In this wide ranging volume of philosophical essays John Haldane explores some central areas of social life and issues of intense academic and public debate. These include the question of ethical relativism, fundamental issues in bioethics, the nature of individuals in relation to society, the common good, public judgement of prominent individuals, the nature and aims of education, cultural theory and the relation of philosophy to art and architecture. John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the (...) class='Hi'>Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs in the University of St Andrews. He is also a former Royden Davis Professor of Humanities at Georgetown University and is currently a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, Princeton. As well as being a prominent academic philosopher he is well known in Britain, in North America and elsewhere in the English-speaking world as a public intellectual and social commentator. 'In Practical Philosophy, John Haldane eloquently makes the case for an approach to ethics that is distinctively practical — thought with a view to action. Taking his inspiration from a tradition that includes Aristotle, Aquinas, and Elizabeth Anscombe, Haldane argues that an orthodox dichotomy has long dominated both philosophical and everyday thinking: we must be either dualists or material reductionists. Both of these alternatives, however, neglect a subtle approach to intentionality and agency offered by the Aristotelian tradition. Haldane uses his illuminating approach to advance arguments on a number of controversial moral and political issues: the status of the foetus, the importance of the family, compensation for victims of crime, the basis of human solidarity across national boundaries. Although his conclusions are frequently controversial, Haldane always avoids polemics and the ideological parti pris, thus giving a welcome example of respectful and civil public argument.' — Martha Nussbaum 'What resources can philosophy bring to bear, when its enquiries are not theoretical, but practical? In Practical Philosophy John Haldane answers this question in a brilliant survey of key issues, showing us how a variety of theories can obscure or distort our view of the practical realities of life, family, and society. With admirable clarity he also shows us how philosophy can rescue us from such theorizing.' — Alasdair MacIntyre. (shrink)

The verbal and musical arts across languages and cultures -- The cognition of stories and poems -- In the beginning -- Poetry across languages and cultures -- First music and second music acquisition -- The origin of music in art and science -- Creationist pseudoscience in the American university -- New opportunities for narrative inquiry -- Theory and creativity in literary and musical education.

This collection of essays derives from a conference sponsored by the Royal Institute of Philosophy and the Centre of Philosophy and Public Affairs at the University of St Andrews. It brings together a number of prominent academics from the fields of philosophy and political theory along with politicians and social commentators. The subjects covered include liberalism, education, welfare policy, religion, art and culture, and cloning. The mix of contributors and the topicality of the subject matter should further promote a (...) serious engagement between philosophy and public life. (shrink)

A workshop sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1989 brought together more than two dozen scholars in the humanities and social sciences to explore Confucian ethics as a common intellectual discourse in East Asia. The participants included specialists on the societies of China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore as well as scholars who specialize in comparative studies. In nine intensive sessions, they probed the ways in which the Confucian ethic has shaped perceptions of (...) selfhood, dynamics of familial relations, gender construction, social organization, political authority, popular beliefs, and economic culture in East Asia. This book is a distillation of the essence of their multidisciplinary and cross-cultural examination of these issues. It seeks especially to illuminate claims that Confucian ethics have provided the necessary background and a powerful motivation in the rise of industrial East Asia, the most dynamic region of sustained economic growth and political development since World War II. (shrink)

The thematic structure of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel ‘Netochka Nezvanova‘ is revealed in the article through the system of leitmotifs rising to elementary semantic oppositions. The topical opposition of high and low is traced throughout the semantics of space. The periphery of the story - the estate of a landowner, a music-lover, and its sacral centre - the ’sunny’ home of Prince H. in St. Petersburg are brought together by the main character’s lifelong way. In Yegor Efimov’s biography, this is (...) predetermined in the same way as the initiation of a fairytale hero is predestined. It should be emphasized that the unique temporal structure of ‘Netochka Nezvanova‘ is analyzed in this aspect for the first time. Like many other Dostoyevsky’s works, this particular story displays signs of ‘inoculations‘ from different poetic systems and other texts which form a complicated system of intertextual connections. The leading motif of the story belongs to the circle of the basic mythopoetic topic: Man’s temptation by Satan. The demon’s intrusion into Efimov’s life is especially well traced in his friendship with the Italian conductor and in inheriting the latter’s violin. The history of the violin is accompanied by the marginal demonic background created by the stable mythologem - ‘the Satan’s violin‘. Within the borders of mythopoetic concept of music, an artist is a medium, a person who has the power to influence other people in the name of good or evil by supernatural forces. In this respect, the life story of Efremov the violinist can be compared to the adventures of a mythological ‘cultural hero‘ presented as a non-stop chain of events: meeting a magical sorcerer, receiving a magic weapon from him as a gift and the ensuing sequence of dreadful ordeals. Yegor Efimov’s life story is shown in the article against the background of the mythopoetic concept of music, as Man’s temptation by Satan, and in the historical and cultural context, as shattering a romantic myth about ‘a demonic artist‘. (shrink)

This article provides a cross-case analysis of four art and design research centres operating within UK universities. Findings from autobiographical and semi-structured interviews with researchers, research managers, and research leaders indicate that they encounter similar issues in trying to establish internal legitimacy within the university alongside the need to gain external support and recognition. In dealing with these challenges, art and design research centres tend to pass through four broadly identifiable phases: (i) Origination (utilising credentials and leadership capacity), (ii) Establishment (...) (securing resources and embedding dedicated systems and processes), (iii) Development (furthering profile, diversifying, and retaining autonomy), and (iv) Sustainability (enhancing research culture, networks, and influence). Many interesting parallels are evident with the way small businesses strive to establish themselves within competitive market environments. Lessons for research managers and directors are explored to consider such similarities in key areas of responsibility that cover leadership, managing people and processes, developing organisational capacity, and building external networks. The research suggests research centre directors must demonstrate many intrapreneurial qualities to overcome obstacles in the development of a successful research team and that university departments can make substantial organisational interventions to help them succeed. (shrink)

Τhis paper revisits the luxurious Palaiologan illuminated manuscript of the New Testament, Codex 31 of the Hagia Lavra monastery in Kalavryta. Iconographic and stylistic characteristics of the miniatures are compared with others and with seals of the early fifteenth century, as well as with the wall-paintings of the Pantanassa Monastery at Μystras (ca 1430). It is argued that the codex was commissioned by Georgios Kantakouzenos Palaiologos, a close collaborator of Konstantinos Palaiologos, Despot of the Morea and subsequent emperor, who lived (...) in Kalavryta and promoted his personal library, which was enjoyed even by Ciriaco of Ancona. (shrink)

This paper addresses the philosophical and cultural significance of the concept of «sobornost’» both in the cultural context of Silver Age and in the historical context of World War I. The analysis of Ivanov’s thought is based on a philological approach of his essay «Legion and Sobornost’», in which the author explains his understanding of such terms as organisation, cooperation, collectivism in order to clarify his own idea of collegiality and the ontological opposition of the title. The opposition (...) between legion and collegiality duplicates the confrontation between Germany and Russia. Vyach. Ivanov first conducts a cultural analysis of such a confrontation, and criticizes Nietzscheanism in German culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. He proves the false understanding of the organization in modern German culture. In his opinion, the main values of freedom and personhood are the measure of lies or truth. In the last chapter of his essay, Vyach. Ivanov gives his own definition of collegiality, not referring to Russian thinkers, but quoting the two cities of St. Augustine’s thought. The author of the article shows that the culturological perspective is overcome by the Christian anthropological and mystical perspective, which proclaims humanism and Christocentrism. Therefore, accordind to Vyach. Ivanov, the word “sobornost” is a “universal word”, which mentions that the true social union has Christ as its center. In this sense, the concept of collegiality signifies the same mystical reality that the City of God of St. Augustine. (shrink)

La fin de la modernité sans fin Pour beaucoup, la modernité est ce temps au cours duquel, comme l'écrit Mallarmé, "un présent fait défaut". La modernité ou cet emportement irrépressible du temps vers "le nouveau", qui a pour corrélat la perte d'une certain qualité de notre rapport à l'espace (et par voie de conséquence une certaine déréalisation du monde). Après un premier recueil d'essais centrés sur cette question de l'espace et du lieu (L'expérience esthétique des lieux, L'Harmattan, 2008), les textes (...) ici rassemblés interrogent, à travers les relations entre les arts et les sciences, l'architecture et le design dans la culture numérique, ou encore l'art contemporain et l'entreprise, cette involution du temps sur lui-même propre à notre époque. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin was one of the most intriguing and original Marxist cultural theorists of the twentieth-century. He made a precarious living in Berlin as a literary journalist and, partly under the influence of Ernst Bloch and Lukacs, turned toward the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. In the late 1920's, he became a close friend of Brecht, championing his revolutionary "epic theater". Driven from Germany in 1933 by the rise of Nazism, Benjamin settled in Paris where he had close (...) associations with the surrealists. When the Nazis invaded France, Benjamin fled to the Spanish frontier where on being denied entry, he committed suicide rather than risk being delivered to the SS. Benjamin's writings are a curious mixture of esoteric, sometimes mystical Jewish thought, artistic modernism, and unorthodox Marxism. He united an apocalyptic vision of history with a concern for the material, productive basis of art. Fascinated by tradition, yet a radical spokesman for the new technological media, steeped in high German philosophy, but a champion of the proletariat, Benjamin was in turn philologist, literary critic, political commentator, and philosopher of history. Bolz and van Reijen proceed from the standpoint that Benjamin's thought was shaped by his attempt to connect extremes—to make the theological idea of salvation fruitful for political thought. Then, they go on to structure Benjamin's important clusters of themes in light of the radical consequences of this intention. (shrink)

