Keeshig-Tobias, Lenore. The Magic of Others
1990, In Language in Her Eye: Views on Writing and Gender by Canadian Women Writing in English, edited by Libby Scheier, Sarah Sheard and Eleanor Wachtel: Coach House Press
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Added by: Erich Hatala Matthes
Summary: In this short selection, Keeshig-Tobias (Ojibway) raises questions about representation and authenticity in fiction about Native people written by non-Native authors. With reference to certain Native belief systems, she contextualizes why the telling of a story could be viewed as theft in a way that might seem counter-intuitive to a liberal Western audience.Comment : This is a useful piece to pair with any of the more theoretical writings on cultural appropriation. It articulates some Native perspectives on cultural appropriation that may be less familiar to students, as well as pointing out problems with some of the assumptions on which defenses of cultural appropriation sometimes depend.1990, SUNY Press-
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, Contributed by: Quentin PharrPublisher’s Note:
In May of this year I had the opportunity to give several talks on the topic of nihilism. Initially I intended to focus on the three themes of Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Buddhism. When I was twenty, the figures of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky burned a lasting impression deep into my soul-as I suppose they may still do to many young people even today-and the tremors I experienced at that time have continued to make my heart tremble ever since. The final theme, of Buddhist "emptiness," came to capture my interest more gradually. The connections among these three topics are not merely arbitrary or external. The nihilism that Dostoevsky plumbed so deeply has important connections with that of Nietzsche, as a number of critics have pointed out; and Nietzsche considers what he calls European nihilism to be the European form of Buddhism. Even though there may be in Nietzsche a radical misunderstanding of the spirit of Buddhism, the fact that he considered it in relation to nihilism shows how well attuned he was to the real issue. It was considerations such as these that inclined me toward these three themes in my discussion of nihilism.Comment : This text is an excellent overview of both some of the themes within Nishitani's work as well as European conceptions of nihilism and its overcoming. In general, some appreciation of Nietzsche and aspects of Buddhism will help students navigate this book. But, it is largely expository, so it will often inform readers of what they need in the course of reading. This text will primarily be for students who are looking for an overall perspective on nihilism - especially, a Japanese one.Kind, Amy. The Puzzle of Imaginative Desire2011, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89(3): 421-439.-
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Added by: Nick Novelli
Abstract: The puzzle of imaginative desire arises from the difficulty of accounting for the surprising behaviour of desire in imaginative activities such as our engagement with fiction and our games of pretend. Several philosophers have recently attempted to solve this puzzle by introducing a class of novel mental states - what they call desire-like imaginings or i-desires. In this paper, I argue that we should reject the i-desire solution to the puzzle of imaginative desire. The introduction of i-desires is both ontologically profligate and unnecessary, and, most importantly, fails to make sense of what we are doing in the imaginative contexts in question.Comment : Kind provides good arguments against accepting the existence of "i-desires". This article would be useful to teach in the context of philosophy of mind, as well as in philosophy of art and fiction, as it engages with some of the issues surrounding "make-believe".King, Alex. High Art, Low Art, and the Status of Aesthetics2014, Aesthetics for Birds, November 18, 2014 [Blog]-
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Added by: Quentin Pharr and Clotilde TorregrossaAbstract:
In this blogpost, King introduces the distinction between high art/highbrow and low art/lowbrow things both in terms of historical and social underpinnings. However King suggests that the distinction need not be cashed out simply in terms of what kinds of objects we choose to experience (e.g. fine wines vs. beer), but should also be understood in terms of the mode of appreciation or engagement we choose or endorse when experiencing certain objects. For instance, we can have a higbrow mode of appreciation towards an object usually considered lowbrow (and vice versa).Comment (from this Blueprint): A short and illuminating blog post on the distinction between low art/high art, as well as lowbrow/highbrow, which could serve as a helpful introduction or background to the general debate, but also as background on the mechanics of appropriation, as King shows that this distinction doesn't merely rests on a historical or social categorization of objects, but also on our own modes of appreciation: one object could be considered lowbrow by an audience, yet be appreciated (or appropriated) by another audience as highbrow (and vice versa).Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Gender and Aesthetics: An Introduction2004, London: Psychology Press.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt
Publisher's note: Feminist approaches to art are extremely influential and widely studied across a variety of disciplines, including art theory, cultural and visual studies, and philosophy. Gender and Aesthetics is an introduction to the major theories and thinkers within art and aesthetics from a philosophical perspective, carefully introducing and examining the role that gender plays in forming ideas about art. It is ideal for anyone coming to the topic for the first time. Organized thematically, the book introduces in clear language the most important topics within feminist aesthetics:- Why were there so few women painters?
- Art, pleasure and beauty
- Music, literature and painting
- The role of gender in taste and food
- What is art and who is an artist?
- Disgust and the sublime.
