Embodied Fantasies: From Awe to Artifice is a compilation of twenty-one essays on the subject of fantasy as it relates to art history, philosophy and the visual arts.

Nature, a topic central to art history, is concurrently a dominant concept in contemporary art, art theory and its related disciplines such as cultural theory, philosophy, aesthetic theory and environmental studies. The project Naturally Hypernatural questions lines of tradition and predetermined categories that coexist with the topic of nature. Currently, nature in art surpasses the simple depiction of art as a material or object. To clarify and analyze the interrelations between nature and art is the aim of the project Naturally (...) Hypernatural. Concepts of Nature - the first volume of this project - argues that contemporary art is predominantly concerned with concepts of nature regarding the depth of their implications in order to reveal and analyze their internal structure. (shrink)

In _On Paradox_ literary and legal scholar Elizabeth S. Anker contends that faith in the logic of paradox has been the cornerstone of left intellectualism since the second half of the twentieth century. She attributes the ubiquity of paradox in the humanities to its appeal as an incisive tool for exposing and dismantling hierarchies. Tracing the ascent of paradox in theories of modernity, in rights discourse, in the history of literary criticism and the linguistic turn, and in the transformation (...) of the liberal arts in higher education, Anker suggests that paradox not only generates the very exclusions it critiques but also creates a disempowering haze of indecision. She shows that reasoning through paradox has become deeply problematic: it engrains a startling homogeneity of thought while undercutting the commitment to social justice that remains a guiding imperative of theory. Rather than calling for a wholesale abandonment of such reasoning, Anker argues for an expanded, diversified theory toolkit that can help theorists escape the seductions and traps of paradox. (shrink)

The volume documents, and makes an original contribution to, an astonishing period in twentieth-century philosophy—the progress of Arne Naess's ecophilosophy from its inception to the present. It includes Naess's most crucial polemics with leading thinkers, drawn from sources as diverse as scholarly articles, correspondence, TV interviews and unpublished exchanges. The book testifies to the skeptical and self-correcting aspects of Naess's vision, which has deepened and broadened to include third world and feminist perspectives. Philosophical Dialogues is an essential addition to the (...) literature on environmental philosophy. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt at developing a poetic ontology of the senses through an understanding of poetry, or more importantly the poetic as such, i.e., the movement, temporality, and various antinomies within poetic gesturing which interrupt the logic of closed meaning and totalization. Through a range of philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Jean-Luc Nancy, amongst others, and primarily the poetry of Pessoa and Rilke, the paper investigates how poetry (poetics) may not only show us a path toward (...) a poetic ontology (thus an ontology in correlation with the senses and movements of natural and material existence), but furthermore point us toward the possibility of an ethical becoming which mirrors the movements of poetry, in contrast to following the rigid structures of absolute and fixed meaning. The overall intention in this analysis is not to find a clear, complete, or overarching thought which may point us toward the ethical or the good. The attempt here is to show that ethics is an activity, a continuous becoming (analogous to poetics) that can be sensed through a way of being in the world, and "being-with" the world, as compared to simply understood through cognitive forms of abstract knowledge. (shrink)

Cover; Table of Contents; Introduction; References; List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; 1. Essays; Intimacy Unveiled (Suzanne Anker); From Apocalypse to Analogy; Transforming Life; References; List of Illustrations; Through the Looking Glass: Encounters with Suzanne Anker's Wonderlands (Sabine Flach); I. Making is Thinking -- Art as Knowledge; II. "We can know more than we can tell"; III. Ars Quaerendi -- The Art of Asking Questions; IV. Synechein -- The Art of Interweaving; References; List of Illustrations; 2. Dialogues; Dialogue I: The (...) Glass Veil. (shrink)

(2004). A vindication of the rights of brutes. Philosophy & Geography: Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 259-264.

The Ethics of Uncertainty asks what it means to live, act, decide, and respond responsibly, in the aporia of freedom itself - a freedom which on one hand opens us to the open space of possible possibilities, and on the other, leaves us no stable ground or measure for pre/determined decision making. The aporia of freedom is conditioned by the indeterminate space of knowing we must make decisions, and yet, at the same time, we cannot call on an absolute authority (...) or measure as a guide. Aporias open us to freedom, the place where, as Derrida has taught us, an ethical decision may occur. Allowing indeterminacy to exist in our becoming allows a continuous coming to be with others - a becoming always open to the "to come" (Derrida) of the future. Always drawing us toward the possibility of making a decision within the fabric of indecision, aporias give us the possibility of ethical becoming. Overall, this text points us to the possibility of living an ethical life in a world without absolute measure - an ethics, in other words, of uncertainty. (shrink)