The famous story of the choice of Hercules became one frequently depicted in Western art and, as Ernst Panofsky showed, the various treatments of this theme demonstrate the significance of cultural continuity through the centuries. At the same time, the motif of Hercules and his choice presents us with a challenge to current theoretical approaches to culture. We can either take the easy path and accept the current hermeneutic orthodoxies of popular cultural studies, or we can choose a (...) harder but, ultimately, more rewarding path: the philosophy of culture articulated by Ernst Cassirer. This volume brings together a collection of papers which reflects the broad sweep, both historical and theoretical, of Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms. They range from language-theory to myth and religion; and all are set, with varying degrees of emphasis, in a comparative context. (shrink)

This article argues that the computer game can be a locus of aesthetic form in contemporary culture. The context for understanding this claim is the decline of the artwork as bearer of form in the late 20th century, as this was understood by Adorno. Form is the enigmatic other of instrumental reason that emerges spontaneously in creative works and, in the modern era, is defined as that which makes them captivating and enigmatic yet resistant to analytic understanding. Clarification of the (...) ways in which form is at work in game play is sought from aesthetic theory (Kant), ludology (or theory of games), and the idea of a neo-baroque entertainment culture (Ndalianis). Kant emphasized the role of play in the constitution of imaginary realms associated with aesthetic pleasure. Ludology takes play as an anthropological given differentiated historically by the development of game structures. Neo-baroque theory postulates a labyrinthine, complex and de-centred entertainment culture, largely shaped by computing as a cultural practice. The article synthesizes insights from these perspectives and, drawing on ideas from Adorno and Benjamin, argues that computer games can occupy an oppositional or critical role within contemporary aesthetics and culture. Reflection on the constitutive processes of computer game play discloses a new place for instrumental reason within aesthetic experience, as the dialectic of form and analysis migrates from traditional art materials to digital electronics. (shrink)

This article describes a logic of distinction and succession within the late-twentieth-century Leningrad-St. Petersburg cultural field, whereby consecutive intelligentsia mainstreams were replaced by their avant-garde peripheries. In this dynamic picture of socio-cultural transformations, I propose a working hypothesis of a repeated stratification of the field into an ‘official’, an ‘unofficial’, and a third ‘non-aligned’ intelligentsia. This hypothesis is tested in reference to the ‘non-aligned’ groups founded by the avant-garde artist and ideologue Timur Novikov (1958–2002). Three major shifts are (...) described: from the politicized late-Brezhnevite early 1980s to the apolitical radicalism of Novikov’s New Artists; from this anarchistic underground, through the perestroika era, to the playful ‘classicism’ of the New Academy of Fine Arts in the 1990s; and from this postmodern international orientation to an arch-reactionary, neo-imperial posturing at the turn of the 2000s. Lastly, this ‘non-aligned’ intelligentsia is suggested as a possible precedent, or, indeed, a model for understanding other historically significant avant-garde peripheries, which commonly seek to distinguish themselves from (often mutually-exclusive) centres. (shrink)

Mihai Ralea was a university professor and prominent representative of the Romanian interwar literary intelligentsia. M. Ralea taught psychology, sociology and aesthetics, and was at the same time the director of a reputed literary magazine (Viaţa românească-Romanian Life). Ralea was also a politician, initially an important member of the National Peasant Party, representing its centre left wing. In his case, one may notice the contradiction between his moral arguments in public and his deeds after he reached positions of power (...) (Minister of Labour under the royal dictatorship, Minister of Arts under the pro-communist Petru Groza government, etc.). Ralea was also called “the moralist without morals”, and the compromises he made – manifested through his adherence to anti-democratic regimes – can be documented by numerous archival documents. Due to strong political connections, Ralea survived in the high ranks of cultural bureaucracy even during cultural Stalinism. He maintained important positions both at the University of Bucharest and with humanities research institutes of the post-1948 Soviet-style Romanian Academy of Sciences. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he also gained posi-tions of international cultural representation with the Romanian branch of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNES-CO) and the Romanian Institute for the Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (IRRCS, the Romanian VOKS). His survival (as a professor of psychology after 1948) had a significant price – Ralea’s collaboration with the Stalinist regime. Using open sources and also newly declassified archival documents, the article is an attempt to approach M. Ralea’s case of survival in the high cultural bureaucracy in the East European context. (shrink)

Introduction by Ralph McInerny The essays in this volume, indebted in great part to Jacques Maritain and to other Neo-Thomists, represent a contribution to an understanding of beauty and the arts within the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition. As such they constitute a different voice in present-day discussions on beauty and aesthetics, a voice which nonetheless shares with many of its contemporaries concern over questions such as the relationship between beauty and morality, public funding of the arts and their educational role, (...) objective and universal standards of what is beautiful. In the tradition in which the contributors of this volume reflect, beauty manifests itself in the order of the universe, an order that provides human reason with a window onto the transcendent. For Aristotle and Aquinas the natural order grounds both art and morality, and yet it is this very order which has been called into question by modern science and philosophy. Instead of pointing us to a suprahuman order, the beautiful then points to the order of human freedom and creativity. Reflection on the beautiful since the modern philosopher Immanuel Kant has thus often taken a subjectivistic turn. Because of the importance of beauty and art in human existence, in man's education and life as a moral and political being, an alternative should be sought to any reduction of the beautiful to a purely subjective experience or cultural construct. The Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, in dialogue with modern and contemporary conceptions of the beautiful, provides us with just that alternative, and thus the essays herein represent a decisive step in the "journey for Thomistic aesthetics." THE CONTRIBUTORS: In addition to the editor, the contributors to the volume are: Brian J. Braman, Matthew Cuddeback, Christopher M. Cullen, S.J., Patrick Downey, Desmond J. FitzGerald, Donald Haggerty, Wayne H. Harter, Jeanne M. Heffernan, Thomas S. Hibbs, Gregory J. Kerr, Joseph W. Koterski, S.J., Daniel McInerny, Ralph McInerny, James P. Mesa, John F. Morris, Ralph Nelson, Katherine Anne Osenga, Carrie Rehak, Stephen Schloesser, S.J., Francis Slade, John G. Trapani, Jr., and Henk E. S. Woldring. ABOUT THE EDITOR: Alice Ramos is associate professor of philosophy at St. John's University. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.1 (2000) 94-96 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Rhetoric Reclaimed: Aristotle and the Liberal Arts Tradition Rhetoric Reclaimed: Aristotle and the Liberal Arts Tradition. Janet M. Atwill. London: Cornell University Press, 1998. Pp. xvi + 235. $35.00 hard cover. Much like Weimar, Germany, American civil society has been buffeted for a half-century by both the lunatic right, hiding behind the mask of religious (...) freedom, and the lunatic left, sporting "pomo" (postmodern) tribal colors in the garb of academic freedom. In an earlier age, both might be burned at the stake; today, they are granted tax-exempt status. Readers seeking contributions to the life of the mind find their harangues both unpleasant and unrewarding. This book is unfortunately no exception.Atwill's title is deceptive. Her work is only marginally about either Aristotle or his rhetoric. She is more concerned to "reclaim" the liberal arts held hostage by the received tradition of Athenian democratic ideals. Vide: At issue are the character of the social identities of gender, race, and class and the nature of the social ties by which we are bound.... (3) Challenges to the... humanist paradigm... became the subject of... debates over cultural diversity, political correctness, and revisionist literary canons and historical accounts. Just what is at stake... is the type of subjectivity produced by the paideia of a multicultural curriculum (that subjects values, views of reality, and relationships to cultural and political authority. (12-13) So we are in for another salvo of pomo evangelism, with the usual suspects trotted out (Stanley Fish, Jacques Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, and Edward Said) all with a view to rectifying the hegemonic white male biases of E. M. Cope, and rhetoric's four B's (Baldwin, Burnet, Burkhardt, and Hans Baron).Were Atwill offering a New Age update of Cope's commentary, her project might hold promise. Embers of such potential glow throughout the [End Page 94] book. Thus, her passing remarks on the relation of techne and theoria to Greek medicine (74-79) and to the cultural demands of what amounts to a plantation society (107-8) bear consideration. And her deconstruction of Cope's work as a managerial art grounded in associationist psychology (192-200) is especially insightful.Where the book disappoints is its clumsiness: it is simultaneously pedantic and superficial. On the first count, the author shows wide acquaintance with the standard commentaries on classical culture, but she seems often to be adrift in an ocean of secondary sources. For example, she is more likely to discuss Kennedy's treatment of Aristotle than Aristotle himself (58). And so it goes: Wright on Empedocles (90), Crane on Cicero (31), Woods on Cope (200). Indeed, it is difficult to tell from the book if the author's command of classical Greek extends much beyond Liddell and Scott.In addition to her overdependency on secondary sources, Atwill disregards historical contexts in pushing her quirky pomo readings to the fore. To cite only a few of these: For Plato, expertise is equivalent to function, and function determines one's place in the hierarchical order of the state. (30)... Physis (nature) or faculty equals function equals place in the social order. (141) [For Aristotle,] private property is the means of both self-expression and self-knowledge; knowledge of the self would be impossible without the procurement of private property. The subject and object distinction, usually made in the context of epistemology, is relocated at the center of the notion of private property. (184-85) If Protagoras, Isocrates, and Cicero were appointed deans... today, I doubt that they would institute a curriculum based on principles of radical democracy. (209) Perhaps Atwill would prefer to pick her dean from among Che, Mao, Pol Pot, or Lenin. While such eccentric inferences may fit the bill for cultural studies, they flunk the test of impartiality. This is a commodification of pedantry--recycling fragments of academic publications to advocate a partisan position. But advocacy resting on innuendo, resentment, and polite sneering can never meet the standards of serious scholarship... (shrink)

