Aesthetic Implications Research Articles

Formação Humana: Implicações estéticas na prática do professor no ensino profissional e tecnológico

Este artigo traz uma contribuição no que diz respeito ao estudo referente a formação humana intercultural, com a perspectiva de buscar bibliografia sobre a importância das concepções culturais, bem como as implicações estética na educação. Esse texto se apoia na pesquisa de um grupo junto a pós-graduação em educação tendo a temática as abordagens epistemológicas da educação no Brasil. Desenvolvida na Universidade Regional de Blumenau. Para apoiar e orientar o estudo foi enunciada a seguinte questão: Como a formação humana intercultural contribui na visão estética e tecnológica, levando em conta, as políticas públicas que elaboram as concepções de educação e suas relações para a compreensão cultural e política? Os autores que predominam na pesquisa são Paulo Freire, Reynaldo Mathias Fleury e Vera Maria Candau dentre a brasileira Cristiane Herres Terreza.

From the Opium of the People to Acid Communism: On the dialectics of critique and intoxication

There seems to be an inherent tension between intoxication and critique. We tend to associate intoxication with immersion, participation, and proximity, while critique is usually connected to the distance, separation, and an outsider-perspective. In this article I want to analyze this tension, but I also want to explore the possibilities, with the German philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin as my guide, of a critical intoxication and/or intoxicated critique. What would be the social, political and aesthetic implications for such juxtaposition for both of these categories?

Towards an early 3D-diagnosis of craniofacial asymmetry by computing the accurate midplane: A PCA-based method

Background and objectiveCraniofacial asymmetry is a common growth disorder often caused by unilateral chewing. Although an early orthodontic treatment would avoid surgical procedures later in life, the uncertainty of defining the accurate sagittal midplane potentially leads to misdiagnosis and therefore inaccurate orthodontic treatment plans. This novel study aims to 3D-diagnose craniofacial complex malformations in children with unilateral crossbite (UXB) considering a midplane which compensates the asymmetric morphology. MethodsThe sagittal midplane of 20 children, fifteen of whom exhibited UXB, was computed by a PCA-based method which compensates the asymmetry mirroring the 3D models obtained from cone-beam computed tomography data. Once determined, one side of the data was mirrored using the computed midplane to visualize the malformations on the hard and soft tissues by 3D-computing the distances between both halves. Additionally, 31 skull's landmarks were manually placed in each model to study the principal variation modes and the significant differences in the group of subjects with and without UXB through PCA and Mann-Whitney U test analyses respectively. ResultsMorphological 3D-analysis showed pronounced deformities and aesthetic implications for patients with severe asymmetry (jaw deviation > 0.8 mm) in whole craniofacial system, while initial signs of asymmetry were found indistinctly in the mandible or maxilla. We detected significant (p < 0.05) malformations for example in mandibular ramus length (0.0086), maxillary palate width (0.0481) and condylar head width (0.0408). Craniofacial malformations increased the landmarks’ variability in the group of patients with UXB over the control group requiring 8 variation modes more to define 99% of the sample’ variability. ConclusionsOur findings demonstrated the viability of early diagnosis of craniofacial asymmetry through computing the accurate sagittal midplane which compensates the individual's asymmetrical morphology. Furthermore, this study provides important computational insights into the determination of craniofacial deformities which are caused by UXB, following some empirical findings of previous clinical studies. Hence, this computational approach can be useful for the development of new software in craniofacial surgery or for its use in biomedical research and clinical practice.

Metaphor Translation in the English Version of &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;Bronze and Sunflower&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt;