This article suggests an assembly of ideas collected from transdisciplinary areas that in integration can potentially cast light on the role of affect and feeling in aesthetic experience. The article takes up a well-known philosophical quest to define the nature of aesthetic experience, but seeks out new territories of explanation that rest upon principles of rhetorical integration across a seemingly ambiguous landscape of separated theories, and under a dynamic, connective observatory perspective. The aim of the article is thus to suggest (...) a rhetorical design integrating results from the fields of neuroscience, biosemiotics, medical theory and philosophy of art, which could potentially result in an extension of traditional understandings of the roles of affect and feeling in processes of communication. I see the space of installation art, based on new technology and science, as a possible laboratory for the speculative mind, to which such investigations could be successfully related. I find that contemporary installation artworks can if successful induce an activation of processes intrinsic to the bodymind, which can bring forward new imaginations, new metaphors and extended self-understandings. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore the impact of commercial marketing on personal autonomy. Several philosophers argue that marketing conflicts with ideals of autonomy or, at best, is neutral to these ideals. After qualifying our concept of marketing and introducing the distinctions between (i) divergent and convergent marketing and (ii) being autonomous and acting autonomously, we demonstrate the heretofore unnoticed positive impact of marketing on autonomy. Specifically, we argue that (i) convergent marketing has a significant potential to reinforce (...) autonomous action and (ii) divergent marketing has a significant potential to reinforce the state of being autonomous. (shrink)

Commercial food health branding is a challenging branch of marketing because it might, at the same time, promote healthy living and be commercially viable. However, the power to influence individuals’ health behavior and overall health status makes it crucial for marketing professionals to take into account the ethical dimensions of health branding: this article presents a conceptual analysis of potential ethical problems in health branding. The analysis focuses on ethical concerns related to the application of three health brand elements (functional (...) claims, process claims, and health symbols) as well as a number of general concerns that apply to health branding as such. Being a pioneering analysis, this article advances the academic understanding of health branding and provides practitioners with knowledge of important concerns to take into account when marketing health brands. (shrink)

‘Left melodrama’ is a form of contemporary political critique that combines thematic elements and narrative structures of the melodramatic genre with a political perspective grounded in a left theoretical tradition, fusing them to dramatically interrogate oppressive social structures and unequal relations of power. It is also a new form of what Walter Benjamin called ‘left melancholy’, a critique that deadens what it examines by employing outdated and insufficient analyses to current exploitations. Left melodrama is melancholic insofar as its use of (...) older leftist critical methods disavows its attachments to the failed promises of left political-theoretical critique: that it could provide direct means to freedom and moral rightness. Left melodrama is melodramatic insofar as it incorporates the specific melodramatic narrative, style and promise of the text that stands in for its disavowed attachments: the Manifesto of the Communist Party. Whereas the Manifesto's critical power promised radical political transformation, left melodrama incorporates the Manifesto's melodramatic style in an effort to revivify that promise. It thus inhibits the creation of new critical methods appropriate to our current historical moment and occludes Marx and Engels' warning that the possibility of radical transformation is diminished when the past furnishes the vision for the future. Left melodrama can be found in the texts of Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri; their reincorporation of the Manifesto's melodrama both contributes to their widespread success and undercuts their critical capacities to examine and challenge the inequalities, injustices and unfreedom that shape the present moment. (shrink)

The concept of transnationalism, despite a variety of earlier uses, has recently been used to describe the sociological phenomenon of cross-border migrants considering more than one place ‘home’. This can be in terms of identity and belonging, cultural expression, family and other social ties, visits, financial flows, organising working life in more than one nation-state or transnational political projects. In this paper I discuss the theory and practice of transnationalism to assess the practical, explanatory and normative strength of the concept. (...) I then introduce three different forms of cosmopolitan approaches and assess whether transnational migrants' practices contribute to a cosmopolitan outlook and active global citizenship. I show that the extent to which transnationalism contributes to various forms of global citizenship varies according to the different conceptualisations of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism. In conclusion I draw out the implications of these differences for the future protection of the rights of migrants. (shrink)

The Assumption of Agency Theory Content Type Journal Article Category Review Pages 523-528 DOI 10.1558/jcr.v11i4.523 Authors Kathrine Elizabeth Anker, Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University, Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AA, UK Journal Journal of Critical Realism Online ISSN 1572-5138 Print ISSN 1476-7430 Journal Volume Volume 11 Journal Issue Volume 11, Number 4 / 2012.

