Concept Of Mimesis Research Articles

From Colonial Order to Decolonial Future: Colonial Mimesis and Identity among the Papua Besena Movement

ABSTRACTDuring the 1970s and 1980s, a nationalist movement called Papua Besena emerged in Papua New Guinea. On the one hand, the group believed that the Papuan people were neglected by Australian colonisation and campaigned for Papuan sovereignty, either by creating an independent state or joining Australia as a state. On the other hand, as some scholars and politicians have pointed out, Papua Besena's rhetoric of colonial neglect failed to appreciate that Papuan people received more investment in colonial economic development, training, and infrastructure than most Papua New Guineans due to their proximity to the colonial centre. The Australian colonisation of the territories also changed due to pressure from the United Nations visiting mission. Yet despite the Papuan people's access to development, they still felt neglected and humiliated being so close to the colonial centre. To answer this paradox, the concept of mimesis, particularly the idea of colonial mimicry and mimesis as a source of identity, might shed new light on the political history and consciousness of Papuans. This paper suggests that Papuans' access to space, training, and positions was restricted in and around Port Moresby. Many Papuans took up the colonial moral order and mimicked the colonial perspective visible in the capital, projecting it into their decolonial future and their relationships with New Guineans and Australia. In other words, the Papuans' proximity to the colonial space and process contributed to their experiences of neglect and their identity simultaneously.

Stadi sul cammino della mimesis: Kierkegaard e la dialettica tra introflessione ed estroflessione


 
 
 The aim of this paper is to explore some existential possibilities that the concept of mimesis has in Kierkegaard. To this end, mimesis will be analyzed in two moments of his: in the life of the aesthete in Either-Or, where mimesis is related to the notions of poetry and fantasy, and in relation to the figures of the lily in the field and the bird in the sky. Two different notions of mimesis will then be studied in their dialectic between introspection and alienation. The aesthetic stage of mimesis will reveal the paradox of aesthetic life: on the one hand, the aesthete is apparently introflected, living in a world constructed of mimetic phantasms in his own image, but on the other hand, trapped in these reflections, he is unable to grasp his own self as a real possibility and is thus hopelessly alienated from himself. The opposite happens in the religious stage of mimesis, in which it is revealed that only in the apparent extroversion of imitating the absolute other is it possible to grasp one’s own self.
 
 

LOVE AS A FATAL EMOTION

This article explores the notion that human behaviors and desires can be attributed to someone called the “Other.” Throughout history, since Aristotle, it has been suggested that humans are imitative beings. Along with further developed versions of Aristotle`s concept of mimesis, the idea emerged that man actually imitates the desire of the “Other”. That is manifested not only in personal life, but also in all aspects of social life. In this article, the focus is specifically on love and how it can be understood through this theory. Contrary to contemporary interpretations of love, the argument is made that it is, in fact, a destructive (murderous) emotion. To support this claim, references to literature, psychoanalysis, literary criticism, and philosophy are made. It is claimed that love is not a feeling of happiness, but of crisis, hysterical fits and pain. Tolstoy`s Anna Karenina serves as an example of love`s tumultuous nature. The fact that people give different shades to this ancient feeling in the modern world parallels the change of the world and human understanding. In the modern world, people attempt to live a life free of pain, sterilized and unwounded which causes a change in the essence of love. The article emphasizes these features and describes the ancient essence of love.

Prometheus of a scapegoat? Humans in the discourse of the anthropocene and the concept of mimesis and persecution pattern by René Girard: attempts at pedagogical reflection