Metaphor, which is ubiquitous in children’s literature, has always been a difficult point in understanding and translating. Therefore, the choice of metaphor translation strategies varies much for person to person. This article explores metaphor translation in Wang’s version of <i>Bronze and Sunflower</i>, which aims to provide reference for the future translating Chinese children’s literature through the analysis of metaphor translation strategies in excellent award-winning translation. In order to retain to the greatest extent the unique conceptions, designs, styles, techniques, flavors and cultural implications of the original metaphors, Wang gives priority to metaphor foreignization by which transplantation of images and mapping modes from source domain to target domain can be successfully achieved on the basis of the overlap zone of understanding between the source text (ST) readers and the target text (TT) readers. However, due to the great differences between the two languages and cultures as well as the consideration for child readers, metaphor domestication and partial even complete metaphor omission should be resorted to in order to make the sense and functions of the original metaphors accessible to TT readers. At the same time, it is also worthy of attention that the abandonment of metaphors, caused by the translator’s misunderstanding of some local culture, customs or/and shortage of the relevant knowledge about the connotations of the original metaphors, leads to the loss of unique thinking style, emotional characteristics and aesthetic implication behind the original language. It is concluded that high-quality translation reflects in the choice of the strategies of metaphor translation which depends on the translator’s comprehensive understanding of the source text, translation objectives, the manipulation on the basis of the translator’s own views on children’s literature translation.

American Postmodern Metafiction Through the (Un)looking Glass: “Cartesian Sonata” by William Gass and Whistlejacket by John Hawkes

American Postmodern Metafiction Through the (Un)looking Glass: “Cartesian Sonata” by William Gass and Whistlejacket by John Hawkes* Saloua Karoui-Elounelli (bio) Stepping from the treacherous passage at last into the mirror-maze, he saw once again, more clearly than ever, how readily he deceived himself into supposing he was a person. —John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse. Why would Ambrose, John Barth’s protagonist in Lost in the Funhouse (1968), interpret his reflection in the mirror as an instance of self-deceit? Why has Oedipa Mass, Thomas Pynchon’s protagonist in The Crying of Lot 49 (1965), “tried to find her image in the mirror and couldn’t” (27) or could only see reflected “a beach ball with feet” (23)? In other words, why would a fiction writer appeal to the trope of the mirror to subvert conventional characterization and the representational impulse of literary narrative? It is this seemingly contradictory strategy used by postmodern metafictional texts that this work means to explore. Indeed, in an endeavor to contribute to the renewed critical debate about the scope of experimental self-reflexive fiction, this essay will attempt to shed light on the poetics of the mirror trope in the narratives of canonical Postmodern metafiction. Through an examination of the game of doubling the authorial figure, the compositional process, and the interpretive act, the argument developed here revolves around the tendency of the experimental and the self-reflexive vein of American Postmodern metafiction to inform its poetics with a highly paradoxical appeal to the trope of the mirror and to motifs that constitute variations on it. The experimental ethos of American Postmodern metafiction will be pinpointed through a discussion of “Cartesian Sonata” by William Gass (1998) and Whistlejacket (1988) by John Hawkes in relation to the deliberate questioning of literary and artistic representation that mediates it. This work means also to shed light on the pivotal role played by the trope of the mirror in demystifying the paradoxical terms in which experimental metafiction gauges the possibilities of literary meaning and literary significance by implementing and imparting the representational modes but also submitting them to a (meta) critical scrutiny. [End Page 105] I. Poetics of (self)Reflexivity & Experimentation: “All done with mirrors”? In a relatively recent work that they edited and introduced on the generic facets and aesthetic implications of literary experimentation, Joe Bray, Brian McHale, and Alison Gibbons (2012: 1–18) surveyed and discussed the shifts that conceptualizing the experimental has undergone. Highlighting the divergent and sometimes opposed poetics that the conception of literary experimentation has been assimilated to, Bray, McHale, and Gibbons suggest that beyond such plurality, the experimental has been construed through the constancy of—at least—two axes. First, a proclivity for formal innovations (deemed vital to the efficient communication of literature’s message), and second, a necessary rethinking of the mimetic impulse of literature, either for the sake of maximizing it, or to challenge its very relevance to the construal of literary meaning.2 In relation to self-reflexive fiction, the critical discourse has, since the 1960s, assimilated the question of literary experimentation to the metafictional turn that marked the second half of the twentieth century. Thus, as early as 1963, scholarly journals started to explore the forms of novelistic experimentation, binding it to the urge to recast the poetics of the genre. In his contribution to a special issue of Daedalus, Peter Brooks (265–79) examined, under the title of “In the Lab of the Novel,” the axes of the experimental modes in the French Nouveau Roman, namely its rethinking of conception(s) of the real, and its recasting of the poetics of characterization. Brooks pinpointed the French New Novel’s rejection of psychic depth and complexity in character, its move towards a sense of the “literal,” and its retrieval of the novel’s active reading of the world and evaluation of novelistic method (273).1 Those features have equally been substantial to the American metafiction of the Postmodern age as its recasting of character portrayal within a poetics of surface involved not only a repudiation of depth claims but also a subversive play on the effect of reflecting or...