The current issue of Approaching Religion is based on a summer school and conference arranged in Åbo/Turku, Finland, in June 2021, with the theme ‘Religion and Cultural Change’. The event was organized jointly by the Polin Institute for Theological Research, the Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures, and the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture. The aim was to bring together doctoral candidates and researchers from various academic fields who engage with the study of religion, (...) such as theology, religious studies, history, philosophy, the arts, social and political sciences and so forth. This included presentations that engaged with the theme Religion and Cultural Change from both historical and contemporary perspectives, as well as looking to the future where possible. As conference organizers, we wanted to highlight cultural change both as dramatic breaking points in history and as slowly evolving transformations. Hence, the conference theme allowed us to address past, present and emerging trends and trajectories within culture, society and the scholarly community. The issue is financed and published by the Polin Institute for Theological Research at Åbo Akademi University, Finland: https://www.polininstitute.fi. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag diskutieren drei interdisziplinär ausgebildete Akademiker, die als klinisch tätige Ethiker auch viele Jahre Erfahrungen mit Gesundheitssystemen in verschiedenen Ländern haben, die Frage nach dem Kern klinisch-ethischer Expertise: der niederländische Mediziner und Philosoph Henk ten Have, Direktor des Center for Healthcare Ethics in Pittsburgh, USA, der deutsche Theologe und Philosoph Norbert Steinkamp, Professor für theologisch-ethische Grundlagen sozialprofessionellen Handelns an der katholischen Hochschule für Sozialwesen in Berlin, der 12 Jahre die klinische Ethik der Universitätsklinik Nijmegen, Niederlande, geleitet hat, (...) sowie der niederländische Philosoph und Historiker Bert Gordijn, Direktor des Institute of Ethics der Dublin City University, Irland, Präsident der International Association of Education in Ethics und u. a. Herausgeber von Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China. By G.E.R. Lloyd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi + 175. Price not given.The Art of the Han Essay: Wang Fu's Ch'ien-Fu Lun. By Anne Behnke Kinney. Tempe: Center for Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1990. Pp. xi + 154. Paper $10.00.The Autobiography of Jamgön Kongtrul: A Gem of Many Colors. By Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrön (...) Thayé and translated by Richard Barron (Chökyi Nyima). Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2003. Pp. xxii + 549. Price not given.Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyō. By William R. LaFleur. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xiii + 173. Paper $14.95.Becoming the Compassion Buddha: Tantric Mahamudra for Everyday Life. By Lama Thubten Yeshe, edited by Robina Courtin, and foreword by Geshe Lhundub Sopa. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xi + 194. Paper $14.95.Between Two Worlds East and West: An Autobiography. By J. N. Mohanty. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 134. Hardcover RS 525.00.The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. Edited by Roman Malek, S.V.D. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica and China-Zentrum; and Nettetal, Germany: Steyler Verlag, 2002. Pp. 391. EUR 40.00.Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis. By Volker Scheid. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 407. Hardcover $69.95. Paper $23.95.Confucian Feminist: Memoirs of Zeng Baosun (1893-1978). Translated and adapted by Thomas L. Kennedy. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002. Pp. xxi + 170. Price not given.Consciousness Studies: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. By K. Ramakrishna Rao. Jefferson (North Carolina) and London: McFarland and Company, 2002. Pp. 367. Hardcover $65.00.Constituting Communities: Theravāda Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia. Edited by John Clifford Holt, Jacob N. Kinnard, and Jonathan S. Walters. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 224. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.Developments in Indian Philosophy from Eighteenth Century Onwards: Classical and Western. By Daya Krishna. Volume X Part 1 of History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, edited by D. P. Chattopadhyaya. New [End Page 110] Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2001. Pp. xxiii + 417. Hardcover RS 1200.East and West: Identità e dialogo interculturale. By Giangiorgio Pasqualotto. Venezia: Marsilo Editori, 2003. Pp. 210. EUR 16.00.Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. By Edward Slingerland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 352. Price not given.Encountering Kā lī: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Edited by Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xviii + 321. Hardcover $55.00, £37.95. Paper $21.95, £15.95.Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy. Edited by Antonio S. Cua. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xx + 1020. Hardcover $150.00.Essays on Indian Philosophy. By J. N. Mohanty and edited by Purushottama Bilimoria. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xxxvii + 347. Paper RS 525.00.Faith, Humor, and Paradox. By Ignacio L. Götz. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2002. Pp. 136. Hardcover $61.95.Four Illusions: Candrakīrti's Advice for Travelers on the Bodhisattva Path. Translated by Karen C. Lang. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xv + 240. Price not given.The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory. By David R. Loy. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. 223. Paper $16.95.The Hidden History of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. By Bryan J. Cuevas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 328. Price not given.Huang Di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text. By Paul U. Unschuld. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 520. Hardcover $75.00, £52.00.In Dewey's Wake: Unfinished Work of Pragmatic Reconstruction. Edited by William J. Gavin. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. vi + 249. Hardcover $71.50. Paper $23.95.Knowledge and Freedom in Indian Philosophy. By Tara Chatterjea. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2002. Pp. xvi + 159. Hardcover... (shrink)

In discussions of arts and culture, food and drink are often relegated to the realms of mere decoration or mere necessity. However, like the term taste, which begins as one of the five senses but comes to be understood as the most sweeping term for human sensibility, eating and drinking can also be fundamental aesthetic experiences. In this book, author Leonard Barkan covers millennia of Western aesthetic and cultural activity, tracing the history of eating and drinking across literature, (...) art, philosophy, statecraft, religion, and historiography. Drawing on a myriad of historical and analytic perspectives, Barkan demonstrates how the materials of the dining table, the flavor and pleasure of food, and hunger and satiety are central to life and culture. He explores what it means to "read for the food" in works of art, literature, and philosophy, and demonstrates the central role that food played in Roman civilization. He examines the deeply culinary qualities of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, the relationship between food and drink and the culture of the Renaissance, and the literal acts of consumption that are endowed with sacred significance. By uncovering the gastronomic underplot in cultural and artistic works, Barkan proposes an interdisciplinary approach to the relation between sense experience and aesthetic experience, and considers what it means to move from the margins to the center in a study of culture. (shrink)

This article analyses the short performances of Drag Sethlas at the yearly Gran Canaria Drag Queen Contest in Spain (2017–20) from the perspective of religious studies and gender studies, following on from an earlier article in which this case was explored in light of the severe blasphemy accusations (by local and national bishops and lay organisations) against the 2017 show. These short performances consist of remarkable representations of Roman Catholic texts, saints, symbols and rituals acted out as prize-winning drag-queen shows (...) that were aired on national television. At the same time, these acts are situated, by reference to famous earlier controversial acts by the pop artists Madonna, Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande, in a genealogy of provocations and blasphemy accusations that are currently made in North American and Western European countries. In exploring the forms of ritualisation (cf. Bell 1989) in the provocation that this type of popular artistic performance with strong religious connotations evokes, I show the presence of a double theatricality in Sethlas’s first and most controversial performance: on the one hand a ‘holy drama’ centred around a religious pattern of penance, repentance and redemption, and on the other hand a specific drag theatricality, with its parodies, mockery and daring erotic scenes. It is precisely the connection between both forms of theatricality, especially the representation of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, who play a large and special role in both forms of theatricality, that contributes most to the provocativeness of this scene. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 181 reason that it provides the best arguments available to date against nuclear deterrence, but ultimately the arguments fail because the author takes as an apodictic premise what is actually a prudential judgment that no nuclear weapons could ever be used in a moral and ethical way. Professor Kenny is not only an Absolutist, but also a Determinist. The present reviewers are neither. University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign-Urbana, (...) Illinois Public Affairs Officer ROBERT BARRY, O.P. MATTHEW M. MURPHY United States At·ms Control and Disarmament Agency Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages. By UMBERTO Eco. Translated by Hugh Bredin. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986. Pp. 131. $12.95. This is not a new work. As Umberto Eco himself states in the Preface of this book, the text was written in 1958 and published in 1959 as a single chapter of a four volume handbook on the history of aesthetics, written by various authors (Momenti e problemi di storia dell' estetica, Milano, Marzorati, 1959, vol. 1: 'Dall'antichita classica al barocco, pp. 115-230). No doubt it was due to the recent popularity in Europe and America of Mr. Eco's novel, The Name of the Rose (which subsequently inspired the film of the same title) that Yale University Press saw fit to translate and reissue this seminal work of the author. He wrote it when he was 26 years old and serving in the Italian army. Hugh Bredin, a senior lecturer in scholastic philosophy at Queen's University, Belfast, has simplified in the translation what the author claims was the "tortured syntax" of his impressionable youth. Nevertheless, one suspects that the style and context of this slim volume will appeal primarily to philosophers and not art historians, despite its ubiquitous presence in art bookstores and museum giftshops. The scope of Mr. Eco's work enables the reader to gain an overview of aesthetic problems which developed in Europe in the period between the sixth to the :fifteenth centuries, when the classical tradition inherited by the medieval world no longer provided adequate solutions. A thousand years of artistic and philosophical history are barely penetrated in so few pages, but Mr. Eco forthrightly proceeds to catalogue ideas and thinkers in chapters devoted to such topics as Transcendental Beauty, Symbol and Allegory, and the Aesthetics of Proportion and Light. As 18~ BOOK REVIEWS was evident in The Name of the Rose, the author has an encyclopedic knowledge of both classical and medieval sources (he gently chides Maritain for his ignorance of one of Bonaventure's definitions of beauty, p. 24). As professor of semiotics his understanding of words and images is impressive (he takes a whole page to explain the visual applications of Vitruvius's use of the word euritmia, pp. 65-66). But after repeated eitings of relevant quotations from various medieval works-some in outright conflict with one another-the reader has no satisfying sense of what was the "medieval " view of art and beauty. Rather a mosaic of interesting and diverse facts emerges in the thematic structure of the book which cuts across chronological, geographical, and cultural boundaries. Thus, for instance, one learns in the chapter on the Aesthetics of Light that St. Augustine preferred equilateral to scalene triangles, Hugh of St. Victor considered green to be the most beautiful of colors, the Limbourg brothers in painting miniatures had no use for sfiirnatura just as Chretien de Troyes had no use for it in literature, and the Christian image of God as Light traced its pedigree to the Semitic Baal and the Egyptian Ra with heavy doses of Plato and Arab pantheism thrown in as contributing influences. This dizzying effect of so much intelligent trivia, forcibly pieced together in an effort to arrive at a persuasive conclusion, backfires and ultimately works ag:iinst Art and Beaiity in the Middle Ages in much the same way that the plot in The Name of the Rose suffered from a surfeit of scholastic argumentation. Mr. Eco, in an attempt to bedazzle his readers with facts, merely blinds them to the point. Other authors have written about art in the Middle Ages, and they were successful... (shrink)

