Gaston Bachelard Research Articles

Spatializing collective memory: The idea of home and the War and Women’s Human Rights Museum

Focusing on the idea of home, this article investigates collective memory embodied in the War and Women’s Human Rights Museum in Seoul, South Korea. Centering ‘comfort women’s’ trauma and resistance, it analyzes the museum’s memory narrative and spatial strategy, which guide visitors through an empathic journey from past to present, memory to action. I first define the museum’s site-specificity, examining how the idea of home emerged from its construction history. Thereafter, I analyze the museum’s spatial paradigm of collective memorialization through the lens of Gaston Bachelard’s interpretation of a house. Exploring visitors’ spatial awareness of ‘comfort woman’ victims, I argue that the museum, combining a metaphor of home with the victims’ memory, builds a strong emotional connection to the victims and thereby encourages visitors to act on their behalf.

Exploring the link between foresight and artificial intelligence methods to strengthen collective future-building in contexts of social instability

Purpose The study explores the connection between foresight and Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods in a community within an environment of social instability in Colombia. It aims to contribute to research on aligning these methods for future-shaping, with the goal of enhancing shared governance, peer learning and collective learning among traditional decision-makers and local communities in emerging countries. The study seeks to foster a community of social actors who are likely to engage constructively in strategic dialogues. To enhancing shared governance and learning a hybrid model is synthesized, combining foresight and computational intelligence. Design/methodology/approach The case study explores the integration of computational intelligence and foresight through Gaston Bachelard's (Bachelard, 1936) phenomenology concept of ante-perception. The mathematical representation of the cone of scenarios provides a structured way to explore multiple future pathways, allowing communities to visualize and compare different trajectories and make informed decisions amid uncertainty. The model facilitates critical reflections on present assumptions, deepening insights into future scenarios. Ante-perception challenges traditional approaches to foresight by encouraging a break from established experiences, allowing for novel insights into possible futures. When enriched by computational intelligence, this reflective process is further strengthened by quantitative approach scenario modeling. Findings This research develops and tests a proposal that includes the logic and methods for constructing a mathematical representation of the cone of scenarios. This process, which is interactive and deliberative, is driven by anticipation and combines qualitative and quantitative approaches within a context of high uncertainty. By combining the critical reflection facilitated by ante-perception with the predictive power of computational intelligence, the model allows communities to transcend established thought patterns and explore innovative future possibilities. This integrative approach helps them envision and work toward social self-transformation. Research limitations/implications The article aims to identify the creation of scenarios in contexts of high uncertainty, to respond to the needs of communities in emerging countries to manage change. Practical implications This article explores a novel approach to using foresight for address collective intelligence by developing a shared future vision in high-uncertainty contexts within local communities in emerging countries. The application of the hybrid model demonstrates that foresight is a key innovative social tool for developing long-term strategic reflection and planning for territories. Social implications In developing long-term reflective processes, explaining phenomena, mechanisms and correlations requires the use of value judgments. This set of value judgments requires a representation that facilitates their treatment, helps to account for their behavior during the inference process to form a shared future vision. Consequently, ensuring the recognition of the opinions of local communities through participatory discussion spaces and their subsequent refinement, from a technical perspective, aims to illustrate the development of this social construction process. While similarities exist, differences add value through a transfer process, often subconscious. This process stimulates collective learning and builds capacities as knowledge is developed through inquiry, evaluation, interpretation and generalization. Originality/value This research provides a unique hybrid model that fosters collective learning and engagement by integrating local community perspectives with advanced computational intelligence methods. By facilitating both reflective and quantitative approach future-shaping, it offers a practical framework for addressing uncertainty while empowering communities to shape their own futures. It underscores the importance of recognizing local community views through bottom-up participatory discussions, thereby widening the stakeholder community to active engagement in addressing broader societal issues. The case study focuses on community collaboration in Puerto Gaitán, a Colombian municipality.

