Aesthetic Achievement Research Articles

Making something out of nothing: Dissipating Legacy and the Legacy of Dissipating in “Babylon Revisited”

Abstract “Babylon Revisited” (1931) embodies a paradox in the Fitzgerald canon. On the one hand, it first appeared in the publication (The Saturday Evening Post) that its author believed wasted his talent by forcing him to write for cash instead of the aesthetic accomplishment attainable in the novel. But the story is also widely considered one of his greatest achievements, a complex exploration of the dissipating moral values of the 1920s that at once critiques the era's profligacy while reminiscing nostalgically over irresponsibility from the austere perspective of the Great Depression. This article examines the depiction of dissipation through a thorough stylistic analysis to provide formal evidence of the story's literary worth. Specifically, it argues that the story's dramatic tension rises from two interrelated conflicts between dissipation and legacy. The aesthetic staging of these conflicts parallels Fitzgerald's own metatextual struggle to resolve his feelings of having too long squandered his literary talent with commercial short fiction, effectively reversing the plot's insistence that one cannot recover from dissolution. The article demonstrates that “Babylon Revisited” aesthetically represents Fitzgerald's capacity to “make something out of nothing” by turning the thin air of dissipation and disillusion into economical yet valuable prose.

Early Canadian Botanical Photography at the Exposition universelle, Paris 1867

Sites et végétaux du Canada was an early photographic experiment in botanical illustration. Presented at the 1867 Paris exposition, the album’s 35 albumen prints were part of the Canadian displays. The photographs were a collaborative effort between Joseph-Charles Taché, Canada’s Executive-Secretary at the exposition; Louis-Ovide Brunet, a Catholic priest and botany professor at the Université Laval; and Livernois & Cie, a Québec City photography studio. Previous work has considered the album as the aesthetic accomplishment of Jules-Isaïe Benoît dit Livernois, excluding Taché and Brunet from the art historical narrative. In this paper, I consider the album’s political and botanical contexts, and viewership, to more clearly situate the album in the visual culture of early Canadian science. In its representation of Canadian landscapes and native-plant specimens, the album effectively employed photography to present Canada as a centre of cutting-edge scientific investigation.

The Narrative Technique in Winnie Eads’ Short Story The Grandfather: A Stylistic Approach

<p><em>This study on “The Narrative Technique in Winnie Eads’ Short Story The Grandfather: A Stylistic Approach” takes as its focus the narrative technique which generates the aesthetic effects of the story. The narrative technique designed to be adopted for the narration of the story in the first person and merely by a kid narrator necessarily integrates into itself the language style which is constituted by such specific use of language (English) to suit the aesthetic need of the narration. The aesthetic effect achieved through the fusion of the child first-person narration and the specific language style in the story is one in the form of aesthetics of realism, particularly realism in the characterization of the grandfather as the main character and of Pete as the child narrator, which constitutes the attractiveness of the story. Using a stylistic approach in the analysis of the narration, this article is aimed at revealing how the specific language use in the short story The Grandfather constitutes a quite effective device for aesthetic achievement.</em><em></em></p>

Responding to Aesthetic Reasons

What makes a certain consideration an aesthetic reason rather than a reason of some other kind? Is it a solely a matter of the kind of attitude or activity that the reason supports? How fundamental or structural are such reasons? Do they contrast in a natural way with epistemic or practical reasons? Is skilled aesthetic achievement, whether interpretative or creative, a matter of recognizing the aesthetic reasons we have for a given response, and correctly according with such reasons? In this paper, I offer a preliminary discussion of these topics. I argue that our account of aesthetic reasons should respect the fact that they play an important regulative role, over and above directly supporting aesthetic response. Such a role allows aesthetic reasons to moderate a wide range of practical and epistemic activities, but not by adding or substituting distinctively aesthetic ends or purposes for such activities. I then go on to argue against the view that skilled aesthetic achievement consists in correct recognition of and accord with aesthetic reasons, adapting a recent argument of Timothy Williamson’s.

