In the Islamic philosophical tradition, it seems that the image of woman has not been studied very much and the role of woman has hardly ever mentioned. First, we will briefly explain why we chose the concept of imagination. Afterward, from which sources the Islamic philosophical tradition has formed its concepts, and as a result, we would try to talk about where it established philosophy, whether it was theoretical or practical. Finally, we want to finish the subject by giving examples (...) from the fact of women in Islamic philosophical tradition. (shrink)

Traditional games are considered agents of enculturation. This article explores the procedure to access the cultural meanings transmitted in a traditional game. The goal is to understand what children aged 6–11 make of the game called ‘the chained bear’ and to compare the meanings retrieved with those of different traditional versions of the game. For such a purpose, through an exploratory cross-sectional study, cartoons depicting people playing the game were exhibited and viewers were asked to interpret them (...) as a drama play, as well as contributing a title, a plot and saying how they would name the characters. The results show that, beyond the individual images that each child created in their mind, most of them coincided in stories about harassment and defense and theft and protection. These plots match those of the ludic tradition, showing that the actions evoke different pictures to each individual, but share common cultural meanings in turn. The study shows a procedure to access the meanings that traditional games transmit and confirms that games contain pieces of culture, which makes them agents of enculturation. (shrink)

The thesis explored here is that ?image technologies? prominent in today's communications technologies are acidic to traditional cultures. I parallel examples from the history of early modern science and its optical instrumentation with the rise of cinema and television and other audio?visual technologies to show a similar history and effect. One dominant contemporary phenomenon which occurs through image technologies is the appearance of pluriculture, a unique mediation of the multi?cultural. The challenge of pluriculture vis?à?vis the contemporary forms of reaction (...) to the phenomenon is also examined. (shrink)

Images of Eternity. Concepts of God in Five Religious Traditions. Keith Ward. Oneworld Publications Ltd., Oxford and New York 1993. viii, 197 pp. £8.95.

Is there a universal concept of God? Do all the great faiths of the world share a vision of the same supreme reality? In an attempt to answer these questions, Keith Ward considers the doctrine of an ultimate reality within five world religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. He studies closely the works of definitive, orthodox writers from each tradition - Sankara, Ramanuja, Asvaghosa, Maimonides, Al-Ghazzali and Aquinas - to build up a series of 'images' of God, (...) a common core of belief. Ward discovers that while the great religious traditions of the world retain their differences, there are convergences of thought at the deepest level, with a broad similarity of structure in concepts of God. He concludes that a recognition of these beliefs, as well as encouraging a clearer acceptance of the mystery of the divine, might also lead to an increase in understanding and tolerance of other faiths, to the enrichment of one's own. (shrink)

How, according to the folk-tradition, do the Walloons see the Flemish population? An analysis of a stereotype is attempted here, considering the importance of stock-phrases and tags with regard to relations between populations. For an historian, the study of the folk-tradition sets a lot of problems concerning the research and the critical use of a complex documentation : oral tradition, French and dialect al literature, newspapers, etc. With such a documentation, we are able to describe some «patterns» of Flemings : (...) the pedlar, the play-character, the militant Fleming, the farmer, the agricultural labourer and the worker. These portraits generally emphasize the dull-witted and rough appearance of the Fleming. The rise of these ideas, at a some time, among the Walloon population appears resulting from the social and cultural position of a great deal of the Flemish immigrants into the Walloon area. (shrink)

This article analyses an important category from Deleuze's philosophy – the notion of intensity – and explores its significance for Deleuze and the ways it can be used to think about poetic cinema. I use the concept of the intensive-image to define a cinematic style that dissipates narrative action in favour of more contemplative and sensory experiences, hence films that are able to turn onscreen reality into purely affective phenomena. The notion of intensity, I argue, does not allow us to (...) reply easily to the question about representation (i.e., “what is the film about?”), mainly because its images are indeterminate and flowing, combined in a multiple manner that excludes any simple reduction to signification. The general argument that follows, illustrated by a careful reading of key poetic texts, is that the focus on the intensive-image inspires readers to reconsider Deleuze's classification of the cinema into two separate periods as well as to understand the ways in which intensity finds expression in films that produce problems, displacements and provocations. In the words of Pasolini, this is the poetic film tradition which must be placed diachronically in relation to the language of the film narrative, a diachronism that, he says, would appear destined to be always more pronounced. In the last section of this article, I look at Luis Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou (1929) as an early case of the poetic image and draw on key theorists and filmmakers who have discussed the cinema's power of affection and intensity. (shrink)