In _Ugly Freedoms_ Elisabeth R. Anker reckons with the complex legacy of freedom offered by liberal American democracy, outlining how the emphasis of individual liberty has always been entangled with white supremacy, settler colonialism, climate destruction, economic exploitation, and patriarchy. These “ugly freedoms” legitimate the right to exploit and subjugate others. At the same time, Anker locates an unexpected second type of ugly freedom in practices and situations often dismissed as demeaning, offensive, gross, and ineffectual but that provide (...) sources of emancipatory potential. She analyzes both types of ugly freedom at work in a number of texts and locations, from political theory, art, and film to food, toxic dumps, and multispecies interactions. Whether examining how Kara Walker’s sugar sculpture _A Subtlety, Or the Marvelous Sugar Baby_ reveals the importance of sugar plantations to liberal thought or how the impoverished neighborhoods in _The Wire_ blunt neoliberalism’s violence, Anker shifts our perspective of freedom by contesting its idealized expressions and expanding the visions for what freedom can look like, who can exercise it, and how to build a world free from domination. (shrink)

This article analyses the paternalistic justification of the world’s first mandatory tobacco plain packaging policy, which came into force in Australia in 2012. The policy is setting international precedence, with a range of developed and developing countries planning and implementing similar policies. Understanding the paternalistic dimension of the policy is therefore of imminent international importance. The policy meets important ethical benchmarks such as respect for citizens’ self-interests and protection of others against harm. However, plain packaging faces a number of ethical (...) challenges: the policy is a controversial type of paternalism; it runs partially against the harm principle; and it fails to meet key operational criteria. (shrink)

This article discusses the potential of a contemporary understanding of what Heraclitus and the Stoics called ‘cosmological logos’, and its relation to human reason and cultural communication. I will relate the example of Descartes’ and his introspective method in Meditations on the First Philosophy (1647) to a contemporary understanding of the potential of introspection, related to theories of the embodied mind, virtual levels of nature and a possible connection between them. Where Descartes focused upon the rational properties of the logical (...) mind, and its potential to relate to nature’s higher logic, I relate my vision of a modern logos philosopher to Charles Sanders Peirce’s concept of nature’s ‘habits’, triad semiosis and the overall phaneroscopic phenomenology, which I connect to the concept of ‘aesthetic reason’. Aesthetic reason, in this context, represents a complex kind of rationality that involves a broader variety of cognitive processes. It is based on Extended Sentience, which includes properties of quantum communication that simultaneously work within the confinements of the mind–body, while simultaneously transgressing it. This article takes an overall evolutionary perspective, and claims that the prerequisites for experience and rationality are changing over historical time, due to evolutionary changes at endosemiotic levels of the mind–body. The prerequisites for Descartes’ activity of cognitive mediation and such of a modern logos philosopher, would thus not be equal. I will elaborate on the differences in this article. (shrink)

Buckminster Fuller’s experiences in the Navy became a model for his ecological design projects and suggestions for the global management of ‘Spaceship Earth’. Inspired by technocratic ideas of the 1930s, Fuller envisaged, in the 1970s, an elitist world without politics, in which designers were at the helm, steering the planet out of its environmental crises.

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01181-5.

This paper addresses three aspects of Bio Art: iconography, artificial life, and wetware. The development of models for innovation require hybrid practices which generate knowledge through epistemic experimental practices. The intersection of art and the biological sciences contain both scientific data as well as the visualization of its cultural imagination. In the Bio Art Lab at the School of Visual Arts, artists use the tools of science to make art.

This paper argues for the digital interactive installation artwork based on principles of complexity as an interface with the potential to evoke ekspansions in the subjective experience by confronting the user with an idea of abstract thought, created through a conceptual design, and experienced through bodily interaction and contemplative acts at symbolic levels. The claim is, that ideas presented through good artworks based on the coalision of science and technology can potentially create a synthesis between ideas inspired by the philosophies (...) and empiricisms of the physical-material world view, but also of a higher, spiritual dimension, in which new possibilities of knowledge are potentially to be found. The article accepts the thesis of cognition being the cause of evolution, rather than evolution of man being the cause of cognition. (shrink)

What happens when adjudication signals its own artifice? Or when jurisprudence is animated by what Maksymilian Del Mar calls ‘legal artifacts’ that invite us to suspend certain of our prevailing no...