Aesthetics Commons^™

Painting Intimacy: Art-Based Research Of Intimacy, Michal Lev

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

This art-based research explores whether — and, if so, how — the process of painting, together with witnessing and reflection on the process and imagery, further an understanding of intimacy. The research also examines the conditions that favor intimacy, the obstacles to intimacy, and the particular features of artistic media, processes and reflection, through the editing of video footage, that can further the intimate experience. The participants in the study were five adults (including the researcher) between the ages of thirty and eighty who were familiar with the creation of visual art. Among them were three women and two men …

In Defense Of Cities: On Negative Presentation Of Urban Areas In Environmental Preference Studies, Anu Besson

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper critiques a common research method, image-based studies, in assessing environmental references. The method is used, in particular, in the fields of environmental psychology, landscape studies, and health studies, here called empirical environmental preference studies or EEP studies. I argue that the established view in the EEP field that nature is inherently experienced as more aesthetically appealing and restorative than urban environments may be biased because of the image-based method. This paper presents a literature review of EEP studies, discussing them in a framework of environmental and everyday aesthetics. The conclusion is that EEP studies may strip cities of …

Duchamp And The Science Of Art, Miklos Legrady

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Charting New Territory: The Aesthetic Value Of Artistic Visions That Emanate In The Aftermath Of Severe Trauma, Tania Love Abramson, Paul R. Abramson

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Art Addressing The Anthropocene, Wolfgang Welsch

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The current diagnosis that the era we are living in ought to be conceived as anthropocene has two implications: 1. Human activity is changing the superficial as well as the deep structure of our planet to a formerly unknown degree; and 2. The foreseeable catastrophic consequences of our impact on life on this planet command a fundamental change of our technological-consumerist attitude. How can the arts address this situation?

One relatively superficial option is ecological art. But, despite all its good intentions, it often just contributes to the widespread sedation procedures that prevent us from taking the necessary measures. A …

Japanese-English Translation: Nishida Kitarō—Self-Determination Of The Expressive Self (May 1930), Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Excerpt of working translation of 「表現的自己の自己限定」、西田幾多郎著. Source: 『西田幾多郎全集』、第五巻 （第一回配本）。東京、株式会社岩波書店、二〇〇二年一一月二七日。ページ 十一〜六十七。[The Complete Works of Nishida Kitarō, Vol. 5 (1st edition). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, Nov. 27, 2002. Pages 11-67].

Reconsidering Darkness, Matti Tainio

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

The Cosmography Of Aesthetics, Yrjö Sepänmaa

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Representation And Transparency In Artistic Astronomical Photographs, Stephen Chadwick

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The development of astronomical photography has raised many interesting epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical questions, in addition to questions in aesthetics. One such question concerns the nature of the aesthetic properties possessed by these photographs. In this article I concentrate on one such property, namely representation. That artistic astronomical photographs are representational cannot be disputed, but whether this is an aesthetic property is open to question. In this article, I show that it is an aesthetic property and compare it with the analogous property associated with paintings and traditional artistic photographs. In order to do this, I explain what makes astronomical …

Epic Stories: Sequence Fiction, Young Readers, And The Aesthetics Of World Building, Jordana Estelle Hall

Theses and Dissertations

This study theorizes the world building processes that sequence fiction engages within a framework of intratextual structuralism and cognitive aesthetic stage theory. The study begins with an interdisciplinary overview of fictional and possible worlds theory before proposing a structural adaptation of this lens that explains the developmental, aesthetic benefits of the genre for young readers. Chapter II is an application of the adapted lens to a canonical epic, the His Dark Materials sequence by Philip Pullman. I interpret the intentional structure of the story world across novels to discuss how these engage readers at different aesthetic milestones and encourage a …

Course Syllabus (W19 Online) Coli 331t--Television Culture: "Lens, Mirror, Screen: Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Course Description:

Or a conjuncture of three moments in the dialectic of television as technical apparatus and cultural practice. In this course, we will read George Orwell’s 1984, view Michael Radford’s filmic adaptation of the novel, and consider a number of critical texts in order to think the psychological and social implications of television as an instrument of control, manipulation, and knowledge production. What, we ask, are the implications, in both 1984 and concrete experience, of light-speed communication capabilities for sense perception, consciousness, language, and awareness? In its dissemination of images and information, how does television impede and/or facilitate politics …

Recent Publications, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Notices, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

A Spectacle And Nothing Strange, Taylor Z. King

Theses and Dissertations

Working through methods of abstraction and comedic mimicry I choreograph awkwardly balanced sculpture with objects of adornment as a means to defuse personal sensitivities surrounding my experiences of gender, desire, and home. The research that follows is concerned with the adjacent, the in between, above and underneath, because I feel that this kind of looking means that you are, to some degree, aware of what lies at the edges. Maybe this is what Gertrude Stein means to act as though there is no use in a center—because this concerns a way of relating, though there are many things in the …

Courage And Passion In The Reading Of The Later Foucault Of The Cynics, Inmaculada Hoyos Sanchez

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “Courage and Passion in the Reading of the Later Foucault of the Cynics” Inmaculada Hoyos Sánchez aims to determine what role the passions played in the courage of the truth of ancient Cynicism, for which purpose she analyses the lectures Foucault gave at the Collège de France in 1984. The hypothesis put forward in this article is that what makes Cynic courage different from other manifestations of the courage of the truth, such as Socratic courage, is that it specifically involves the eradication of shame, a passion that is social and public in character, rather than an …