Now available in English for the first time, The Visibility of the Image explores the development of an influential aesthetic tradition through the work of six figures. Analysing their contribution to the progress of formal aesthetics, from its origins in Germany in the 1880s to semiotic interpretations in America a century later, the six chapters cover: Robert Zimmermann (1824-1898), the first to separate aesthetics and metaphysics and approach aesthetics along the lines of formal logic, providing a purely syntactic way of (...) using signs, regardless of objective content; Alois Riegl (1858-1905), who went on to further develop aesthetics on the model of formal logic, creating a theory of style in response to Zimmermann's call for an aesthetics oriented toward formal logic; Heinrich Wölfflin (1864-1945), who represents a step toward an understanding of consciousness by using pictures as cognitive tools; Konrad Fiedler (1841-1895), the Saxon philosopher who considered the possibility that some kinds of images are made and viewed not for what they show, but for their visibility's sake alone; Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), responsible for taking up the connections between the problems of reducing the range of potential meanings and contexts of a given image down to just the picture surface; Charles William Morris (1901-1979), who set out to establish whether a picture with no objective reference, such as an abstract painting, still counts as a sign, and if so, in what sense. Bringing these thinkers together and interlinking their ideas, Lambert Wiesing presents an engaging history of formal aesthetics, while reconstructing the philosophical foundations for the appearance of new image forms in the 20th century, including the video-clip, abstract collage, digital simulation and virtual reality. Using this original approach, The Visibility of the Image introduces the rise of modern image theory and provides a valuable account of our engagement with pictures in the 21st century. (shrink)

Nehama Aschkenasy Eves Journey: Feminine Images in Hebraic Literary Tradition Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. ISBN 0‐8122‐8033‐4. Hardcover, $36.95. Pp. xv+269.

The iconic revolution changing the routine of everyday communication is gradually leading to the creation of a linguistic structure that combines visual and verbal tools in both formal and semantic aspects. Computer and mobile applications today enable high-tech imaging that ensures the spread of iconic communication in mundane interactions and the possibility of a creative combination of verbal and iconic codes for language users who navigate in a world of images in an increasingly confident manner. The iconic revolution that (...) accompanies this expansion of new communication technologies thus leads to serious changes in language use, thereby enhancing the transmission of verbal and iconic language to become a key element of mundane communication. This article argues that this turn in communication technology guided the attention of Kristóf Nyíri, an eminent figure in contemporary Hungarian philosophy, to the problem of the relationship between icon, language, and tradition. The aim of the present essay is twofold: to shed light on the relevance of Nyíri’s analysis and thoughts on the relationship between tradition and language in the history of communication, and to identify, using Nyíri’s model of pictorial meaning as a starting point, the relevant aspects of the conception of technological determinism in answering questions from the philosophy of language and mind. (shrink)

Michigan State University faculty, staff, alumni, and students travel the world on "study abroad" programs, research and development projects, and personal vacations; many document their experiences photographically. "MSU Global Focus" is an international photography competition created in 1999 by MSU's Office of International Studies and Programs, to foster the sharing of such photographs. Global Focus: Images of a Land-Grant Tradition is a blend of images and words, of artistic expression and historical documentation, of past and present, and of (...) the perspectives of many people. Many of the archival and current photographs have never before been published. More than 60 winning photographs from the first five years of the competition are featured in this book. These photos are juxtaposedwith more than 100 images depicting the breadth of M.S.U.'s international involvements, stretching from as long ago as the 1870s to the present day. Michigan State University has a long history of international involvement. The institution was among the handful of U.S. colleges and universities involved in supporting and establishing foreign programs immediately after World War II. Those efforts involved hun-dreds of faculty members and initiated the tradition of strong international involvement that continues today. In her preface to the book, M.S.U. President Lou Anna K. Simon said, "Advancing Knowledge. Transforming Lives. That is how we sum up our land-grant mission today. And at its core, that means we make a difference in people's lives--not just those people who come to Michigan State, but all of the people whose lives we touch around the world. The photos and text in this book tell an important part of that story, one that helps define who we are and one in which all of us who are part of Michigan State can take tremendous pride.". (shrink)

From the blending of diverse peoples, a singular culture has developed in the lower Chattahoochee River Valley that persists to the present day-diverse, robust, and tradition proud. Published by the Historic Chattahoochee Commission, A Chattahoochee Album is Fred Fussell's personal tribute to the region, lovingly compiled to honor the folklife and traditions of an enduring place and its people.