Perdition and Getting Lost in a Lost Short Story by Ghassān Kanafānī: When Hostile Space (al-makān al-muʿādī) Takes Over Narrative Space

Abstract The literary space assumes essential semantic importance: from Bakhtin’s structuralist analysis to the reading of space as in the concept of the “production of space” theorized by Henri Lefebvre, the issue of spatiality has unquestionably gained importance in literary studies. When the Jordanian writer Ghālib Halasā translated Gaston Bachelard’s La poétique de l’espace (1957) as Jamāliyyāt al-makān (1984), he observes the French author does not address the hostile space (al-makān al-muʿādī). Halasā admits how this subject has enriched the issue of spatiality with significant data. Building upon these premises, the present contribution aims to offer an interpretation of this hostile spatiality within a story by the Palestinian writer Ghassān Kanafānī. “ʿUlbat zujāj wāḥidah” (Just a glass box)—included in the collection ʿĀlam laysa la-nā (A World Not Our Own, 1963)—is the forgotten short story to which this article intends to devote itself. Within this narrative space, two different forms of spatiality take shape—outside and inside the titular glass box—both characterized by that hostile, unfamiliar trait to which reference has been made thus far, and which we will try to investigate to expose its distinctive features through the actors who act in this space.

Poetics in the work of three urban photographers: Love for the chaotic city from the site of urban rooftops

AbstractBy exploring the poetics of three photographers, this article attempts to capture the relationship between urban denizens and the ephemeral, tumultuous city. I understand poetics as arising from their spatial affection for, and sensemaking of, the city, which in turn engenders visual landscapes. I first outline poetics as the art of inhabiting, which generates affection for the city, drawing on the writings of Gaston Bachelard, Michel de Certeau, and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Next, I examine how the poetics of photography is crafted in terms of creative sensemaking, where the affected body attunes to percepts and finds resonance with the city's vital forces, thereby enabling poetical landscapes to be captured by the lens.

Todas las aguas el agua: The Water Within “La casa inundada” by Felisberto Hernández

“La casa inundada” (1960) presents a peculiar, meditative, and uncanny short story by the Uruguayan writer, Felisberto Hernández. The story is narrated via the memories (and the male fantasies) of a writer who once took on the odd job of rowing a large woman around the inside of her flooded house day after day in a small boat. Throughout most of the story, the woman, Margarita, remains a mystery to the narrator and to the reader, as do the reasons for her taciturn disposition and for having purposefully flooded her own house. In this article, rather than rescue what is unknown so that the mysterious woman’s apparent ‘“dirty little secret’” can be recovered from the swell, I explore the ontological, epistemological, and affective attributes of water itself. In so doing, I build on Felisberto’s expanding bibliography, calling particular attention to his understudied motifs of “pereza” and “deslizarse.” Unlike most critics of Felisberto, I utilize concepts that both come from and critique psychoanalysis; additionally, the underappreciated theories of Gaston Bachelard regarding water as a “true mother substance” serve as a vital source of theoretical interpretation. In the course of Felisberto’s story, the narrator comes to believe that, for the motherly—and tantalizing—character of Margarita, “lo que más quería [ella], era comprender el agua.” Ultimately, as I demonstrate, “La casa inundada,” similarly helps readers to better think, understand, and sense water and its myriad ways.

The Music of Memory Gaston Bachelard on the Construction of Time and Memory

Gaston Bachelard's philosophical exploration challenges conventional assumptions regarding the relationship between time and memory. Departing from the common perception of time as a passive container for memories, Bachelard introduces an idea of the past that is predicated on a relational understanding of time. This paper will begin by contrasting Bachelard's relational view of time with Henri Bergson's substantivalist stance. Bachelard's metaphysical position on time provides the conceptual groundwork for his challenging of the fixity of past temporal experiences, and his redefining of duration as a rational construct. Finally, this paper will explore Bachelard’s concept of rhythmanalysis, or the process by which the individual is able to make sense of the different rhythms or frequencies of time. Bachelard does not define the past as a fixed temporal series of memories. Rather, memories and the past are fluid and continually open to interpretation by the individual. The relationship between time and memory, for Bachelard, is subsequently predicated on a constructive process which is characterized by the ability of the individual to reframe or reinterpret that process.

