One Good Turn Deserves Another Barbieri, William A.
The Journal of religious ethics,
March 2017, 2017-03-00, 20170301, Letnik:
45, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Elizabeth Bucar has provided a service to the guild with her introduction to the emergent field of visual ethics. In this comment I undertake to expand the picture she presents. I argue that the ...visual dimension of ethics includes a “dark side” not addressed in her piece, and go on to consider a number of current avenues of inquiry in which religious ethics intersects with visual studies. After briefly considering some of the distinctive methodological challenges attending the visual turn in ethics, I conclude my survey of this new field with some comments on the moral qualities of cinema.
This study is the first to consider the prominent role and significance of the skin in Howard Barker's work. It demonstrates that, for Barker, the skin embodies a twofold function: the ...symptomatic-pathological and the aesthetic-ethical. The phenomenon of skin, however, is inextricable from that of pain and jouissance. Indeed, this dyad of skin and pain finds an emblematic illustration in The Europeans. In The Europeans, pain features as the main impetus in the aesthetics and ethics of the embodied self in its relationship with the other. This pain, nonetheless, is not restricted to the level of sheer physical pain, and crucially involves pain in a particular ontological, epistemological and ethical sense. I shall take pain to effect both immanentisation and transcendence. Through the proposed notion of 'the third skin', or 'the skin of proximity', it shall be demonstrated that both of foregoing processes are realised in an intercorporeally fabricated space, concretised in the medium of skin. Starhemberg's self-conception can be considered as a narcissistic (and melancholic) envelope and Katrin's as a hysterical envelope of suffering. Katrin and Starhemberg by 'undergoing and undertaking' their pains achieve self-overcoming, ex-peausition and alteration in proximity to the other. This aesthetic process of strained individuation culminates in an ethical moment of impassioned super-individuation.
The transition from ethics to politics still lacks a proper understanding. I propose thinking of this transition in terms of a politics of aesthetics. However, thinking about a politics of aesthetics ...means also thinking about images and their prohibition. The prohibition of images has a long history, dating back to the Bible and Plato; its implications are crucial for image theory. Since Levinas did not systematically develop a political theory, aesthetics, or image theory, it is necessary to collect and systematize his distributed statements. Having image theory as a starting point for a politics of aesthetics, I choose a media philosophical approach to identify the mediality of the image after Levinas. Key elements for a Levinasian image theory are the temporal aspect of its transient appearance, its involving affective power, and its negativity. I propose to think of this image theory as an image-pragmatics that testifies and responds not only to the Other but also to the mediality of the image. With Levinas it becomes possible to turn the prohibition of images into a commandment to remember. I call this a testimonial image practice that becomes a regulatory idea for a politics of aesthetics.
Giving a voice to the voiceless while making the unseen visible has been one major preoccupation of contemporary British poetry since the 1980s. Andrew McMillan’s debut collection Physical, which ...exposes gay male desire in a raw, unflinchingly honest, and sometimes shocking way, has gained him a large array of critical accolades. The poems’ confessional exploration of the male body does not lead to a celebration of virility and strength; instead, they insist on its frailty and pay attention to the invisible details and changing rhythms of intimate relations. This paper aims at showing that, despite McMillan’s insistence on physicality and concreteness, his work is also, and probably mostly, about exposing the unseen vulnerability of male experience. It attempts to demonstrate that the celebration of those bodies is a way to overcome several layers of invisibility: the taboo of gay sexuality, a certain male repression of the truth of decay and mortality, and the unspoken, fleeting rhythms of desire. The article then focuses on McMillan’s celebration of the male body’s vulnerability: in his poems, the drive for sincerity leads to a vulnerable mode of writing where the fragility of physical existence is granted a surprising and paradoxical form of holiness. It finally looks at McMillan’s typographic exposure of breath as a sign of vulnerability in a collection devoid of any punctuation. In conclusion, it suggests that the risk-taking inherent in McMillan’s ethical and aesthetic ambition could be fruitfully interpreted in parallel with his experience as a performer of his work.
New trends in the social life at crucial points mean applying to the past experience and looking for new development models. COVID-19 has marked a global transition to a new architecture and urban ...planning paradigm of the environment in accordance with the sanitary, hygienic requirements and rational forms. In accordance with the current challenges it becomes necessary to reevaluate the concepts of urbanism and disurbanism redefining urban planning, existing typology, structural and functional organization as well as to search for new ways of architecture and urban development. Urban structures and sociology are expected to be reconsidered leading to reduced capacity of all public buildings, disappearance of some of them and replacement by recreation zones. Inexhaustible ideas and resources of past design approaches may be featured in the buildings styles. We could predict appearance of significant signs of new ethics in the new aesthetics which will mark the arrival of the third global «superstyle» which features have been already seen in the rigid construction approaches, in the social movements activities. Methods of architecture education are expected to be modified: in particular, the importance of advanced techniques in the educational process will increase and teamwork in the architecture projects will became vital.