Gran Pajatén y su contexto en el paisaje prehispánico Pataz-Abiseo

For more than one hundred years, archaeologists have attributed impressive monumental settlement complexes in the tropical montane forests of Chachapoyas to late pre-Hispanic population intrusions from neighboring regions, or to colonization by highland states and empires. The longevity and tenacity of these migrationist explanations is remarkable given the virtual obsolescence of verticality and population pressure models still invoked to support them. Archaeological data from Gran Pajaten and other sites in the Rio Abiseo National Park in the southern part of Chachapoyas support a contrary interpretation, attesting to the autochthonous development of autonomous societies. In order to demonstrate the defects of the most widely-accepted migration and colonization hypotheses, we carried out a reconnaissance in the highlands of Pataz District adjacent to the montane cloud forest where Gran Pajaten (2850 m) is located, in order to locate and document archaeological evidence of dense, centralized populations allegedly capable of launching and subsidizing “colonies” of such monumentality and unique character. However, the reconnaissance only registered a predominance of small and dispersed settlements in the highlands, a result that contradicts the expectations of migration models. An additional goal of our reconnaissance was to begin placing sites of the Pataz-Abiseo area within a broader context of local demographic development. The abundance in the highlands of small sites related to transport and communication infrastructure along the road networks supports the argument that a dynamic flow of travelers and intense interregional interaction spurred processes of population nucleation and the construction of permanent settlements within the forest. Contacts maintained with such a diversity of regions would have driven local innovations culminating in unique aesthetic achievements such as Gran Pajaten and other monumental sites in the montane forests of the Rio Abiseo National Park, designated World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 1991.

上元夫人：從升仙導師到多情仙姝———道教對中國小説文體發展的貢獻

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.
 《漢武帝内傳》是早期道教綜合經典傳授、仙藥授受、修道方式和相關古老傳説等諸多要素形成的經典，也被看做具有相當藝術水準的志怪小説作品。女仙上元夫人是這部作品裏的主角之一，以西王母配角身份出現。她接受西王母教示，訓誨漢武帝，向他傳授經戒，是人間帝王的升仙導師。到唐代，在李白等人的詩裏，特别是在裴鉶《傳奇》的《封陟》篇裏，她完全脱卸了神仙面貌，被表現爲一位執著、坦率地追求愛情的多情仙姝。南北朝時期流傳一批西王母女兒（養女）或隨侍降臨（謫降）人世、與人間男子結下姻緣的傳説，從側面提供了這一演變的根據和脈絡。在道教“世俗化”、“藝術化”過程中，從《漢武帝内傳》到《封陟》裏上元夫人形象的這一演變提供了一個典型例子，體現道教對於中國小説文體發展所發揮的重要作用，也是道教影響古代文學發展的一例。
 The Inner Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han is an early Daoist scripture that contains elements of scriptural transmission, bestowal of transcendent elixir, cultivation methods, and relevant legends of ancient times. It is also regarded as a fiction of “recording the uncanny” with a high level of aesthetic accomplishment. In the book, the transcendent Lady High Prime is one of the main characters; she debuts in a supporting role of Queen Mother of the West, under the instruction of whom the Lady teaches Emperor Wu of the Han (156 BC-87 BC; r. 141 BC-87 BC) and transmits scriptural teaching and rules. Therefore, she is the teacher of the transcendence-seeking emperor of the human world. In the Tang, however, in the poetry of Li Bai and others, as well as in the “Feng Zhi” story in Chuanqi (Transmission of the Marvels) by Pei Xing, she is depicted as having sloughed off her guise as a transcendent and become a nymph who chastely and straightforwardly pursues love. Relevant legends in circulation during the Northern and Southern dynasties period tell stories about the adopted daughters or attendant maids who descended (or were demoted) to the human world and fell in love with mortal men. They offer an indirect outline of the source and development of this tradition. When Daoism underwent the processes of “secularization” and “becoming an artful representation,” we find a typical example in the changes in the image of Lady High Prime as seen in the Inner Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han and the “Feng Zhi” story. This example illustrates an important impact that Daoism had on the development of Chinese fiction genres. It is also an example of how Daoism influenced classical Chinese literature.

In Search of Humanity in the Mao Era: The Contemporary Classical Poetry of Chen Yinke, Nie Gannu, and Wang Xindi

Abstract This article argues that the classical verse of three twentieth-century writers, Chen Yinke 陳寅恪 (1890–1969), Nie Gannu 聶紺弩 (1903–86), and Wang Xindi 王辛笛 (1912–2004), is significant to the canon of contemporary Chinese literature. The literary historical merit of their poetry is due not only to its aesthetic accomplishments but even more to the poets' specific responses to the challenges posed to human dignity during the thought reform campaigns of the 1950s and the Cultural Revolution. Whereas Chen Yinke's last twenty years demonstrate the faith and hauteur of a scholar who wore the mantle of the entire classical tradition, Nie Gannu expresses the deepest despair through deceptively humorous rustic topics, and Wang Xindi's grief over separation and loss recall Du Fu's poetry of the An Lushan Rebellion. Although the thirty years between the establishment of the People's Republic of China through the end of the Cultural Revolution may have been a time when intellectuals were intimidated into conformity or silence, these three poets show that such hardship created an opportunity to exalt the spirit of individual dignity, if only through poetry.

