Charles Forsdick
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198160144
- eISBN:
- 9780191673795
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198160144.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
The Victor Segalen who has emerged from this reading is a complex, occasionally contradictory figure. His exoticism is a statement of the bipolarity of ...
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The Victor Segalen who has emerged from this reading is a complex, occasionally contradictory figure. His exoticism is a statement of the bipolarity of the experience of otherness, a precursory realization that in the meeting of self and other neither party has the guaranteed privilege of objectivity that description of the exotic is ultimately revelatory of the self. Segalen's aesthetics of exoticism is an early consideration of colonialism as a process of contact between cultures. Recent ascendancy of his status in the social sciences indicates Segalen's role as a precursory theorist of the exotic on whose distinction between difference and alterity current consideration of otherness increasingly draws. The figures of travel proposed in this study of Segalen remain those of his physical circumnavigation through Polynesia and China back to his native Brittany. The resultant Aesthetics of Diversity is one that stresses, however, the ultimate relativity not only of the exotic, but also of home itself.Less
The Victor Segalen who has emerged from this reading is a complex, occasionally contradictory figure. His exoticism is a statement of the bipolarity of the experience of otherness, a precursory realization that in the meeting of self and other neither party has the guaranteed privilege of objectivity that description of the exotic is ultimately revelatory of the self. Segalen's aesthetics of exoticism is an early consideration of colonialism as a process of contact between cultures. Recent ascendancy of his status in the social sciences indicates Segalen's role as a precursory theorist of the exotic on whose distinction between difference and alterity current consideration of otherness increasingly draws. The figures of travel proposed in this study of Segalen remain those of his physical circumnavigation through Polynesia and China back to his native Brittany. The resultant Aesthetics of Diversity is one that stresses, however, the ultimate relativity not only of the exotic, but also of home itself.
Barry Allen
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231172721
- eISBN:
- 9780231539340
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172721.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
The first book to focus on the intersection of Western philosophy and the Asian martial arts, Striking Beauty studies the historical and philosophical traditions of Asian martial arts practice and ...
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The first book to focus on the intersection of Western philosophy and the Asian martial arts, Striking Beauty studies the historical and philosophical traditions of Asian martial arts practice and its ethical value in the modern world. Expanding Western philosophy’s usual outlook, the book forces a theoretical reckoning with the concerns of Chinese philosophy and the aesthetic and technical dimensions of martial arts practice. Striking Beauty elucidates the relationship between Asian martial arts and the Chinese philosophical traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and the Chinese art of war. It connects martial arts practice to the Western concepts of mind-body dualism and materialism, sports aesthetics, and the ethics of violence. The work ameliorates Western philosophy’s hostility toward the body, emphasizing the pleasure of watching and engaging in martial arts, along with their beauty and the ethical problem of their violence.Less
The first book to focus on the intersection of Western philosophy and the Asian martial arts, Striking Beauty studies the historical and philosophical traditions of Asian martial arts practice and its ethical value in the modern world. Expanding Western philosophy’s usual outlook, the book forces a theoretical reckoning with the concerns of Chinese philosophy and the aesthetic and technical dimensions of martial arts practice. Striking Beauty elucidates the relationship between Asian martial arts and the Chinese philosophical traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and the Chinese art of war. It connects martial arts practice to the Western concepts of mind-body dualism and materialism, sports aesthetics, and the ethics of violence. The work ameliorates Western philosophy’s hostility toward the body, emphasizing the pleasure of watching and engaging in martial arts, along with their beauty and the ethical problem of their violence.
Josephine Nock-Hee Park
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195332735
- eISBN:
- 9780199868148
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195332735.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, American, 20th Century Literature
This book traces an American literary history of transpacific alliances which spans the 20th century. Increasing material and economic ties between the U.S. and East Asia at the end of the 19th ...
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This book traces an American literary history of transpacific alliances which spans the 20th century. Increasing material and economic ties between the U.S. and East Asia at the end of the 19th century facilitated an imagined spiritual and aesthetic accord that bridged the Pacific, and this study reads the expression and repercussions of these links in American Orientalist and Asian American poetry. After considering both the transcendence and constraints of a structure of alliance between East and West in the introductory chapter, the first half of the study examines two key American instigators of Orientalist poetics, Ezra Pound and Gary Snyder, who imagined an identity between Eastern philosophy and idealized notions of America. Their literary alliances imposed a singular burden on Asian American poets, and the second half of the study considers a range of formal negotiations with this legacy in the poetry of Lawson Fusao Inada, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Myung Mi Kim. In examining avant‐garde Asian American poetry against an American Orientalist past, this book reads the intersection of modernist and minority poetics.Less
This book traces an American literary history of transpacific alliances which spans the 20th century. Increasing material and economic ties between the U.S. and East Asia at the end of the 19th century facilitated an imagined spiritual and aesthetic accord that bridged the Pacific, and this study reads the expression and repercussions of these links in American Orientalist and Asian American poetry. After considering both the transcendence and constraints of a structure of alliance between East and West in the introductory chapter, the first half of the study examines two key American instigators of Orientalist poetics, Ezra Pound and Gary Snyder, who imagined an identity between Eastern philosophy and idealized notions of America. Their literary alliances imposed a singular burden on Asian American poets, and the second half of the study considers a range of formal negotiations with this legacy in the poetry of Lawson Fusao Inada, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Myung Mi Kim. In examining avant‐garde Asian American poetry against an American Orientalist past, this book reads the intersection of modernist and minority poetics.
