Aesthetics Commons^™

Three Dimensions Of Intimacy In Literary Reading, Kalle Puolakka

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

While numerous literary researchers, readers, authors, and philosophers have tried to articulate the peculiar feeling of intimacy they have sensed in literary reading, new angles can still be brought to bear on this issue. This paper develops an account of the intimacy of literary reading based on three concepts: silent performance, routine, and trust. By combining an interpretation of the history of silent reading with an understanding of literary reading as a particular kind of performance, I show, in the first part, how a focus on some internal qualities of reading helps to understand its intimate nature. Then, the picture …

Epistemic Priors, Social Justice, And The Ethics Of Humor, Paul Butterfield

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I set out a theory of humor ethics and, in particular, I establish what difference humorousness makes to an instance of speech’s moral value. I set out by making the case for this approach to the topic, demonstrating that focusing on how humorous speech differs, morally, from non-humorous speech allows us to avoid getting caught up in prior ethical debates that are not strictly about humor itself – a shortcoming that is common to many treatments of humor ethics in the existing literature. I show that, in cases of humorous speech, we typically do not assert the …

Recovering Authenticity: Care, Conversation And Value, Shannon M. Brick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Suppose you learn that your steak-loving friend has just adopted a vegan diet. You ask her what prompted the change, and she tells you that someone she trusts recently tweeted “Eating meat is immoral.” Your friend’s response is a little disappointing and shallow, but why? Most of our knowledge comes from trusting what other people tell us, so why, when it comes to moral matters, does deference seem inappropriate? Some philosophers think it’s because moral testimony cannot transmit important epistemic goods, like knowledge or understanding. Others think that when people defer to moral testimony, their actions or characters will be …

Audiovisual Afterlives: The Soundtrack Of Liberal Nostalgia, Max W. Kaplan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Following the 2016 American Presidential election, celebrity endorsements proved to be a more narrow gauge of public opinion than ever. The symbolic alignment with popular musicians, which had long abetted the Democratic Party’s standing with youth and particular identity groups, seemed only to reaffirm the party’s establishment status, drawing disavowal in a wave of anti-establishment sentiment on both the left and right. ‘Retromania,’ a term first coined by Simon Reynolds in 2010, can be tracked conceptually from the nostalgic inclinations of twenty-first century popular culture to the ideological sphere, where nostalgic, essentialized constructions of community, identity, and progress have coalesced …

Tell Me A Story: The Normative Power Of Storytelling, Zoe Cunliffe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Few would dispute that stories are powerful: they have the capacity to inform, to persuade, and to engage our imaginations and sympathies. However, the contemporary philosophical literature on stories focuses exclusively on the functions of narrative stories, and in particular on the role that novels can serve in cultivating our moral and political competencies. I argue that this narrow focus is theoretically pernicious in two ways. First, it leads to an unfortunate myopia regarding the value of non-narrative storytelling practices. Second, it results in analysis that is disproportionately likely to exclude forms of storytelling that originate in marginalized groups. My …

Aphorism And Anti-Aphorism: Language And Aesthetics, Nicholas Romanos

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Karl Kraus, the great Viennese satirist, poet, and aphorist, is still little read in the Anglophone world. This article argues that Kraus’ innovative ideas about aesthetics and language, generated in response to the problems of modernity, are of great interest to the contemporary philosopher of aesthetics. Kraus’ writing is discussed here as a basis for a theory of the aphorism, which is shown to be a literary form uniquely concerned with its own form (and thus with literary and linguistic aesthetics). Kraus uses the aphorism to ‘serve language’ and, along with quotation, it constitutes the foundation of his style. This …

Reflections On Beauty, Miklos Nikolaus Legrady

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Inner Song Phenomenological Description Of A Musical Object Of Phantasy, Ellen Moysan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is the phenomenological description of a musical object of phantasy I call “inner song,” i.e., the music that the musician “sings in his or her head” while practicing his or her instrument. It describes the specific inner song of a single musician playing a melodic instrument, and rehearsing in a solipsistic situation. The description is based on three resources: my personal experience as a cellist; the third person experiences of other musicians I have interviewed on that topic since 2010; and the Husserlian corpus. Each chapter starts with excerpts of interviews focusing on specific aspects the inner song. …

The Fallacy And Verification Of Criticism On Contemporary Chinese Confessional Poetry, Lei Wei

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Contemporary Chinese confessional poetry has engaged much academic attention despite its short existence between the 1980s and the 1990s. The confessional poetry has been related with female poetry by scholars since the beginning, and they have been criticized for lacking Chinese cultural characteristics, skills or aesthetic values etc.. However, contemporary Chinese confessional poetry is not exclusively the product of female poets, as there are quite a few male poets who created some fine confessional poems. Chinese confessional poetry of new period turned out to be embodied with a literary form of strong nationalistic features and contain rich elements of traditional …