Juventudes, estetização da escola e artealização do cotidiano: olhar e imagens na pesquisa em educação

O uso de imagens nas pesquisas em educação é cada vez mais frequente, constituindo um campo de debates e crescente produção acadêmica. O artigo dialoga com esse campo de investigações, apresentando uma discussão sobre juventudes e estetização da escola a partir de fotografias feitas pelo autor quando lecionava na rede pública municipal do Rio de Janeiro. O uso de imagens nas pesquisas propicia uma via para análise das realizações estéticas juvenis nas escolas, fonte importante para concepção da educação popular hoje no Brasil. Palavras-chave: Juventudes, imagens, estetização da escola

Da resistência à desobediência: Augusto Boal e a I Feira Paulista de Opinião (1968)

Resumo Em 1968, Augusto Boal dirigiu a I Feira Paulista de Opinião, mobilizando artistas de teatro, música, poesia, cinema, fotografia e artes plásticas. A peça sofreu a censura prévia do Serviço de Censura de Diversões Públicas (SCDP), que lhe aplicou dezenas de cortes que afetariam drasticamente o entendimento pelo público. Muitos dos participantes da Feira - sobretudo o núcleo ligado ao Teatro de Arena de São Paulo ou inspirado por ele - passaram a incorporar diferentes estratégias de ação política em evidência no âmbito nacional e internacional, como desobediência civil, e propor alternativas de resistência político-cultural, como ações judiciais. As conquistas estético-políticas, em maturação desde o final da década de 1950, não foram completamente abolidas, mas foram instrumentalizadas em busca de eficácia política, passado o golpe de 1964. Este artigo analisa pormenores desse evento artístico-cultural, sua relação com a censura teatral e a configuração de espaços alternativos de resistência cultural.

The Aesthetics of Electronic Dance Music, Part II: Dancers, DJs, Ontology and Aesthetics

AbstractWhat's aesthetically interesting or significant about electronic dance music? The first answer I consider here is that dancing is significant. Using literature on groove, dance and expression, I sketch an account of club dancing as expressive activity. I next consider the aesthetic achievements of DJs, introducing two conceptions of what they do. These thoughts lead to discussions of dance music's ontology. I suggest that the fundamental work of dance music is the mix and that mixes require their own ontology, distinct from ontologies of recordings or improvisations. Finally, I explore two aspects of dance music's aesthetics: its connection with repetition and repetitiveness and its use of electronic sounds and technologies. I conclude with some speculative thoughts about the unique relation dance music bears to repetition and electronics. This article is Part II of two; in Part I, I consider the problem of defining dance music, via the framing question of authenticity. I explore history, genre, scenes and subcultures, and blackness.

"Ist die Schwarze Köchin da? Jajaja . . .": Mimesis and Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel

Die Blechtrommel (1959) has inspired widely divergent readings, not least in respect of the aesthetic grounds that the novel offered for the social hope in the wake of Auschwitz. This article re-visits it against the backdrop of Grass’s own recognition of the post-war author’s—personal and collective—sense of complicity; and in that connection it considers how Die Blechtrommel embodies the dialectic of hope and despair more broadly characteristic of Grass’s sense of post-war literary and political engagement. Its contention is that Theodor W. Adorno’s conception of “Mimesis,” as it is developed in Dialektik der Aufklarung (1944) and Asthetische Theorie (1970), can provide a compelling account for Grass’s aesthetic and ethical achievement. The article examines the senses in which Oskar embodies the dynamic of Mimesis, staking as he does a subversive ethical claim for his notorious drumming and sing-shattering. It then turns to showing how Grass’s portrayal of the “bodily” reveals it as a meeting point of complicity, shame, and guilt—but also a faintly utopian site for a new social order. By thinking through these insights precisely with Mimesis in mind, we might begin to do justice to the elusive moment of hope in Grass’s work.