Martine Beugnet
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748620425
- eISBN:
- 9780748670840
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748620425.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book looks at a much-debated phenomenon in contemporary cinema: the re-emergence of filmmaking practices – and, by extension, of theoretical approaches – that give precedence to cinema as the ...
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This book looks at a much-debated phenomenon in contemporary cinema: the re-emergence of filmmaking practices – and, by extension, of theoretical approaches – that give precedence to cinema as the medium of sensation. France offers an intriguing case in point here. A specific sense of momentum comes from the work of a group of filmmakers bent on exploring cinema's unique capacity to move us both viscerally and intellectually. Though extremely diverse, the films of Olivier Assayas, Catherine Breillat, Claire Denis, Vincent Dieutre, Bruno Dumont, Bertrand Bonello, Philippe Grandrieux, Pascal Ferrand and Nicolas Klotz, to name but a few, demonstrate a characteristic awareness of cinema's sensory impact and transgressive nature. In effect, with its interweaving of theoretical enquiry and film analysis, and its emphasis on the materiality of film, Cinema and Sensation's approach could also apply to the work of comparable filmmakers like David Lynch, Abel Ferrara or Wong Kar-Wai. Cinema and Sensation draws on the writings of Antonin Artaud, George Bataille and Gilles Deleuze, whilst also responding to the continuing interest in theories of haptic visuality (Laura Marks) and embodied spectatorship (Vivian Sobchack) inspired by Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology.Explored as forms of embodied thought, the films are shown to offer alternative ways of approaching key existential and socio-cultural questions: desire, violence and abjection as well as the growing supremacy of technology, globalisation, exile and exclusion – these are the themes and issues that appear embedded here in the very texture of images and sounds.Less
This book looks at a much-debated phenomenon in contemporary cinema: the re-emergence of filmmaking practices – and, by extension, of theoretical approaches – that give precedence to cinema as the medium of sensation. France offers an intriguing case in point here. A specific sense of momentum comes from the work of a group of filmmakers bent on exploring cinema's unique capacity to move us both viscerally and intellectually. Though extremely diverse, the films of Olivier Assayas, Catherine Breillat, Claire Denis, Vincent Dieutre, Bruno Dumont, Bertrand Bonello, Philippe Grandrieux, Pascal Ferrand and Nicolas Klotz, to name but a few, demonstrate a characteristic awareness of cinema's sensory impact and transgressive nature. In effect, with its interweaving of theoretical enquiry and film analysis, and its emphasis on the materiality of film, Cinema and Sensation's approach could also apply to the work of comparable filmmakers like David Lynch, Abel Ferrara or Wong Kar-Wai. Cinema and Sensation draws on the writings of Antonin Artaud, George Bataille and Gilles Deleuze, whilst also responding to the continuing interest in theories of haptic visuality (Laura Marks) and embodied spectatorship (Vivian Sobchack) inspired by Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology.Explored as forms of embodied thought, the films are shown to offer alternative ways of approaching key existential and socio-cultural questions: desire, violence and abjection as well as the growing supremacy of technology, globalisation, exile and exclusion – these are the themes and issues that appear embedded here in the very texture of images and sounds.
Michela Coletta
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781786941312
- eISBN:
- 9781789629040
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781786941312.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
How did Latin Americans represent their own countries as modern? By treating modernity as a ubiquitous category in which ideas of progress and decadence are far from being mutually exclusive, this ...
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How did Latin Americans represent their own countries as modern? By treating modernity as a ubiquitous category in which ideas of progress and decadence are far from being mutually exclusive, this book explores how different groups of intellectuals, between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, drew from European sociological and medical theories to produce a series of cultural representations based on notions of degeneration. Through a comparative analysis of three country case studies − Argentina, Uruguay and Chile − the book investigates four themes that were central to definitions of Latin American modernity at the turn of the century: race and the nation, the search for the autochthonous, education, and aesthetic values. It takes a transnational approach to show how civilisational constructs were adopted and adapted in a postcolonial context where cultural modernism foreshadowed economic modernisation. In doing this, this work sheds new light on the complex discursive negotiations through which the idea of ‘Latin America’ became gradually established in the region.Less
How did Latin Americans represent their own countries as modern? By treating modernity as a ubiquitous category in which ideas of progress and decadence are far from being mutually exclusive, this book explores how different groups of intellectuals, between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, drew from European sociological and medical theories to produce a series of cultural representations based on notions of degeneration. Through a comparative analysis of three country case studies − Argentina, Uruguay and Chile − the book investigates four themes that were central to definitions of Latin American modernity at the turn of the century: race and the nation, the search for the autochthonous, education, and aesthetic values. It takes a transnational approach to show how civilisational constructs were adopted and adapted in a postcolonial context where cultural modernism foreshadowed economic modernisation. In doing this, this work sheds new light on the complex discursive negotiations through which the idea of ‘Latin America’ became gradually established in the region.
