rossello, Angie Pepper, Peter Niesen, Will Kymlicka, Charlotte E. Blattner

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

On April 15, 2021, a roundtable occurred at the annual conference of the Midwestern Political Science Association to discuss Animal Labour: A New Frontier of Interspecies Justice?, edited by Charlotte Blattner, Kendra Coulter, and Will Kymlicka, and published by Oxford University Press in February 2020. The following symposium contains expanded versions of the papers presented at the MPSA conference. Jishnu Guha-Majumdar introduces the edited volume and the contributions of the respondents in the symposium. Diego Rossello then discusses the book’s framing as “interspecies justice” and its definition of labor. Angie Pepper reflects on whether it is possible for animals …

Hume’S Politics And Four Dimensions Of Realism, Keith Hankins, John Thrasher

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

Debates between realists and idealists in contemporary political theory have been confused by a tendency to conflate several distinct methodological theses. This article distinguishes between four dimensions of realism and shows how a novel reading of Hume’s politics can help us make sense of the importance of these theses and the relationships between them. More specifically, we argue that a theory we call normative conventionalism can be distilled from two of Hume’s more surprising and controversial essays, “The Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth” and “That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science.” This theory views norms and institutions as conventional …

First-Person Experience Cannot Rescue Causal Structure Theories From The Unfolding Argument, Michael H. Herzog, Aaron Schurger, Adrian Doerig

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

We recently put forward an argument, the Unfolding Argument (UA), that integrated information theory (IIT) and other causal structure theories are either already falsified or unfalsifiable, which provoked significant criticism. It seems that we and the critics agree that the main question in this debate is whether first-person experience, independent of third-person data, is a sufficient foundation for theories of consciousness. Here, we argue that pure first-person experience cannot be a scientific foundation for IIT because science relies on taking measurements, and pure first-person experience is not measurable except through reports, brain activity, and the relationship between them. We also …

Dr. Naomi Reshotko, Anit Tyagi

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

An interview with Dr. Naomi Reshotko.

Steve Mcqueen, The Filmmaker, And Kant’S Sensus Communis, Livia Melamed Margon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects on the ways in which art reinforces community and reduces political polarity by stimulating shared feelings, namely through Kant's idea of sensus communis. To illustrate its argument, this thesis analyzes the work of Steve McQueen, a politically aware, ethically engaged, and broadly recognized filmmaker and artist.

A Reader In Early Franciscan Theology: The Summa Halensis, Lydia Schumacher, Oleg Bychkov

Philosophy & Theory

A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology presents for the first time in English key passages from the Summa Halensis, one of the first major installments in the summa genre for which scholasticism became famous. This systematic work of philosophy and theology was collaboratively written mostly between 1236 and 1245 by the founding members of the Franciscan school, such as Alexander of Hales and John of La Rochelle, who worked at the recently founded University of Paris.

Modern scholarship has often dismissed this early Franciscan intellectual tradition as unoriginal, merely systematizing the Augustinian tradition in light of the rediscovery of …

Can Lethal Autonomous Weapons Be Just?, Noreen L. Herzfeld, Robert H. Latiff

Computer Science Faculty Publications

In 2018 the United States Department of Defense (DoD) created a new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to study the adoption of AI by the military. Their strategy, outlined in a document entitled, “Harnessing AI to Advance Our Security and Prosperity,” proposes to accelerate the adoption of AI in the military by fostering a culture of experimentation and calculated risk taking, noting that AI will change the character of the future battlefield and, even more, the pace of battle. Is there any way to ensure that this future battlefield will be just? Can the age-old precepts of just warfare help guide …

Why You Should Care: Our Care-Based Obligation To Protect Ecospheric Places For Future People, Katherine Grace Davis

Philosophy Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

The Scope Of Inductive Risk, P.D. Magnus

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

The Argument from Inductive Risk (AIR) is taken to show that values are inevitably involved in making judgements or forming beliefs. After reviewing this conclusion, I pose cases which are prima facie counterexamples: the unreflective application of conventions, use of black-boxed instruments, reliance on opaque algorithms, and unskilled observation reports. These cases are counterexamples to the AIR posed in ethical terms as a matter of personal values. Nevertheless, it need not be understood in those terms. The values which load a theory choice may be those of institutions or past actors. This means that the challenge of responsibly handling inductive …

