Aaron Kerner and Jonathan Knapp
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474402903
- eISBN:
- 9781474422000
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474402903.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Extreme Cinema surveys post-millennial trends in transnational cinema—particularly in its highly stylized treatment of explicit sex and violence. In many cases these cinematic embellishments skirt ...
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Extreme Cinema surveys post-millennial trends in transnational cinema—particularly in its highly stylized treatment of explicit sex and violence. In many cases these cinematic embellishments skirt narrative motivation or even impede narrative progression, favoring instead the possibility to elicit an affective response in the spectator: physical sensation separate from cognition and emotion. As a result, in many instances extreme cinema is not governed according to narrative conventions (narrative arcs driven by character motivation), and instead emphasizes spectacles. If not episodic in structure, then, extreme cinema might host abrupt ruptures in the diegetic narrative—experiments in form and/or composition (editing, extreme close-ups, visual disorientation, sounds that straddle the boundary between non-diegetic and diegetic registers), the exhibition of intense violence and pain, acute intimacy with bodies in the throes of sex. In more episodic films, like the musical, or pornography, extreme cinema frequently showcases set cinematic numbers that flood sensory channels with auditory and/or visual stimulus. Extreme cinema wields the potential to manipulate the viewing body (as demonstrated by “reaction” videos posted on hosting sites such as YouTube). Crucially, the affects and emotions prompted by these films can vary wildly: abjection, disgust, arousal, laughter. Films considered include those of the American torture porn genre, as well as films that other scholars and marketers have classified as “New French Extremity” and “Asia Extreme.” While content is assuredly a concern, what Extreme Cinema explores, above all, is the importance of cinematic form.Less
Extreme Cinema surveys post-millennial trends in transnational cinema—particularly in its highly stylized treatment of explicit sex and violence. In many cases these cinematic embellishments skirt narrative motivation or even impede narrative progression, favoring instead the possibility to elicit an affective response in the spectator: physical sensation separate from cognition and emotion. As a result, in many instances extreme cinema is not governed according to narrative conventions (narrative arcs driven by character motivation), and instead emphasizes spectacles. If not episodic in structure, then, extreme cinema might host abrupt ruptures in the diegetic narrative—experiments in form and/or composition (editing, extreme close-ups, visual disorientation, sounds that straddle the boundary between non-diegetic and diegetic registers), the exhibition of intense violence and pain, acute intimacy with bodies in the throes of sex. In more episodic films, like the musical, or pornography, extreme cinema frequently showcases set cinematic numbers that flood sensory channels with auditory and/or visual stimulus. Extreme cinema wields the potential to manipulate the viewing body (as demonstrated by “reaction” videos posted on hosting sites such as YouTube). Crucially, the affects and emotions prompted by these films can vary wildly: abjection, disgust, arousal, laughter. Films considered include those of the American torture porn genre, as well as films that other scholars and marketers have classified as “New French Extremity” and “Asia Extreme.” While content is assuredly a concern, what Extreme Cinema explores, above all, is the importance of cinematic form.
Helena Ifill
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781784995133
- eISBN:
- 9781526136275
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784995133.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book explores the range of ways in which the two leading sensation authors of the 1860s, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins, engaged with nineteenth-century ideas about how the ...
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This book explores the range of ways in which the two leading sensation authors of the 1860s, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins, engaged with nineteenth-century ideas about how the personality is formed and the extent to which it can be influenced either by the subject or by others.
Innovative readings of Braddon’s and Collins’s sensation novels – some of them canonical, others less well-known – demonstrate how they reflect, employ, and challenge Victorian theories of heredity, degeneration, willpower, inherent constitution, education, insanity, upbringing and social circumstance. Far from presenting a reductive depiction of ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture’, Braddon and Collins show the creation of character to be a complex interplay of internal and external factors that are as much reliant on chance as on the efforts of the people who try to exert control over an individual’s development. Their works raise challenging questions about responsibility and self-determinism and, as the analyses of these texts reveals, demonstrate an acute awareness that the way in which character formation is understood fundamentally influences the way people (both in fiction and reality) are perceived, judged and treated.
Drawing on material from a variety of genres, including Victorian medical textbooks, scientific and sociological treatises, specialist and popular periodical literature, Creating character shows how sensation authors situated themselves at the intersections of established and developing, conservative and radical, learned and sensationalist thought about how identity could be made and modified.Less
This book explores the range of ways in which the two leading sensation authors of the 1860s, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins, engaged with nineteenth-century ideas about how the personality is formed and the extent to which it can be influenced either by the subject or by others.