Anita Chari
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231173896
- eISBN:
- 9780231540384
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231173896.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter turns to Theodor Adorno’s aesthetic theory of reification for a more embodied approach to critique. The chapter argues that Adorno's aesthetic theory, perhaps despite himself, provides ...
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This chapter turns to Theodor Adorno’s aesthetic theory of reification for a more embodied approach to critique. The chapter argues that Adorno's aesthetic theory, perhaps despite himself, provides one crucial strategy for dereified praxis, the notion of the “defetishizing fetish,” an artwork that acts a kind of Trojan Horse, a homeopathic assault upon forms of domination in neoliberal society.Less
This chapter turns to Theodor Adorno’s aesthetic theory of reification for a more embodied approach to critique. The chapter argues that Adorno's aesthetic theory, perhaps despite himself, provides one crucial strategy for dereified praxis, the notion of the “defetishizing fetish,” an artwork that acts a kind of Trojan Horse, a homeopathic assault upon forms of domination in neoliberal society.
Alejandro Yarza
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748699247
- eISBN:
- 9781474444729
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748699247.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In Fascist Spain, Francoism—like German and Italian fascism—produced its own particular brand of kitsch. Deploying religious and historical iconography drawn from Spain´s centuries-long struggle ...
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In Fascist Spain, Francoism—like German and Italian fascism—produced its own particular brand of kitsch. Deploying religious and historical iconography drawn from Spain´s centuries-long struggle against Islam, Francoist ideologues created a kitsch interpretation of Spain´s past designed to replace more complex and nuanced accounts. In this representation religious and historical iconography combined with kitsch aesthetics to project a picturesque, clichéd image of Spain. The ultimate goal of this vast production of kitsch was to create a submissive subject who, by identifying with Francoist aesthetics, would identify with state ideology. This book examines the role of kitsch aesthetics in advancing Francoist totalitarian ideology and in its subsequent undoing. It explores the intersection between aesthetics and politics through the lens of kitsch and its relation to violence in the context of Spanish and European history. More specifically, it engages the making and unmaking of Francoist kitsch aesthetics through the analysis of Spanish cinema by examining eight influential films ranging from 1938 to 2010; five Francoist films and three oppositional films by critically acclaimed directors Luis Buñuel, Alex de la Iglesia and Guillermo del Toro who, by re-imagining Francoist aesthetics’ visual an narrative clichés, dismantled the fascist project.Less
In Fascist Spain, Francoism—like German and Italian fascism—produced its own particular brand of kitsch. Deploying religious and historical iconography drawn from Spain´s centuries-long struggle against Islam, Francoist ideologues created a kitsch interpretation of Spain´s past designed to replace more complex and nuanced accounts. In this representation religious and historical iconography combined with kitsch aesthetics to project a picturesque, clichéd image of Spain. The ultimate goal of this vast production of kitsch was to create a submissive subject who, by identifying with Francoist aesthetics, would identify with state ideology. This book examines the role of kitsch aesthetics in advancing Francoist totalitarian ideology and in its subsequent undoing. It explores the intersection between aesthetics and politics through the lens of kitsch and its relation to violence in the context of Spanish and European history. More specifically, it engages the making and unmaking of Francoist kitsch aesthetics through the analysis of Spanish cinema by examining eight influential films ranging from 1938 to 2010; five Francoist films and three oppositional films by critically acclaimed directors Luis Buñuel, Alex de la Iglesia and Guillermo del Toro who, by re-imagining Francoist aesthetics’ visual an narrative clichés, dismantled the fascist project.
Philippe Carles and Jean-Louis Comolli
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781628460391
- eISBN:
- 9781626740846
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628460391.003.0010
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This final chapter is also the conclusion of the book. The authors reiterate their central argument, i.e. that ultimately what makes the originality of free jazz is its intrinsically political ...
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This final chapter is also the conclusion of the book. The authors reiterate their central argument, i.e. that ultimately what makes the originality of free jazz is its intrinsically political approach to music. As such, it is a challenge to Western bourgeois values not just in music, but also in the appreciation of music. Free jazz demands that we reconsider the way we evaluate music.Less
This final chapter is also the conclusion of the book. The authors reiterate their central argument, i.e. that ultimately what makes the originality of free jazz is its intrinsically political approach to music. As such, it is a challenge to Western bourgeois values not just in music, but also in the appreciation of music. Free jazz demands that we reconsider the way we evaluate music.
Andreas Broeckmann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262035064
- eISBN:
- 9780262336109
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262035064.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
This book deals with the ways in which visual artists have reflected on the cultural meaning of technology, and the particular aesthetic of machines, throughout the twentieth century. It is the first ...