The discourse of the Anthropocene expresses an interesting tension in the way human causation and guilt are framed. On the one hand, the Anthropos is a unique species, making historical, geographical and geological conquest single-handedly (to the exclusion of non-human subjects). A triumphant and increasingly dominant coloniser of a planet that ultimately falls very low, indeed. In the light of the impending climate catastrophe, the “age of man” no longer sounds so noble today. On the contrary, it becomes a testimony of discredit and decline, a sign of egoism and planetary destruction by one species. Among the many approaches and attempts to address and nuance the discourse and amidst the search for the most appropriate labels (e.g. Capitalocene, chtchulucene, ecozoic, etc.), it is the Anthropocene or post-Anthropocene that seem to remain the ones most frequently referred to in colloquial or journalistic discourse. A need arises to clearly identify the one to blame for the impending climatic apocalypse. Under conditions of crisis, during what Girard call undifferentiation, the Anthropos selects itself as the scapegoat, becoming both the unfortunate, guilt-ridden OTHER and the ruthless, violence-hungry MOB. Could René Girard’s concept of mimesis and scapegoating help to understand the pattern of this dialectical, subversive strategy? If so, then perhaps it is to be expected that the stage of sacralisation of the victim, which crowns the logic of scapegoating, instead of overcoming it, will only perpetuate the apotheosis of human agency, dangerous from the point of view of the actual state of the planet. This time, these will be essentially anthropocentric and technologically advanced “escapes forward”, such as exploitation of the moon or other planets, invasive prevention of further ice and greenhouse ages, deflecting asteroids so that they do not collide with Earth, and other, hardly predictable spectacular gestures of the triumphant Anthropos. The above questions are the subject matter of this article and a pretext for pedagogical reflection.

Utopian Spontaneity: Adorno's Concept of Mimesis and Surrealist Automatic Writing

Utopian Spontaneity: Adorno's Concept of Mimesis and Surrealist Automatic Writing

The Works of Charles Sorel in the Context of the Debate on “Vraisemblance” in the French Aesthetics of the 17th Century

The article analyzes the peculiarities of understanding the most important category of verisimilitude (vraisemblance) for the French aesthetics of the 17th century from the point of view of the French writer Charles Sorel, author of the “La vraye histoire comique de Francion” (1623–1633). Sorel attaches great importance to the category of verisimilitude, even to the point that he makes “vraisemblance” the main one for building the evolutionary system of the novel genre. In this case, in order to properly understand his creative and aesthetic views, it seems necessary to determine what exactly he understands by verisimilitude. Considering two fundamental aspects of the category of verisimilitude of the 17th century – rhetorical and mimetic – we analyze the particularities in the understanding of the category of verisimilitude by Sorel. Sorel rejects everything that concerns the rhetorical aspect of verisimilitude, that is, he denies everything that concerns the moralizing attitude of the work, focusing on the mimetic aspect, that is, on the proper embodiment of reality in a work of fiction. Nevertheless, despite the apparent similarity of Sorel’s position with the concept of mimesis, when analyzing his works, we see that his views are so different from the generally accepted model, allowing researchers to talk not about mimesis, but about Sorel’s counter-mimesis. This position anticipated the specifics of the literature of libertinage of the 18th century and the laws of realism in the literature of the 19th century.

Play, truth, identity: On Gadamer’s hermeneutical-ontological aesthetics

The aim of this paper is the reconsideration of Gadamer?s hermeneutical-ontological aesthetics, through the analysis of the concepts of play, truth and identity. After a brief introduction and the situating of Gadamer?s aesthetics in relation to the subjective and positivist tradition, it will be respectively discussed Gadamer?s understanding of play as the clue to the ontological explanation of art in Truth and method, the truth as self-relevatory and in addition to that the reaffirmation of the concept of mimesis and knowledge in art. Finally, the identity in the context of the temporality of the artwork, as well as hermeneutic identity exposed in Gadamer?s later work The Relevance of the Beautiful will be discussed. In the conclusion, some of the most important receptions of Gadamer?s philosophical aesthetic thought will be presented, which aim is to its basic components: play, truth and identity.

Parler femme, parler hégélien

This text is an attempt to implement a feminist reading of Hegelian philosophy. In particular, the activity of mimesis proposed by Luce Irigaray, one of the greatest exponents of feminism of sexual difference, is applied to the Hegelian philosophy of nature. To implement this practice, several steps are necessary. Firstly, to develop an ontological explanation of nature capable of demonstrating the constitutively ‘excessive’ character of nature in relation to the concept, which maintains a fidelity to Hegelian thought and retains the speculative character of the relationship between Idea and nature. Secondly, to analyse Irigaray’s concept of mimesis, consisting in that ‘conscious masquerade’ through which it is possible to unhinge the ‘phallocentric’ order from within, thusopening the space for a symbolic order for woman as a subject Other. Finally, to interrogate the symbolic link posed by Hegel – as well as by western culture in general – between woman and nature, in order to apply the exercise of mimesis to the Hegelian philosophy of nature. Indeed, if nature is symbolically linked to woman then, given the ontological explanation of nature presented here, the possibility of a symbolic reading of Hegel arises which gives space for an essence different to that of the concept to appear.