L’idea di natura in Arne Næss

The aim of the present paper is to analyze the idea of ‘nature’ in the context of the ‘Ecosophical thinking’ elaborated by Arne Naess, the ‘father’ of the Deep Ecology Movement. This analysis leads us to deepen the main characteristics of nature – i.e., richness, diversity, vitality, unity, etc. – and to identify the attribute of ‘perfection’ as a synthetic point of all these dimensions. It is also argued that the idea of ‘nature’ developed by Naess is substantially inspired by an interpretation of Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics . Finally, we highlight how this idea of nature is central in the work of the Norwegian philosopher, as it sustains the ethical, political and aesthetic implications outlined in the Deep Ecology Manifesto. In this regard, it is possible to understand Naess’s statement about the supremacy of environmental ontology and realism over environmental ethics.

Dental trauma: management of complicated crown root fractures

Trauma of maxillary incisors is frequent and dental practitioners have to be competent in managing the consequences. Complicated crown root fractures of anterior teeth can have profound aesthetic and psychological implications on patients. In younger patients, if extractions are considered, it can lead to complex prosthodontic challenges in the future. Ideally, an attempt should be made in restoring the traumatized teeth, so an effective aesthetic and functional result can be reached. This case report highlights the treatment of complicated crown root fractures on maxillary incisors using endodontics and fragment re-attachment of the fractured crowns. Twelve-month follow-up of the treatment demonstrated aesthetic and functional success and delayed the need for prosthetic replacement. CPD/Clinical Relevance: This paper describes traumatic injuries of teeth and how management via fragment re-attachment of the fractured crowns has led to delay of definitive prosthetic treatment.

The Rhythmotron

This paper describes the Rhythmotron: a percussion-centered robotic orchestrion, commissioned for the CoLABS festival in Sydney in 2017. The authors describe how they electronically reimagined the mechanical components of a cylinder piano by using a variant of the XronoMorph software, and they consider the synergy between algorithmically generated rhythms in a digital environment alongside its analogous mechanical counterpart. The authors detail the idiosyncratic behaviors of linear actuators when used to power drumming robots, and they discuss the aesthetic implications of the Rhythmotron.

Inventing the Iceberg: Exploring Derek Bailey’s Dichotomic Taxonomy

During a forty-year career as a leading figure of European Improvised Music, Derek Bailey often emphasised the somatic, playing-based nature of his engagement with musical improvisation. He repeatedly avoided discussion of the philosophical, political or aesthetic implications of improvised music praxis by invoking the intangible emic intimacy of the link between player and instrument (and other ‘players’), while contrasting this with the ethnocentric apologia of etic improvisation commentators and ‘demonstrators’. Bailey also bemoaned a lack of investigation of what improvising musicians actually do, suggesting that the wide-ranging discussion of improvisation aesthetics within academic discourse had effectively displaced analytical technical examination of the actual substance of improvised music performance and its modes of realisation, a process of apparently irresistible subject expansion he described as ‘inventing the iceberg’. If Bailey’s ideas have (or had) validity, what consequences might player/demonstrator differentiation have for the oft-posited inclusiveness of improvised music practice? And how might Improvisation Studies need to be re-aligned in order to address more effectively such practical aspects of improvised ‘musicking’? Does an emic rejection of ‘public discursive abstraction’ (Scott) and the avoidance of the ‘sclerotic tendency’ (Bailey) facilitate or mitigate inclusion within improvised music? This study makes use of unprecedented access to Bailey’s archive of unpublished writings and correspondence, along with a range of musician interviews and the author’s personal experience as an improvising musician. It reflects upon what developments there have been in improvisation studies in the 13 years since Bailey’s death, and to what extent the situation he describes may have changed. The author investigates the unease or distrust with which a proportion of practising improvisors (those whom Bailey describes as ‘players’) view the activity of the theorists and critical commentators who discuss what they do, and considers Bailey’s positing of the improvising ‘demonstrator’.