Jewish Mysticism From Borges To Cirlot: A Transatlantic Approach To The Possibility Of A Non-Subject Subjectivity, Erika Martínez

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “Jewish Mysticism from Borges to Cirlot,” Erika Martínez discusses the form in which some Latin American and Spanish poets of the twentieth century have experimented, in a disruptive way, with the subjective possibilities of stillness and of time capable of overflowing. Foucault defended, in his last lectures, the construction of a new governmentality of self and of others. Among the many possible technologies to achieve it would be that of the writing of a poetry without words, knowing the insurrectional potentiality of silence. This provides us with a possible starting point for reading the post-secular revision of …

Documents And Moral Knowledge: Art In Yellowstone National Park, Tim Gorichanaz

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Documents have traditionally been conceptualized as representations of reality. Recently, scholars have been exploring how documents can also construct reality. In this paper, I follow this thread, discussing how documents can supply moral knowledge, showing what people ought to value in the world, thereby guiding action. Specifically, I discuss two works of art depicting Yellowstone National Park: a painting by Thomas Moran, done in the 19th century; and a photograph by Michael Nichols, from the 21st. Both of these works respond to a dualism in the human relationship to the wilderness, dating back at least to the European colonization of …

Transcending The Panels: Varieties Of Experience And Selfhood In Comics., Will D. Simpson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue that the typical formal features of American comics over the past century have influenced the types of narrative content that tend to be communicated by said medium. I argue that the types of reader experiences that are afforded by the comics form, in part, shape the types of stories told through comics. The experiences that result from the ways we engage perceptually, cognitively, emotionally, and conceptually with comics imply a certain view of selfhood that is potentially subversive in the context of American cultural religiosity and spirituality. The formal features of comics, and the resulting …

Musical “Covers” And The Culture Industry: From Antiquity To The Age Of Digital Reproducibility, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

This essay foregrounds “covers” of popular recorded songs as well as male and female desire, in addition to Nietzsche’s interest in composition, together with his rhythmic analysis of Ancient Greek as the basis of what he called the “spirit of music” with respect to tragedy. The language of “sonic branding” allows a discussion of what Günther Anders described as the self-creation of the mass consumer but also a reflection on the ghostly time-space of music in the broadcast world. A brief allusion to Rilke complements a similarly brief reference to Jankelevitch’s “ineffable.”

V.1 Fall 2018, 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 Fall 2018 issue contains articles on art writing and the place of the self, student reflections on politics, practice, and dogma across generations. Articles look back on historic manuscripts, to past projects and recent events, and forward. This issue's content presents the various expressions of truth that artists and designers work within.

That Some Of Sol Lewitt's Later Wall Drawings Aren't Wall Drawings, P. D. Mangus

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

That Some Of Sol Lewitt’S Later Wall Drawings Aren’T Wall Drawings, P.D. Magnus

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Art And Trauma: Yet Another Arthur Danto Zombie, Tania Love Abramson, Paul R. Abramson

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

"A Self-Propelling Wheel": Prefigured Recurrence In Nietzsche's The Birth Of Tragedy, Jared R. Mcswain

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

One of Friedrich Nietzsche’s central doctrines, the doctrine of eternal recurrence, asks us to consider how we would feel if we had to repeat our lives exactly as we have lived them. Rather than despair at this possibility, Nietzsche describes the kind of attitude we would adopt if we desired nothing more. He labels such an attitude as “Dionysian”: we rejoice in every pain and every joy that has colored our lives and use them as creative fodder for the future. This identification links the doctrine to Nietzsche’s earlier work on aesthetics, The Birth of Tragedy, where he describes the …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

The Catholic Imagination, Y Bittner Wiseman

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Of The Silmarils And The Ring: J. R. R. Tolkien's Fiction And The Importance Of Creation And Art, Michael Hartinger

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

J. R. R. Tolkien embodies the opposing ideals of Enchantment and the Machine in the Silmarils and the One Ring respectively. These created objects oppose each other just as Tolkien’s ideals of art do. Enchantment is art’s ideal, it's purpose is to glorify and enrich the beauty of reality through subcreation. The Silmarils exhibit the delight of making and perceiving beauty. Whereas the Machine is art’s shadowy reflection that utilizes apparatuses or devices rather than personal talent in order to coerce others and reality itself. Overall Tolkien's aesthetic theories reflect many fears surrounding modern attitudes toward weaponizing art. Tolkien supplies …

Theater As A Civic Practice, Charlie Santos

Senior Honors Projects

Contemporary artists are working within a cultural moment saturated with political fervor. The ideologies of social and political movements such as Black Lives Matter, Queer Rights, and Gun Control weigh heavily on the minds of young artists. More and more, I see actors, writers, and creators struggling to reconcile their identities as artists and identities as political beings. How do artists resolve the internal dissonance between their artistic and political spheres? Is activist art an opportunity to synthesize these two spheres? Or might creating art for political ends pose ethical and/or aesthetic hazards? On the one hand, creating political art …

Where Literature And Philosophy Meet And Diverge, Clare C. Hagan

Undergraduate Theses

Many writers and philosophers have asked “What is art?” or “What is philosophy?” but it is difficult to encounter a text where these questions are set beside each other. Many works of philosophy appear very literary in form and content, just as there are many literary works that are very philosophical in nature. This essay examines the intersection of literature and philosophy, using Kant’s Critique of Judgement as a way into analyzing Plato’s Phaedo, as an example of literary philosophy; and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as an example of philosophical literature. The first section deals with literature and philosophy as texts, looking …