Comment : Chapter 5 is particularly useful in teaching on art theories. It offers an interesting review of art theories from a feminist perspective, noting the gendered character of existing definitions. It may be good to teach it alongside Brand's ‘Glaring Omissions in Traditional Theories of Art’ to best bring out these issues. Secondly, it inspires the question: given the problematic exclusionary character of art history and theory, would it not be better if we did not have a definition of art which we can use to exclude? The value of the feminist art discussed in the chapter lies largely in its ability to expose the biases present in the artworld and expressed in theories of art. Thus the fact that artists tend to create works which challenge existing theories might be in fact desirable.Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Real Old Things2016, Journal of Aesthetics 56(3): 219-31.-
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Added by: Erich Hatala Matthes
Summary: Korsmeyer argues that although genuineness (or authenticity) is not a perceptual property, it is still an aesthetically relevant property for cultural artifacts, an argument that she locates in the relationship between age and the sense of touch. She thus offers a potential explanation for a common ntuition about the nature and value of authenticity in the Western tradition.Comment : This is the most recent in a series of articles by Korsmeyer on the aesthetics of age and genuineness. It builds on the previous work and focuses on cultural artifacts in particular, but instructors interested in, for instance, the moral significance of authentic artifacts associated with historical injusitces might prefer some of the earlier articles in this series (such as her "Staying in Touch"). Her account also raises questions about how attributions of authenticity might affect aesthetic experience, with potential implications for discussion of authenticity in appropriation debates, though these are not explicitly explored in the article.Korsmeyer, Carolyn. The Magnetism of Disgust2010, In: Savoring Disgust: The Foul and the Fair in Aesthetics. New York: Oxford University Press. 113-136.-
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Added by: Rossen Ventzislavov
Summary: Korsmeyer's account of disgust and the role it plays in art appreciation starts with a treatment of what she calls the "paradox of aversion" - the apparent incompatibility between humans' disposition to seek pleasure and their frequent voluntary exposure to unpleasant and even painful art-related experiences. Korsmeyer's provisional solution to the paradox is based on the realization that pleasure is not an emotion but rather "an intense absorption in an object that induces us to continue rather than halt an experience." This opens the possibility that the pleasure we take from a work of art retains a cognitive element such that we gain unique insight from what would, outside of the art context, have given us pain. Korsmeyer speaks of an "aesthetic conversion" whereby disgust and fear are transfigured into vehicles of absorption, and thus become aesthetically pleasurable. Since disgust and its magnetic force are of material interest to performance artists and their critics, Korsmeyer's treatment of the paradox of aversion helps re-contextualize an important art historical issue.Comment : Interesting to teach following classes on the paradox of horror, and perhaps even alongside (some of) Noel Carroll's writings on horror.Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Pleasure: Reflections on aesthetics and feminism1993, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51 (2):199-206.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Introduction: For some time my own interests in aesthetics and in feminism appeared to run parallel yet mutually exclusive courses, but it seems to me now that philosophical aesthetics and feminist views of culture have begun to dovetail and to share certain concerns and orientations. Philo sophical aesthetics is not by and large taking note of this, however, and in the first section of this essay I argue that feminist perspectives pro vide a vantage from which the appearance of breakdown in unified theorizing can be seen to have an underlying order and pattern.2 Thus at first I shall emphasize a potential harmony be tween feminist critiques and recent directions in aesthetics. Then in the second section I shall focus on one of the subjects that has all but dropped from view in the reshuffling of the oretic concerns: aesthetic appreciation or plea sure. I argue that this concept is urgently in need of reexamination, a need that is especially evi dent when we consider feminist alternatives to the traditional idea of aesthetic pleasure.Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Taste as Sense and as Sensibility1997, Philosophical Topics 25 (1):201-230.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Introduction: Philosophers occasionally take note of the degree to which their theories make use of metaphoric language. Plato may have been the first to call attention to the heuristic use of sensory images to illuminate the world of abstractions, but twentieth-century thinkers have been particulalry reflective on the subject. Metaphors, remarks Iris Murdoch, are "fundamental forms of our awareness of our condition: metaphors of space, metaphors of movement, metaphors of vision." Philosophical systems, she believes, can often be understood as explorations of centrally important images. Indeed, it seems to her "impossible to discuss certain kinds of concepts without resort to metaphor, since the concepts are themselves deeply metaphorical, and cannot be analyzed into non-metaphorical components without a loss of substance." Mark Johnson agrees and obeserves that recent discoveries in cognitive science provide empirical evidence for claims about metaphor that previously were largely intuitive, namely, that "metaphor is not merely a linguistic phenomenon, but more fundamentallly, a conceptual and experiential process that structures our world.Kuki Shūzō. The Structure of Iki2004, In Hiroshi Nara (ed.). The Structure of Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Sh?z?. Univeristy of Hawai'i Press.-
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Added by: Meilin Chinn
Summary: One of the most important and creative works in modern Japanese aesthetics. Kuki develops a description of a uniquely Japanese sense of taste (iki) that brings together characteristics of the geisha, samurai, and Buddhist priest.Comment : Best used by a reader with at least an introductory knowledge of Japanese aesthetics. Could be used comparatively with work on disinterest in western Aesthetics, e.g., Kant.Can’t find it?Contribute the texts you think should be here and we’ll add them soon!
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