“It's So Normal, And … Meaningful.” Playing With Narrative, Artifacts, And Cultural Difference In Florence, Dheepa Sundaram, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This article considers how player interactions with religious and ethnic markers, create

a globalized game space in the mobile game Florence (2018). Florence is a multiaward-

winning interactive novella game with story-integrated minigames that weave

play experiences into the narrative. The game, in part, explores love, loss, and

rejuvenation as relatable experiences. Simultaneously, the game produces a unique

experience for each player, as they can refract the game narrative through their own

cultural, identitarian lens. The game assumes the shared cultural space of the player,

the player-character (PC), and the non-player-character (NPC) while blurring the

boundaries between each of these …

Cultivating The Human Narrative: On Nietzsche, Science Fiction, And The Aesthetics Of Life., Derek Carpenter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I will argue that there is a specific model of morality which can account for the intuition about moral features that we take to be intrinsic to the human type. This model of morality is that of Virtue Ethics, but not a conventional kind of Virtue Ethics. Instead, I will argue that the moral philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche presents a model of cultivating narrative types that we take to be grounded in the kinds of beings we are, without resorting to any problematic metaphysical systems. This will require that I defend a novel interpretation of Nietzsche’s ethics …

Book Review On A Grand Materialism In The New Art From China (By Mary Wiseman), Kathleen Higgins

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Post-Postmodernism And The Emergence Of Heterolinational Literatures, Mehdi Ghasemi

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Following the challenge by Linda Hutcheon inviting readers to name the era after postmodernism, several scholars have attempted to conceptualize the aftermath of postmodernism through introducing some successors. To join the challenge, I also introduce “heterolinationalism” as another successor to postmodernism and draw upon some paradigms of heterolinational literatures, including postacademia, postnationalism and polyliterature, polyvocalism and plurilingualism, self-publishing, social media and multimediality as well as transtextuality and fanfiction.

Appreciating Covers, Cristyn Magnus, P.D. Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir, Ron Mcclamrock

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

A recording or performance of a song is a cover if there is an earlier, canonical recording of the song. It can seem intuitive to think that properly appreciating the cover requires considering it in relation to the original, or at least that doing so will yield a deeper appreciation. This intuition is supported by some philosophical accounts of covers. And it is complicated by the possibility of hearing in, whereby one hears elements of the original version in the cover. We argue that it can nevertheless be just as legitimate to consider a cover version on its own …

Hope And Wonder In The Wasteland: Post-Apocalyptic Fiction As Tolkienian Fairy Story, Alfredo J. Mac Laughlin

Journal of Tolkien Research

J. R. R. Tolkien’s four functions of fantasy stories, as developed in his Andrew Lang lecture “On Fairy Stories” (1939), have become a key conceptual tool for discussing human beings’ attraction to fantasy stories, particularly when attempting to push the analysis beyond the literary into the aesthetic, and beyond the aesthetic into the existential. Applying this interpretive key to an analysis of the expanding genre of post-apocalyptic fiction reveals that post-apocalyptic stories, despite superficial differences, are surprisingly close to fairy stories in their aesthetic core and orientation, and that post-apocalyptic stories are well-suited to fulfill—albeit with their own distinctive aesthetic …

Negative Dialectics In Elliott Carter: Toward An Adornian Aesthetics Of Carter's Music, Gregory J. Menillo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an attempt to lay the groundwork for an Adornian aesthetics of Elliott Carter’s music. The first chapter suggests that Theodor W. Adorno’s negative dialectics is the most appropriate paradigm for understanding the material antagonisms that characterize Carter’s music over a quasi-Hegelian “unity of opposites” as suggested in the Carter scholarship. Chapter Two demonstrates this through an Adornian reading of key aspects of the first movement of Carter’s 1948 Sonata for Cello and Piano, the watershed work for Carter’s mature style. The third chapter addresses the issue of musical time in Carter from a philosophical perspective; it discusses …

"You Can't Be Shakespeare And You Can't Be Joyce": Lou Reed, Modernism, And Mass Production, Daniel C. Jacobson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation proposes a reevaluation of the overlooked connections between American popular music and modernist literature’s scope and formal experimentation which arose in the mid-20th century. Because Lou Reed’s ever-changing persona situates his work uncomfortably between high art and pop-culture, modernism and “post-modernity,” literature and music, and ethics and aesthetics, I intend to consider Reed as this dissertation’s empty, refracted center. One that will allow for a critique of several major intellectual movements, both inside and outside the academy, that continue to influence thinking about art, ethics, and material culture. Additionally, I hope to show that the work of a …

Ambiguity Of Vision: Reimagining The Hypervisible Void, Kiwha Lee Blocman

Theses and Dissertations

Asking questions about what Painting is in the 21st century and the dominant narratives it can challenge, my paintings complicate the viewer’s reading of pictorial hierarchy and the projection of human relations in the world. I de-hierarchize and decentralize the compositional components that make up a painting by using patterns to create spatial depth, not European perspectival conventions. In dialogue with modernists such as Matisse who drew from the visual vocabulary of “The Orient”, my central forms derived from architecture and ornamental fragments possess a body-like presence. Further, I reinvent ancient Asian printmaking processes with oil paint. Observing the tenets …

Save And Continue?, Douglas Boyd Johnson

Theses - ALL

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the research I completed and the body of work produced during the course of my Master's studies. The paper begins by briefly recounting early influences and the nature of my practice at the time I began the program. Then elaboration follows on the development of my work across various media, both traditional and digital. The work centers on formal questioning of pictorial media and draws conclusions on the nature of picture making, and the motivations I have for pursuing pictorial art.

