Concept Of Mimesis Research Articles

Mimesis in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory

Theodor W. Adorno's reflections on literature and arts are spread over of his works, but his systematic and comprehensive theorization of art (including literature) was to wait until Aesthetic Theory, which Adorno did not live to complete. However, as editors of original German edition, Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedeman, quote Adorno (from a letter he wrote several days before his death), the final version 'still needed a desperate effort' but ... 'basically it is now a matter of organization and hardly that of substance of book'; (1) it is not inappropriate to rely on Aesthetic Theory as repository of Adorno's thought on subject of art and literature. Supplementing its reading with relevant chapters from Adorno's other works -Dialectic of Enlightenment (which he coauthored with Max Horkheimer), Prisms, and Notes to Literature)-this essay concentrates on concept of mimesis in Adorno's theory of arts and literature in order to examine various meanings Adorno assigns to that concept as well as constellations in which this concept articulates with other concepts. Since Adorno's aesthetic theory forms a coherent part of his overall philosophical enterprise, strategy used here is to discuss briefly some key concepts constitutive of Adorno's critique of and of Capitalist society, and then zero in on concept of mimesis. Adorno was a leading member of Frankfurt School-an institute that championed critical theory, which attempted to grasp contemporary society and culture as a totality, espoused unity of theory and praxis, and critiqued instrumental rationality. (2) Key to Adorno's thinking, as to Frankfurt School's, were Marx's concept of commodity fetishism and Georg Lukacs's concept of reification. Commodity fetishism names enigma in Capitalist society, where value of commodity as product of labor appears as value of commodity itself just as relation between human beings essential to production and exchange of commodities appears as relation between commodities themselves. In other words, commodities become fetishes because they seem to acquire a life of their own. (3) Lukacs's theory of reification extends Marx's concept of commodity fetishism, via Max Weber's theory of rationalization, to argue that not only economic sphere (in Marxist base-superstructure model, socio-economic base comprising of forces and relations of production) but social institutions such as law, administration, and journalism and academic disciplines such as economics, jurisprudence, and philosophy also become permeated by commodity form or logic of exchange. Indeed, according to Lukacs, commodity fetishism governs not only objects in world but equally subjects, who are reduced to exchangeable commodities, like mere things obeying inexorable laws of marketplace. (4) Adorno's favorite word for total reification of society under Capitalism is administered world, which appears repeatedly in Aesthetic Theory as it does in his other works. In Cultural Criticism and Society, Adorno thus describes totalizing and totalitarian effect of reification: This regimentation, result of progressive societalization of all human relations, did not simply confront mind from without; it immigrated into its immanent consistency.... The network of is drawn ever tighter, modeled after act of exchange. It leaves individual consciousness less and less room for evasion, performs it more and more thoroughly, cuts it off a priori as it were from possibility of differencing from itself as all difference degenerates into a nuance in monotony of supply. (5) The Cartesian division between thinking self and extended reality, therefore, no longer holds (if it ever did); subject does not confront object from a position transcendent to it but is rather enmeshed in the network of whole that leaves no room for authentic difference and autonomy. …

Performing Mimetic Mapping: A Non-Visualisable Map of the Suzhou River Area of Shanghai

This paper questions issues concerning the mapping of experience, through the concept of mimesis – the creative re-performance of the site experience onto the map. The place mapped is the Suzhou River area, a significant part of Shanghai, the former boundary between the British and American Settlements, and an ever-changing and transforming territory. Through the detailed description of the mapping processes, we analyse the position of this particular map within contemporary discourse about mapping. Here, we question the purpose of the process, the desired outcome, the consciousness of the significance of each step/event, and the possible significance of the final traces that the mapping leaves behind. Although after the mapping had been carried out, the procedure was analysed, post-rationalised, and justified through its partial documentation (as part of an educational process), this paper questions the way and the reason for these practices (the post-rationalising of the mapping activity, justifying the strategy, etc.), and their possible meaning, purpose, demand or context. Thus we conclude that the subject matter is not the final outcome of an object or ‘map’; there is no final map to be exhibited. What this paper brings forth is the mapping as an event, an action performed by the embodied experience of the actual place and by the trans-local materiality of the tools and elements involved in the process of its making.