Innovative readings of Braddon’s and Collins’s sensation novels – some of them canonical, others less well-known – demonstrate how they reflect, employ, and challenge Victorian theories of heredity, degeneration, willpower, inherent constitution, education, insanity, upbringing and social circumstance. Far from presenting a reductive depiction of ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture’, Braddon and Collins show the creation of character to be a complex interplay of internal and external factors that are as much reliant on chance as on the efforts of the people who try to exert control over an individual’s development. Their works raise challenging questions about responsibility and self-determinism and, as the analyses of these texts reveals, demonstrate an acute awareness that the way in which character formation is understood fundamentally influences the way people (both in fiction and reality) are perceived, judged and treated.
Drawing on material from a variety of genres, including Victorian medical textbooks, scientific and sociological treatises, specialist and popular periodical literature, Creating character shows how sensation authors situated themselves at the intersections of established and developing, conservative and radical, learned and sensationalist thought about how identity could be made and modified.
J. Michelle Coghlan
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474411202
- eISBN:
- 9781474426800
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474411202.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
In refocusing attention on the Paris Commune as a key event in American political and cultural memory, Sensational Internationalism radically changes our understanding of the relationship between ...
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In refocusing attention on the Paris Commune as a key event in American political and cultural memory, Sensational Internationalism radically changes our understanding of the relationship between France and the United States in the long nineteenth century. It offers fascinating, remarkably accessible readings of a range of literary works, from periodical poetry and boys’ adventure fiction to radical pulp and the writings of Henry James, as well as a rich analysis of visual, print, and performance culture, from post-bellum illustrated weeklies and panoramas to agit-prop pamphlets and Coney Island pyrotechnic shows. Throughout, it uncovers how a foreign revolution came back to life as a domestic commodity, and why for decades another nation’s memory came to feel so much our own. This book will speak to readers looking to understand the affective, cultural, and aesthetic afterlives of revolt and revolution pre-and-post Occupy Wall Street, as well as those interested in space, gender, performance, and transatlantic print culture.Less
In refocusing attention on the Paris Commune as a key event in American political and cultural memory, Sensational Internationalism radically changes our understanding of the relationship between France and the United States in the long nineteenth century. It offers fascinating, remarkably accessible readings of a range of literary works, from periodical poetry and boys’ adventure fiction to radical pulp and the writings of Henry James, as well as a rich analysis of visual, print, and performance culture, from post-bellum illustrated weeklies and panoramas to agit-prop pamphlets and Coney Island pyrotechnic shows. Throughout, it uncovers how a foreign revolution came back to life as a domestic commodity, and why for decades another nation’s memory came to feel so much our own. This book will speak to readers looking to understand the affective, cultural, and aesthetic afterlives of revolt and revolution pre-and-post Occupy Wall Street, as well as those interested in space, gender, performance, and transatlantic print culture.
W. Underhill James
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638420
- eISBN:
- 9780748671809
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638420.003.0009
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics
This chapter confronts Humboldt's innovative post-Kantian thought with Locke's contribution to the human understanding. It explores the way different languages build concepts. Language is taken as ...
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This chapter confronts Humboldt's innovative post-Kantian thought with Locke's contribution to the human understanding. It explores the way different languages build concepts. Language is taken as the space in which individuals think together and create concepts, redefining them and discussing their complexity. The concept of language as a ‘mirror’ which ‘reflects’ ideas is critiqued. Perception and sensation, following Kant, are considered by Humboldt to be active processes. Impressions are not imprinted upon the mind. The mind actively constructs experience based derived from sensation. But unlike Kant, Humboldt holds the activity of the mind to be an interactive process. Individuals carve concepts together, and assert their relation to them in their speech together and their writing.Less
This chapter confronts Humboldt's innovative post-Kantian thought with Locke's contribution to the human understanding. It explores the way different languages build concepts. Language is taken as the space in which individuals think together and create concepts, redefining them and discussing their complexity. The concept of language as a ‘mirror’ which ‘reflects’ ideas is critiqued. Perception and sensation, following Kant, are considered by Humboldt to be active processes. Impressions are not imprinted upon the mind. The mind actively constructs experience based derived from sensation. But unlike Kant, Humboldt holds the activity of the mind to be an interactive process. Individuals carve concepts together, and assert their relation to them in their speech together and their writing.