The city of Puebla was put on the UNESCO list of Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 1987; its history dates back to the sixteenth century allowing for the preservation of various important buildings, such as churches with baroque and neoclassical facades, buildings from the period known as Novo Hispanics, when some of its historic neighbourhoods were founded, including the Barrio el Refugio, hereinafter referred to as BR, where indigenous people employed in the lime manufacture used to live. Since those (...) times, however, the neighbourhood has become a place with bad reputation, “a den of thieves”. The traditional, religious commemoration, the “Fiesta Patronal de la Virgen del Refugio,” is the most important celebration in the neighbourhood. In the Church of La Virgen del Refugio, built in the seventeenth century after an inhabitant painted a mural with the image of the virgin, the “mañanitas” are sung with the Mariachi. During the patronal feast, the “El Refugio Cultural Festival” is held with more than a hundred artists taking part and creating about a thousand murals according to the organiser’s estimation. This happens in the city where a project “Puebla Ciudad Mural” was started, as an initiative of the “Colectivo Tomate,” which sought to regenerate the neighbourhood through art, in alliance with the government and private companies. However, these policies are more tourist oriented rather than benefit the neighbourhood. For this reason, the graffiti movement “Festival Cultural el Refugio” is becoming a meeting point for urban artists from Mexico and Puebla, accustomed to taking up public or private space, as they demand space where they can live and express themselves. For ten years the festival has realised more than one thousand pieces of urban art, including Wild Style graffiti, bombs, stickers, stencil, and murals. All this is done under the patronage of the artists themselves, as three hundred of them come from all over the country to take part in every edition of the festival that does not receive any government support or other form of sponsorship. (shrink)

The author analyses the role and meaning of the Mamluk Egypt as the center of Arab-Muslim culture of 13-14th centuries. The factors leading Egypt to become the significant cultural center are studied. It is stressed, that in the 13-14th centuries Egyptian culture reached its climax due to historical conditions and Mamluks patronage, who managed to make this state the center of Arab-Muslim culture. The author showed the important role of Mamluk Egypt not only in Arab-Muslim but also in the (...) culture of all mankind. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 10.2 (2005) 101-135 [Access article in PDF] Truth, Knowledge and the Wild World Jim Cheney One ought not to put too much stock in the word 'philosophy'.... [T]here are alternative ways of intelligently engaging the world. To construe one's thinking in terms of belief is characteristic of a particular kind of world view and it remains to be seen whether those who share an indigenous (...) world view conceive of experience in such an overtly intellectualized manner. Leroy N. Meyer and Tony Ramirez (1996, 104)1 Wilderness treats me like a human being. Tom Birch2As Holmes Rolston III has said, "A principal characteristic of human life is that it develops into biography. In that sense, humans do not want their values in nature, any more than they want other goods in life, to come seriatim, like beads on a string.... Humans want a storied residence in nature where the passage of time integrates past, present, and future in a meaningful career" (Rolston 1988, 351). This is what I had hoped for: a narrative of storied residence in Midwest prairie, lake, and river country, and in the mountains and deserts of Idaho, with the history of the development of an environmental ethic (or ethos) left largely implicit within that larger narrative, leaving readers to reflect as they may on the philosophical dimensions of the journey. To leave traditional philosophical [End Page 101] modes of expression completely behind proved impossible (for now), but it has been for me a worthwhile exercise to locate my reflections on "truth, knowledge, and the wild world" in something of a narrative form. It is the lakes and rivers, prairies, mountains, and deserts that have remained implicit. They have cast their spell, however, on any attempt to impose cultural order on the relationship between truth, knowledge, and the wild world. I Looking back on it, it seems that my entire philosophical career has been implicated—in one way or another, directly and indirectly—in these two questions: "How important is truth to knowledge and epistemology?" and "What is the role of natural environments in the production of knowledge?" Furthest back, at the very origin of my philosophical life, reflections on philosophical knowledge were inevitably posed and thought about in natural environments, particularly in my meditations as I drifted in the early morning mist on the St. Croix River and several Minnesota lakes, especially Cedar Lake. Even now, when I am trying to make my way to a new understanding of some philosophical issue, I walk along the shores of Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee River, or sit by rivers and lakes in Idaho, a place that became my second home after meeting my partner, Fran. Northern White Cedars stand in our yard, front and back; Western Red Cedar holds our house in its embrace.There is no question in my mind that natural environments are the deepest sources of whatever philosophical understandings I may have come to. In terms of formal studies, however, the question of the role of natural environments in the production of knowledge did not emerge for me until, well into my teaching career, I discovered the newly-emerging field of environmental ethics. It was at that point that the deepest wellspring of my philosophy and my life came together with my professional philosophical interests—in an uneasy balance. Until that time, as I think of it now, my philosophical track through the curious environment of the academy, however well it prepared me to think about central issues in environmental ethics, was mostly marked by a fascination with glittering baubles and gemstones and did not truly touch the soil, water, and atmosphere of my life.Questions of truth, knowledge, and epistemology took center stage from the beginning of my formal philosophical studies. As an undergraduate [End Page 102] at Berkeley, Thompson Clarke introduced me (in three courses) to the skeptical implications of Ordinary Language Philosophy that had escaped the attention of J. L. Austin and others. This baptism into the rigors of skeptical philosophy left me pretty much convinced, as my partner and... (shrink)

