Aesthetics Commons^™

Yorick And Lovelace Physical Manifestations And Internal E-Motions, Maryam Ghabris

1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era

No abstract provided.

Social Mobility And Personal Displacement Queen Charlotte Between England And Germany, Mascha Hansen

1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era

No abstract provided.

Eighteenth-Century Merchant Circles In London's Wapping Peter Hieuusson, Maritime Trade, And The Global Movement Of Money, Kenneth J Cozens

1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era

No abstract provided.

Cook's Ark Animals On The Move In The Service Of Empires, Bärbel Czennia

1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era

No abstract provided.

The Normative Architecture Of Reality: Towards An Object-Oriented Ethics, Justin L. Harmon

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

The fact-value distinction has structured and still structures ongoing debates in metaethics, and all of the major positions in the field (expressivism, cognitivist realism, and moral error theory) subscribe to it. In contrast, I claim that the fact-value distinction is a contingent product of our intellectual history and a prime object for questioning. The most forceful reason for rejecting the distinction is that it presupposes a problematic understanding of the subject-object divide whereby one tends to view humans as the sole source of normativity in the world. My dissertation aims to disclose the background against which human ethical praxis is …

V.1 2016-2017 Supplement, 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 Supplement issue contains handwritten answers on post-its to the question "What feels urgent to you in your studio? In your life? In the world?" These post-its were written at a grad-student gathering on the day after the 2016 US Presidential election, scanned and printed as a zine the next day, and distributed at open studios the day after that.

Notices, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

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, …

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 …

Editorial, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

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.

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.

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. …

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 …

No-Media: Against The Coming Singularity, Gavin Keeney

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

A summary of the possible persistence of so-called useless humanistic research against the diktat of the Edufactory, the essay “No-media – Against the Coming Singularity” problematizes the complex field of forces and factors currently leading the life of universities toward the servicing of reduced aspirations for scholarship in an ultra-monetized society – plus neo-liberal academia’s penchant for the manufacturing of events and reputations at the expense of impersonal (confraternal) intellectual inquiry proper. An oblique critique of “vertical integration” strategies derived from corporate business models, foremost in media empires, and as applied to the production and management of knowledge, the essay …

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 …

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.

The Importance Of The Artist's Intent, Daniel Conrad

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Does considering artists' aesthetic intentions enrich our experience of art and enhance art’s aggregate value for human culture? By examining non-aesthetic intent, working motivations, biographical/historical context, and cases in which an announced intent drives aesthetic transformation, I argue that, while its specific value varies from case to case, aesthetic intent is a key part of our cumulative experience of art, correlates with specific neuroanatomical loci, and raises interesting and compelling questions specific to this age of automatized thinking.

The Ethos Of Cinema, Martin Seel

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The history of film has always been accompanied by a theoretical debate over its artistic potential. In the works of many theoreticians, more or less explicit anthropological speculations have played a significant role, focusing on the relation between cinema and formerly dominant modes of perception and living. Against this background, this paper addresses the position of film within the arts, and thus also the position of this art form vis-à-vis the role of art in relation to the human condition. One essential characteristic of films is that they are capable of bringing their audience into a specific state of being …

Cinempathy: Phenomenology, Cognitivism, And Moving Images, Robert Sinnerbrink

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Some of the most innovative philosophical engagement with cinema and ethics in recent years has come from phenomenological and cognitivist perspectives. This trend reflects a welcome re-engagement with cinema as a medium with the potential for ethical transformation, that is, with the idea of cinema as a medium of ethical experience. This paper explores the phenomenological turn in film theory, emphasizing the ethical implications of phenomenological approaches to affect and empathy, emotion, and evaluation. I argue that the oft-criticized subjectivism of phenomenological theories can be supplemented by cognitivist approaches that highlight the complex forms of affective response, emotional engagement, and …

Introduction, Stefan Deines, Mario Wenning

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Ontology And The Aesthetics Of Cinematographic Bodies, Jean-Yves Heurtebise

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

If it is true, as Bergson claimed, that the universe is the sum of images (less than “objective” things but more than “subjective” representations), and if it is correct, as Deleuze said, that this hypothesis bears direct consequences for our understanding of the cinematographic art, then the analysis of cinematographic images and, especially, of the cinematographic images of the body (this living part of matter, this incarnated form of consciousness) can provide not only interesting aesthetic comments about specific directors and films, but also a philosophical understanding of the diverse modes of the sensible incarnation of human bodies. Interestingly enough, …

New Grand Narratives—The Metaphysical Worldview Of Avatar And Cloud Atlas, Josef Früchtl

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Referring to the films Avatar (2009) and Cloud Atlas (2012), the author will demonstrate that a new era of metaphysical holism follows Postmodernism. These films celebrate a resurrection of the flesh with 3-D technology and a reincarnation of souls with the aesthetic technique of morphing. However apocalyptic their visions of the future might be, and however much they might seem to worship technical megalomania, they are also and again conveying a resounding ethical message and a taste of Utopia.

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 …

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 …

Philosophy With A Twist: La Rivière Du Hibou, Paisley Livingston, Trevor Ponech

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper explores the category of films known as “twist films” in relation to distinctions between different modes of epistemic access to works. With reference to the case of Robert Enrico’s short film, La rivière du hibou (1961), the philosophical significance of different sorts of twist films is explored. Twists are also discussed in relation to emotive responses, with special attention to the paradox of suspense

"Can The Audience Want?" On The Artistic Status Of Contemporary Tv-Series, Angela Keppler

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper takes up a question that Theodor W. Adorno posed in 1963 relating to television. The aim is to situate the new TV series, which are part of so-called Quality TV, against the backdrop of the tradition, and to analyze the forms in which the medium is being used. An inspection of pertinent sequences leads to the conclusion that the enjoyment we experience when watching these series stems from the very type of active-passive involvement that Adorno described as being essential only for objects of high culture.

Recent Publications, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.