Ästhetischer Eigensinn als Literaturwissenschaftliche Analysekategorie: Eine Anwendung Auf Die Blechtrommel als Literarisches Gegengedächtnis

Oskar Negt's and Alexander Kluge's Geschichte und Eigensinn (1981) is a treasure trove of ideas for cultural, literary, and interdisciplinary studies. With its highly stimulating, but not easily accessible content, the daunting tome of 1283 pages is still waiting to be fully appreciated, a message in a bottle left to posterity. Its publication in English as History and Obstinacy (2014) shows that the process of its discovery is well underway. This paper gives an introduction to Negt's and Kluge's concept of obstinacy (Eigensinn) and its aesthetic implications. Besides, it makes use of Viktor Šklovskij's theory of defamiliarization to describe the obstinate behaviour of literary texts. The main aim of the paper is to theoretically outline aesthetic obstinacy (ästhetischen Eigensinn) as a tool for literary analysis and to put it to the test in a close reading of the famous chapter ‘Glaube Hoffnung Liebe’ about the horrifying events of ‘Kristallnacht’ in Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel (1959). Of particular interest is the question of how the obstinate narrative devices are used to express a counter-memory that challenges postwar West German obliviousness towards the Nazi past.

Emotional Responses to Visual Art and Commercial Stimuli: Implications for Creativity and Aesthetics.

There is an ongoing debate about whether emotional responses to artworks are similar to those produced by the commercial stimuli experienced in everyday life. In this study, we evaluated the emotional responses to the visual art and commercial stimuli by using electroencephalography (EEG) to obtain an objective measure of emotional responses of the brain, namely the frontal alpha asymmetry. Positive frontal alpha asymmetry suggests positive emotional responses, and vice versa. The visual art stimuli consisted of 80 artistic and naturally colored paintings whereas the commercial stimuli consisted of 80 different window displays of fashion collections. The results revealed that positive frontal alpha asymmetry was elicited when the participants judged the visual art stimuli as either beautiful or not beautiful. For the commercial stimuli, positive frontal alpha asymmetry was observed when they were considered as beautiful, whereas negative frontal alpha asymmetry was exhibited toward those perceived as not beautiful. These findings suggest more positive emotional responses to the visual art stimuli, regardless of their aesthetics. However, favorable emotional responses were only elicited toward the commercial stimuli regarded as beautiful. The implications for the creative and aesthetic design of the commercial stimuli in Chinese society in influencing consumers’ emotional responses are discussed.

No hay nación para este sexo: la Re(d)pública transatlántica de las Letras: escritoras españolas y latino-americanas (1824–1936) ed. by Pura Fernández