The proposed volumes are aimed at a multidisciplinary audience and seek to fill the gap between law, semiotics and visuality providing a comprehensive theoretical and analytical overview of legal visual semiotics. They seek to promote an interdisciplinary debate from law, semiotics and visuality bringing together the cumulative research traditions of these related areas as a prelude to identifying fertile avenues for research going forward. Advance Praise for Law, Culture and Visual Studies This diverse and exhilarating collection of essays explores the (...) many facets both historical and contemporary of visual culture in the law. It opens a window onto the substantive, jurisdictional, disciplinary and methodological diversity of current research. It is a cornucopia of materials that will enliven legal studies for those new to the field as well as for established scholars. It is a 'must read' that will leave you wondering about the validity of the long held obsession that reduces the law and legal studies to little more than a preoccupation with the word. Leslie J Moran Professor of Law, Birkbeck College, University of London Law, Culture and Visual Studies is a treasure trove of insights on the entwined roles of legality and visuality. From multiple interdisciplinary perspectives by scholars from around the world, these pieces reflect the fullness and complexities of our visual encounters with law and culture. From pictures to places to postage stamps, from forensics to film to folklore, this anthology is an exciting journey through the fertile field of law and visual culture as well as a testament that the field has come of age. Naomi Mezey, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C., USA This highly interdisciplinary reference work brings together diverse fields including cultural studies, communication theory, rhetoric, law and film studies, legal and social history, visual and legal theory, in order to document the various historical, cultural, representational and theoretical links that bind together law and the visual. This book offers a breath-taking range of resources from both well-established and newer scholars who together cover the field of law's representation in, interrogation of, and dialogue with forms of visual rhetoric, practice, and discourse. Taken together this scholarship presents state of the art research into an important and developing dimension of contemporary legal and cultural inquiry. Above all, Law Culture and Visual Studies lays the groundwork for rethinking the nature of law in our densely visual culture: How are legal meanings produced, encoded, distributed, and decoded? What critical and hermeneutic skills, new or old, familiar or unfamiliar, will be needed? Topical, diverse, and enlivening, Law Culture and Visual Studies is a vital research tool and an urgent invitation to further critical thinking in the areas so well laid out in this collection. Desmond Manderson, Future Fellow, ANU College of Law / Research School of Humanities and the Arts, Australian National University, Australia. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 41-50 [Access article in PDF] Encounter Between Hyper-Media and Art Education:A Retrospection of Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Memories of Art and EducationToday both art and education are experiencing profound change as a result of emerging technologies. This essay attempts to redefine art education by considering the latest media art as the culmination of change in art. Statements about art education are only viable (...) in the meta-context of art, as art education must start with the work to objectify, as well as structure, "art." Atthe same time, these meta-statements can cast light on the "foundation" of art.Attempts to view the totality of art up to the present time from the "end" of history (meta) and questioning of the "beginning" of art and mankind (foundation) are two sides of the same phenomenon.Media art is an example of this phenomenon which reflects both the meta-context and foundation of art. For example, the work of Jean-Louis Boissier boasts both a radical as well as refined image. 1 His exhibition, "Salle Rousseau" further extends the scale of his conventional work based on the texts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 2 This essay revises the text written for the catalogue for the exhibition and aims at analyzing the close relationship between media art and art education, sketching the phases of [End Page 41] meta-statements and foundations which emerge as a result of the interaction of art, media, and education. A Place for Retrospection Boissier's work is well-known for its references to Rousseau. Having been involved in art education, it was natural for me to develop a strong interest in Rousseau, whom I consider to be a founder of modern art and education. The fact that the Boissier's exhibition was held at the "Kyoto Art Centre" in Muromachi, Kyoto supports this belief. Kyoto was the first place in Japan where primary schools based on the school district system were introduced. The Kyoto Art Centre is located at the former Meirin Primary School which was founded at the dawn of modern Japanese education. In its turn, Meirin Primary School succeeded Shingaku-juku. 3 Thus, the location for the BoissierExhibition, dating back to the very beginning of education in Japan, is a place that encourages reflection on the past.While Boissier recollects Rousseau with his unique interactive texts, Rousseau recollects his own past. We, the spectators, are immersed in multiple layers of memories and recollections. Sometimes, however, Rousseau's recollections break through the intricacy and multiple layers and appear to achieve a rapport with the people and flowers which once existed. I have long been attracted by the fresh literal expressions particularly evident in "The Confessions" and other works. The beauty of such expressions must have been born from his affectionate view of nature as illustrated by his hobby of plant collection. View of Nature I cannot help recalling Rousseau whenever I think about the relationship between nature and mankind. Rousseau was a person who could talk beautifully about the direct relationship between nature and mankind. In his writings of "Les riveries du promeneur solitaire" and "Quoted Passage," Rousseau recollects his peaceful life on St. Pierre Island in Lake Bieler in Switzerland where he spent nearly one and a half months after being deported from France as well as his hometown, Geneva because of problems caused by the publication of The Social Contract and Emile. For me, this text is inseparable from the looped image of shallow water which forms the background of the work entitled Flora petrinsularis (1993 and 1994) by Boissier.The beautiful text by Rousseau captivates us without any external help and, at the same time, shows what nature meant to him. The relationship with nature described here is the food as well as foundation of his life. This attitude of accepting nature in the deepest part of his mind is pure agreement with nature as pointed out by Jean Starobinski and represents an experience of fusion... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Martin Luther and Buddhism: The Aesthetics of SufferingPaul O. IngramMartin Luther and Buddhism: The Aesthetics of Suffering. By Paul S. Chung. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2002. 434 pp.As a member of the Lutheran community (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), I am struck by the fact that Lutheran theologians—referred to as "teaching theologians" when employed by Lutheran seminaries—seem little interested in religious pluralism in general and interreligious (...) dialogue in particular. There are important exceptions, of course, one being Donald Luck of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Ohio. And the most intense and coherent dialogue between Christians and Muslims now taking place in the United States is located at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. But by and large, Lutheran theology seems unengaged with the realities of religious pluralism. Rather than dialogue, "missionology" is the focus of most Lutheran theological encounter with the world religions, which means that most Lutheran conversation with religious pluralism is best characterized as monologue.It's different for most Lutherans sitting in the pews of local congregations. Most lay persons understand that they must live their faith contextualized by their religiously plural neighborhoods. Lutheran laity are interested the religious practices and worldviews of their neighbors because they are in contact with their neighbors everyday. They desire to meet and know the religious "other" not as "other," but as fellow human beings seeking to live in community. My distinct impression, gained [End Page 235] from teaching adult education courses in local congregations (mostly Lutheran and other mainline denominations), is that Christian lay people are usually miles ahead of their pastors, denominational leaders, and teaching theologians in their encounter with the realities of religious pluralism and their desire for dialogue. For these reasons, Paul S. Chung's book, Martin Luther and Buddhism, is important, and I hope it will be the beginning of specifically Lutheran dialogue with the Buddhist tradition. Again, as a Lutheran, I can only say, "It's about time."Chung's goal is twofold: (1) engaging in critical dialogue with the theology of Martin Luther, and (2) Asian pluralistic theology of religions. Specifically, the author, himself a Korean Lutheran pastor and theologian, places Luther's theology of the Cross in dialogue with Buddhist understanding of suffering (duh.kha). His thesis is that what Christianity and Buddhism have in common is their understanding of suffering, albeit each tradition having different approaches and "solutions" to universal suffering. Accordingly, rereading Luther's theology of the Cross in dialogue with Buddhism's take on suffering, its causes, and its resolution is the center of Chung's hermeneutical approach to Luther.Surely, Chung is on the right track. Buddhism's focus on the experience of universal suffering and its resolution is one of its defining features. Chung's reason for placing Luther's theology of the Cross in dialogue with Buddhism lies mainly in the fact that Luther focused on the suffering of God on the cross incarnated in the suffering of the historical Jesus, which he placed in direct contrast to the "theology of glory" of medieval scholastic theology. Chung's claim is that Luther's understanding of divine suffering is a "liberation theology" that needs be contextualized by contemporary struggle for social, economic, ecological, and women's liberation from systemic structures of injustice. Because justice issues are not religion-specific, Luther's theology of the Cross in socially engaged dialogue with Buddhism should be a source of liberation for both Christians and Buddhists.Chung's work stands in a long line of Asian Christians seeking to translate Christian teachings and practices into the religious traditions foundational to Asian cultures, in Chung's case Korean Buddhism and, to some degree, Confucianism. One immediately thinks of Aloysius Pieris's dialogue with Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Seiichi Yagi and Masaaki Honda's appropriation of Mahayana doctrines in their attempts to relate Christian faith to Japanese cultural experience, or Raimundo Panikkar's interpretation of Christian faith through the lenses of Hinduism and Buddhism. All ofthese theologians note that Anglo-European intellectual and cultural traditions are not easily translatable into Asian cultural experience. Because Western forms of Christian tradition are foreign to Asian cultural values... (shrink)

In this article, readers are presented with an analysis of some of the problems that became the center of discussion at the XXI International Likhachev Scientific Readings held in May 2023 at the St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions. The readings were held under the general title "Dialogues and conflicts of cultures in a changing world", combining the traditional theme of dialogue with the problems of conflict that have arisen in recent years. This review focuses on two significant issues, (...) one of which determined the course of the plenary discussion, and the other became the main one for the breakout session devoted to the values and trends of the modern world. The main issue of the plenary session was the consideration of the conflict between the unipolar and multipolar world. Both domestic and foreign participants actively spoke out on this issue. The speakers who spoke at the Readings adhered to the idea of prioritizing the values of a multipolar world, pointing to the undemocratic nature of unipolarity. Analyzing this aspect of the discussion, the author of the review notes that in modern society the same value attitudes develop to the limits where they lead to opposite conclusions. The idea of unipolarity implies the uniqueness of the democratic model. From the idea of multipolarity, there are many different development scenarios, which looks like a more democratic position. It can be concluded that the value attitude coincides, but the basis of the ideological conflict is a political conflict. Nevertheless, the final value discrepancy is very acute. The philosophical and cultural section of the conference was devoted to this. Noting the sharpness of the criticism expressed by the speakers to the "new ethics" and the "culture of cancellation", the author of the review points out that in this criticism there is a desire to "cancel" the criticized, which again unites both positions, but does not provide grounds for a constructive dialogue. To overcome the contradiction, a rational analysis of the ideological and historical foundations, as well as the dynamics of the development of opposing value positions, is necessary. (shrink)