Towards a Diffractive Mimesis: Karen Barad’s and Isabelle Stengers’ Re-Turnings

This article seeks to further the discussion of mimesis in the current new materialist philosophies that are charged with doubts about the potential of mimetic practices, i.e., practices of reflection, and propose a more differential /diffractive notion of mimesis. It argues that the concept of mimesis and performative approaches to knowledge making can be compatible. The figures of mimesis appear in the conceptualizations of both reflective and diffractive practices, and if mimesis is considered rather as a diffractive operation, it could be seen as having a different efficacy and ethico-political function. Drawing on Karen Barad’s and Isabelle Stengers’ arguments, I start by showing why in the representationalist view of knowledge making, the tool of mimesis is dysfunctional—it is a way of separating and classifying copies of reality. Then, I introduce a diffractive notion of mimesis in line with the mimetic re-turn in posthuman studies. From the perspective of relational understanding of knowledge making supported in Barad’s and Stengers’ ethico-political proposals, mimesis can be perceived as a tool for provoking change and thus, imply a need to do it carefully.

The Undifferentiation of Mimetic Violence: From Oedipus to COVID-19

In the Poetics Aristotle limited the concept of mimesis to the aesthetic relationship between drama and the actions of its mythical models. In the 1970s, having found representations of mimetic relationships in the myths themselves, René Girard argued that they are the cause of a violence that disrupts the mythical communities from within. Later, Girard extended the concept of mimesis to natural processes: By destroying the differences between model and imitation mimetic processes in nature and in the social world unleash violence. In this essay two important examples of dedifferentiation are discussed and compared: Sophocles’ Oedipus dramas and the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in our present time. In both examples, successive mimetic processes subvert the natural and economic foundations of the state, and primarily its framework of rights and duties. The pandemic process destroys the biological, political, and social systems of differences and gives rise to fights for domination over the state.

Technology as Mimesis: Biomimicry as Regenerative Sustainable Design, Engineering, and Technology

In this article, we investigate how to explain the difference between traditional design, engineering, and technology—which have exploited nature and put increasing pressure on Earth’s carrying capacity since the industrial revolution—and biomimetic design—which claims to explore nature’s sustainable solutions and promises to be regenerative by design. We reflect on the concept of mimesis. Mimesis assumes a continuity between the natural environment as a regenerative model and measure for sustainable design that is imitated and reproduced in biomimetic design, engineering, and technology. We conceptualize mimesis in terms of two interdependent boundary conditions: differentiation and participation. We subsequently develop four characteristics of biomimicry as regenerative design, engineering, and technology: technological mimesis is 1) a participative differentiation of nature; 2) supplemental to natural mimesis in biomimetic design; 3) the participative differentiation of technological mimesis is constitutive of nature; 4) the participative differentiation of technological mimesis is always limited.

Viral Mimesis: The Patho(-) Logies of the Coronavirus

Abstract This chapter argues that the human, all too human vulnerability to mimesis (imitation) is a central and so far underdiagnosed element internal to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. Supplementing medical accounts of viral contagion, the chapter develops a genealogy of the concept of mimesis – from antiquity to modernity to the present – that is attentive to both its pathological and therapeutic properties. If an awareness of the pathological side of mimetic contagion is constitutive of the origins of philosophy, in Plato’s Republic, and crowd psychology called attention to the mirroring dynamic of affective contagion among crowds and publics in the modern period, the Covid-19 pandemic crisis highlights the pathological implications of hypermimetic conspiracies reloaded by new media, while also revealing the human ability to develop therapeutic patho-logies – that is, critical discourses (or logoi), on the contagious dynamic of mimetic pathos. Like a Janus-faced mirror, then, this genealogy of homo mimeticus calls attention to both the contemporary dangers of affective contagion and to the urgency of transformations or metamorphosis to counter future pandemic and environmental threats that loom large in the Anthropocene.