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This book deals with the ways in which visual artists have reflected on the cultural meaning of technology, and the particular aesthetic of machines, throughout the twentieth century. It is the first comprehensive treatment of Machine Art and covers the most important historical developments as well as the key concepts of machine aesthetics. The book examines a variety of twentieth- and early twenty-first-century artworks that articulate people’s changing relationship with technical devices and infrastructures. It traces historical lineages that connect art of different periods, looking for continuities that link works from the end of the twentieth century to developments in the 1950s and 1960s and to works from the avant-gardes of the 1910s and 1920s. The investigation focuses on four specific domains of artistic engagement with technology: algorithms and machine autonomy; image, vision, and the advent of technical imaging; the human body in its relation to machines; and ecology. The book argues that systems thinking and ecological theories have brought about a fundamental shift in the cultural meaning of technology, which has also caused a change in the way technology impacts the formation of human subjectivity. This changing relationship between technology and subjectivity has been articulated by the different types of "machine art" throughout the twentieth century.Less
This book deals with the ways in which visual artists have reflected on the cultural meaning of technology, and the particular aesthetic of machines, throughout the twentieth century. It is the first comprehensive treatment of Machine Art and covers the most important historical developments as well as the key concepts of machine aesthetics. The book examines a variety of twentieth- and early twenty-first-century artworks that articulate people’s changing relationship with technical devices and infrastructures. It traces historical lineages that connect art of different periods, looking for continuities that link works from the end of the twentieth century to developments in the 1950s and 1960s and to works from the avant-gardes of the 1910s and 1920s. The investigation focuses on four specific domains of artistic engagement with technology: algorithms and machine autonomy; image, vision, and the advent of technical imaging; the human body in its relation to machines; and ecology. The book argues that systems thinking and ecological theories have brought about a fundamental shift in the cultural meaning of technology, which has also caused a change in the way technology impacts the formation of human subjectivity. This changing relationship between technology and subjectivity has been articulated by the different types of "machine art" throughout the twentieth century.
Cecilia Sjöholm
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231173087
- eISBN:
- 9780231539906
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231173087.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Cecilia Sjöholm reads Hannah Arendt as a philosopher of the senses, grappling with questions of vision, hearing, and touch even in her political work. Constructing an Arendtian theory of aesthetics ...
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Cecilia Sjöholm reads Hannah Arendt as a philosopher of the senses, grappling with questions of vision, hearing, and touch even in her political work. Constructing an Arendtian theory of aesthetics from the philosopher’s fragmentary writings on art and perception, Sjöholm begins a vibrant new chapter in Arendt scholarship that expands her relevance for contemporary philosophers. Arendt wrote thoughtfully about the role of sensibility and aesthetic judgment in political life and on the power of art to enrich human experience. Sjöholm draws a clear line from Arendt’s consideration of these subjects to her reflections on aesthetic encounters and works of art mentioned in her published writings and stored among her memorabilia. This delicate effort allows Sjöholm to revisit Arendt’s political concepts of freedom, plurality, and judgment from an aesthetic point of view and incorporate Arendt’s insight into current discussions of literature, music, theater, and visual art. Though Arendt did not explicitly outline an aesthetics, Sjöholm’s work substantively incorporates her perspective into contemporary reckonings with radical politics and their relationship to art.Less
Cecilia Sjöholm reads Hannah Arendt as a philosopher of the senses, grappling with questions of vision, hearing, and touch even in her political work. Constructing an Arendtian theory of aesthetics from the philosopher’s fragmentary writings on art and perception, Sjöholm begins a vibrant new chapter in Arendt scholarship that expands her relevance for contemporary philosophers. Arendt wrote thoughtfully about the role of sensibility and aesthetic judgment in political life and on the power of art to enrich human experience. Sjöholm draws a clear line from Arendt’s consideration of these subjects to her reflections on aesthetic encounters and works of art mentioned in her published writings and stored among her memorabilia. This delicate effort allows Sjöholm to revisit Arendt’s political concepts of freedom, plurality, and judgment from an aesthetic point of view and incorporate Arendt’s insight into current discussions of literature, music, theater, and visual art. Though Arendt did not explicitly outline an aesthetics, Sjöholm’s work substantively incorporates her perspective into contemporary reckonings with radical politics and their relationship to art.
Angela Calcaterra
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469646947
- eISBN:
- 9781469646961
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469646947.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American Colonial Literature
Although cross-cultural encounter is often considered an economic or political matter, beauty, taste, and artistry were central to cultural exchange and political negotiation in early and ...