Here I examine the potential for art-science collaborations to be the basis for deliberative discussions on research agendas and direction. Responsible Research and Innovation has become a science policy goal in synthetic biology and several other high-profile areas of scientific research. While art-science collaborations offer the potential to engage both publics and scientists and thus possess the potential to facilitate the desired “mutual responsiveness” between researchers, institutional actors, publics and various stakeholders, there are potential challenges in effectively implementing collaborations as (...) well as dangers in potentially instrumentalizing artistic work for science policy or innovation agendas when power differentials in collaborations remain unacknowledged. Art-science collaborations can be thought of as processes of exchange which require acknowledgement of and attention to artistic agendas as well as identification of and attention to aesthetic dimensions of scientific research. I suggest the advantage of specifically identifying public engagement/science communication as a distinct aspect of such projects so that aesthetic, scientific or social science/philosophical research agendas are not subsumed to the assumption that the primary or only value of art-science collaborations is as a form of public engagement or science communication to mediate biological research community public relations. Likewise, there may be potential benefits of acknowledging an art-science-RRI triangle as stepping stone to a more reflexive research agenda within the STS/science communication/science policy community. Using BrisSynBio, an EPSRC/BBSRC-funded research centre in synthetic biology, I will discuss the framing for art-science collaborations and practical implementation and make remarks on what happened there. The empirical evidence reviewed here supports the model I propose but additionally, points to the need to broaden the conception of and possible purposes, or motivations for art, for example, in the case of cross-sectoral collaboration with community engaged art. (shrink)

This paper interrogates and reclaims clown practices in children’s rehabilitation as ‘foolish.’ Attempts to legitimize and ‘take seriously’ clown practices in the health sciences frame the work of clowns as secondary to the ‘real’ work of medical professionals and diminish the ways clowns support emotional vulnerability and bravery with a willingness to fail and be ridiculous as fundamental to their work. Narrow conceptualizations of clown practices in hospitals as only happy and funny overlook the ways clowns also routinely engage with (...) sadness, despair, discomfort and many other ways of being and doing. Our exploration of clown practices as foolish exposes the ways children’s rehabilitation upholds particular neoliberal models of success and invites a re-centring of rehabilitation and health care research and practice towards relationship building, supporting meaningful projects and a continued nurturing of aesthetic and pleasurable ways of being-in-the-world in the present moment as valuable unto themselves. (shrink)

This essay discusses the mounted image of St. George slaying an emperor within the broader context of how and why early Christian images were transformed and adapted to the early Byzantine religious style. The representational framework of Arthur Danto’s philosophical system is used to tie together the threads of this research. By drawing parallels between changes in contemporary art and culture – often referred to as the modern/postmodern shift – and the transition of the Hellenistic to the Byzantine era, structures (...) common to artistic creation and reception are brought to the fore. The case study presents the history of the depiction of St. George slaying Diocletian, how it emerged in the Caucasus region, and the manner in which it reflects the stylistic changes that took place in the late antique eastern Roman world. The social, cultural and philosophical ramifications of the shift of high classical art to the early Byzantine style are laid out in terms of art, modes of inquiry, and action-orientation. A theory is presented on what role the image of St. George killing Diocletian may have played in transforming the late antique and early medieval worldview. The final section sketches a philosophical framework that supports the conclusions of this research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Aesthetics of Cultural StudiesPaul DuncumThe Aesthetics of Cultural Studies, edited by Michael Bérube. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005, 208 pp., $26.95 paper, $67.95 cloth.This new anthology of ten chapters and a chapter-length introduction by the editor is primarily intended to act as a corrective to the view that cultural studies is uninterested in aesthetics. Contributors argue that while some cultural studies scholars have given (...) this impression, either abandoning the term "aesthetics" or explicitly rejecting the tradition of philosophical aesthetics, cultural studies has been, from its origins in England in the early 1960s, deeply concerned with aesthetic issues. Cultural studies is properly understood, contributors argue, as being born out of a desire to extend aesthetic considerations to a wider range of artifacts and experiences than had hitherto been allowable within the modernist philosophical tradition of aesthetics derived from Kant. Contributors deal with many debates within the field of cultural studies—unsurprisingly mostly to do with turf wars within universities—but I will focus here specifically on what they have to say about aesthetics, though I cannot do justice to the multiplicity of views developed by different authors.Since contributors are primarily from North America, where cultural studies has mainly taken root in the English departments of universities, the cultural form most commonly discussed is literature. Exceptions include David Sanjek's chapter, which focuses on popular music, and Steven Rubio's chapter, which deals playfully with phenomenological intertextuality between classical music and popular cartoons. Most of the issues addressed by contributors also apply to other traditional arts, though not, I will argue below, to many contemporary forms of popular cultural experience.Contributors are especially concerned to defend themselves against charges that, in Rorty's view, cultural studies equates to "expressions of political resentment clothed in jargon," or in George Levine's characterization of this position, as "seeing the text as a kind of enemy to be arrested," where the text is reduced to context and the truth of art is denied in favor of the truth of politics (as cited in Rita Felski's chapter). For such critics, cultural studies equates with ideology critique and represents the death of aesthetics. Not so, according to each of these authors. John Frow, for example, argues that from its inception it was not aesthetics per se that cultural studies objected to but the then normative discourse of aesthetics that was positioned above politics.Several authors are concerned to establish the credentials of cultural studies as a unique way of approaching culture and not just any running together of culture and politics. Felski complains of a "semantic drift," which sees cultural studies mischaracterized and condemned for sins that rightly belong to other fields.Complicating a search for the uniqueness of cultural studies, however, is Jonathan Sterne's contribution in what seems a significantly revisionist position. He claims that in cultural studies culture has had to carry too heavy a burden. Culture has been a conduit to politics, he argues; studying culture has been a way of studying politics by other means, and he suggests that sometimes culture can simply be enjoyed for its own sake and not subject to analysis. David Shumway, too, at times just wants to enjoy culture. In the everyday course of living this is surely right, though it is hardly at the center of the scholarly cultural studies' enterprise. As other contributors argue, cultural studies has always seen the need for striking a balance between aesthetics and [End Page 113] ideology. Sterne's unease with cultural studies for seeing aesthetics primarily in instrumental terms—a way of getting at politics—nevertheless serves as a corrective to the idea that cultural studies scholars have a hard time understanding pleasure.Most contributors acknowledge the influence of Raymond Williams—as well they might—and several cite, even at length, from the chapter "Aesthetic and Other Situations" from his 1977 book Marxism and Literature.1 Here Williams succinctly laid out the theoretical framework for many of the authors of this anthology. It is worth considering some of the key threads of Bérube's book through the prism of this chapter.Williams begins by making aesthetics problematic... (shrink)

Be aware... and you will be mindful of a notable ambiguity in semiotics as well as of those who have masterfully strived to transcend it. This event, commented on by Elize Bisanz (Texas Tech University) and chaired by William Passarini (Institute for Philosophical Studies), is part of the activities of the 2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics: a Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing, cooperatively organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of (...) Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, the International Center for Semiotics and Intercultural Dialogue, Moscow State Academic University for the Humanities and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project. *** Ionut Untea is currently a fellow-in-residence at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, in Stuttgart, where he is researching on the semioethic and aesthetic coordinates of the “social compact” and intercorporeal relationships. In 2021, he has taught a course entitled “Intercultural Philosophy: Semiotic Approaches and Aesthetic Themes” as a Visiting Professor at Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro. Since 2016, he has been teaching History of Western Philosophy and Semiotics at Southeast University, Nanjing. He previously taught at the University of La Rochelle, and was a postdoctoral fellow of the Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue (FIIRD) at the University of Geneva. He obtained his doctorate in 2013 at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), in Paris. He holds Romanian citizenship, having obtained his first degrees in philosophy and theology at the University of Bucharest. His focus is on the modern and contemporary intersections between semiotic, moral, political and religious thought. He has published recently “Peircean and Confucian Interpretations of Self-Development: Semiotic, Normative and Aesthetic Aspects,” Philosophy East and West 72.1: January 2022: 188–209. His recent work has appeared in academic journals such as The American Journal of Semiotics (2021), Semiotica (2021), Ethical Perspectives (2021, 2019), Philosophical Forum (2019), Journal of Aesthetic Education (2020), Politics and Religion (2019), The Monist (2018). *** Dr. Bisanz's education includes an MA (Philosophy) from the University of Lüneburg in Germany; Graduate Studies in Jacques Derrida's philosophy Seminars at l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris; a Ph.D. (History of Communication Sciences) from the Technische University of Berlin; and a post-doc Habilitation Degree (Image Studies), from the University of Lüneburg. Bisanz has published several interdisciplinary books reflecting her educational background; these include a major European edition of Peirce's writings The Logic of Interdisciplinarity: Charles S. Peirce, The Monist Series (Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 2009), which was realized with the aid of research and publication grants from State and private endowments; Prolegomena to a Science of Reasoning: Phaneroscopy, Semeiotic, Logic, which is a collection of manuscripts by Peirce on reasoning (Peter Lang Publishers, Berlin, 2016); Overcoming the Iconic Turn: Cultural Concepts of Images [in German: Die Überwindung des Ikonischen: Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven der Bildwissenschaft] (transcript Verlag, Hamburg, 2010). Bisanz is a member of the advising board of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Semiotik and chair of the society's subdivision for Cultural Studies. Since her Fulbright scholarship in 2006 at Texas Tech University, Bisanz has been an active member of the Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism. She has organized several international congresses dedicated to Peirce and interdisciplinary research. *** Homepage: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s Auditorium: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s/auditorium *** Technical support assured by Robert Junqueira. The cover image for the video was designed by Zahra Soltani. (shrink)