Performing Mimetic Mapping: A Non-Visualisable Map of the Suzhou River Area of Shanghai

This paper questions issues concerning the mapping of experience, through the concept of mimesis – the creative re-performance of the site experience onto the map. The place mapped is the Suzhou River area, a significant part of Shanghai, the former boundary between the British and American Settlements, and an ever-changing and transforming territory. Through the detailed description of the mapping processes, we analyse the position of this particular map within contemporary discourse about mapping. Here, we question the purpose of the process, the desired outcome, the consciousness of the significance of each step/event, and the possible significance of the final traces that the mapping leaves behind. Although after the mapping had been carried out, the procedure was analysed, post-rationalised, and justified through its partial documentation (as part of an educational process), this paper questions the way and the reason for these practices (the post-rationalising of the mapping activity, justifying the strategy, etc.), and their possible meaning, purpose, demand or context. Thus we conclude that the subject matter is not the final outcome of an object or ‘map’; there is no final map to be exhibited. What this paper brings forth is the mapping as an event, an action performed by the embodied experience of the actual place and by the trans-local materiality of the tools and elements involved in the process of its making.

Mimesis - między udawaniem a referencją

This study reformulates the old problem of mimesis in the spirit of pragmatics. It treats similarity as as a subjective-objective relation. Comparison of the conception of formal mimetism and literature as pretending of actual acts of speech leads to a conclusion on the asymmetry of these two modern applications of the category of mimesis. The first one attempts at restricting its use, the second attempts at globalisation, a kind of which is pragmatisation. Conception of mimesis as pretending strengthens the objective characterisation of categories. The function of convention is emphasised, which determines either the mimetic or referential reading of a text, which becomes particularly important in the reading of documentary and paradocumentary literature where we have to do with a permanent asymmetry of the sender's expectations and of the recipient's reactions. Attempts at defining mimesis in terms of cognitivist theories are conducive to pragmatisation of categories where the mental effects of a literary representation are involved, and the similarity is defined as closeness of a text and perceptual schemes located in the recipient's brain. All these processes lead to the questioning of mimesis as a palpable property in the structure of the text, stressing the reader's and the reading's role in the constitution of the mimetic effect.

The Order of Mimesis in Saint-John Perse’s Vents

The claim by the 20th Century French poet Saint-John Perse that poetry is essentially a metaphysics invites readers and critics to reflect on the origins of both philosophy and poetry. In taking up this question, this paper focuses on the concept of mimesis from which the ancients derived, among other things, the principles of poetic and artistic production. By examining the way mimesis functions in Saint-John Perse’s Vents, it aims not only to establish the basis for understanding how the poet’s metaphysical claims are realised, but it also throws light on other aspects of his poetic vision, such as his view of cosmic unity, his explicit humanist mission and his much publicised double vocation in politics and poetry. Parallel to this, the paper briefly develops Plato’s, Aristotle’s and Girard’s treatment of mimesis and touches upon Merleau-Ponty’s, Bachelard’s and Nietzsche’s views on poetic expression.

Mimesis: Where play and narrative meet

There is a great deal of narrative in play and also of play in narrative, especially in the narrative and play of young children. Part of the reason for this may be that they share an important pattern or structure in the way they work as mental instruments, mimesis. Mimesis is a mode of representation in which the relation between the symbol that represents and the thing in the world that is represented is in some sense imitative; that is, the representation resembles the thing represented. The concept of mimesis is not precise, but it has two important, though not entirely distinct, strands which are based on two kinds of imitation: the imitation found in the indexical symbol, or sign, and the imitation that is found in literary representation. The general notion of imitation that these two strands share is somewhat elusive, but it seems clear that both play and narrative would share equally in it. Further consequences are discussed.

Mimetic Structuration: Or, Easy Steps to Building an Acceptable Identity1

Since their settlement two millennia ago the Comoro Islanders have been subjected to a diversity of external influences that have provoked significant and often radical social change. This article develops the concept of mimesis to explain how the Comoros have deal with these influences, incorporating and developing them to create cultural and social structures that may appear eclectic but which have equipped the islanders to negotiate these changes quite effectively. As a result of their mimetic praxis, Comorians confront and manage influences both internal and external with the minimum of social upheaval, maintaining a society that is both highly heterogeneous and remarkably enduring.

Stories of Clients with Mental Illness: The Structure of Occupational Therapists' Interactions

The objective of this study was to examine therapist—client interactions in the psychosocial rehabilitation process. Data comprised narratives of clients with severe mental illness as told by the therapists. Some additional data were taken from field notes collected at the interviews. Narrative analysis was based on Ricoeur's concept of mimesis. An occupational therapy perspective was employed to both generate and interpret the narratives. One of the key findings highlighted how occupational therapists' actions functioned as emplotment—supporting the clients in handling the suspense they experienced. This suspense inhibited them from taking risks and thus hindered them in taking the next step in the rehabilitation process. Another key finding was the importance of designing a supportive, tolerant, and safe therapeutic environment that could enable clients the opportunity to grow. The essential roles of the occupational therapists in this context were role model, supervisor, and overall collaborator. The narrative approach has exposed some of the important therapist—client interactions that benefit clients with severe mental illness.