W. Underhill James
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638420
- eISBN:
- 9780748671809
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638420.003.0013
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics
This chapter points out that the term ‘worldview’ unfortunately stresses the visual nature of understanding and perception at the expense of the other senses. Perception and sensation involve smell, ...
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This chapter points out that the term ‘worldview’ unfortunately stresses the visual nature of understanding and perception at the expense of the other senses. Perception and sensation involve smell, touch, taste and hearing. These senses themselves are cultivated by the interaction of experience and understanding, and language plays a role in this process. The author stresses that languages offer widely different ways of speaking about sensation, concepts for taste and so on. At a metaphoric level experience is explained in terms of senses when we speak of ‘loud’ colours’ and ‘the bitter truth’. And these expressions do not coincide in all languages. Although the author stresses, that Humboldt's understanding of Weltansicht included all the senses, he does point out that the German terms stress seeing over the other senses, as does the French translation of them, vision du monde.Less
This chapter points out that the term ‘worldview’ unfortunately stresses the visual nature of understanding and perception at the expense of the other senses. Perception and sensation involve smell, touch, taste and hearing. These senses themselves are cultivated by the interaction of experience and understanding, and language plays a role in this process. The author stresses that languages offer widely different ways of speaking about sensation, concepts for taste and so on. At a metaphoric level experience is explained in terms of senses when we speak of ‘loud’ colours’ and ‘the bitter truth’. And these expressions do not coincide in all languages. Although the author stresses, that Humboldt's understanding of Weltansicht included all the senses, he does point out that the German terms stress seeing over the other senses, as does the French translation of them, vision du monde.
Nadine Boljkovac
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748646449
- eISBN:
- 9780748689248
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748646449.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
‘Figures of Life’ examines time and death via Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of power, freedom, figure, sensation and counter-actualisation or productive re-enactment. Through an ostensibly shocking ...
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‘Figures of Life’ examines time and death via Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of power, freedom, figure, sensation and counter-actualisation or productive re-enactment. Through an ostensibly shocking contention, this chapter contends that Alain Resnais’s Nuit et Brouillard creates and even affirms life and movement through series of audio-visual images that testify not only to the Event of the Holocaust but also to the virtual remains, the lingering affects and events of fear, sadness and hope that pervade each image, archive, stone and artefact. Deleuze’s concept of counter-actualisation is explained and conceived as a redoubling of a past actual wound for a ‘revolutionary becoming’, man’s only hope of response, as claims Deleuze, to human shame in the face of the intolerable. This chapter is the most demanding of the book with respect to an affirmative ethics and philosophy of life as it most directly confronts the interstice between personal and impersonal life and death through the Holocaust Event and its challenge to art, thought and survival.Less
‘Figures of Life’ examines time and death via Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of power, freedom, figure, sensation and counter-actualisation or productive re-enactment. Through an ostensibly shocking contention, this chapter contends that Alain Resnais’s Nuit et Brouillard creates and even affirms life and movement through series of audio-visual images that testify not only to the Event of the Holocaust but also to the virtual remains, the lingering affects and events of fear, sadness and hope that pervade each image, archive, stone and artefact. Deleuze’s concept of counter-actualisation is explained and conceived as a redoubling of a past actual wound for a ‘revolutionary becoming’, man’s only hope of response, as claims Deleuze, to human shame in the face of the intolerable. This chapter is the most demanding of the book with respect to an affirmative ethics and philosophy of life as it most directly confronts the interstice between personal and impersonal life and death through the Holocaust Event and its challenge to art, thought and survival.
Nadine Boljkovac
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748646449
- eISBN:
- 9780748689248
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748646449.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Untimely Affects offers an interweaving of Deleuzian philosophy and close film analysis to discern the potential of art in the face of global ongoing devastations. How does thought persist ...