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Although cross-cultural encounter is often considered an economic or political matter, beauty, taste, and artistry were central to cultural exchange and political negotiation in early and nineteenth-century America. Part of a new wave of scholarship in early American studies that contextualizes American writing in Indigenous space, Literary Indians highlights the significance of Indigenous aesthetic practices to American literary production. Countering the prevailing notion of the “literary Indian” as a construct of the white American literary imagination, Angela Calcaterra reveals how Native people’s pre-existing and evolving aesthetic practices influenced Anglo-American writing in precise ways. Indigenous aesthetics helped to establish borders and foster alliances that pushed against Anglo-American settlement practices and contributed to the discursive, divided, unfinished aspects of American letters. Focusing on tribal histories and Indigenous artistry, Calcaterra locates surprising connections and important distinctions between Native and Anglo-American literary aesthetics in a new history of early American encounter, identity, literature, and culture.Less
Although cross-cultural encounter is often considered an economic or political matter, beauty, taste, and artistry were central to cultural exchange and political negotiation in early and nineteenth-century America. Part of a new wave of scholarship in early American studies that contextualizes American writing in Indigenous space, Literary Indians highlights the significance of Indigenous aesthetic practices to American literary production. Countering the prevailing notion of the “literary Indian” as a construct of the white American literary imagination, Angela Calcaterra reveals how Native people’s pre-existing and evolving aesthetic practices influenced Anglo-American writing in precise ways. Indigenous aesthetics helped to establish borders and foster alliances that pushed against Anglo-American settlement practices and contributed to the discursive, divided, unfinished aspects of American letters. Focusing on tribal histories and Indigenous artistry, Calcaterra locates surprising connections and important distinctions between Native and Anglo-American literary aesthetics in a new history of early American encounter, identity, literature, and culture.
Charles Forsdick
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198160144
- eISBN:
- 9780191673795
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198160144.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Victor Segalen's death at the age of 41 brought his work to a premature conclusion. The extensive manuscript drafts left at various stages of ...
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Victor Segalen's death at the age of 41 brought his work to a premature conclusion. The extensive manuscript drafts left at various stages of completion suggest that his project of forging a new exoticism or Aesthetics of Diversity was only partially fulfilled, that his works remain stubbornly incomplete. Speculation surrounding Segalen's death remains rife. The absence of concrete clinical evidence has led to the transformation of this physiological event into an enigma of mythical status rooted in textual interpretations. Largely thanks to Segalen, exoticism has been resurrected as common currency in current theoretical considerations of relationships between cultures. Such a renewal of the concept of exoticism has had a particular influence in the fields of anthropology and ethnography. Segalen is linked closely by Tzvetan Todorov to Pierre Loti in several domains: in their anti-democratic views, their belief in the insurmountability of racial difference, and their attraction to indigenous women as a route to the exotic.Less
Victor Segalen's death at the age of 41 brought his work to a premature conclusion. The extensive manuscript drafts left at various stages of completion suggest that his project of forging a new exoticism or Aesthetics of Diversity was only partially fulfilled, that his works remain stubbornly incomplete. Speculation surrounding Segalen's death remains rife. The absence of concrete clinical evidence has led to the transformation of this physiological event into an enigma of mythical status rooted in textual interpretations. Largely thanks to Segalen, exoticism has been resurrected as common currency in current theoretical considerations of relationships between cultures. Such a renewal of the concept of exoticism has had a particular influence in the fields of anthropology and ethnography. Segalen is linked closely by Tzvetan Todorov to Pierre Loti in several domains: in their anti-democratic views, their belief in the insurmountability of racial difference, and their attraction to indigenous women as a route to the exotic.
Charles Forsdick
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198160144
- eISBN:
- 9780191673795
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198160144.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
In assessing Robert Young's Colonial Desire, Stuart Hall attacks what he sees as its author's ‘inexplicably simplistic charge’ that post-colonial ...
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In assessing Robert Young's Colonial Desire, Stuart Hall attacks what he sees as its author's ‘inexplicably simplistic charge’ that post-colonial critics are inevitably complicit with Victorian racial theorists since both groups employ the terminology of hybridity. Although Hall's comments are a simplification of Young's study, what they demonstrate is a concern to avoid conflation of semantic fields whereby a term with colonial overtones is denied redefinition in a post-colonial context. This specific problem has dogged the understanding of exoticism. After a period of rejection of the term ‘exotisme’, the past twenty-five years have witnessed a resurgence of its use described above in the fields of anthropology, literary criticism, sociology, architecture, and colonial history. This chapter discusses new perspectives on exoticism, exoticism as an Aesthetics of Diversity, Victor Segalen's views on the exoticist tradition, and threats and responses to twentieth-century exoticism.Less
In assessing Robert Young's Colonial Desire, Stuart Hall attacks what he sees as its author's ‘inexplicably simplistic charge’ that post-colonial critics are inevitably complicit with Victorian racial theorists since both groups employ the terminology of hybridity. Although Hall's comments are a simplification of Young's study, what they demonstrate is a concern to avoid conflation of semantic fields whereby a term with colonial overtones is denied redefinition in a post-colonial context. This specific problem has dogged the understanding of exoticism. After a period of rejection of the term ‘exotisme’, the past twenty-five years have witnessed a resurgence of its use described above in the fields of anthropology, literary criticism, sociology, architecture, and colonial history. This chapter discusses new perspectives on exoticism, exoticism as an Aesthetics of Diversity, Victor Segalen's views on the exoticist tradition, and threats and responses to twentieth-century exoticism.