Reviewed by: No hay nación para este sexo: la Re(d)pública transatlántica de las Letras: escritoras españolas y latino-americanas (1824–1936) ed. by Pura Fernández Ronald Briggs TK Pura Fernández, editor. No hay nación para este sexo: la Re(d)pública transatlántica de las Letras: escritoras españolas y latino-americanas (1824–1936). Iberoamericana, 2015, 396 pp. Pura Fernández's new anthology focuses on the women who participated in what Habermas might call the public sphere in the Spanish-speaking world between the end of the Spanish American Wars of Independence and the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Attuned in equal measure to the degree of agency afforded by the world of letters and the limits placed on that world by economic and political forces beyond its control, the group of 16 essayists assembled here provides an eloquent and well-researched series of investigations into the web of international and transatlantic literary networks that sustained women writers in Spain and Spanish America. Fernández's forcefully written and historically grounded introduction makes clear what is at stake in the project: not just the recovery of unjustly marginalized figures, but the advancement of a networkcentered approach to researching them that takes into account the influence of personal and official relationships on individual texts and careers. It is no accident that the time period covered by this collection roughly corresponds to the development of national literary histories and canons in the Spanish American republics. These histories have tended to serve as vehicles of oblivion and recovery—select clubs from which writers can be exiled and into which they can be rescued. Fernández's collection takes seriously the attempts of women in the Spanish-speaking world to create international networks that would serve as a counter-structure to the national ones that so often excluded them. This network-based approach is not without precedents, and Fernández's introduction acknowledges, among many other precursors, Francesca Denegri's work on Peruvian women intellectuals in the late nineteenth century and Leona S. Martin's 2004 article, "Nation Building, International Travel, and the Construction of the Nineteenth-Century Pan-Hispanic Women's Network." Going beyond the question of oblivion and recovery, Fernández also cites Lynn Hunt's articulation of New Cultural History as a guiding principle, underlining the need to focus on the structures that shape the production of texts. Aesthetics matters, too, in Fernández's analysis, and her introduction takes care to point out the intersections between the practical forces governing publication and distribution and the defining qualities of the literary: what artistic genius means and what sort of reaction a writer should seek to produce in her readers. She argues that the practical and the aesthetic did not exist in parallel isolation and that the notions of literary genius and objectivity developed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tended to put women writers at a disadvantage. [End Page 246] The breadth of the collection—16 essays and a substantial introduction covering three continents and two hemispheres—makes it difficult to summarize. Since it would be impossible to discuss every essay in detail, I will offer some reflections on a sampling that reflect the overall high quality of scholarship on display throughout. The collection's geographical and temporal breadth extends to genres of cultural production, too, as the works under consideration range from William Acree's appraisal of the hand-woven divisas carried by nineteenth-century soldiers in Río de la Plata to the role of women writers in the 1910 celebration of the centennial of the Revolución de Mayo analyzed by Javier Lluch-Prats. Networking and its practical and aesthetic implications take center stage in essays by Noël Valis, Akiko Tsuchiya, and María Nelly Goswitz that deal, respectively, with mentorship among romantic writers in Spain and the US, the influence of gender and anti-slavery organizations in the writings of Faustino Sáez de Melgar, and the legacy of real and virtual literary salons. These studies use archival and published materials to reconstruct the literary communities in question and the concrete role they played...

Reconstruction of Mohs Defects Located in the Head and Neck.

Defects following Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS) can range in size from small defects requiring linear closure to large defects needing flap coverage. Reconstruction is dependent on defect size and facial aesthetic unit involvement. The aim of this study was to review the types of facial reconstruction per aesthetic unit involvement and describe their outcomes. All data were retrieved for patients ≥18 years who underwent multidisciplinary treatment including dermatological MMS and plastic surgical reconstruction at a single tertiary hospital center (2001-2017). Patient characteristics, tumor pathology, surgical specifics, reconstructive modalities, and surgical outcomes were analyzed. A total of 418 patients were included. Patients were predominantly White, non-Hispanic (97%) and female (58%) with a mean age of 60 ± 13.9 years. Tumor pathology was predominantly basal cell carcinoma in 73% of all cases followed by squamous cell carcinoma in 14%. The nasal aesthetic unit was mostly affected (50%). Local advancement flaps and different types of grafts were used in 51% and 25% of reconstructions, respectively. Complications were observed in 3% and local cancer recurrence in 4% of the patients. Scar revision was needed in 6% of the patients. Reconstruction of facial defects after Mohs micrographic surgery can be challenging due to its technical complexity and aesthetic implications. There were differences in complications in reconstructions performed within the same day versus 1 week, with a majority of complications occurring within same-day Mohs reconstructions. A multidisciplinary structured approach, which incorporates patient-reported outcomes, may be needed to optimize surgical results.

Artful Sustainability in Transdisciplinary Spaces of Possibilities

Following up on my previous article on “Artful Sustainability” in the Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering and Science, this article discusses artful approaches to the conduct of transdisciplinary research, to living a queer-convivialist art of life, and to the development of spaces of possibilities in society. The article is divided in four movements: First, seven plagues hindering transdisciplinary learning are discussed. Second, the qualities of artistic &nbsp;and &nbsp;arts-based &nbsp;research are reviewed, with a focus on the development of aesthetics of qualitative complexity. Third, a question is posed: What are the implications of aesthetics of qualitative complexity at the personal level? Moving my focus onwards to the personal lifeworld experiences of human beings, I advocate for a turn to a queer-convivialist life-art, encouraging a complex experience of the world where harmony through contradictions is embraced and played with. Fourth, I articulate the ”real-world” relevance of artful approaches with the discussion of societal spaces of possibilities: shared &nbsp;physical, &nbsp;social and mental spaces where the search process of sustainability &nbsp;is &nbsp;activated &nbsp;through &nbsp;imagination, experimentation, challenging experiences, creative and participative learning, and prefigurative doing. Artful sustainability mobilizes art as a verb - a transformative force in society and a source of complex questioning that sharpens our ability to engage, through transdisciplinarity, with the world’s compounding challenges.