The reference of the postmodern task of thinking is Auschwitz, the abyss and discontinuity separating us from the world of our ancestors. As inhabitants of Planet Auschwitz our point of reference lacks all transcendental warrants; it is not a non-referable reference which constitutes the abyss we must enter, endure, and in which our intellectual and cultural tradition must be transformed. The private/public transformations which constitute the texts of this book attempt to depart from the dystopic individuality and public life resulting (...) from business-as-usual after Auschwitz. The three parts of the book are progressive reworkings of traditional metaphysics as adapted and modified by a modernism that refuses to grapple with its complicity. It is precisely that complicity which postmodern thinking takes up in its attempt to signify otherwise than the easy modernist translations and images of tradition. Thus it is a series of uneasy images imaging otherwise but never apart from modernity that take us away from complicity toward a transformed tradition. The uneasy images of this book are photogrammic combinations of photographs and texts, mutual supplements, pulling tradition through the Event against the persistent and murderous forces of contemporary idolatry and repression. (shrink)

In developing a new theory of vision in Ad Vitellionem paralipomena Kepler introduced a new optical concept, pictura, which is an image projected on to a screen by a camera obscura. He distinguished this pictura from an imago, the traditional image of medieval optics that existed only in the imagination. By the 1670s a new theory of optical imagery had been developed, and Kepler's pictura and imago became real and virtual images, two aspects of a unified concept of (...) image. The new concept of image developed out of a synthesis of Kepler's determination of the geometrical location of a pictura as the limit, or focus, of refracted pencils of rays and the triangulation used by a single eye to determine the perceived location of an imago. The distinction between real and imaginary images was largely developed by Gilles Personne de Roberval and the Jesuits Francesco Eschinardi and Claude François Milliet Dechales. (shrink)

How do pictures represent? In this book Robert Hopkins casts new light on an ancient question by connecting it to issues in the philosophies of mind and perception. He starts by describing several striking features of picturing that demand explanation. These features strongly suggest that our experience of pictures is central to the way they represent, and Hopkins characterizes that experience as one of resemblance in a particular respect. He deals convincingly with the objections traditionally assumed to be fatal to (...) resemblance views, and shows how his own account is uniquely well placed to explain picturing's key features. His discussion engages in detail with issues concerning perception in general, including how to describe phenomena that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists, and the book concludes with an attempt to see what a proper understanding of picturing can tell us about that deeply mysterious phenomenon, the visual imagination. (shrink)

Engages with the impact of modern technology on experimental physicists. This study reveals how the increasing scale and complexity of apparatus has distanced physicists from the very science which drew them into experimenting, and has fragmented microphysics into different technical traditions.

The poor denoising effect for noisy grayscale images with traditional processing methods would be obtained under strong noise condition, and some image details would be lost. In this paper, a parallel array model of Fitzhugh–Nagumo neurons was proposed, which can restore noisy grayscale images well with low peak signal-to-noise ratio conditions and the image details are better preserved. Firstly, the row-column scanning method was used to convert the 2D grayscale image into a 1D signal, and then the (...) 1D signal was converted into a binary pulse amplitude modulation signal by signal modulation. The modulated signal was input to an FHN parallel array for stochastic resonance. Finally, the array output signal was restored to a 2D gray image, and the image restoration effect was analyzed based on the PSNR and Structural SIMilarity index. It is shown that the SR effect can be exhibited in an array of FHN neuron nonlinearities by increasing the array size, and the image restoration effect is significantly better than the traditional image restoration method, and larger PSNR and SSIM can be obtained. It provides a new idea for grayscale image restoration in a low PSNR environment. (shrink)