"POETICS" OF ARISTOTLE IN RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS

The article presents an overview of the existing translations of Aristotle's “Poetics”, characterizes the features of each of them. In the preface to his translation of Aristotle's “Poetics”, V. Zakharov characterized the work of the Greek philosopher as a “dark text.” Each translation of this treatise, which forms the basis of European and world literary theory, is also its interpretation, an attempt to interpret the “dark places.” The first Russian translation of “Poetics” was made by B. Ordynsky and published in 1854, however, the Russian reader was familiar with the contents of the treatise through translations into European languages and its expositions in Russian. For instance, in the “Dictionary of Ancient and New Poetry” Ostolopov sets out the Aristotelian theory of drama and certain other aspects of “Poetics” very close to the original text. Ordynsky translated the first 18 chapters of “Poetics”, focusing on the theory of tragedy. The translator presented his interpretation of Aristotle’s concept in an extensive preface, commentaries and a lengthy “Statement.” This translation set off a critical analysis by Chernyshevsky, and influenced his dissertation “Aesthetic relations of art to reality”, in which the author polemicizes with the aesthetics of German romanticism. In 1885 V. Zakharov published the first complete Russian translation of “Poetics”, in which he offered his own interpretation of Aristotle's teaching on language and epic. The author of this translation returns to the terminology of romantic aesthetics, therefore the translation itself is outside the main line of perception of the teachings of Aristotle by domestic literary theory, which is clearly manifested in the translations of V. G. Appelrot (1893), N. N. Novosadsky (1927) and M. L. Gasparov (1978). The subject of discussion in these translations was the interpretation of the notions of μῦϑος and παθος, the concepts of mimesis and catharsis, the source of suffering and the tragic, the possibility of modernizing terminology. An important milestone in the perception and assimilation of Aristotle's treatise by Russian literary criticism was its translation by A. F. Losev, which was not published, but was used by the author in his theoretical works and in criticizing other interpretations of “Poetics”. M. M. Pozdnev penned one of the last translations of “Poetics” (2008). The translator does not seek to preserve the peculiarities of the original style and interprets “Poetics” within the framework and terms of modern literary theory, focusing on its English translations. The main subject of the translator's reflection is Aristotle's understanding of the essence and phenomenon of poetic art. Translations of the Greek philosopher's treatise reflect the history of the formation and development of the domestic theory of literature, its main topics and terminological apparatus.

Plato unmasks hidden limits of tele-education.

Plato's powerful metaphor of the Cave, from Republic, further advances a critical assessment of the hidden limits of distance learning. In the Cave, individuals are restrained to see only straight ahead to the images projected from behind them onto the wall in front of them. As in the Cave, in tele-education the dynamism of learning is replaced by passive learning. Not only do learners become largely passive with respect to their teacher, but also to each other. These effects are masked from teacher and learner alike by the technical prowess of distance learning and teaching, a version of Plato's Cave. Tele-education has at least three undeniably salient features: safety, convenience, and cost savings. Two and a half millennia after Plato gave us the concept of mimesis and the metaphor of the Cave, we can use these philosophical tools to unmask hidden limits of tele-education.

The Accursed Economy of Literature

In this article, the author explains the connection between literature and economy on a philosophical level, especially in case of logic of exchange and concept of mimesis in novels. Basic tools for his arguments are derived from Georges Bataille’s concept of Accursed Economy (from the essay “The Accursed Share”). The French philosopher argues that in our everyday reality we use logic imposed on us by capitalism, which means that the value of everything is measured by its utility and, at the same time, values of all things can easily be accumulated. Because of that blind belief something important is omitted – surplus, a particle which does not fit into the global system of exchange. In the author’s opinion this phenomenon (and all its consequences) can be used to interpret the novel Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville, showing the main character’s activities (or their lack) in different contexts. This interpretation also proves the usefulness of applying some tools and terms from the language of economics into literary studies.