À partir des recherches en rapport à la présence prononcée, mais réduite au silence, de l’univers culturel de la diaspora africaine au Brésil, des récits et des performances de corps noirs insurgents ...sont apparus dans le Nord-Est brésilien. La perception, au cœur de ces formes orales de communication, de certaines façons de voir l’unité cosmique des peuples africains, nous a menée à nous pencher sur les connexions cosmos/corps/culture, décrites en paroles/voix/image/rythme. Dans l’intertextuel et dans le dialogique des écritures performatives, nous percevons les réinventions des ancêtres culturaux africains inscrits dans les mémoires des corps noirs. Les politiques publiques d’affirmation, comme la Loi 10.639/2003 qui introduit l’enseignement de l’histoire de l’Afrique, des cultures africaines et afro-brésiliennes au niveau scolaire, promeuvent les études des cultures africaines ; les espaces de mémoire, les réformes curriculaires mettent en évidence les liens Afrique/Brésil. Dans ce contexte surgissent les puissances des corps noirs, l’initiative noire, les groupes de théâtre noirs, les mobilisations en faveur de l’esthétique et de la fierté noire.
Thanks to research, eventhough silent, the presence of the great African Diaspora cultural universe in Brazil, including stories and performances by insurgent black bodies have resurfaced in the north-east of Brazil. The perception, at the heart of these oral forms of communication, of certain ways of seeing the cosmic unity of African peoples, has driven us to look at the cosmos/body/culture connections, described in words/voice/image/rhythm. In the intertextual and the dialogic of 'performative writings', we examine the reinventions of African cultural ancestors inscribed in the memories of black bodies. Public policies of affirmation, such as Law No. 10.639 /2003 that introduced the teaching of the history of Africa, African and Afro-Brazilian cultures at school level promote African studies; spaces of memory; while curricular reforms highlight Africa-Brazil links. In this context the powers of black bodies, black initiative, black theatre groups, mobilizations in favour of black aesthetics and pride arise.
From the two questions present in the title of this text, we understand, answering to the first question, that what identifies Ethics and Aesthetics is language’s polysemic grounding, in ...contraposition to science’s monosemic language. Therefore, going to the second question, still taking language into account, we were able to find a Modern and Postmodern interpretation as well as ways for Education to be inserted therein. Trying to overcome a monosemic point of view on Education, we started thinking on the possibilities of what we can call academic polysemy.
South African studio pottery of the later twentieth century has consistently been described as “Anglo-Oriental” because it was perceived to adhere to the standard forms of utilitarian wares as ...promoted by the Anglo-Oriental tradition of studio pottery. This article investigates the validity of such an epithet, based on evidence that the pioneer South African studio potters and their successors were exposed to broader pottery influences, and that their oeuvres reflected what they borrowed, adapted and re-interpreted from such influences. The careers of South Africa’s pioneer studio potters and some of the second generation of studio potters are investigated. The finding is that South African studio pottery of that period was an expression of mostly utilitarian pottery forms reflecting many influences but not dominated by any single pottery tradition. The term “Anglo-Oriental” is useful if used judiciously to describe the aesthetics and ethics of some, but not all, South African studio potters of the later twentieth century. The article further explores whether the era’s studio potters contributed towards the creation of a distinctive South African pottery identity and presents the finding that at best, the collective character of the studio pottery can be considered expansive rather than geographic- or culture-specific.
This article presents a singular historical moment in which the ethnic counter-theatre of the 1970s in Jerusalem, which had emerged out of the Hapanterim Hashchorim (Black Panthers) social movement, ...generated another social movement. This offers a particular example of a grassroots theatre that directly affected and intervened in the complex social reality in Israel at that time. Moreover, this theatre planned and implemented a unique form of activism based on the combination of on-stage and off-stage non-violent actions. The discussion of this historical-theatrical event presents an alternative socio-aesthetic intervention in conflict-affected situations and places, as well as contributing to the discourse on the multi-faceted relationship between theatre, society, and the community in general, and on the transformative power of theatre in particular.
Paul Bowles (1910-1999) was a culture broker who introduced foreign artists visiting Morocco to one another and to local artists, with the result that 'Tangier' follows a certain circuit within ...global flows of cultural capital. As the best-paid composer of incidental music in the 1930s in Hollywood, however, he was the John Williams of his era. His musical background in particular has not been clearly reconciled to his role as culture broker. Focusing on the music Bowles composed before and after living in Morocco, and returning in particular to that earlier time in the 1930s and 1940s, this essay seeks to understand how knowledge of the city of Tangier was packaged according to Bowles's aesthetics of appropriation, and the circulation of that knowledge since. This knowledge is appropriated according to racial and ethnic categories, a topic upon which Bowles had a uniquely well-formed perspective. The essay reviews Bowles's composition, curation, and criticism while elucidating historical and cultural contexts, especially in Morocco. Overall, examining Paul Bowles's aesthetics of appropriation helps explain American attitudes toward cultural sharing and illuminates the ways Tangier and Morocco have circulated within global flows of racially and ethnically marked cultural products.
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