Mayumo Inoue and Steve Choe (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9789888455874
- eISBN:
- 9789882204294
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888455874.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Observing that the division between theory and empiricism remains inextricably linked to imperial modernity, manifest at the most basic level in the binary between "the West" and "Asia," the authors ...
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Observing that the division between theory and empiricism remains inextricably linked to imperial modernity, manifest at the most basic level in the binary between "the West" and "Asia," the authors of this volume reexamine art and aesthetics to challenge these oppositions in order to reconceptualize politics and knowledge production in East Asia. Current understandings of fundamental ideas like race, nation, colonizer and the colonized, and the concept of Asia in the region are seeped with imperial aesthetics that originated from competing imperialisms operating in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Such aesthetics has sustained both colonial and local modes of perception in the formation of nation-states and expanded the reach of regulatory powers in East Asia since 1945. The twelve thought-provoking essays in thiscollectiontackle the problematics that arise at the nexus of aesthetics and politics in four areas: theoretical issues of aesthetics and politics in East Asia, aesthetics of affect and sexuality, the productive tension between critical aesthetics and political movements, and aesthetic critiques of sovereignty and neoliberalism in East Asia today.
If the seemingly universal operation of capital and militarism in East Asia requires locally specific definitions of biopolitical concepts to function smoothly, this book critiques the circuit of power between the universalism of capital and particularism of nation and culture. Treating aesthetic experiences in art at large as the bases for going beyond imperial categories, the contributors present new modes of sensing, thinking, and living that have been unimaginable within the mainstream modality of Asian studies, a discipline that has reproduced the colonial regime of knowledge production.Less
Observing that the division between theory and empiricism remains inextricably linked to imperial modernity, manifest at the most basic level in the binary between "the West" and "Asia," the authors of this volume reexamine art and aesthetics to challenge these oppositions in order to reconceptualize politics and knowledge production in East Asia. Current understandings of fundamental ideas like race, nation, colonizer and the colonized, and the concept of Asia in the region are seeped with imperial aesthetics that originated from competing imperialisms operating in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Such aesthetics has sustained both colonial and local modes of perception in the formation of nation-states and expanded the reach of regulatory powers in East Asia since 1945. The twelve thought-provoking essays in thiscollectiontackle the problematics that arise at the nexus of aesthetics and politics in four areas: theoretical issues of aesthetics and politics in East Asia, aesthetics of affect and sexuality, the productive tension between critical aesthetics and political movements, and aesthetic critiques of sovereignty and neoliberalism in East Asia today.
If the seemingly universal operation of capital and militarism in East Asia requires locally specific definitions of biopolitical concepts to function smoothly, this book critiques the circuit of power between the universalism of capital and particularism of nation and culture. Treating aesthetic experiences in art at large as the bases for going beyond imperial categories, the contributors present new modes of sensing, thinking, and living that have been unimaginable within the mainstream modality of Asian studies, a discipline that has reproduced the colonial regime of knowledge production.
Michael Gallope
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226483559
- eISBN:
- 9780226483726
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226483726.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Philosophy of Music
Deep Refrains: Music, Philosophy, and the Ineffable draws together the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Vladimir Jankélévitch, Gilles Deleuze, and ...
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Deep Refrains: Music, Philosophy, and the Ineffable draws together the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Vladimir Jankélévitch, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari in order to revisit the age-old question of music’s ineffability from a modern perspective. For these nineteenth- and twentieth-century European philosophers, music’s ineffability is a complex phenomenon that engenders an intellectually productive sense of perplexity. Through careful examination of their historical contexts and philosophical orientations, close attention to their use of language, and new interpretations of musical compositions that proved influential for their work, Deep Refrains forges the first panoptic view of their writings on music. Gallope concludes that music’s ineffability is neither a conservative phenomenon nor a pious call to silence. Instead, these philosophers ask us to think through the ways in which music’s stunning force might address, in an ethical fashion, intricate philosophical questions specific to the modern world.Less
Deep Refrains: Music, Philosophy, and the Ineffable draws together the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Vladimir Jankélévitch, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari in order to revisit the age-old question of music’s ineffability from a modern perspective. For these nineteenth- and twentieth-century European philosophers, music’s ineffability is a complex phenomenon that engenders an intellectually productive sense of perplexity. Through careful examination of their historical contexts and philosophical orientations, close attention to their use of language, and new interpretations of musical compositions that proved influential for their work, Deep Refrains forges the first panoptic view of their writings on music. Gallope concludes that music’s ineffability is neither a conservative phenomenon nor a pious call to silence. Instead, these philosophers ask us to think through the ways in which music’s stunning force might address, in an ethical fashion, intricate philosophical questions specific to the modern world.
Hélène Ibata
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526117397
- eISBN:
- 9781526136114
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526117397.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
The challenge of the sublime argues that the unprecedented visual inventiveness of the Romantic period in Britain could be seen as a response to theories of the sublime, more specifically to Edmund ...