Illustration on Javanese Manuscripts: The Intellectuality and the Capability of Thinking into Indonesian Art and Writing Culture

A BSTRACT: The tradition of writing and drawing in illustration was found in the old manuscript. Some parts of those old manuscripts show unique illustrations as well as the local identity of Nusantara’s society. The manuscript reflects the society culture of thinking and aesthetic achievement of visual art. The illustrations of old Javanese manuscripts were well documented and has various representation in visualization art and style, drawing method, theme, and visual objects, even though the visualization of the visual concepts is practically similar to another. It reflects the structured illustration and style as well as expression symbol of the Javanese society in that era. Illustration of the old Javanese manuscript in the colonial era has changed and developed its visual state as the interaction between the Animism in the Pre-Hinduism era, cultural paradigm of Hinduism-Buddhism, Islamic and Colonialism. KEY WORDS: writing tradition, illustration tradition, colonialism, and old Javanese manuscript. About the Author: Dr. Nuning Y. Damayanti Adisasmito is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Art and Design ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology), Jalan Ganesha 10 Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. She can be reached at: aryasena@bdg.centrin.net.id How to cite this article? Adisasmito, Nuning Y. Damayanti. (2010). “Illustration on Javanese Manuscripts: The Intellectuality and the Capability of Thinking into Indonesian Art and Writing Culture” in TAWARIKH: International Journal for Historical Studies , Vol.1(2) April, pp.123-138. Bandung, Indonesia: ASPENSI [Asosiasi Sarjana Pendidikan Sejarah Indonesia], ISSN 2085-0980. Chronicle of the article: Accepted (February 2, 2010); Revised (March 11, 2010); and Published (April 28, 2010).

'Terrible queer creatures at the latter end of the world': Joyce's A Portrait and the Global Bildungsroman

This article considers James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a postcolonial Bildungsroman avant la lettre, in part because it establishes an attitude toward Bildung that looks beyond idealist and nationalist consolations toward something like global belonging. Central to this vision of the novel as a global form is the philosophical concept of world-making, which I argue conditions the way Joyce's protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, understands his own formative desires. This understanding drives him, ultimately, to abandon the options laid out for him by colonial society; to embrace his own inner life and the moments of aspiration that are its outward and visible signs; and to imagine a world in which his 'wayward instincts' would count as forms of aesthetic accomplishment. This relationship to inner life entails a relationship to the future that differs from conventional progressive models of selfformation. In A Portrait, Joyce describes temporality of aspiration that posits the triumphant recognition of one's own Bildung, a standpoint that redeems the path toward it from error and misprision. Stephen's formative quest isgrounded in a relationship between aspiration and freedom that was first articulated by German idealist philosophers like G.W.F. Hegel and Friedrich Schiller. As a child, his sense of freedom at first feels like a new form of bondage; but he soon learns to resist the designs others have on him and to follow his own aspirations. His turn to art which grants him the power of creating a world and himself to the worlds of others, is the only option left to a young man whose experience of the world has failed to live up to what he could imagine. Through canny and salutary misrecognitions, he moves from his early childhood experiences of méconnaissance, to the moment on the strand and his aesthetic elaboration of it, finally to arrive at a moment of creation, in which the world he creates opens him to the world at large in a new and hopeful way. This, I argue, is the force of the novel's conclusion, the corrective gaze the young artist casts on his own narrative, from the perspective of his journal entries, which bring his inner life directly into contact with the life of others. In this respect, Joyce bequeaths to postcolonial and global fiction the template for a world in which aspiration forces a heroic path toward the future and new destinies for Bildung.

Co-Authoring Lives

This essay illuminates Mikhail M. Bakhtin's “Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity” by co-narrating the shared experiences of two friends and showing how Bakhtin's author/hero relationship parallels my relationship with my amiga, Brandy. In doing so, I demonstrate the philosophical similarities between writing biographyand co-authoring an enduring friendship. Both are aesthetic achievements “consummated” and made “whole” only through the contributions of the other. Presenting narratives written in an idiosyncratic, subjective voice and extended by that of my friend, I hope to provide a more nuanced understanding of Bakhtin's author/hero relationship, present friendship as a dialogue of narratives and a narrative of dialogues, and ultimately show the beauties of co-narration as a departure from traditional academic research about friendship and life in general.

«Le modèle du genre»? Il film di (anti)guerra Westfront 1918 di Georg Wilhelm Pabst (1930)

The article deals with Westfront 1918, one of the first German sound films and the most important German film about World War One, released in 1930, an adaptation of an anti-war novel by Ernst Johannsen by one of the most prominent directors of Weimar cinema, G.W. Pabst. The film is analyzed in the context of media representations of the war, which rapresented a crucial element of public memory and a central factor in defining the political meanings of the in postwar societies. The paper discusses the structure of the film plot, its reception in the German and international press and finally the film’s relationship with Johannsen’s novel as well as with its much better known American counterpart, All Quiet on the Western Front, released almost simultaneously with Pabst’s film. For its aesthetic achievements, and for the debate it caused about the political ambivalences of media war realism, Westfront 1918 merits to be reconsidered with regard to the canon.