1. Religion as Narrative : An Application of P. Ricoeur's Conception of Mimesis Using Computer Coding(I Research from Kansai on New Religions)

1. Religion as Narrative : An Application of P. Ricoeur's Conception of Mimesis Using Computer Coding(I Research from Kansai on New Religions)

Mimesis as a phenomenon of semiotic communication

The concept of mimesis is not very often used in the contemporary semiotic dialogue. This article introduces several views on this concept, and on the basis of these, mimesis is comprehended as a phenomenon of communication. By highlighting different semantic dimensions of the concept, mimesis is seen as being composed of phases of communication and as such, it is connected with imitation, representation, iconicity and other semiotic concepts.

Mimesis as a phenomenon of semiotic communication

The concept of mimesis is not very often used in the contemporary semiotic dialogue. This article introduces several views on this concept, and on the basis of these, mimesis is comprehended as a phenomenon of communication. By highlighting different semantic dimensions of the concept, mimesis is seen as being composed of phases of communication and as such, it is connected with imitation, representation, iconicity and other semiotic concepts. The goal of this article is to introduce possibilities for understanding and using the notion of mimesis in connection with some semiotic concepts and views. In everyday use, the word ‘mimesis’ is mainly understood in connection with the terms ‘representation’ or ‘imitation’. The Concise OED explains ‘mimesis’ as 1. imitative representation of the real world in art and literature; 2. the deliberate imitation of the behaviour of one group of people by another as a factor in social change; 3. zoology mimicry of another animal or plant. (Pearsall 2002: 905) Under this surface of meanings there is the myriad of connections and connotations which engage ‘mimesis’ to many historical layers of culture, making it quite difficult to define. As a concept, mimesis originates from Antique philosophy. Through the course of history different schools and authors have used it, thus making ‘mimesis’ one of the classical concepts of Western philosophy. The meanings and uses of ‘mimesis’ have varied remark-

'The Poem's Invitation': Ricoeur's Concept of Mimesis and its Consequences for Narrative Educational Research

After the presentation of different views on the relation between narrative and life it is argued that Paul Ricoeur's view offers a framework that allows an answer to questions that remain unanswered in the work of MacIntyre and Carr. Although Ricoeur's view has its own flaws, the concepts of triple mimesis and of narrative identity can be incorporated in a post-foundationalist view. Within this resulting frame of reference narratives in narrative research are interpreted as compositions, as the result of emplotment. Thus the characteristics of a narrative apply to the participant's stories, to personal identity and to the researcher's narrative.

The Overqualified Artist: The Regulation of Mimesis in Plato's Republic

The first-time reader of Pla to ' s Republic is often shocked at the rough treatment and eventual exclusion of art in P la to ' s ideal state. The Republic has been described as one of the greatest attacks on democracy and freedom in the history of Western thought, and the restrictive treatment of art in Book III can seem unduly harsh to the modern reader. By the time that the interlocutors reach Book X it seems that all non-craft art has been entirely banished from the polis due to its corrupting impurity. T o the modern reader, the extreme nature of this proclamation is highlighted by our historical knowledge . Even the more brutal and repressive totalitarian states of the last century—for example , those of Hit ler ' s Third Reich and the Soviet Union under Josef Stal in—did not go so far as to completely outlaw art. 1 There is a second surprise for the first-time reader of the Republic in Book X insofar as this final book seems to contradict, disregard, or forget the conclusion that the interlocutors reached concerning art in Book III. This apparent contradiction calls for a close reading and interpretation of the text in light of both Pla to ' s conception of mimesis and the overall project of the Republic. The problem lies in the apparent incommensurabil i ty of the discussions on the suitability of art, specifically poetry, for the polis as put forth in Book X and Book III. Book III seems to al low that some forms of poetry and imitation will be acceptable in the state while others will be rejected. The discussion of poetry in this section concludes that ourselves,/*?/' our souls' good, should continue to employ the more austere and less delightful poet and taleteller, who would imitate the diction of the good man and would tell his tale in the patterns we prescribed in the b e g i n n i n g . . . [italics mine I (398b) . 2 However , in Book X it appears that all imita-

After Ontology: Literary Theory and Modernist Poetics (review)