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The challenge of the sublime argues that the unprecedented visual inventiveness of the Romantic period in Britain could be seen as a response to theories of the sublime, more specifically to Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). While it is widely accepted that the Enquiry contributed to shaping the thematics of terror that became fashionable in British art from the 1770s, this book contends that its influence was of even greater consequence, paradoxically because of Burke’s conviction that the visual arts were incapable of conveying the sublime. His argument that the sublime was beyond the reach of painting, because of the mimetic nature of visual representation, directly or indirectly incited visual artists to explore not just new themes, but also new compositional strategies and even new or undeveloped pictorial and graphic media, such as the panorama, book illustrations and capricci. More significantly, it began to call into question mimetic representational models, causing artists to reflect about the presentation of the unpresentable and the inadequacy of their endeavours, and thus drawing attention to the process of artistic production itself, rather than the finished artwork. By revisiting the links between eighteenth-century aesthetic theory and visual practices, The challenge of the sublime establishes new interdisciplinary connections which address researchers in the fields of art history, cultural studies and aesthetics.Less
The challenge of the sublime argues that the unprecedented visual inventiveness of the Romantic period in Britain could be seen as a response to theories of the sublime, more specifically to Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). While it is widely accepted that the Enquiry contributed to shaping the thematics of terror that became fashionable in British art from the 1770s, this book contends that its influence was of even greater consequence, paradoxically because of Burke’s conviction that the visual arts were incapable of conveying the sublime. His argument that the sublime was beyond the reach of painting, because of the mimetic nature of visual representation, directly or indirectly incited visual artists to explore not just new themes, but also new compositional strategies and even new or undeveloped pictorial and graphic media, such as the panorama, book illustrations and capricci. More significantly, it began to call into question mimetic representational models, causing artists to reflect about the presentation of the unpresentable and the inadequacy of their endeavours, and thus drawing attention to the process of artistic production itself, rather than the finished artwork. By revisiting the links between eighteenth-century aesthetic theory and visual practices, The challenge of the sublime establishes new interdisciplinary connections which address researchers in the fields of art history, cultural studies and aesthetics.
Catherine Constable
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231174558
- eISBN:
- 9780231850834
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231174558.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This volume focuses on postmodern film aesthetics, thinking through ways in which it challenges the aesthetic paradigms currently dominating analyses of Hollywood cinema. The first chapter explores ...
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This volume focuses on postmodern film aesthetics, thinking through ways in which it challenges the aesthetic paradigms currently dominating analyses of Hollywood cinema. The first chapter explores conceptions of the classical, modernist, post-classical/new Hollywood, and their construction as a linear history of style in which postmodernism forms a debatable final act. This history is challenged by using Jean-François Lyotard’s non-linear conception of postmodernism in order to view postmodern aesthetics as a paradigm that can occur across the history of Hollywood. Chapter 2 explores famous 'nihilistic' theorists of the postmodern, Jean Baudrillard and Frederic Jameson, addressing the ways in which their work impacts on reading Hollywood films. Within Film Studies, writing on postmodernism and Hollywood cinema has drawn on the more negative aspects of Jameson’s work. Postmodern films are seen as expressions of the logic of late capitalism, and thus incapable of offering political critique, while their relentless utilisation of past styles is reflective of aesthetic bankruptcy. In contrast, the final chapter argues in favor of taking up the work of 'affirmative' postmodern theorists, notably Linda Hutcheon, in order to set up nuanced and positive variants of postmodern film aesthetics. For Hutcheon, postmodern art is characterized by paradox, due to its simultaneous re-inscription and deconstruction of past art forms. This doubled movement of both evoking and dismantling convention underpins its political potential, namely the de-naturalisation of a history of representation. The range, diversity and critical potential of postmodern aesthetic strategies are demonstrated by detailed readings of four film texts.Less
This volume focuses on postmodern film aesthetics, thinking through ways in which it challenges the aesthetic paradigms currently dominating analyses of Hollywood cinema. The first chapter explores conceptions of the classical, modernist, post-classical/new Hollywood, and their construction as a linear history of style in which postmodernism forms a debatable final act. This history is challenged by using Jean-François Lyotard’s non-linear conception of postmodernism in order to view postmodern aesthetics as a paradigm that can occur across the history of Hollywood. Chapter 2 explores famous 'nihilistic' theorists of the postmodern, Jean Baudrillard and Frederic Jameson, addressing the ways in which their work impacts on reading Hollywood films. Within Film Studies, writing on postmodernism and Hollywood cinema has drawn on the more negative aspects of Jameson’s work. Postmodern films are seen as expressions of the logic of late capitalism, and thus incapable of offering political critique, while their relentless utilisation of past styles is reflective of aesthetic bankruptcy. In contrast, the final chapter argues in favor of taking up the work of 'affirmative' postmodern theorists, notably Linda Hutcheon, in order to set up nuanced and positive variants of postmodern film aesthetics. For Hutcheon, postmodern art is characterized by paradox, due to its simultaneous re-inscription and deconstruction of past art forms. This doubled movement of both evoking and dismantling convention underpins its political potential, namely the de-naturalisation of a history of representation. The range, diversity and critical potential of postmodern aesthetic strategies are demonstrated by detailed readings of four film texts.