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Untimely Affects offers an interweaving of Deleuzian philosophy and close film analysis to discern the potential of art in the face of global ongoing devastations. How does thought persist productively after World War II? How can cinema function as a means of ethical resistance and thought? In this first extensive analysis of French film artists Chris Marker and Alain Resnais's works together, Untimely Affects draws on concepts and images that expose these layers of a recent past in relation to ‘a time yet to come’. Mindful of the seen and unseen ‘that quicken the heart’ (Marker), this book discerns life-affirming possibilities. As such, Untimely Affects speaks to productive limits and potentials of cinema, thought, self and life through creative untimeliness (Nietzsche) and the idea of the ‘ever new’. Film and video works are thereby conceived as machines, or interacting past-future, virtual-actual images, ‘bodies’ and audio-visual relations that do not replicate, reproduce or represent as they produce something new.Less
Untimely Affects offers an interweaving of Deleuzian philosophy and close film analysis to discern the potential of art in the face of global ongoing devastations. How does thought persist productively after World War II? How can cinema function as a means of ethical resistance and thought? In this first extensive analysis of French film artists Chris Marker and Alain Resnais's works together, Untimely Affects draws on concepts and images that expose these layers of a recent past in relation to ‘a time yet to come’. Mindful of the seen and unseen ‘that quicken the heart’ (Marker), this book discerns life-affirming possibilities. As such, Untimely Affects speaks to productive limits and potentials of cinema, thought, self and life through creative untimeliness (Nietzsche) and the idea of the ‘ever new’. Film and video works are thereby conceived as machines, or interacting past-future, virtual-actual images, ‘bodies’ and audio-visual relations that do not replicate, reproduce or represent as they produce something new.
Karen Throsby
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719099625
- eISBN:
- 9781526114976
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719099625.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter argues that while marathon swimming is commonly understood through the lens of suffering, swimmers are also drawn to it by its potential for intoxicating pleasures. The chapter explores ...
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This chapter argues that while marathon swimming is commonly understood through the lens of suffering, swimmers are also drawn to it by its potential for intoxicating pleasures. The chapter explores the different kinds of pleasure experienced by marathon swimmers. This challenges conventional sporting narratives of mind over matter, opening the way instead for a more nuanced account that emphasises the process of becoming not only as transforming what the body can do, but also how it feels. The chapter argues that the autotelic pleasures of swimming constitute a form of ‘existential capital’ among swimmers, which can only be known by those within that social world.Less
This chapter argues that while marathon swimming is commonly understood through the lens of suffering, swimmers are also drawn to it by its potential for intoxicating pleasures. The chapter explores the different kinds of pleasure experienced by marathon swimmers. This challenges conventional sporting narratives of mind over matter, opening the way instead for a more nuanced account that emphasises the process of becoming not only as transforming what the body can do, but also how it feels. The chapter argues that the autotelic pleasures of swimming constitute a form of ‘existential capital’ among swimmers, which can only be known by those within that social world.
Roi Wagner
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691171715
- eISBN:
- 9781400883783
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691171715.003.0006
- Subject:
- Mathematics, History of Mathematics
This chapter introduces the notion of embodied mathematical cognition by reviewing some neuro-cognitive theories of mathematical concept formation. It first considers the neuro-cognitive debate on ...
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This chapter introduces the notion of embodied mathematical cognition by reviewing some neuro-cognitive theories of mathematical concept formation. It first considers the neuro-cognitive debate on the mental representation of numbers, focusing on Stanislas Dehaene's notion of “number sense” and Vincent Walsh's ATOM (acronym for a theory of magnitude), before presenting the cognitive theory of mathematical metaphor and relating it to Water J. Freeman III's theory of meaning. It also examines Gilles Deleuze's Logic of Sensation in the context of mathematical practice, the link between the history of mathematics and neuro-cognition through an analysis of theories that explicitly engage the formation of higher mathematical concepts, and some challenges to the theory of mathematical metaphors.Less
This chapter introduces the notion of embodied mathematical cognition by reviewing some neuro-cognitive theories of mathematical concept formation. It first considers the neuro-cognitive debate on the mental representation of numbers, focusing on Stanislas Dehaene's notion of “number sense” and Vincent Walsh's ATOM (acronym for a theory of magnitude), before presenting the cognitive theory of mathematical metaphor and relating it to Water J. Freeman III's theory of meaning. It also examines Gilles Deleuze's Logic of Sensation in the context of mathematical practice, the link between the history of mathematics and neuro-cognition through an analysis of theories that explicitly engage the formation of higher mathematical concepts, and some challenges to the theory of mathematical metaphors.
Amaleena Damlé
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748668212
- eISBN:
- 9781474400923
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748668212.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter explores hunger and the anorexic body in Amélie Nothomb’s autofictional work. It analyses relations between hunger, desire and pleasure, sensation and immanence, investigates the making ...