From a twenty-first century partnership between bioethics and neuroscience, the modern field of neuroethics is emerging, and technologies enabling functional neuroimaging with unprecedented sensitivity have brought new ethical, social and legal issues to the forefront. Some issues, akin to those surrounding modern genetics, raise critical questions regarding prediction of disease, privacy and identity. However, with new and still-evolving insights into our neurobiology and previously unquantifiable features of profoundly personal behaviors such as social attitude, value and moral agency, the difficulty of (...) carefully and properly interpreting the relationship between brain findings and our own self-concept is unprecedented. Therefore, while the ethics of genetics provides a legitimate starting point - even a backbone - for tackling ethical issues in neuroimaging, they do not suffice. Drawing on recent neuroimaging findings and their plausible real-world applications, we argue that interpretation of neuroimaging data is a key epistemological and ethical challenge. This challenge is two-fold. First, at the scientific level, the sheer complexity of neuroscience research poses challenges for integration of knowledge and meaningful interpretation of data. Second, at the social and cultural level, we find that interpretations of imaging studies are bound by cultural and anthropological frameworks. In particular, the introduction of concepts of self and personhood in neuroimaging illustrates the interaction of interpretation levels and is a major reason why ethical reflection on genetics will only partially help settle neuroethical issues. Indeed, ethical interpretation of such findings will necessitate not only traditional bioethical input but also a wider perspective on the construction of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Image and SilenceGiorgio AgambenTranslated by Leland de la Durantaye (bio)[End Page 94]In the Roman pantheon there is a goddess named Angerona, represented with her mouth bound and sealed (ore obligato signatoque).1 Her finger is raised to her lips as if to command silence. Scholars claim that she represents, in the context of pagan mystery cults, the power of silence, although there is no consensus among them as to how (...) to understand this power. Etymologically speaking, myein, the root of the Greek word mysterion, means “to close the mouth, to silence.” At the beginning of the sacred rites in Eleusis a herald “commanded silence” (epittatei tēn siōpen). It is said that that the initiates into these Eleusinian mysteries were required to maintain absolute silence concerning what they had seen and heard during their initiation. Our question is how to understand this silence. Was it a prohibition aimed at keeping a secret doctrine from the uninitiated? Or did it concern, instead, something truly impossible to say?To begin we might ask what sense there might have been in the obligation to remain silent given that it was possible for anyone—including slaves, and thus, potentially, the entire population of Athens—to be initiated into the mysteries. In his early work, “On Philosophy,” Aristotle affirmed that, “the initiates do not need to learn something (mathein ti), but, instead, to be disposed to something, to experience and to undergo something (pathein kai diatethēnai).”2 It would therefore be possible that in the ancient mystery cults the initiate did not learn a doctrine that could be expressed in words (yet had to remain secret), but, instead, experienced something essentially silent, something impossible to say. “A great awe in face of the gods,” we read in the Homeric ode to Demeter, “silences the voice.”3The impossibility of speaking—and the power of silence—has two forms, one joyful and the other disturbing. In myth muteness is often associated with rape. The Romans tell the story of Lara who was punished for her inclination to gossip by being rendered mute and who was then raped in a sacred wood by Mercury (who took advantage of her impossibility of speaking). Before being transformed into a swallow Philomela was raped by Tereus, who cut off her tongue to prevent her from recounting his misdeed. Persephone, raped, kidnapped, and conducted to Hades, remained there silent as the dead. In every one of these cases silence is the painful experience of a privation of speech, of being unable to say what one wishes to say.In Gnostic mythology, the preexisting, eternal, uncreated God contains within himself a female figure which is his silence, Sigē. From his union with Silence Thought is born. “Sigē,” we read in a Valentinian text, “is the mother of all the beings that have emerged from the Abyss. He who has failed to say the unsayable has silenced it; he who was understood the unsayable, has declared it unsayable.”4 Here too silence appears as the experience of an impossibility of saying, as a privation. It is in opposition to this abyssal figure of silence that the church fathers affirmed the primacy of the logos in which God is revealed. Nevertheless, of the power of silence Heidegger would write: “This primordial silence is more powerful than any human potentiality. No one, on his or her own, has ever invented language—that is, has been strong enough to break the power of this silence.”5 [End Page 95]In Kafka’s parable on Ulysses, we are told that the silence of the Sirens is more perilous than their song, and that Ulysses—who realized, as his ship neared them, that the Sirens were silent—put on an act to protect himself from this silence, plugging his ears with wax and having his men tie him to the mast.6 In Kafka’s retelling of the tale, the silence of the Sirens represents a zero degree of song and, following a stubborn tradition that sees in absence the most extreme form of presence, also represents an at once zero and ultimate degree of reality. In this sense Heidegger could write... (shrink)