Reviewed by: After Ontology: Literary Theory and Modernist Poetics Donald G. Marshall William D. Melaney. After Ontology: Literary Theory and Modernist Poetics. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 2001. x + 260 pp. Melaney’s line of thought places the modern, modernism, and post-modernism in complex relation. A postmodern critique of the modern in philosophy prepares the way for both an interpretation of modernism as a general cultural phenomenon and a way of reading specific modernist texts. Modern philosophy began when Descartes founded knowing and being on the certainty of the subject’s self-reflection. Kant’s “Copernican revolution” confirmed while reversing Descartes, making subjectivity not the foundation but the limit of possible experience. Kant’s critical philosophy made meaningless the Cartesian opposition of subject vs. object, thinking substance vs. extended substance. But it generates a fresh split between theoretical and ethical, pure and practical reason, knowledge and ethics. When he discovered a third form of a priori in the reflective judgment of beauty in art and teleology in nature, he thought he had found a bridge between pure and practical reason. But this also required restricting the experience of the beautiful to a harmony among the subject’s interior faculties, so that the artwork’s autonomy deprived it of its cognitive claim to truth. To recover the artwork’s claim to truth, Hans-Georg Gadamer argued, the artwork must be reconnected to being through its subject matter, its Sache. But this reconnection could not be effected through the old concept of mimesis. Instead, it is effected by the infinite mediation of language. The self that experiences the artwork is not a subject, whether understood as foundation or as limit. It exists in time and belongs to a world that exists in time, that is, the world borne to us as tradition. This line of thought explicitly follows Heidegger to replace subjectivity with a responsive and therefore dialogical self and to recover the truth claim of the work of art inherent in its temporality. Truth and Method concludes with an analysis of the radiance of beauty. Melaney notes Gianni Vattimo’s claim that Gadamer thus reverts to a unified ontology, abandoning Heidegger’s rift between earth and world—an objection I find unconvincing. Jacques Derrida deconstructs Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment but also Heidegger’s “Origin of the Work of Art,” on which Gadamer relies. Focusing on the concept of frame, Derrida argues in “Parerga” that Kant cannot resolve the opposition of inner and outer, the autonomy of the aesthetic and the demands of practical reason. In Derrida’s analysis, Kant cannot establish the unity of subjectivity through aesthetics even by recourse to the sublime or the symbol. Discursivity and temporality—différance—intervene. Confronting Meyer Scha-piro’s response to Heidegger’s “Origin of the Work of Art,” Derrida dissolves the unity of art and world under the concept of truth. Into this gap steps the figure of the artist, not as a unified subject nor as a source of truth, but as a site where temporality and the trace of the other weave a text rather than establish a work. This is the territory of the ethical, as Derrida understands it. Melaney absorbs not only these results but also the double reading through which Derrida reaches them. He pursues the ethical and connects it with language and the discourse of legitimacy through Nietzsche, Lacan, Lyotard, and Foucault. Returning to [End Page 193] Derrida, Melaney uses the concepts of undecidability, trace, and différance to disclose both a modern and a postmodern moment in the (inherently aporetic) modernist text. The modernist artist thus opens a rupture between the modern and the postmodern, but the modernist text must also be recontextualized in a general quest for justice. Melaney understands this to require analyzing the response of a group of modernist texts to a common intertext. He therefore proceeds to examine Eliot’s and Pound’s differing uses of Hamlet, Dante, and Ulysses, concluding with Yeats’ recovery of history and community, but in a way that asks us to “remain at home in the unanswerable” (167). In Eliot, the intertext disrupts the relation of author to work by...

Is Feminism Realism Possible? A theory of labial eros and mimesis

This article establishes a correlation between Aristotle's concept of mimesis and the two concepts of modern realism and linear narration, which, with good reason, have been attacked as phallic by many feminist theorists. The correlation is established on the basis of my analysis of the narrative structure of the play Oedipus Rex, and of the reasons why Aristotle might have chosen it as his main example to illustrate his theory in The Poetics. While Aristotle argued that drama is better than lyric and epic, he ironically chose a narrative play to represent his favourite genre to his male students at the Lyceum. This suggests that the example was the most suitable for them to understand. I argue that this accessibility is directly related to the student's gender, their heterosexual acculturation and their masculine embodiedness and eros. Nonetheless, Aristotle established a positive notion of mimesis, which is useful to feminists because it helps us to correlate the reality of our experience with the representations of it that we propose to each other and the external world. Hence, I propose that we use Aristotlelian mimesis as a point of departure to formulate a notion of mimesis based on female embodiedness and eros. A first example to which I point is that of labial mimesis, in which a female duo replaces the phallic hero at the center of the frame of representation. I argue that this duo represents the labia, thus pointing to the possibility of a feminist realism in which the relationship between experience and the intelligible is mediated by female embodiedness and eros, and of developing a new symbolic order based on these new mediations. As I intend to move feminist thought beyond formalist views of realism, I contend that phallic mimesis is only one of the many possible mimeses; not the most sophisticated, and definitely not universal. Indeed, The Poetics constructs it as universal because Aristotle's job was acculturating his students in a system that valorized phallic eros and expected them to become good citizens and procreators. Thus we see that in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, the hero stands erect at the center of the scene of representation and functions as the symbol of the linear, phallic mimesis which is particular but is presented as universal. Feminist readers can look for alternatives to this kind of mimesis, and we can focus on plays where a female duo is at the center of the dramatic structure, and their interaction is the focus of the play. I propose that this mimesis establishes a different relationship between experience and the intelligible for it is based on labial eros. It is a 'labial mimesis' that can be observed in many modern and contemporary films and plays that are realistic for they order experience in a clear, intelligible way, but do so through a mechanism that symbolizes a site of pleasure found in women's bodies. In this alternative to phallic mimesis, the mimetic function is accomplished by the labia, a symbol in which we women can recognize our own eros and interrelatedness.