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This chapter explores hunger and the anorexic body in Amélie Nothomb’s autofictional work. It analyses relations between hunger, desire and pleasure, sensation and immanence, investigates the making of a Deleuzian Body without Organs through the dematerialisating structures of anorexia, and opens out the possibility of the rematerialisation of the body alongside literary experimentation with corporeality. The chapter shows how Nothomb’s work both resonates with and reorients Deleuze’s thinking, with particular regard to notions of molarity, to the politics of beauty and illness, to experiments with body and art, and to the location of the limit.Less
This chapter explores hunger and the anorexic body in Amélie Nothomb’s autofictional work. It analyses relations between hunger, desire and pleasure, sensation and immanence, investigates the making of a Deleuzian Body without Organs through the dematerialisating structures of anorexia, and opens out the possibility of the rematerialisation of the body alongside literary experimentation with corporeality. The chapter shows how Nothomb’s work both resonates with and reorients Deleuze’s thinking, with particular regard to notions of molarity, to the politics of beauty and illness, to experiments with body and art, and to the location of the limit.
Miguel Vatter
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823256013
- eISBN:
- 9780823261291
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823256013.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
In this chapter, the relation between biological and political life is discussed in light of the ideal of a philosophical life as a life that approximates a materialist, anti-spiritualist conception ...
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In this chapter, the relation between biological and political life is discussed in light of the ideal of a philosophical life as a life that approximates a materialist, anti-spiritualist conception of “eternal life” as found in Aristotle, Spinoza and in contemporary post-Deleuzian conceptions of the thinking body. This conception of eternal life is contrasted with Heidegger’s existential idea of philosophical life as being-toward-death.Less
In this chapter, the relation between biological and political life is discussed in light of the ideal of a philosophical life as a life that approximates a materialist, anti-spiritualist conception of “eternal life” as found in Aristotle, Spinoza and in contemporary post-Deleuzian conceptions of the thinking body. This conception of eternal life is contrasted with Heidegger’s existential idea of philosophical life as being-toward-death.
Eric Severson
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823280261
- eISBN:
- 9780823281602
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823280261.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Levinas utilizes the term “trauma” to refer to the pre-original unsettling of the auto-identification of the ego, a project that takes center stage in his final masterwork, Otherwise than Being. This ...
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Levinas utilizes the term “trauma” to refer to the pre-original unsettling of the auto-identification of the ego, a project that takes center stage in his final masterwork, Otherwise than Being. This chapter begins with some deliberations concerning the use of the term “trauma” to refer to this unsettling, particularly in light of contemporary psychological and medical uses of that term. Building from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Heidegger’s work on unconcealment, it argues that whereas for Heidegger and Plato trauma occurs through unconcealment of sensation, for Levinas trauma occurs as an interruption of sensation’s appropriation into perception itself. The chapter focuses principally on the event itself, the encounter with the other, which at times he calls “inspiration” instead of trauma, and the way this event occurs in a time-before-time that initiates the very possibility of responsibility.Less
Levinas utilizes the term “trauma” to refer to the pre-original unsettling of the auto-identification of the ego, a project that takes center stage in his final masterwork, Otherwise than Being. This chapter begins with some deliberations concerning the use of the term “trauma” to refer to this unsettling, particularly in light of contemporary psychological and medical uses of that term. Building from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Heidegger’s work on unconcealment, it argues that whereas for Heidegger and Plato trauma occurs through unconcealment of sensation, for Levinas trauma occurs as an interruption of sensation’s appropriation into perception itself. The chapter focuses principally on the event itself, the encounter with the other, which at times he calls “inspiration” instead of trauma, and the way this event occurs in a time-before-time that initiates the very possibility of responsibility.
Richard Kearney and Brian Treanor (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823265886
- eISBN:
- 9780823266951
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823265886.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Building on a tradition in which accounts of carnal embodiment are overlooked, misread, or underdeveloped, this book initiates a focus on carnal hermeneutics as such, as distinct field of study and ...