“Place” as an argumentative domain, which has been taken for granted and treated by theorists of argumentation simply as a physical notion designating the occasion where an argumentation takes place, carries far more complex meanings beyond its traditionally assumed domain in the following three dimensions: as a geographical locale; as a concept, an idea, a history or a notion with its own disputable narratives and presumptions; and as an imaginative geography. Similarly, an image or a character projected through argumentative discourse (...) should be among the central concerns for argumentation studies, however, limited attention has nevertheless been paid to this traditional face of argument in general and the collective face in particular. We argue that image is a site of discursive production, a symbolic field or a discursively disputable space. The discursive interplay among “place,” “image,” “argument” and “time” offer a new way of thinking about ethotic argument and its key role in the establishment of discursive credibility. (shrink)

“Place” as an argumentative domain, which has been taken for granted and treated by theorists of argumentation simply as a physical notion designating the occasion where an argumentation takes place, carries far more complex meanings beyond its traditionally assumed domain in the following three dimensions: as a geographical locale; as a concept, an idea, a history or a notion with its own disputable narratives and presumptions; and as an imaginative geography. Similarly, an image or a character projected through argumentative discourse (...) should be among the central concerns for argumentation studies, however, limited attention has nevertheless been paid to this traditional face of argument in general and the collective face in particular. We argue that image is a site of discursive production, a symbolic field or a discursively disputable space. The discursive interplay among “place,” “image,” “argument” and “time” offer a new way of thinking about ethotic argument and its key role in the establishment of discursive credibility. (shrink)

Traditionally the central trope in Christian theological anthropology, “the image of God” tends to function more as a noun than a verb. While that has grounded significant interplay between specific Christian formulations and the concepts of nontheological disciplines and cultural constructs, it facilitates the withdrawal of the image and of theological anthropology more broadly from the context of active relation with God. Rather than a static rendering of the image a more interactionist, dynamic, and relational view of “imaging God” is (...) commended as a key anthropological term. Engaging with Psalm 8 suggests that, biblically, asking the anthropological question “What is humanity?” is tied to the answer to the theological question: who is God? This locates theological anthropology securely within the interactive context of being related to by God and suggests that theological anthropology might be a matter of performance rather than definition: actively imaging God. (shrink)

In _Images of Savages,_ the distinguished psychologist Gustav Jahoda advances the provocative thesis that racism and the perpetual alienation of a racialized 'other' are a central leagacy of the Western tradition. Finding the roots of these demonizations deep in the myth and traditions of classical antiquity, he examines how the monstrous humanoid creatures of ancient myth and the fabulous "wild men" of the medieval European woods shaped early modern explorers' interpretations of the New World they encountered. Drawing on a global (...) scale the schematic of the Western imagination of its "others," Jahoda locates the persistent identification of the racialized other with cannibalism, sexual abandon and animal drives. Turning to Europe's scientific tradition, Jahoda traces this imagery through the work of 18th century scientists on the relationship between humans and apes, the new racist biology of the 19th century studies of "savagery" as an arrested evolutionary state, and the assignment, especially of blacks, to a status intermediate between humans and animals, or that of children in need of paternal protection from Western masters. Finding in these traditional tropes a central influence upon the most current psychological theory, Jahoda presents a startling historical continuity of racial figuration that persists right up to the present day. Far from suggesting a program for the eradication of racial stereotypes, this remarkable effort nevertheless isolates the most significant barriers to equality buried deep within the Western tradition, and proposes a potentially redemptive self-awareness that will contribute to the gradual dismantling of racial injustice and alienation. Gustav Jahoda demonstrates how deeply rooted Western perceptions going back more than a thousand years are still feeding racial prejudice today. This highly original socio-historical contextualisation will be invaluable to scholars of psychology, sociology and anthropology, and to all those interested in the sources of racial prejudice. (shrink)