Ways of Knowing, Forms of Power

This article calls for attention to be given to differing cultural forms of learning, especially to how people claim to learn, and what it is they claim to learn. The analysis highlights the value of participation and human experience as a mode of learning, and constitutes a critique of earlier forms of social anthropological methodology. It suggests that the concept of mimesis should be treated as a central feature of fieldwork enculturation. Moreover, experiences and understandings gained from participation forml a vehicle to help uncover indigenous theories of learning, and these ideas in turn reflect back upon our own culture-specific ways of conceiving the processes of learning. The ethnographic focus is on learning a craft and on performing routinely practical activities among Senegalese Tukulor weavers and praise-singers, the mabube.

The movement of mimesis

Heidegger formulates the artwork's origin in a movement against the false motion of portrayal and repetition. The term mimesis is employed in the present essay to describe this origin and the means by which truth 'happens', specifically when mimesis turns against itself as imitation. The movement of the artwork is considered within the following constellation: the concept of mimesis is examined in light of Heidegger's 'Origin' essay to illuminate the concept and the essay by placing both in relation to Adorno's aesthetics (especially the way mimesis figures there) as well as Kant's doctrine of the sublime- via Lyotard's Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime. The movement of the artwork toward truth is presented as the movement of mimesis. Further, for both Heidegger and Adorno's accounts, the mimetic movement of the artwork parallels the movement of aesthetic judgment, especially as it is construed in regard to Kant's doctrine of the sublime.

Symmetry in asymmetry: On Girard's concept of mimesis

Symmetry in asymmetry: On Girard's concept of mimesis

‘Aristoteles imperator noster…’? J. C. Scaliger and Aristotle on poetic theory

Aristotle'sPoetics was virtually unknown in the West before the publication of theeditio princeps of the Greek text in 1508. After this date its fame grew steadily. In the decades that followed it was repeatedly translated and commented upon; it also began to be used in theoretical treatises on the art of poetry in general. This article focuses on the most comprehensive of these treatises to appear in the sixteenth century, Julius Caesar Scaliger'sPoetices libri septem (1561). It analyzes the claim, repeated countless times throughout the centuries, that thePoetices libri septem are an ‘Aristotelian’ treatise and tries to show that this claim is borne out neither by such references to the Aristotelian corpus as can be identified in Scaliger's work, nor by its internal structure and economy, nor indeed by its most important doctrinal tenets, such as the definition and purpose of poetry, the relationship of poetry to rhetoric and historiography, or the concept ofmimesis. Despite Scaliger's paying lip-service to Aristotle hisPoetices libri septem cannot thus be adequately interpreted and understood with exclusive reference to an Aristotelian framework.

Dissociation: On the poetics of Ian Hamilton Finlay's Tree/Columns

Ian Hamilton Finlay's Sacred Grove at the Kroller-MUller Museum at Otterloo, Holland, is striking both for its rhetorical audacity and its obvious philosophical seriousness. In this paper, I shall give a description of the tree/column bases it contains in terms of the modernist rhetoric of collage before proceeding to an account of the Grove's intertextual status and concluding by an investigation of its philosophical import. I hope thus to probe some of the issues implied by the term “visual poetics”, and also to contribute modestly to the revaluation of the concept of mimesis currently occupying deconstructionist philosophers in France. Mimesis has played a central role in our aesthetics ever since Aristotle, and it should take no more than a glance at Finlay's tree/column bases to see that they include a mimetic dimension, which can however in no way be reduced to the traditional notion of representation.