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Building on a tradition in which accounts of carnal embodiment are overlooked, misread, or underdeveloped, this book initiates a focus on carnal hermeneutics as such, as distinct field of study and concern. Carnal hermeneutics seeks to provide a philosophical approach to the body as interpretation. It begins with the recognition that human existence requires an art of understanding as well as a science of explanation. The former is rooted in our finite, spatio-temporal being-in-the-world, which calls for an account of meanings involving corporeal sensation, orientation, and linguistic articulation. The resulting hermeneutics transcends the traditional dualism of rational understanding and embodied sensibility, arguing that our most carnal sensations are already interpretations. Therefore, carnal hermeneutics truly goes “all the way down,” rejecting the opposition of language and sensibility, word to flesh, text to body. The essays collected in this volume are committed, each it its own way, to the interpreting the surplus of meaning arising from our carnal embodiment, its role in our experience and understanding, and its engagement with the wider world.Less
Building on a tradition in which accounts of carnal embodiment are overlooked, misread, or underdeveloped, this book initiates a focus on carnal hermeneutics as such, as distinct field of study and concern. Carnal hermeneutics seeks to provide a philosophical approach to the body as interpretation. It begins with the recognition that human existence requires an art of understanding as well as a science of explanation. The former is rooted in our finite, spatio-temporal being-in-the-world, which calls for an account of meanings involving corporeal sensation, orientation, and linguistic articulation. The resulting hermeneutics transcends the traditional dualism of rational understanding and embodied sensibility, arguing that our most carnal sensations are already interpretations. Therefore, carnal hermeneutics truly goes “all the way down,” rejecting the opposition of language and sensibility, word to flesh, text to body. The essays collected in this volume are committed, each it its own way, to the interpreting the surplus of meaning arising from our carnal embodiment, its role in our experience and understanding, and its engagement with the wider world.
Helena Ifill
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781784995133
- eISBN:
- 9781526136275
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784995133.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The introduction provides an overview of the intertwined strands which run through Creating character. Sensation fiction is introduced as a genre which was itself seen by Victorian literary critics ...
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The introduction provides an overview of the intertwined strands which run through Creating character. Sensation fiction is introduced as a genre which was itself seen by Victorian literary critics as a negative determinant which could corrupt readers, and which both Victorian and modern critics have identified as predominantly concerned with plotting rather than characterisation. Contrastingly, I argue that sensation fiction is in fact very concerned with the creation of character and is sensitive to the varied ways in which the personality can be formed, modified and corrupted; the emphasis on plot is in fact an acknowledgement of the many uncontrollable factors which can dictate the course of a person’s life. Next, the relevant contextual background of ongoing scientific, medical and educational debates is explained, ranging from early theories of moral management, through Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and onwards to the development of degenerationist and eugenicist thought. Recurring topics of criminality, insanity and education are also introduced here, as are the theories of some of the prominent Victorian medical people whose work is drawn on extensively in future chapters. The Introduction ends with a summary of what the reader can expect in the rest of the book.Less
The introduction provides an overview of the intertwined strands which run through Creating character. Sensation fiction is introduced as a genre which was itself seen by Victorian literary critics as a negative determinant which could corrupt readers, and which both Victorian and modern critics have identified as predominantly concerned with plotting rather than characterisation. Contrastingly, I argue that sensation fiction is in fact very concerned with the creation of character and is sensitive to the varied ways in which the personality can be formed, modified and corrupted; the emphasis on plot is in fact an acknowledgement of the many uncontrollable factors which can dictate the course of a person’s life. Next, the relevant contextual background of ongoing scientific, medical and educational debates is explained, ranging from early theories of moral management, through Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and onwards to the development of degenerationist and eugenicist thought. Recurring topics of criminality, insanity and education are also introduced here, as are the theories of some of the prominent Victorian medical people whose work is drawn on extensively in future chapters. The Introduction ends with a summary of what the reader can expect in the rest of the book.
Matilda Mroz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748643462
- eISBN:
- 9780748676514
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748643462.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter outlines how writing on film has frequently privileged particular moments that can be extracted from the flow of a film's time; the temporal continuum of film emerges in much analysis, ...