Locating The Embodied Sense Of Self And Examining Its Relationship With Psychological Well-Being, Adam Hanley, Natalie Lecy, Robert Hanley

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Westerners tend to localize their sense of self in the head, and, to a lesser degree, in the chest. However, single-point, localization studies of the self omit direct exploration of the size and shape of the embodied self. This study explored a) beliefs about the location and spatial distribution of the embodied sense of self, and b) whether individual differences in how the embodied self was represented were associated with psychological and subjective well-being. Results from a sample of 206 American adults confirm extant reports, indicating that the embodied sense of self is most often located in the head and …

The Mushroom, The Frog, And The Rainbow Of Desire: A Participatory-Psychedelic Spiritual Emergence, Gregg Lahood

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This article will explore a spiritual emergency through a myth or fairy tale that emerged at the same time I had a frightening brush with death. Two days before the accident I had ingested psilocybin mushrooms. Michael Washburn, among other transpersonal theorists, will be used to interpret, amplify and re-frame this potential ‘psychotic episode’ with ‘borderline features’ into something more, perhaps, on the threshold of a shamanic initiation in a liminal state. The mythic sequence in my story anticipates the death-rebirth (perinatal pattern) and evolution of consciousness in the LSD research of Stanislav Grof; an evolution given epic participatory elucidation …

Relational Inquiry: Seven-Years Practicing Seven Relationships, Gregg Lahood

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Greetings from Byron Bay—what follows is a postcard version of a seven-year cycle of relational inquiry retrospectively nicknamed The Rainbow of Desire. I outline our practices, explore five basic fields in our approach to new paradigm research, and present an updated version of my seven relationships model as a heuristic for understanding and participating in relational inquiry. As a contemporary spiritual expression, with roots in the Greek-Socratic tradition of research, and informed by Gestalt practice (not psychotherapy), this account may also be of value for persons interested in further Gestalt-transpersonal inquiry, research, and learning.

Meditation-Induced After Death Communication: A Contemporary Modality For Grief Therapy, Neda Wassie

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Meditation-induced after death communication (MI-ADC) was introduced as a potential modality for grief therapy. Traditional and contemporary approaches were compared in order to evaluate effective paradigms and theories of bereavement. The Continuing Bonds theory of attachment emerged as an adaptive framework for grief therapy, especially with attention to meaning-making and the strength of continued bonds. Considerations were implemented from research in psychomanteum, mediumship, and induced after death communication. Specifically, visual stimuli and timing of after death communications were emphasized. The discussion was encouraging for the conceptualization of MI-ADC as an effective construct and as an inquiry for empirical research.

Using Legos® In Research Facilitation: An Advanced Scripted Research Method, Samuel W. Root

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Transpersonal research methods can help individuals access useful information and material that typically reside out of conscious awareness. The playful activity of LEGO® block-building can be adapted for research purposes and used to overcome research impasses, for example. This paper presents a novel transpersonal LEGO® building process for facilitation in each of the four major phases of research. Readers are provided with a 6-step script that takes between 30 minutes and 1 hour to complete. Steps include: Prepare to Exercise; Set Intentions; Build While Intending Solution; Appreciate/Take In; Project and Actively Imagine; and Reflect and Ease Out. Future studies could …

Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age. V. Socio-Cultural Bases Of A Globalizing Neo-Shamanism And Its Relation To Climate Crisis: Possibilities, Inevitabilities, Barriers, Harry T. Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Extending this series of papers on a futural spirituality, and considering the numinous as an inherent human capacity for an awe that confers a sense of all-inclusive meaning, communality, and humility, the question arises whether, in the face of a secularization of traditional world religions, globalization of a techno/capitalist economy of perpetual commodification of planet and person, and a widening sense of loss of meaning and higher purpose, some collective re-newal of the sense of the sacred might be possible – or not. While Jung, Toynbee, and Sorokin regarded such a movement as inevitable, bringing forward to the degree possible …