Chinese animation of the beginning of the XXI century shows significant progress. A number of cartoons and animated series have been released. The hypothesis of the study is that their imagery, plots, and artistic features differ from foreign cartoons and gradually acquire a national identity. This process began in the 2000s, and its pace is only increasing, while it arouses interest from foreign studies, including Russian ones. The typological analysis of the images of the characters of famous Chinese cartoons (...) created at the beginning of the XXI century, as well as the analysis of stylistic and artistic features used by the authors to convey the uniqueness of the character, as well as to emphasize its belonging to Chinese culture, is the main problem of the article. The purpose of this research is to study the specifics of modern Chinese cartoon characters, to identify the features of the development process and the formation of their individual traits in accordance with national characteristics. Chinese animators tend to use the language of traditional art, attributes and symbols characteristic of the national culture. An appeal to the analysis of modern cartoon pictures allows us to highlight the main features of animated characters "with Chinese specifics". In addition, it is of interest to compare the features of the formation of images associated with China in foreign animated films and the characteristic features of characters appearing in the works of modern Chinese animators. (shrink)

The paper is an introduction to the third issue of the Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts. The authors give an account of the theories that have most enriched the study of images since the second half of the twentieth century: analytical philosophy and visual culture studies. A distinction is made between the two philosophical traditions. On the one hand, in particular within the context of analytic philosophy, images have been studied as single entities (...) in relationship with both a referent and the perceptual or interpretive abilities of an observer. On the other hand, thanks in particular to the iconographic tradition inaugurated by Aby Warburg, images have been analyzed in their multiplicity, in their mutual relationship, both synchronically and diachronically. (shrink)

Images and Power: Rock Art and Ethics addresses the distinctive ways in which ethical considerations pertain to rock art research within the larger context of the archaeological ethical debate. Marks on stone, with their social and religious implications, give rise to distinctive ethical concerns within the scholarly enterprise as different perceptions between scholars and Native Americans are encountered in regard to worldviews, concepts of space, time, and in the interpretation of the imagery itself. This discourse addresses issues such as (...) the conflicting paradigms of oral traditions and archaeological veracity, differing ideas about landscapes in which rock art occurs, the intrusion of "desired knowledge", and how the past may be robbed by changing interpretations and values on both sides. Case studies are presented in regard to shamanism and war-related imagery. Also addressed are issues surrounding questions of art, aesthetics, and appropriation of imagery by outsiders. Overall, this discourse attempts to clarify points of contention between Euro-American scholars and Native Americans so that we can better recognize the origins of differences and thus promote better mutual understanding in these endeavors."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Representations of the active brain have served to establish a particular domain of competence for brain mappers and to distinguish brain mapping’s particular contributions to mind/brain research. At the heart of the claims about the emerging contributions of functional brain mapping is a paradox: functional imagers seem to reject representations while also using them at multiple points in their work. This article therefore considers a love-hate relationship between scientists and their object: the case of the iconoclastic imager. This paradoxical stance (...) is the result of the formation of an interdisciplinary approach that brings together a number of scientific traditions and their particular standards of what constitutes scientific evidence. By examining the various ways in which images are deployed and rejected, the origins of these conflicting tendencies can be traced to the technological, methodological, and institutional elements in the work of functional imagers. This approach provides insight into the current demarcation of imaging and reflects on features of visual knowledge. (shrink)

When the French edition of _Confronting Images_ appeared in 1990, it won immediate acclaim because of its far-reaching arguments about the structure of images and the histories ascribed to them by scholars and critics working in the tradition of Vasari and Panofsky. According to Didi-Huberman, visual representation has an “underside” in which seemingly intelligible forms lose their clarity and defy rational understanding. Art historians, he goes on to contend, have failed to engage this underside, where images harbor limits (...) and contradictions, because their discipline is based upon the assumption that visual representation is made up of legible signs and lends itself to rational scholarly cognition epitomized in the “science of iconology.” To escape from this cul-de-sac, Didi-Huberman suggests that art historians look to Freud’s concept of the “dreamwork,” not for a code of interpretation, but rather to begin to think of representation as a mobile process that often involves substitution and contradiction. _Confronting Images_ also offers brilliant, historically grounded readings of images ranging from the Shroud of Turin to Vermeer’s _Lacemaker_. (shrink)