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This chapter outlines how writing on film has frequently privileged particular moments that can be extracted from the flow of a film's time; the temporal continuum of film emerges in much analysis, explicitly or implicitly, as a threatening force. Mroz considers how the momentary has been privileged in many theories of cinema, including early formulations of cinematic experience such as the discourses of photogénie and cinephilia. This chapter then explores in more detail the concepts used in the analyses contained in the book: sensation, affect and duration. Mroz identifies a spectrum of theoretical thought related to embodied viewing and the sensory appeal of cinema, examining the writing of theorists such as Laura Marks and Vivian Sobchack. The chapter argues that, while it is important to be sensitive to the ways in which images can resonate with materiality and hapticity, film analysis should also consider the wider temporal context in which such responses might arise. This chapter posits that in the duration of film viewing sense and thought intertwine. Mroz introduces a Bergsonian concept of duration with variegated rhythms, suggesting that it can be used to explore the way in which temporal strands and rhythms interweave in the duration of a film.Less
This chapter outlines how writing on film has frequently privileged particular moments that can be extracted from the flow of a film's time; the temporal continuum of film emerges in much analysis, explicitly or implicitly, as a threatening force. Mroz considers how the momentary has been privileged in many theories of cinema, including early formulations of cinematic experience such as the discourses of photogénie and cinephilia. This chapter then explores in more detail the concepts used in the analyses contained in the book: sensation, affect and duration. Mroz identifies a spectrum of theoretical thought related to embodied viewing and the sensory appeal of cinema, examining the writing of theorists such as Laura Marks and Vivian Sobchack. The chapter argues that, while it is important to be sensitive to the ways in which images can resonate with materiality and hapticity, film analysis should also consider the wider temporal context in which such responses might arise. This chapter posits that in the duration of film viewing sense and thought intertwine. Mroz introduces a Bergsonian concept of duration with variegated rhythms, suggesting that it can be used to explore the way in which temporal strands and rhythms interweave in the duration of a film.
Nick Freeman
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526124340
- eISBN:
- 9781526136206
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526124340.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Focusing largely on short stories of the 1890s and 1900s, this essay examines Richard Marsh's many similarities and connections with late-Victorian newspapers, particularly the tabloid press typified ...
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Focusing largely on short stories of the 1890s and 1900s, this essay examines Richard Marsh's many similarities and connections with late-Victorian newspapers, particularly the tabloid press typified by George Purkess's Illustrated Police News. It argues that Marsh used the direct and accessible language of popular journalism to clothe his outlandish sensation fiction in the trappings of believability, while at the same time exploiting the literary possibilities of the news itself, notably in his responses to the infamous Jack the Ripper murders in Whitechapel in 1888 in stories such as 'The adventure of the phonograph' (Curios, 1898) and 'A member of the Anti-Tobacco League' (Under One Flag, 1906).Less
Focusing largely on short stories of the 1890s and 1900s, this essay examines Richard Marsh's many similarities and connections with late-Victorian newspapers, particularly the tabloid press typified by George Purkess's Illustrated Police News. It argues that Marsh used the direct and accessible language of popular journalism to clothe his outlandish sensation fiction in the trappings of believability, while at the same time exploiting the literary possibilities of the news itself, notably in his responses to the infamous Jack the Ripper murders in Whitechapel in 1888 in stories such as 'The adventure of the phonograph' (Curios, 1898) and 'A member of the Anti-Tobacco League' (Under One Flag, 1906).
Anne-Lise Rey
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199987313
- eISBN:
- 9780199346240
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199987313.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Francis Glisson is well known for having highlighted, in his Tractatus de Anatomia hepatis (1654) and especially later in his Tractatus de ventriculo anatomis (1677), the notion of irritability of ...
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Francis Glisson is well known for having highlighted, in his Tractatus de Anatomia hepatis (1654) and especially later in his Tractatus de ventriculo anatomis (1677), the notion of irritability of the fiber, which is understood as an internal force of action and reaction. In a text of 1654, Glisson considers that irritability depends on “putting the nerves on the alert” (vigoratio). However, in 1677 he characterizes the notion of irritation without making it depend on the movement of the nerves or the awareness of the human being. Thus, irritation became a generic concept accounting for an internal force at work in the body, which supposes a perception without awareness, and is also a kind of perception before sensation. This paper explains what led Glisson to extend what might be called the scope of irritability and how his philosophical and epistemological positions shaped this extension.Less
Francis Glisson is well known for having highlighted, in his Tractatus de Anatomia hepatis (1654) and especially later in his Tractatus de ventriculo anatomis (1677), the notion of irritability of the fiber, which is understood as an internal force of action and reaction. In a text of 1654, Glisson considers that irritability depends on “putting the nerves on the alert” (vigoratio). However, in 1677 he characterizes the notion of irritation without making it depend on the movement of the nerves or the awareness of the human being. Thus, irritation became a generic concept accounting for an internal force at work in the body, which supposes a perception without awareness, and is also a kind of perception before sensation. This paper explains what led Glisson to extend what might be called the scope of irritability and how his philosophical and epistemological positions shaped this extension.