Gaston Bachelard’s Psychoanalysis of Reason and Its Practical Dimension

The aim of the article is to analyze Gaston Bachelard’s psychoanalysis of the scientific mind in its practical dimension. Inspired by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, Bachelard deployed his own method to analyze the scientific unconscious, populated by epistemological obstacles inhibiting scientific cognition. As this article seeks to demonstrate, Bachelard’s psychoanalysis aims to purify, and thereby streamline the cognitive mind on two levels: individual and historical. Bachelard’s methodological experiment, transferring psychoanalysis into the spheres of the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science, turns out to be, at the same time, an instance of the architecture of a scientific mind, a polemic with cognitive realism and empiricism, and a postulate of analytical therapy in the field of cognition.

The Shelters of Imagination: Logos, Franklin Street, St Peters, Marion and The Dreamhouse

‘The Shelters of Imagination’ is a series of five poems, ‘Logos’, ‘Franklin Street’, ‘St Peters’, ‘Marion’, and ‘The Dreamhouse’, which explore the relationship between a writer’s place and the phenomenological aspects of literary composition. Each poem examines how a place from which I have written has impacted, driven, or impinged on the poetic imagination. These poems destabilise the boundary between where the material world the writer inhabits ends, and the fringe of poetic imagination begin. These poems are heavily informed by Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space (1964) where he examines the relationship between place and the phenomenology of poetic imagination. Along with creative engagement with Bachelard’s writings, auto-ethnographic reflections from my recent relocation from Sydney to Adelaide are woven through these poems as they move from the sterile cityscape, to a garden-lined eco-flat shaped like a chapel in St Peters, towards the rural sites of an artist residency space in the Adelaide Hills, and then conclude with a meditation on the imagined space.

"What Does it Matter?": Reading Within Architectural Spaces in Dickens's Hard Times

Abstract: In this article, I analyze the progression of Louisa Gradgrind's imaginative and emotional interior life in Charles Dickens's Hard Times . I integrate Gaston Bachelard's theory of the intrinsic relationship between imagination and architectural spaces in The Poetics of Space (1958) with Cassandra Falke's theoretical approach to learning empathy through reading literature in The Phenomenology of Love and Reading (2016) in order to create a critical framework. This framework then illustrates Dickens's use of domestic spaces to guide his readers experientially through Louisa's interior healing and development throughout the novel. I argue that Dickens desires his readers to believe by the end of Louisa's story that this inner wholeness is also possible and achievable for them through reading literature.

Eminescu and Kabbalah

In the pages of this article, we will bring together a series of interpretations of Eminescu’s writings that prove the influence of the mysticism of Kabbalah on the great Romanian author. The understanding of Eminescu’s poems through the lens of Kabbalah is a perspective adopted by several scholars. For example, starting with G. Călinescu, Hyperion (from the poem “Luceafărul”) was compared to a sefirah. Since the influences of the Far East seem to be much more significant in the literary context in question, we will start from them and, later, correlate them with elements from the ideological background of Near Eastern mysticism. We will also point out certain aspects of the symbolism of the elements and, above all, of water – which is, ultimately, an emblem of the primordial space from which existence is born. Thus, starting from the perspective of Gaston Bachelard’s poetics of the elements, we will investigate the correlation with the mysterious Ain Soph of Kabbalah.

Imagining the End of Official Social Work: Thinking Beyond the Possible and Probable

Abstract This article seeks to critically engage Chris Maylea’s 2020 provocative call to end official social work by suggesting that the debate it sparked has the potential to expand the contemporary social work discourse. This article explores the complexities and potential dangers of Maylea’s radical call, particularly its susceptibility to co-option by neo-conservative agendas. Whilst the idea of calling for the end of official social work may seem absurd, the article maintains that it might serve as an intellectual tool to overcome the ‘imaginary inertia’ that arguably plagues discussions about reforming the profession. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘episteme’ and Gaston Bachelard’s ‘categories of the real’, it suggests that Maylea’s call for abolition challenges the established boundaries of what is considered possible and probable in the critical social work discourse. This might open new avenues that might otherwise remain invisible to reimagine the future of the profession. Consequently, it is posited that imagining the end of official social work may align with and expand opposing calls for reformation of the profession.

Writing like a Bourdieusian Scholar: From The Craft of Sociology to the Writing Patterns in Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales

AbstractThis paper is a debate on why Bourdieusian scholars have never fully embraced the “Introduction/Literature review/Data & methods/Results/Discussion” (ILDRD) article format which is mainstream in North American Sociological publications. This paper attempts to argue that Pierre Bourdieu, Jean‐Claude Chamboredon, and Jean‐Claude Passeron developed a different writing format – inspired by Gaston Bachelard's “applied rationalism” ‐‐ and which became more influential among French scholars. The Bourdieu inspired different writing patterns and reasoning, I argue, can be traced in the flagship journal Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales. This paper invites further debate on the differences in approaching article formats in the social sciences.