Picturing the Barrio: Ten Chicano Photographers by David William Foster

Reviewed by: Picturing the Barrio: Ten Chicano Photographers by David William Foster Ileana L. Selejan Photography, Documentary, Chicano, Latinx, Civil Rights David William Foster. Picturing the Barrio: Ten Chicano Photographers, U of Pittsburgh P, 2017, 240 pp. "Art history is a funny thing. It will focus on some stories (relentlessly), while often completely ignoring others," Los Angeles Times critic Carolina A. Miranda commented, in response to a 2014 Ricardo Valverde retrospective exhibition.1 Indeed opportunities to learn and think about art, and in particular photography made by US-Americans of Mexican descent, seem to be few and far between. At a national level, this occurs in a context of increased institutional attention to Latin American artists (i.e., from Central and South America) on the one hand, and of heightened xenophobia and racism, on the other. Representation matters, given that the Latino population constitutes the largest ethnic minority group in the country. David William Foster's book Picturing the Barrio: Ten Chicano Photographers provides a valuable contribution in this respect. The volume begins with a caveat: instead of a "comprehensive history of Chicano photography of the sort that might provide a unified chronology and yield [End Page 232] a unified 'vision' of the Chicano experience through the medium of photography" (10), the author proposes a series of ten essays about the work of "photographers who self-identify as Chicano or Mexican American" (7), work that "focuses on what has come to be defined as the Chicano experience" (5). Should one be interested in a broader assessment of the issues touched upon here, he notes, "it might be more appropriate in historical terms to look at Hispanic or Latino artists as a whole and not just those who are Chicano-identified" (10). This consequential historiographic question has become central to US cultural politics, as the field of art has made important strides toward incorporating Latin American and Latinx cultural practices into the curriculum, if not the canon. Many instances from this ongoing discussion may be listed; for instance, one might revisit debates spurred by the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art (Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2014). Nonetheless, the present volume strikes another chord. At the peak of the Chicano civil rights movement (1965–1975), demands for social justice contributed to making a discriminated, marginalized population visible. The works presented in this volume originate, for the most part, in its aftermath. And, perhaps most importantly, it has become known due to exhibitions and publications that are even more recent. So, how should one position this work? Within a geo-political canon of US-American art in general? Following the Latinx/Latin American paradigm, in relation to the various regional and national contexts in the Americas? Or somewhere in between? The answer, I would suggest, lies within the individual trajectory of each practitioner. Amongst the precursors for his book, Foster notes scholarly contributions such as Chon A. Noriega's From the West (1995), and exhibitions such as picARTE! Photography Beyond Representation (Heard Museum, 2004), Cotidiano: Latino/US (2014) and Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement (LACMA, 2008). In contrast to such overviews, which are inevitably partial, the present study argues for a more direct engagement with individual bodies of work, located within the immediacy of their context. In establishing his corpus, Foster notes that his study focuses exclusively on work that "must have been published in book form" (4). Nonetheless, this is not a study of photobooks per se, making the definition of what is exactly meant by "book form" somewhat confusing (6). This selective approach leaves out significant developments from the practitioners' oeuvre, which may have ultimately served to deepen readers' awareness of the political, social, and aesthetic implications of the projects at hand. Even with a limited corpus, and despite the ephemerality of photography and the unavailability of some of this work (153), archival research or interviews with the photographers would have further enriched the present study. That said, perhaps Foster's approach is most effective—and affective—in smaller measures, in how it summons critical subjectivity, turning one's attention toward these stunning bodies of work. Undeniably, the historic marginalization of Chicanos has affected and continues...