Nicola Perullo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231173483
- eISBN:
- 9780231541428
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231173483.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Taste as Experience puts the pleasure of food at the center of human experience. It shows how the sense of taste informs our preferences for and relationship to nature, pushes us toward ethical ...
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Taste as Experience puts the pleasure of food at the center of human experience. It shows how the sense of taste informs our preferences for and relationship to nature, pushes us toward ethical practices of consumption, and impresses upon us the importance of aesthetics. Eating is often dismissed as a necessary aspect of survival, and our personal enjoyment of food is considered a quirk. Nicola Perullo sees food as the only portion of the world we take in on a daily basis, constituting our first and most significant encounter with the earth. Perullo has long observed people’s food practices and has listened to their food experiences. He draws on years of research to explain the complex meanings behind our food choices and the thinking that accompanies our gustatory actions. He also considers our indifference toward food as a force influencing us as much as engagement. For Perullo, taste is value and wisdom. It cannot be reduced to mere chemical or cultural factors but embodies the quality and quantity of our earthly experience.Less
Taste as Experience puts the pleasure of food at the center of human experience. It shows how the sense of taste informs our preferences for and relationship to nature, pushes us toward ethical practices of consumption, and impresses upon us the importance of aesthetics. Eating is often dismissed as a necessary aspect of survival, and our personal enjoyment of food is considered a quirk. Nicola Perullo sees food as the only portion of the world we take in on a daily basis, constituting our first and most significant encounter with the earth. Perullo has long observed people’s food practices and has listened to their food experiences. He draws on years of research to explain the complex meanings behind our food choices and the thinking that accompanies our gustatory actions. He also considers our indifference toward food as a force influencing us as much as engagement. For Perullo, taste is value and wisdom. It cannot be reduced to mere chemical or cultural factors but embodies the quality and quantity of our earthly experience.
Johann Gottfried Herder and Philip V. Bohlman
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520234949
- eISBN:
- 9780520966444
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520234949.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Had Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) written a book on music, it would have been Song Loves the Masses. One of the great polymaths of modern intellectual history, Herder wrote influential ...
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Had Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) written a book on music, it would have been Song Loves the Masses. One of the great polymaths of modern intellectual history, Herder wrote influential contributions to philosophy, theology, anthropology, aesthetics, history—and music. His writings on musical subjects are among his most comprehensive, ranging from studies of music in the origins of human speech to the song practices underlying a universal humanity. Herder’s collections of these practices, to which he referred collectively as “folk songs” sounded world music in its complex diversity and provided the modern foundations for the fields of anthropology, folklore, and ethnomusicology. Many of the folk songs themselves entered the classical music of Europe, significantly transforming its aesthetics and history. The first-ever translations of Herder’s nine most sweeping works on music unfold across the chapters of this book. From the first attempts to forge theories of folk song and publish anthologies in the 1770s through the translations of the Spanish epic, El Cid, and the biblical Song of Songs to the aesthetics of transcendence that imbued his final essays, the chapters in Song Loves the Masses together transform our modern understanding of music and history.Less
Had Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) written a book on music, it would have been Song Loves the Masses. One of the great polymaths of modern intellectual history, Herder wrote influential contributions to philosophy, theology, anthropology, aesthetics, history—and music. His writings on musical subjects are among his most comprehensive, ranging from studies of music in the origins of human speech to the song practices underlying a universal humanity. Herder’s collections of these practices, to which he referred collectively as “folk songs” sounded world music in its complex diversity and provided the modern foundations for the fields of anthropology, folklore, and ethnomusicology. Many of the folk songs themselves entered the classical music of Europe, significantly transforming its aesthetics and history. The first-ever translations of Herder’s nine most sweeping works on music unfold across the chapters of this book. From the first attempts to forge theories of folk song and publish anthologies in the 1770s through the translations of the Spanish epic, El Cid, and the biblical Song of Songs to the aesthetics of transcendence that imbued his final essays, the chapters in Song Loves the Masses together transform our modern understanding of music and history.
Sanja Dejanovic (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748683178
- eISBN:
- 9781474408684
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748683178.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Focussed around three core themes “capitalism, the metaphysics of democracy and aesthetics” these 11 essays emphasise the potential of Nancy's political thought, and collectively situate it within a ...
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Focussed around three core themes “capitalism, the metaphysics of democracy and aesthetics” these 11 essays emphasise the potential of Nancy's political thought, and collectively situate it within a broader intellectual context which includes engagements with Badiou, Rancière, Foucault, Agamben and Lefort.Less
Focussed around three core themes “capitalism, the metaphysics of democracy and aesthetics” these 11 essays emphasise the potential of Nancy's political thought, and collectively situate it within a broader intellectual context which includes engagements with Badiou, Rancière, Foucault, Agamben and Lefort.