Dust, Mist, Haze, Michael C. Tracy

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores painting through the ideas of dust, mist, and haze as specific atmospheric metaphors that could be used to describe ontologies of space, time, memory, and history.

“Paint What You Hate”: Philip Guston’S Hooded Figures And The Postponement Of The Exhibition Philip Guston Now, Thomas Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis interrogates the postponement of the Philip Guston Now exhibition, examining the justification for the postponement, the actions taken by the National Gallery of Art, and the effects of the postponement. My research examines the museum’s choice to cite social justice as the main context for understanding Philip Guston.

Genres, Communities, And Practices, Evan Malone

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In this dissertation, I defend a communitarian, practice-based, theory of genre and aesthetic value. I argue that theories of aesthetic value and art ontology within analytic philosophy have been too focused on the intentions of individual artists, the features of individual works, and the aesthetic experience of individual audience members. Accordingly, philosophical accounts of genre also follow this model. However, taking genre seriously means recognizing that they are social categories. If this is right, then philosophy of art ought to pay closer attention to the ways in which genres (as social categories) mediate aesthetic practices, values, and concepts. By thinking …

Attention, Reflection, And Contemplation: Approaching The Divine Through Romantic Poiesis, Katelynn Tyner

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

Often the techniques of the said and the unsaid work together. This paper will explore ways in which poets embrace iconophilic or iconoclastic postures toward divine poiesis. One objective will be to focus on the arrangement of an abundance of images into itineraries and poetic landscapes. Another objective will be to demonstrate how these patterns of cultivation can be related to a divine poiesis. Through poetry, there are ways of attending to, reflecting on, and contemplating divine images that can return us to forms of participation with the sacred. First examining poetic attention, I identify poets who demonstrate …

Postmarked 2022, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Postmarked was a publication started during the COVID-19 pandemic by three RISD architecture students. The first issue has the theme of "sonder" and contains student writing and artwork on postcards that deal with this theme.

Betwixt & Between., Xuanyi Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I will discuss the process of learning, borrowing, and exploring the fusion between styles that emerged from the exchange of Eastern and Western civilizations. I will also use the process of transformation and merging of motifs to evoke my thoughts on the identity of immigrants. In addition, the essay will also discuss the similarities between traditional Chinese and Western designs metaphorically. This thesis will also explain why I use IUDs for pattern creation and provide views on the body ownership of women in the East and West. I will also consider the evolution and reflection of the …

Bad Actors, Wendell Ward

English Theses & Dissertations

This manuscript contains a collection of short stories. It also includes the first several chapters of a novella. Within are characters who act and suffer consequences without the imposition of supernatural elements to affect outcomes, which is hopefully what makes them seem “real.” But then there are ambiguities and archetypes and symbolic imagery dancing around the edges of their predicaments, too. Think flambéed Flaubert with the saltiness of Hemingway and the peppery tang of Woolf complimented with a sugary pinch of Charlotte Bronte to bring out the flavor of the tomatoes, poured over with a rich, Jungian gravy. If this …

V.1 Spring 2022, 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 Spring 2022 issue contains writings divided into five categories: ecosystems, homes, archaeologies, explorations, and new constructions. Writings touch on urban ecology, wilderness, physical and mental health, identity, and other topics. Visual work is also present in this issue.

The Aesthetic Impact Of The Garden Of Eden, David Fenner

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No garden in the history of the world has had a greater impact on gardens and gardening than the Garden of Eden, as expressed in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions, regardless of whether the Garden of Eden ever existed. Yet, given evidence in the texts of the stories of Eden of its unchanging nature, and given that all gardens are naturally dynamic, Eden does not qualify to be a true garden. In addition to the story’s impact on gardens and gardening, Eden is aesthetically impactful because it is from appreciation of the story as a morality tale that we …

A Festival Of Form: Score, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

"A Festival of Form" was both an event at Bridwell and Perkins School of Theology and a conceptual piece of music that lasted several days. In this rendering, the "piece of music" was articulated in a fluid combination of activities that included works by other composers, including John Cage. The activities involved--from lectures, conversations, and meals to actual performances of both short works and especially the world-record breaking rendition of "Organ2/ASLSP" played by Christopher Anderson--comprise the entirety of "A Festival of Form" as performance piece. The challenge of this work is that unlike nearly any other music, it is purposely …

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 …