Kick off the year right... and you will find yourself capable of recognizing the depth and breadth of John's genius. This event, commented on by Bujar Hoxha (South-East European University) chaired by Elma Berisha (Lyceum Institute), is part of the activities of the 2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics: a Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing, cooperatively organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of (...) Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, the International Center for Semiotics and Intercultural Dialogue, Moscow State Academic University for the Humanities and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project. *** Eero Tarasti, professor of musicology at the University of Helsinki (chair) in 1984-2016. He was President of the IASS/AIS - International Association for Semiotic Studies, 2004-2014 and is now its Honorary President. In 2016 he has founded the Academy of Cultural Heritages. He studied music in Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, and then in Vienna, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Bloomington. He got his PhD from the University of Helsinki (1978) after studies in Paris with Claude Lévi-Strauss and A. J. Greimas. He is one of the founders and the director of the international research group Musical Signification since 1984.Tarasti has become Honorary Doctor at Estonian Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, New Bulgarian University (Sofia), Indiana University (Bloomington), University of Aix-Marseille, and Gheorghe Dima National Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca, Rumania. He has published about 400 articles, edited 50 anthologies, and written 30 monographs; among them one finds: Myth and Music (1979), A Theory of Musical Semiotics (1994), Heitor Villa-Lobos (1996), Existential Semiotics (2000), Signs of Music (2003), Fondéments de la sémiotique existentielle (2009), Fondamenti di semiotica esistenziale (2010), Semiotics of Classical Music (2012, in French 2016), Sein und Schein, Explorations in Existential Semiotics (2015), and Transcending Signs: Essays in Existential Semiotics (2023); two novels: Le secret du professeur Amfortas (2002) and Retour à la Villa Nevski (2014, in Italian L’heredità di Villa Nevski 2014, in Finnish Eurooppa/Ehkä 2016). He has supervised 150 PhDs in Finland and abroad. *** Dr. Bujar Hoxha is a full professor of Communication Sciences at the South-East European University in Tetovo and Skopje, North Macedonia. His teaching courses include communication theory, introduction to communication sciences, and Semiotics of Mass Communication. His main scientific interests are structural semiotics, semiotics of passions, semiotics of disabilities, and existential semiotics. He gained his PhD from the University of Skopje in 2008 on the semiotics of Umberto Eco. Out of his creative and intellectual work, one can number two published novels, a book, as well as several scientific articles published in prestigious scientific journals, such as: “Semiotics of Precision and Imprecision” (2016) and “Multilingualism and Sameness vs Otherness in a Semiotic Context”, (2018) both in de Gruyter Mouton's Semiotica, Berlin and Boston, as well as “On the Applicability of the Semiotics of Passions” (2018) and “The Signs’ Behavior in Autistic Children: Semiosis of an Unspoken Language” (2021), both in the Humanities Bulletin, issued by London Academic Publishing, London, United Kingdom. Recently, Dr. Hoxha has published a monograph entitled: Umberto Eco’s Semiotics: Theory, Methodology and Poetics, issued by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in January 2022, New Castle upon Tyne, UK. *** Homepage: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s Auditorium: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s/auditorium *** Technical support assured by Robert Junqueira. The cover image for the video was designed by Zahra Soltani. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the works of contemporary St. Petersburg artists of different generations and creative trends, as well as the forms and features of their communication with each other and with the general as well as professional public. The trends of artistic communication in the city are determined by the activities of such institutions as art and non-art museums, art galleries and exhibition centers, which are a classic form of presentation of contemporary art; alternative venues such as (...) creative spaces and art clusters. The field of attention also includes the attraction of St. Petersburg authors to the organization of small artistic associations, mainly art groups, for example, "Unconquered", "North-7", "Parasites", etc. In addition to works of art, theoretical works and reflections by researchers of contemporary art in St. Petersburg and the spaces of its public presentation are involved. The methodological basis is the analysis of the works of St. Petersburg masters of the beginning of the XXI century in the context of the development of urban institutions of artistic communication. The research is based on theoretical works devoted to the problem of artistic communication and trends in the current art process. Comparative-interpretative and typological methods are used to compare the works of artists and forms of artistic communication. The problem of artistic communication in the field of fine art in St. Petersburg is becoming the subject of a separate study. This area of city life is currently developing quite dynamically, as new art associations, curatorial practices and alternative classical platforms for the presentation of the work of authors belonging to different generations and art movements are emerging. Traditional museums and galleries, as well as creative spaces, art clusters and other often non-core institutions, such as libraries and cafes, are involved in this process. Against this background, the features of St. Petersburg artistic communication crystallize, which is characterized by a desire to organize communities, to fuse realistic traditions and current trends, to escapism and symbolism, as well as an interest in oriental themes and stylistics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Culturally Responsive Teaching in Music Education: From Understanding to Application by Vicky R. Lind and Constance L. McKoyEric ShiehVicky R. Lind and Constance L. McKoy, Culturally Responsive Teaching in Music Education: From Understanding to Application (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016).In the book’s penultimate chapter, titled “Community,” we encounter a teacher who agrees to a student’s request to start a mariachi band and gets “more than he bargained for.”1 (...) We hear from a teacher who seeks a greater understanding of the context for her Black students and finds herself the only White person in many of the community events she attends. We learn about a teacher who has her marching band, predominantly comprised of Latinx students, march in annual Korean and Black community parades in the city and why she does this. What to make of these stories—inspiring, provocative, suffused with honesty? I found myself restless to share these narratives with my own teaching colleagues, to ask not simply “What do you see happening here?” but also “Where would something like this take us?”What is notable about Vicky Lind and Constance McKoy’s achievement here is that they have given us a very full book and one that provides many different points of entry—stories and theories and activities and questions—through which to engage with ideas of culturally responsive teaching. In just under 150 [End Page 210] pages with index and references, the book encompasses four chapters that review various academic traditions connected to culturally responsive teaching, concludes with three chapters that relay narratives and vignettes from K-12 music teachers, and includes throughout lists of reflection questions and teaching strategies. The primary audience is pre-service and in-service K-12 music teachers. If a key requirement for culturally responsive teaching is continuous reflection over the impacts our pedagogies have on our students and ourselves as teachers, this book’s wide-ranging engagement is indeed a welcome one.What I offer here in terms of review, then, is first a consideration of the book’s various components and where they might lead us. Second, I bring its ideas of cultural responsiveness into dialogue with ideas more commonly found in anti-racist and social justice approaches to education—traditions the book does not directly engage with but which certainly have a place in conversations around it. This is a particularly relevant time, I suggest, to engage with questions of cultural responsiveness alongside perhaps more politically-minded approaches: this book will be read, I hope, by teachers grappling with our age of renewed and visible racial struggle, increased forced migration, and cultural insecurity.The first half of the book is explicitly dedicated to “understanding” culturally responsive teaching. Its chapters present a historical overview of its conceptual development, explicate the centrality of culture and cultural competence to teaching, and discuss the connection between music and identity in young people. The authors center their conceptualization of culturally responsive teaching around Geneva Gay’s framework, outlined in her Culturally Responsive Teaching, as “using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them.”2 “Effective,” here, is understood broadly and includes academic competence, self-efficacy, social critique, and the freedom to be “ethnically expressive.”3In laying this foundation, the authors negotiate thoughtfully a number of tensions inherent in this work that are too often simplified in the classroom. They recognize, for example, the need to acknowledge culture as a category through which human experience is mediated, but also one that too easily gives way to stereotyping. When discussing issues of music and identity they remind readers that musical identities are multiple and suggest that musical identities might be viewed as both “bottom-up” and “top-down”—constructed through a variety of ongoing experiences as much as they are constituted by national or ethnic affiliation.4 They also do not shy from language such as “high expectations” and “academic competence” when discussing the need for comprehensive and supportive classrooms, despite the uneasiness with which these terms often sit in arts education and alongside purposes of engendering social critique... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Denial of PeterRené Girard, Mimetic Desire, and ConversionWilliam E. Cain (bio)Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.—René GirardI believe in commitment … We must be committed to one position and follow it through.—René GirardIn many books and essays throughout his long career, (...) the literary critic and cultural theorist René Girard presented, developed, and extended provocative ideas about, and insights into, mimetic desire. Our desires are not our own, Girard emphasizes; they do not come from within. We form our desires on the desires that we perceive in others; they are our models; we imitate them. Always, we seek to be aligned with the words and deeds of an envied model or, more generally, with those of a dominant group or crowd. [End Page 101]As Girard defines it, desire is extremely potent and controlling. We cannot resist its force, and all too often it propels individuals and societies into rivalry, hatred, and violence. There are descriptions of this formidable power in Sophocles, Shakespeare, and other great writers of the Western tradition, as Girard has demonstrated. But, even more, Girard maintains that we witness the operation, that is, the revelation, of mimetic desire—its origins, its consequences—in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.The temptation and sin of Adam and Eve, the story of Joseph and his brothers, the judgment of Solomon, the story of Job, the crucifixion of Jesus—these are some of Girard's recurring examples. However, the Biblical episode that may have mattered the most to him, one that he invoked repeatedly, is the Denial of St. Peter.The details of this story differ somewhat from one gospel to the next—Girard prefers the version of it in the gospel of Mark—but the core of it is this: At the Last Supper, Jesus predicted that Peter would deny him three times; Peter swore that he would not, but when the time of testing came, he did. When others confronted him, the fearful Peter, desiring to belong, desperate to be safely within the group, denied that he knew who Jesus was: "I do not know the man you speak of" (Mark 14:71).1Girard's explications of the Denial bring into focus his theory of mimetic desire. His reiterated point about St. Peter is really a point about us—that we are the same as this disciple: We would have betrayed Jesus too. In New Testament studies, some have claimed that "the story about Peter is simply a concretizing of the general denial of all the disciples."2 In our own times of test and trial, we have acted and will act as Peter did.Consider Girard's treatment of the Denial in Le Sacrifice (2003; English trans. 2011).3 The mob that calls for Jesus's death, Girard explains, "is constituted and nourished by swallowing up everything that passes within its reach. It is the black hole of violent mimeticism; where mimeticism is most dense, the mob emerges."4"The major example," he continues, "is that of Peter's denial":Peter cannot help but imitate their hostility. If we psychologize this denial, if we attribute it to the suggestible temperament of the apostle, we seek to prove (unconsciously) that in Peter's place, we would not have denied Jesus. It should be recalled that before his denial Peter, too, vows never to deny Jesus. He is too preoccupied with the opinion others have of him not to blindly adopt the politically correct attitude of the milieu at the center of which he has the misfortune of finding himself.5 [End Page 102] Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1."All the actors and witnesses of the crucifixion," Girard concludes, "are already hostile to Jesus or they become so, for mimeticism spares no one."6We cannot resist the influence of the mob: Inevitably we succumb to it. No more than Peter would we have remained steadfast. There is nothing inherent in Peter as an individual that explains why he... (shrink)