The carceral in Tunisian popular culture

This article makes use of James Scott's theory of ‘hidden transcripts’ to study cultural works and relevant writings that document the history of the carceral in Tunisia. It contends that prisoners found in songs and writings hidden transcripts to resist authoritarianism, to denounce the miscarriage of justice and to communicate with the outside world. Prisoner cultural works and writings show that the prisoner agency changed the carceral site into a secure social space to resist oppression and authoritarianism. Using Gaston Bachelard's conception of the house, we found that the prison cell had the value of a ‘house’ for memories, thoughts, imaginations and dreams. This paper concludes that prisoner songs and writings served as a counternarrative that helped in developing a different version of Tunisian modern history.

An analytical tool for assessing the formation of the scientific mind of students participating in inquiry activities

ABSTRACT This work reports the development and application of an analytical tool for the analysis of the formation of the scientific mind of students who took part in inquiry activities, based on the philosophy of Gaston Bachelard, in a Chemistry Club. For the construction of the analytical instrument, an extracurricular course was offered to first-year high school students in which theoretical-practical inquiry activities were carried out at level 4, where the students were required to propose a hypothesis to begin the inquiry activities. Based on the students’ responses, as well as on the theoretical framework and other theoretical perspectives on science teaching – which also take inquiry teaching into account, the analytical instrument, titled Analytical Map of the Scientific Mind, was constructed. The validation of the instrument was carried out through the application of double-blind analysis of the responses provided by the students in the inquiry-based activities developed in the Chemistry Club. The findings of this study showed that the analytical tool was able to categorise the ideas expressed by the students and helped monitor the development of the scientific mind.

가스통 바슐라르의 ‘물질적 상상력’ 개념과 입체 조형에서 자연 재료와 표현기법이 갖는 가치에 대한 연구

This study researched the interaction between the artist and the material in the creation of three-dimen-sional art based on Gaston Bachelard's 'material imagination' and the phenomenology of images. The crea-tive act of humans with spirit, body, and soul dealing with natural materials deserves to be called a 'crea-tive struggle'. The material imagination evoked by water, fire, air, and earth can allow artists to encounter archetypal images, and enhance the artist and their artworks. The researcher suggests that a more pro-found world of art can be unfolded if the artist selects natural materials and utilizes poetic images evoked by the materials' dialectical imagination and alchemical reveries. To present practical case for this, the ter-racotta technique was analyzed focusing on the fact that alchemical reveries occurs with the participation of all basic materials in its process. And the value of handwork was emphasized, and the four perspectives suggested by Bachelard to contemplate material's values was interpreted, and the three stages of partic-ipation were applied to the creative process of art, and Kwon Jin-gyu's terracotta work Hand was evaluated as a case study.

‘But within are secrets’: Space in Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s The Changeling

"Serious-minded people may then say with the poet, ‘It’s a marquetry casket, and that’s all.’ Echoing this reasonable opinion, the reader who is averse to playing with inversions of large and small, exterior and intimacy, may also say: ‘It’s a poem and that’s all.’ ‘And nothing more.’ In reality, however, the poet has given concrete form to a very general psychological theme, namely, that there will always be more things in a closed, than in an open, box. To verify images kills them, and it is always more enriching to imagine than to experience." In his analysis of spatial imagery in poetry, Gaston Bachelard calls attention to the suggestiveness of an enclosed space that has not been opened yet. Using what he calls ‘topoanalysis’, he uses spaces and especially ‘the house as a tool for analysis of the human soul’. The Changeling is a play full of enclosed spaces, many of which are strongly guarded. The reasons for this secrecy, however, are often complicated.