When the French edition of _Confronting Images_ appeared in 1990, it won immediate acclaim because of its far-reaching arguments about the structure of images and the histories ascribed to them by scholars and critics working in the tradition of Vasari and Panofsky. According to Didi-Huberman, visual representation has an “underside” in which seemingly intelligible forms lose their clarity and defy rational understanding. Art historians, he goes on to contend, have failed to engage this underside, where images harbor limits (...) and contradictions, because their discipline is based upon the assumption that visual representation is made up of legible signs and lends itself to rational scholarly cognition epitomized in the “science of iconology.” To escape from this cul-de-sac, Didi-Huberman suggests that art historians look to Freud’s concept of the “dreamwork,” not for a code of interpretation, but rather to begin to think of representation as a mobile process that often involves substitution and contradiction. _Confronting Images_ also offers brilliant, historically grounded readings of images ranging from the Shroud of Turin to Vermeer’s _Lacemaker_. (shrink)

The image of Antonio Salieri is recreated based on the memories of his contemporaries and epistolary and journalistic literature. The author, relying on memoir literature, archival documents and journalistic sources, substantiates his own position regarding A. Salieri’s contribution to the world artistic treasury and artistic higher education, the expediency of researching his heritage at the current stage. A wide range of primary sources little-known in scientific circulation are used, which allow us to reveal the image of Antonio Salieri – a (...) musician, composer, teacher, theater director, rector of the central art institution of higher education in Europe in the 19th century – the Vienna Conservatory. The concept of A. Salieri’s involvement in the early death of is refuted Mozart. The aim consists in recreating the image of Antonio Salieri based on the memories of his contemporaries and epistolary and journalistic literature. The tasks of the research are the analy of primary sources on this issue and the identification of modern approaches to Antonio Salieri’s contribution to the world artistic treasury. Research methods. The methodology of the author’s research is based on the content-comparative method, which allows you to determine the reliability of one or another source, the ratio of traditionally established and non-traditional vision of the image of a prominent representative of his era – Antonio Salieri. Reconstruction was also used – to reproduce the events of the era at the turn of the 18 – 19th centuries within the scope of the research. Research results: The development of the pedagogical heritage of A. Salieri in the activities of his students and followers is shown; the creative portrait of Y.N. Hummel, who, thanks to the Maestro, mastered vocal art, Italian musical terminology, music theory and solfeggio, choral singing and conducting, orchestration, pedagogical skills, combined “Salierian” classicism and his own romanticism. The achievements of Fortunata Valzel-Franchetti as a singer, artist and teacher are analyzed, and it is shown how the vocal-pedagogical school of A. Salieri came to Ukraine through her. Conclusion.The analysis of primary sources –correspondence, diaries of Antonio Salieri and his students, made it possible to find out the significance of the Maestro’s creative heritage for subsequent eras, to recreate his image based on the memories of his contemporaries and epistolary and journalistic literature. 27 archival cases were presented for consideration, which gave an opportunity to understand how domestic scientists, artists and publicists treated Antonio Salieri throughout the 20th century, so often they turned to his creative heritage. After careful analysis of these materials, it can be said that their assessment was very high. (shrink)

Images of Native Americans and of aspects of Native American culture are common in advertisements in the United States. Three such images can be distinguished — the Noble Savage, the Civilizable Savage and the Bloodthirsty Savage images. The aim of this paper is to argue that the use of such images is not morally acceptable because these images depend upon an underlying conception of Native Americans that denies that they are human beings. By so doing, (...) it also denies to them any moral standing and thus any claim to moral consideration and treatment. I begin by arguing that the traits which are distinctively human are fostered only within a cultural framework consisting of the accumulated knowledge and activities of a group of human beings. I then argue that savages are conceptualized as natural and cultureless beings. Furthermore, within the traditional Western conceptualization of the world mere natural objects have no moral standing. Thus, it follows that Native Americans insofar as they are also merely natural objects would have no standing or status as moral beings. The conception of Native Americans as savages undercuts the very conditions for the possibility of moral respect. I then turn to an application of these principles to some current commercial uses of images of Native Americans and other indigenous peoples. (shrink)