A historical account of Hegel’s reception in Japan would have to deal with the European impact on the Japanese Enlightenment of the years that preceeded and prepared the Meiji era, then with the switch over from British and French to German trends marked by the Imperial Constitution, and would finally have to center on the efforts of the Nishida school to combine eastern, especially Zen, wisdom with German Idealism. That cannot here be attempted. Such a task would require a Japanese (...) scholar or, at least, somebody with an intimate knowledge of Japanese history and the history of its philosophy, not to mention, of course, the Japanese language. The author of these remarks cannot pretend to such a knowledge; all he can offer is what the subtitle specifies: impressions of a recent visit, augmented, perhaps, by some subsequent reflections; both, no doubt, highly subjective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Encounters with Ovid: Gavin Douglas’s The Palis of Honoure and Derek Walcott’s “The Hotel Normandie Pool” CAROLE E. NEWLANDS In sixteenth-century Rome, humanist scholars of ancient material and religious culture were exploring the ruins and inscriptions of ancient Rome with a copy of Ovid’s Fasti in hand.1 In London at the same time, Shakespeare was entertaining audiences and inspiring other poets with plots and characters drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. (...) Reception studies of Ovid often focus on these great metropolitan centers. In this article, however, I will explore transformative encounters with Ovid by two poets living on the geographical margins: Gavin Douglas, the Scottish poet whose major work, the Eneados, completed in 1513, was the first translation of Virgil’s Aeneid in the British Isles, and Derek Walcott, the Caribbean Nobel-prize winning poet best known for his epic poem Omeros, published in 1990. As a poet of a small northern country that had fraught political and cultural relations with its much more populous neighbor, England, Douglas can be considered to some extent, like Walcott, within a postcolonial critical paradigm. For despite their stark differences in geographical locale and in period of time, these poets have significant commonalties. Both men were natives of places geographically distant from the major metropolitan center of London. Both were also classically learned poets. They thus shared anxieties relating to their temporal distance from Graeco-Roman culture as well as to their physical distance from the powerful English-language literary center of their day. And significantly, both Douglas and Walcott present transformative visions of Ovid in indiarion 26.3 winter 2019 vidual, early poems, The Palis of Honoure and “The Hotel Normandie Pool” respectively. These imagined but direct encounters with the Roman poet occur in poems before Douglas and Walcott composed the works for which they are chiefly known, in Douglas’s case the translation of the Aeneid, and in Walcott’s Omeros. Ovid appears in both the Palis of Honoure and “The Hotel Normandie Pool” initially, at least, as an outsider, a poet of exile, but not, however, as a self-pitying poet in decline or, as recent scholarship would have it, as a skilled manipulator of the tropes of poetic decline.2 Rather, in Douglas’s and Walcott’s poems Ovid is a figure who authorizes marginality as a vital source of poetic re-creation. As both insider and outsider Ovid can offer positive redirection to these authors whether within or beyond their geographical boundaries. Through their visions of Ovid, both Douglas and Walcott are offered the possibility of personal change and generic innovation. For each poet the encounter with Ovid is a form of poetic initiation that leads him to his more ambitious work in the heroic genre. gavin douglas’s THE PALIS OF HONOURE i will start with Gavin Douglas (c. 1474–1522). Douglas is generally classed as one of the “Makars,” a term used to refer to a cluster of brilliant, experimental Scottish poets of the late 15th and early 16th century. Among these were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, and Gavin Douglas, three poets who thrived under the rule of King James IV of Scotland, an active patron of the arts who sought to make his court a center of cultural excellence that would rival the English court.3 Douglas’s Palis of Honoure is a youthful, ambitious poem, composed in 1502, twelve years before his major achievement, his translation of the Aeneid.4 Dedicated to King James, The Palis comprises 2169 decasyllabic lines with several demanding rhyme schemes.5 It is written in a manner that combines the “aureate” style, that is elegant and Latinate, with down-to-earth Scottish vernacular 74 encounters with ovid diction and forms of expression, and it is also suffused with Ovidian myth and concepts.6 Its format derives from the medieval dream vision, a form employed notably, for instance, by Douglas’s famous English predecessor Chaucer.7 Scholars tend to find The Palis of Honoure less polished than Douglas’s mature work, the Eneados. Conor Leahy, however, describes the youthful poem as bold and dynamic: “In the hundred years following the death of Chaucer, no other dream vision... (shrink)

This essay addresses the problem of the decline of interest in the Liberal and Fine Arts, and the humanities, East and West, accompanied by a reductionist understanding of reality and life. That reductionism results in a trivialization and brutalization of culture. The essay considers three prominent modes of understanding: Scientism, Relationalism, and Wisdom-seeking. A scientistic relationalism is anti-intellectual and anti-cultural. In contrast, a Wisdom-seeking relationalism affirms human dignity, and is grounded in a qualitative ontology necessary to an intellectual (...) and moral life. The historical turning-point in the West in which the intellectual and practical pursuit of Wisdom was replaced by a scientistic relationalism is personified by the contrasts between St. Anselm of Canterbury and Peter Abelard. (shrink)

Richard Shusterman suggested that Maurice Merleau-Ponty neglected “‘lived somaesthetic reflection,’ that is, concrete but representational and reflective body consciousness.” While unsure about this assessment of Merleau-Ponty, lived somaesthetic reflection, or what the late Sam Mallin called “body phenomenology”—understood as a meditation on the body reflecting on both itself and the world—is my starting point. Another is John Dewey’s bodily theory of perception, augmented somewhat by Merleau-Ponty. -/- With these starting points, I spent roughly 20 hours with St. Benedict Restores Life (...) to a Young Monk (c. 1360), a work of tempera and gold leaf on panel, by Giovanni Del Biondo, active in Italy from 1356 to 1398, on display in the Art Gallery of Ontario’s permanent collection. Following Dewey’s suggestion that “[t]he eye ... is only the channel through which a total response takes place,” meaning that motor, emotional, intellectual and non-visual perceptual capacities become active when we encounter paintings, I describe how the work engaged a range of bodily modalities; and how reflecting on these, in turn, supplied phenomenal articulations of life negating, preserving and enhancing forces important in the culture that produced it, and famously discussed by Friedrich Nietzsche. By virtue of the approach adopted, I also demonstrate Dewey’s belief that intimate engagement with art entails a total coordination of one’s capacities around the artwork, while simultaneously reinforcing Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about perception and how we can find phenomenal articulations of concepts such as the Nietzschean ones just mentioned. While focusing on Del Biondo’s painting, my main purpose is to engage in body phenomenology practices, and to show, in the words of Shusterman, how “[w]e might sharpen our appreciation of art through more attention to our somaesthetic feelings involved in perceiving art” and indeed the world. (shrink)

As the classic of classics and the bridge between pagan antiquity and the Christian era, Virgil’s Aeneid stands at the center of the humanities’ Great Conversation. Yet this poem of Empire, with its flawed hero and its ambivalence toward divine and temporal power, raises more questions than it answers about the nature of human history. The epic’s true moral complexity, mirroring the insoluble conundrum that is human life, makes it especially relevant in an era whose political polarization resembles civil war. (...) Reflecting on centuries of readers’ deeply personal relationships with the Aeneid, this article discusses how even today the “greatest text” can provide companionship and inspiration on our life’s journey. (shrink)

A historical account of Hegel’s reception in Japan would have to deal with the European impact on the Japanese Enlightenment of the years that preceeded and prepared the Meiji era, then with the switch over from British and French to German trends marked by the Imperial Constitution, and would finally have to center on the efforts of the Nishida school to combine eastern, especially Zen, wisdom with German Idealism. That cannot here be attempted. Such a task would require a Japanese (...) scholar or, at least, somebody with an intimate knowledge of Japanese history and the history of its philosophy, not to mention, of course, the Japanese language. The author of these remarks cannot pretend to such a knowledge; all he can offer is what the subtitle specifies: impressions of a recent visit, augmented, perhaps, by some subsequent reflections; both, no doubt, highly subjective. (shrink)