Um estudo sobre os efeitos da paisagem em Não verás país nenhum, de Ignácio de Loyola Brandão

The geography and the literature reveal themselves intimate through deep interactions that intertwine the narratives of human experiences through places, spaces and landscapes. According to the approximation of both fields, the present study approaches the effects of the landscape in Não Verás País Nenhum, by Ignácio de Loyola Brandão, with the main goal to examine what are the strategies used by the novelist to articulate science and art, as well as reveal questions of human conscience in relation to the preservation of the environment. For the development of the bibliographic research, theoretical support was sought of the reflections of Gaston Bachelard (2005); Anne Cauquelin (2007); Michel Collot (2013) and Juhanni Pallasmaa (2017).

Thomson’s atomic model in PNLD 2021: A critique based on Gaston Bachelard’s historical epistemology

Resumo O atomismo é indispensável para a química moderna, carregando diversos aspectos epistemológicos e históricos de tal ciência. No ensino, o conceito de átomo permeia os currículos de maneira transversal, sendo abordado diretamente no conteúdo de modelos atômicos. Tendo isso em vista, esse artigo apresenta uma análise qualitativa do modelo atômico de Thomson apresentado pelos livros didáticos de ciências do ensino médio do PNLD 2021. Primeiro, o desenvolvimento histórico dos trabalhos de Thomson foi analisado a partir de fontes históricas primárias e secundárias, utilizando a epistemologia histórica de Gaston Bachelard. Em seguida, procedeu-se à avaliação do rigor histórico-filosófico do material dos livros didáticos. Identificou-se um modelo de Thomson distorcido, cujo desenvolvimento histórico é apresentado de maneira superficial e descontextualizada, omitindo elementos epistemológicos relevantes para a sua compreensão crítica. Com base nas análises, são apontadas perspectivas para ampliar a exploração de aspectos histórico-epistemológicos do modelo de Thomson no ensino.

Cortejando Medusa ou uma abordagem poética da teoria crítica dos processos de criação em artes

The article aims to expose the concept of “process documents” through a mythical format, touching on the position of the critic and the artist in relation to records, in addition to the immateriality of the creative process and the challenges of artistic creation. This approach is justified by enabling the reading of complex and abstract notions belonging to the critical theory of creative processes in the arts through a structure closely linked to human experience, that is, telling stories. To this end, the Greek myth of Perseus and Medusa was selected, especially the section in which the hero uses his shield as a mirror, in order to be able to see Medusa, given that this episode allows us to establish a bridge with the potential of the documents of process of enabling the glimpse of something, a priori, invisible, that is, the creative process itself. The breadth of meanings provided by the symbolic figures that make up the narrative and the specific way in which they relate enable an in-depth poetic investigation of the nature of the aforementioned concepts. For the theoretical basis and development of the discussion, the reasoning developed by Gaston Bachelard was used regarding the essential elements from which the creative movement originates - with emphasis on the water element - and the concepts of archetype and unconscious belonging to Analytical Psychology, formulated by Carl Jung. The study presents a qualitative approach and the procedure used was bibliographical research, emphasizing the unique contribution of Cecília Almeida Salles.

THE EARTH FROM ABOVE: FROM BELOW

The evolution of aerial surveying from its nascent stages in the early 20th century to the contemporary era of satellite imagery is a narrative of technological and methodological advancement. Initially, the ability to interpret landscapes from above was rudimentary, limited by the infancy of aeronautical activities. However, as aviation developed, particularly spurred by wartime needs, the significance of aerial perspectives grew. The use of photography from aircrafts became a pivotal method for understanding and documenting the Earth's surface, aiding in military strategies through the development of camouflage techniques. This paper explores the historical context in which aerial photography emerged as a critical tool for mapping and reconnaissance, highlighted by examples of camouflage used during World War II and the innovative use of aerial imagery in art and education, such as at the Pratt Institute of Art. It further discusses the transition from manual, piecemeal photographic surveys to the modern era's comprehensive, real-time digital mapping technologies. This transition not only marks a significant technological leap but also a shift in our perceptual understanding of the Earth's surface, as detailed through the examination of aerial imagery of airstrips and the conceptual art project "Earth From Above." This project, which organizes aerial images of airstrips and includes simulations of fictional runways, exemplifies the blend of artistic interpretation and geographic analysis. The paper concludes by reflecting on the philosophical implications of this evolution, drawing on Gaston Bachelard's notions of scale and the miniature, to underscore the changing relationship between humans and their ability to conceptualize and visualize their environment from aerial perspectives.