Fingerprinting: Imtiaz Dharker and the Antinomies of Migrant Subjectivity

This essay offers a reading of poems by contemporary South Asian diasporic poet Imtiaz Dharker as a literary response to the situation of refugees and migrants through a postcolonial experimental poetics. The first part of this essay situates Dharker's poems in the context of current debates on migration in Europe and the technologies of recognition adopted to track the movements of migrants and refugees across the EU. The second part interprets works from her 2009 collection Leaving Fingerprints as a poetic resistance against the politics of identity produced by technologies of recognition. The representational strategies adopted by Dharker oppose what might be called "biometric reading" and prevent the creation of a stable sense of belonging through literary writing. The concluding sections of this essay expand on the aesthetic implications of Dharker's poems and connect them to critical discourses on postcolonial experimentalism and peripheral modernism. The interplay of image and text in Dharker's works suggests a postcolonial reimagining of the poetic figural as expression of the contradictions of peripheral subjects caught in the power dynamics of capitalist globalization.

New Public Monuments: Urban Art and Everyday Aesthetic Experience

Abstract The role and function of public art is currently undergoing some large-scale changes. Many new artworks which are situated within the already existing urban sphere, seem to be changing the definition of public art, each in their own way. Simultaneously, there exists a trend that endorses more traditional forms of public art. Juxtaposing and comparing the aesthetic implications of different types of artworks, it is possible to see how they contribute to the contemporary understanding of the urban sphere. In this paper, I take a look at the explicit and implicit aesthetic values that these simultaneously existing contemporary forms of public art are based on. The cases selected for closer look are examples of prominent and recent works of public art from downtown Helsinki: He who Brings the Light (unveiled in 2017) by Pekka Kauhanen and Running Man (performed in 2016-17) by Nestori Syrjala. What space and what kind of position is subscribed to the perceiver by these very different types of yet equally established artworks? What kind of experiences and possibilities of participation do these works entail? The focus is on the undergoing redefinition of public art that revolves around these questions.

Aesthetic practices of psychogeography and photography

AbstractPsychogeographic walking and urban photography as aesthetic practices are intuitive, sensory methods for exploring and capturing diverse facets of the city. Aesthetic practices are more than just sensory methods of exploration—they are also importantly connected to performing and making art. Using examples from a study on the aesthetic implications of zero tolerance policy against graffiti in Oslo, this paper considers what these methods reveal about the city. The paper argues that this methodology has potential for studying varied topics that might benefit from the unanticipated encounters that arise with psychogeography and the visual record produced with photography. Walking brings the researcher into contact with the materialities and rhythms of the city, allowing insight into its spatial and temporal variations. Encounters with these variations and materialities can reveal how urban space is used and by whom. The playful and artistic dimensions of these practices make them inductive and revelatory methods for studying the city. The paper concludes by suggesting that such practices encourage new ways of looking at the city and have potential for exploring the aesthetic politics of cities.

Eliot’s End and Beginning

Approaching T. S. Eliot’s oeuvre as a coherent whole, this essay argues that his early work registers a set of philosophical difficulties inherited from the epistemological presumptions of the modern university that he gradually reformulates and resists over the course of his intellectual, artistic, and personal development. As Eliot moves from analytic philosophy in his doctoral dissertation through the philosophically invested poetry that culminates in The Waste Land (1922) and, finally, to the autobiographical and participatory idiom of Four Quartets (1943), his work increasingly emphasizes idiosyncratic, incommensurable, and personal modes of understanding over universal structures of knowledge. Attending to the philosophical and aesthetic implications of objective description embodied by the dissertation and the endnotes of The Waste Land, this essay reads the vocal unity, implicative openness, and overt autobiography of Four Quartets as the culmination of a resistance to the fragmented, depersonalizing epistemological dualism that Eliot first began questioning as a graduate student.

The middle, the east, the west of Erin: Narrative disorientation and the production of space

AbstractThis essay extends political and aesthetic implications in relationships between space and narrative by investigating narrative strategies that displace or disrupt access to narrative setting, spatiotemporal movement, or the space of narration. I fuse Henri Lefebvre’s work on the social production of space to Gabriel Zoran’s systems of narrative space in order to propose a spatial critique that describes and categorizes ways that narrative is central to the politics of spatial practice. I then apply that spatial critique to Flann O’Brien’s prototypically disorienting novelAt Swim-Two-Birds(1939). In that intersection between critical geography and narrative theory,At Swim-Two-Birdsbecomes a narrative about the complicated interplay between creation and control of space – the way that space is configured and reconfigured through spatial practice.