Teachers’ Aesthetic Accomplishment

Teachers’ Aesthetic Accomplishment

On a Neglected Argument in French Philosophy

This paper wants to draw out a common argument in three great philosophers and littérateurs in modern French thought: Michel de Montaigne, Voltaire, and Albert Camus. The argument makes metaphysical and theological scepticism the first premise for a universalistic political ethics, as per Voltaire's: “it is clearer still that we ought to be tolerant of one another, because we are all weak, inconsistent, liable to fickleness and error.” The argument, it seems to me, presents an interestingly overlooked, deeply important and powerful contribution to the philosophical discourse of modernity. On one hand, theological and post-structuralist critics of “humanism” usually take the latter to depend either on an essentialist philosophical anthropology, or a progressive philosophy of history. The former, it is argued, is philosophically contestable and ethically contentious (since however we define the human “essence,” we are bound to exclude some “others”). The latter, for better or worse, is a continuation of theological eschatology by another name. So both, if not “modernity” per se, should somehow be rejected. But an ethical universalism – like that we find in Montaigne, Bayle, Voltaire, or Camus – which does not claim familiarity with metaphysical or eschatological truths, but humbly confesses our epistemic finitude, seeing in this the basis for ethical solidarity, eludes these charges. On the other hand, philosophical scepticism plays a large role in the post-structuralist criticisms of modern institutions and ideas in ways which have been widely taken to license forms of ethics which problematically identify responsibility, with taking a stand unjustifiable by recourse to universalizable reasons. But, in Montaigne, Voltaire and Camus, our ignorance concerning the highest or final truths does not close off, but rather opens up, a new descriptive sensitivity to the foibles and complexities of human experience: a sensitivity reflected amply, and often hilariously, in their literary productions. As such, a critical agnosticism concerning claims about things “in the heavens and beneath the earth” does not, for such a “sceptical humanism,” necessitate decisionism or nihilism. Instead, it demands a redoubled ethical sensitivity to the complexities and plurality of political life which sees the dignity of “really-existing” others, whatever their metaphysical creeds, as an inalienable first datum of ethical conduct and reflection. After tracking these arguments in Montaigne, Voltaire, and Camus, the essay closes by reflecting on, and contesting, one more powerful theological argument against modern agnosticism's allegedly deleterious effects on ethical culture: that acknowledging ignorance concerning the highest things robs us of the basis for awe or wonder, the wellspring of human beings’ highest ethical, aesthetic, and spiritual achievements.

The Aesthetic Accomplishments of Making Titles in Li Shangyin's Poems

The Aesthetic Accomplishments of Making Titles in Li Shangyin's Poems

Spells, Spirits, and Charms in the Harlem Renaissance

This article analyzes specific examples of magic found in two major artistic outlets of theHarlem Renaissance, jazz, and literature. Characters use voodoo and hoodoo to seek powerand revenge, control the supposed stronger party, and give meaning to seemingly insignificantoccurrences, thus offering a way for the artists of the Harlem Renaissance to control their ownlives and black aesthetic achievement.

The opera question in Belgrade as 'staged' by Milan Grol

Writer, politician, and dramaturge Milan Grol can be credited with the most important contribution of an individual to the modernization of the National Theatre in Belgrade. A reformer, legislator, organizer of international theatre cooperation, and manager of the National Theatre, he also played a key role in defining 'the opera question' in Belgrade during the first two decades of the 20th century. Commendable as his activities were in terms of the institutional organization and advancement of South Slavic theatres, it must also be noted that owing to his unfavorable attitude towards the performance of opera at the National Theatre, the development of its opera ensemble and establishment of an artistically worthy opera repertoire at this theatre came to a halt in the first decade of the 20th century. Grol's views about opera at the National Theatre reflect a striking ambivalence in his dual professional personality of a politician and writer. As a member of the Independent Radical Party, he supported a pro-European orientation and cultural elitism, which were meant to serve democratic and educational goals. However, when it came to the question of opera at the National Theatre, he abandoned his guiding principles devoted to modern European standards. Grol thus reinterpreted his firm political basis in the field of partisan clashes and appropriated the power to regulate the repertoire of the National Theatre; yet, for all that, he never gave up his primary vocation of a writer and dramaturge, who saw the presentation of the highest aesthetic achievements of national and European literature as the sole purpose of the institution he managed.