Effects Of Brief Daily Kundalini Yoga Meditation On Self-Esteem, Mood And Emotional Self-Efficacy: A Randomized Comparison Study, Sonia Romero Martinez

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This randomized comparison study measured the impact of brief daily use of two types of kundalini yoga meditation from the Yogi Bhajan lineage on self-esteem, regulatory emotional self-efficacy, and positive and negative affect in a non-clinical sample of 46 Spanish-speaking adults residing in Spain. Results of the two meditation types—Kirtan Kriya and Internal Conflict Resolution—are compared. Results showed that both types of meditation had positive impacts on all study variables, though the degree of change and effect size depended on the type of meditation used. Results point to these relevant forms of brief daily meditation as simple and inexpensive tools …

There's A Duwende On My Shelf: The Parapsychological Studies Of Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao, Sj, Carl Lorenz Cervantes

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

In the Filipino transpersonal worldview, the mind is not contained within the brain, and is often projected onto the world as “spirits”. Studying these cultural metaphors may allow for a deeper understanding of the Filipino psyche. Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao, SJ, one of the founders of the Psychological Association of the Philippines, studied the projections of the Filipino psyche as they manifested in paranormal phenomena. Bulatao provides the metaphor of eggs frying in a pan as a framework to understand this: the egg whites fuse despite the yolks being far apart. It is in the dissolution of boundaries that transpersonal …

Exceptional Human Experiences Among Pilgrims On The Camino De Santiago: A Study Of Self-Reported Experiences And Transformative Aftereffects, Miran Lavric, Snezana Brumec, Andrej Naterer

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

The Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is an extraordinary endeavour that tends to trigger exceptional human experiences. Following our previous investigation of this topic, we conducted an online survey of 501 pilgrims in order to assess the frequency of different exceptional experiences (EEs) on the pilgrimage and their transformative aftereffects (TAs) in everyday life afterwards. More than 70% of the respondents reported improvement in terms of self-confidence, personal relationships and letting go of emotional “baggage”. The results show strong correlations between the observed EEs and the (consequent) TAs. We contend that walking the Camino de Santiago often produces exceptional experiences that …

What Is Transpersonal Psychology? A Concise Definition Based On 20 Years Of Research, Glenn Hartelius

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Research on definitions of the field of psychology and themes in the literature of the field over a period of 20 years inform this description: Transpersonal psychology is a transformative psychology of the whole person embedded within a diverse, interconnected, and evolving world that pays particular attention to states of consciousness and developmental models reflecting expansion beyond conventional notions of self. Each element of this definition is examined, as well as the four phases of definitional development within the field from its founding in 1968 up to the present.

Brain Activity During Paired And Individual Mindfulness Meditation: A Controlled Eeg Study, Hessel Engelbregt, Hugo F. Alderse Baas, Sietske De Grauw, Jan Berend Deijen

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Objective: In this study, we evaluated brain electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in healthy participants during the performance of paired and individual mindfulness meditation (MM). We hypothesized that EEG activity is differentially affected by meditation in pairs compared to individual meditation.

Methods: A total of 20 healthy female university students (mean age 19.54 years, SD =1.53) with no prior experience in MM participated in this study. All participants had to perform a 5-minute MM task together and individually while the other participant was in rest or performing a concentration task (control condition). To exclude social interaction as main factor, participants were separated …

The Varieties Of Spiritual States Triggered By Sex: A Systematic Review Of The Empirical Literature, Jenny Wade

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This systematic review integrates the empirical evidence of spiritual experiences triggered by sexual activity, including studies by 10 authors. Despite venerable sexual meditative traditions of embodied spiritual practices, such as Hindu Tantra, Vajrayana Buddhism, and Taoism, empirical studies of sexual spiritual experiences are in their infancy. This review presents the range of sexual altered states experiences identified to date and how they qualify as spiritual experiences phenomenologically and in terms of their lifechanging effects. Seventeen distinct sexual-spiritual states have been identified across authors, with 4 others identified at significant levels in qualitative studies by individual authors. As an emergent area …