On Reification and Extreme Violence. Mimesis, Play and Power in Adorno

ABSTRACT In this paper, I will offer some examples of the effectiveness of Adorno’s concept of mimesis for an analysis of extreme violence and for a defence of democratic institutions against possible regressions into authoritarian regimes. I will start by reading the concept of mimesis through the lens of the interlacement between the concepts of play and power. My aim is twofold: first, I wish to further the analysis of Adorno’s concept of mimesis by showing that it can be interpreted as a form of play, which either empowers subjectivity or becomes a means of domination; second, I will use these speculations to highlight the relevance of Horkheimer and Adorno’s explanation of anti-Semitic violence when seen through the lens of the concept mimesis. Before concluding, I will briefly highlight Adorno’s ideas about what makes democracy vulnerable to potential regressions into extreme violence, and examine what can be done practically – from an Adornian perspective – to avoid regression: defending democratic institutions, and working towards a removal of those barriers that obstruct genuine mimetic experience and self-reflection.

Corporal Mimesis: creative observation

ABSTRACT This article examines corporal mimesis, a technique created and developed by LUME Teatro. The objective is to explain how, with this technique, the performer poetically embodies different stimuli that are found in everyday life, be they people, images, voices, sounds, animals, or even texts or monuments. The concepts of mimesis, observation, and affectation, which form the basis of this practice, are discussed. Then, different experiences with corporal mimesis are described. Finally, it is concluded that this technique is an open field for exploring acting, which is found in an intermediate place between creation and training based on the sensorial universe of the artists who develop it.

MÍMESIS E GEOGRAFIA HUMANA NO MÉTODO DE PAUL VIDAL DE LA BLACHE

Based on the concept of mimesis elaborated by the Brazilian literature theorist Luiz Costa Lima Brazilian scholar, this article aims to analyse the Vidalian human geography. Its particular use of description and its capacity of metamorphosing environmental elements into geographical categories able to revealing the French national identity under the long-run time show how complex and relevant its method is.

Plato, Aristotle & the Dialectics of Poetry

The present paper attempts at estimating the legacy of two of the seminal philosophical minds, Plato and Aristotle. Their ideas have been so instrumental in shaping western critical literary tradition that any discussion on literary theory and criticism has to have them as a point of reference. Plato’s negative conception of mimesis is juxtaposed with Aristotle’s affirmative stand. The paper also examines the various philosophical and pragmatic charges labelled against poetry by Plato in his works such as Republic, Phaedrus and Ion. The paper concludes with a general overview of critical responses to Plato by succeeding men of letters.

Odradek’in Belirsizliğinde Yağmur’daki Kedi’yi Semaver’de Kaybetmek -Mimesis’in Odağında Einfühlung’u Keşfetmek-

The concept of mimesis (imitation) developed by Aristotle, producing the foundations of Plato, forms the essence of today’s recognition of art and literature. According to Aristotle, as long as the subject can relate to the object, pure production continues; otherwise there is no production with the world of Ideas. The phase of entering into the imitated object integrating with it and feeling it comes into action. Aristotle describes this phase as “that everything is perceived through opposites”. At the beginning of the 1900s, German philosophers emphasized the importance of humannature relations and developed the concept of einfühlung/empathy based on Aristotle’s principle. With the evolution of this theory, objects are reconsidered not only as simple objects but also as objects in which subjects identify with them, give feeling and interact with them. Translated into English as empathy, this concept is also called “feeling into” because it does not fully correspond. Einfühlung is not only a concept but also a theory. Although the thoughts on this theory are extensive, it is seen that a general comprehensive framework has not yet been established and comparative examinations have not been done. This study covers the examination and comparison of story examples from German, American and Turkish literature in the context of the relationship between the object created as an imitation element and the subject, rather than providing extensive information about the emergence, development and problems of the Einfühlung concept. In this context, the stories of Franz Kafka’s Die Sorge des Hausvaters (1919), Odradek an ambiguous entity with Ernest Hemingway’s Cat in the Rain (1925) and Samovar (1935) by Sait Faik Abasıyanık stories will be analyzed according to the einfühlung/empathy theory.