Niklaus Largier
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520288423
- eISBN:
- 9780520963368
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520288423.003.0025
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Religion
This chapter discusses the significance of medieval practices of prayer both for the modern rediscovery of media and for the anthropology of sensation. It demonstrates how medieval theories of ...
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This chapter discusses the significance of medieval practices of prayer both for the modern rediscovery of media and for the anthropology of sensation. It demonstrates how medieval theories of reading, prayer, and contemplation thematize ways in which specific media—words, images, and music—are to be used in order to produce sensual and affective cognition. In doing so, these theories develop a sophisticated understanding of media on one side, and a specific understanding of the human soul as a sphere of evocation of possible sensation and affect on the other side. In working through this complex intersection of media and soul-formation I focus on this very notion of possibility, its significance in the context of an ‘anthropology of Catholicism’, and its presence in catholic discourses from the Middle Ages up to the twentieth century. Through discussion of the source texts an understanding of the seemingly established anthropological distinction between “inner man” and “outer man,” “interiority” and “exteriority” is challenged and what remains is a radically different way of thinking about interiority.Less
This chapter discusses the significance of medieval practices of prayer both for the modern rediscovery of media and for the anthropology of sensation. It demonstrates how medieval theories of reading, prayer, and contemplation thematize ways in which specific media—words, images, and music—are to be used in order to produce sensual and affective cognition. In doing so, these theories develop a sophisticated understanding of media on one side, and a specific understanding of the human soul as a sphere of evocation of possible sensation and affect on the other side. In working through this complex intersection of media and soul-formation I focus on this very notion of possibility, its significance in the context of an ‘anthropology of Catholicism’, and its presence in catholic discourses from the Middle Ages up to the twentieth century. Through discussion of the source texts an understanding of the seemingly established anthropological distinction between “inner man” and “outer man,” “interiority” and “exteriority” is challenged and what remains is a radically different way of thinking about interiority.
Emmanuel Alloa
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823265886
- eISBN:
- 9780823266951
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823265886.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
In this chapter, the author argues that hermeneutics proper is preceded by a non-textual art of interpretation and distinguishing based in sensible diagnostics, evident particularly in the medical ...
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In this chapter, the author argues that hermeneutics proper is preceded by a non-textual art of interpretation and distinguishing based in sensible diagnostics, evident particularly in the medical tradition. This diakrisis places a special emphasis on touch, which is simultaneously both the “lowest” and most universal of the senses. A close reading of Aristotle’s De Anima reveals that touch is a crucial sense for our orientation in the world, and that touch cannot be reduced to immediacy or direct contact.Less
In this chapter, the author argues that hermeneutics proper is preceded by a non-textual art of interpretation and distinguishing based in sensible diagnostics, evident particularly in the medical tradition. This diakrisis places a special emphasis on touch, which is simultaneously both the “lowest” and most universal of the senses. A close reading of Aristotle’s De Anima reveals that touch is a crucial sense for our orientation in the world, and that touch cannot be reduced to immediacy or direct contact.
Lucyna Kirwil and Yiannis Laouris
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781847428837
- eISBN:
- 9781447307723
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781847428837.003.0009
- Subject:
- Social Work, Children and Families
This chapter presents how online experimentation with the self changes with the child's age and gender and how the prevalence of pretending to be a different kind of person (online identity) and ...
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This chapter presents how online experimentation with the self changes with the child's age and gender and how the prevalence of pretending to be a different kind of person (online identity) and different age online than a child's real identity and age vary between European countries. It explores how children's experimentation with self-identity and age online is related to online activities and experience of online risks and harm. The findings show that experimenting with the self online is less prevalent than expected; however, it remains a risky online opportunity because it is related to undertaking risky online behaviours, encountering online risks and experiencing harm from some online risks. The chapter also reveals that experimenting with the self online, together with the child's age and sensation-seeking, are significant predictors of undertaking risky online activities by children aged 11–16.Less
This chapter presents how online experimentation with the self changes with the child's age and gender and how the prevalence of pretending to be a different kind of person (online identity) and different age online than a child's real identity and age vary between European countries. It explores how children's experimentation with self-identity and age online is related to online activities and experience of online risks and harm. The findings show that experimenting with the self online is less prevalent than expected; however, it remains a risky online opportunity because it is related to undertaking risky online behaviours, encountering online risks and experiencing harm from some online risks. The chapter also reveals that experimenting with the self online, together with the child's age and sensation-seeking, are significant predictors of undertaking risky online activities by children aged 11–16.
