Social Aesthetics Research Articles

Introduction to Pragmatist Legacies in Aesthetics

This paper aims to map and highlight the diverse heritage of Pragmatism in aesthetics. It argues that pragmatist aesthetics represents an interesting third way of doing aesthetics beyond the analytic philosophy of art and continental aesthetics. It offers a first, provisional sketch of existing research trends in pragmatist aesthetics, such as somaesthetics, environmental aesthetics, everyday aesthetics, and social aesthetics. Furthermore, it identifies some “family resemblances” connecting most pragmatist “relatives” in the field of aesthetics: the idea that (1) aesthetics is broader than the traditional philosophy of art, (2) the criticism of the view of art as constituting an independent realm or an autonomous system, (3) the thesis of a basic continuity between artistic practices and experience “in the raw,” (4) the adoption of a naturalistic yet non-reductive stance, and (5) a broadly socio-political inspiration.

Georg Simmel’s Social Aesthetics and the Digital Public Sphere

In this paper I use concepts of Georg Simmel’s social aesthetics to investigate and describe several relational and communicative dynamics that occur in the digital public sphere—where the aesthetic dimension has now assumed great importance. Specifically, Simmel’s work proves to be more suited than Habermas’s for understanding the mechanisms of “typification” and “gamification” found in online interactions between individuals. I further argue that, on the Web, these mechanisms in particular are responsible for blocking the exchange of opinions and meanings on subjects of public interest, thereby betraying the universal, societal outcomes of Simmel’s social aesthetics.

Re/cognizing the Time-Spaces of the Black Atlantic: A Response

In this response to the incisive and stimulating discussions by Karina Vernon, Robert S. Levine, Barrington Walker, and Katja Sarkowsky of The Black Atlantic Reconsidered, I focus on the dynamic dimensions of Black Canadian and Black Atlantic time-spaces and temporalities, as well as issues of public, institutional, and pedagogical inclusion, incorporation, recognition, and transformation. In addition, questions of history and its uses, social aesthetics, and contrapuntal national/transnational frameworks are brought to the fore, often with reference to specific texts, to reflect on Black Canadian cultural achievement and its transnational and diasporic contexts both past and present.

Becoming an Autologous Stem Cell Transplant Patient

In the current study, we sought to examine how older patients incorporate the identity of a patient receiving autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) for multiple myeloma (MM) into their daily lives. In this ethnographic study using interpretative phenomenological analysis, we observed pre-transplant education visits with 30 MM patients, followed by semi-structured interviews in their hospital rooms during transplant. The experience of receiving ASCT for MM required effort by patients to not only maintain their past identity but also establish a new patient identity. Reconciling these two identities required deliberate and emotionally draining effort from the patient. Results were organized into two overarching themes of social relationships and aesthetics with subthemes for each. Patients experienced challenges reconceptualizing their social support network to meet their changing needs; often with a spouse or child taking on a caregiving role. In regard to aesthetics, patients contended with the physical reminders of their new diseased identity, adopting various aesthetic strategies to either embrace or conceal bodily changes. Understanding methods MM patients who are receiving ASCT use to negotiate normalcy during treatment may be helpful for developing interventions for alleviating distress during this difficult time.

Russian symbolism on social aesthetics

This article is a review of the book Literature and Religious-Philosophical Thought of the Late 19th - First Third of the 20th Century. To the 165th anniversary of V.S. Solovyov (Book 2. E.A. Takho-Godi (Ed.). Moscow: Vodoley; 2018) published with the support of A.F. Losev house-museum and the journal Solovyov Studies . The authors analyze the philosophical theories of the key Russian thinkers of the Silver Age, primarily the symbolists, which focus on such issues as the fate of the Russian society, the place of man in the world, cultural values, social aspects of religion, life-creation, and aesthetic understanding of social-cultural reality. The review shows the inner logic of the book based on the alternation of philosophical and literary approaches, and its main line - from personalities (V.S. Solovyov, V.F. Ern, D.S. Merezhkovsky, F.M. Dostoevsky, M.N. Katkov) and their contribution to the national philosophy and culture to the trends of the era of historical and ideological changes. The interdisciplinary approach of the book is the result of the joint work of scientific schools and generations of researchers from different countries. The books methodology is based on the integrative approach of social aesthetics - the tool of philosophy of integral knowledge and unity, which can be applied to the field of social knowledge.

Beyond the Modern Museum. A theoretical framework for a museal landscape analysis

Today museum studies have a duty to keep pace with the museum’s perpetual renewal. This paper, then, aims to outline a new research path in order to grasp what are today the most significant categories and features of the contemporary museum. This will be done by bringing together the contributions of two disciplines so close to each other in subject and purpose, yet still so far apart in the academic discourse, namely museology and the sociology of art. Through the intertwining of theories and concepts of social aesthetics, the systemic approach, and new and post-critical museology, an attempt is made to develop a new research programme to observe museal landscapes. This will be applied to the city of Naples, in the belief that, while it is true that every community is in a class by itself, and therefore cannot be generalized, this is not true of this method which, on the contrary, could be fruitfully applied to a wide number of contexts.

TÜRKİYE’DE TEK PARTİLİ DÖNEMDE ESTETİĞİN SİYASAL İNŞASI

Tek partili dönemde Türkiye’de yukarıdan aşağı doğru bir ivmeyle gerçekleştirilen modernleşme politikaları, yeni bir kültür formunu da inşa etmeyi hedeflemiştir. Bu sebeple sanat ve estetik gibi öznel alana ait olduğu düşünülen unsurlar, devlet ve toplum arasındaki ilişki üzerinden sosyolojinin bir araştırma konusu haline gelir. Türk toplumunun Batı sanatlarına ilgisini Tanzimat Fermanına kadar geri götürmek mümkündür. Bununla birlikte geleneğin terk edilerek Batı sanat ve estetiğinin toplum tarafından benimsenmesi için devlet eliyle bir programın başlaması Türkiye Cumhuriyeti ile birlikte olmuştur. Tek partili dönemde medeniyet ile ilgili algı imal edilmek istenmiş ve toplumsal estetiğin devlet eliyle üretilmesine çalışılmıştır. Kültür nesneleri üzerinden neyin iyi neyin kötü olduğunu belirleme ve bunları halka dikte etme beraberinde devlet ile toplum arasında bir gerilime yol açmıştır. Bununla birlikte resmi kurumlar, sanat eğitimi, devlet desteği ve genel olarak eğitim kurumları aracılığıyla devletin estetik anlayışı yeniden üretilmiş ve evrensel ilkeler haline getirilmeye çalışılmıştır. Bu sürecin daha iyi anlaşılabilmesi için mesele Gramsci ve Althusser’in kültür yaklaşımları çerçevesinde ele alınmıştır. Gramsci iktidarla ilgili hegemonya yaklaşımı ile belirli bir iktidarın kendi üstünlüğünü sağlamak için sadece fiziksel ve ekonomik güce değil aynı zamanda kültürel bir gücü de kullandığını savunmuştur. Hegemonya entelektüel olarak rızanın imalatını hedeflemektedir. İktidarı elinde tutan üst sınıflar, toplumsal yapının kendi istedikleri gibi kalması için belirli kültür formlarını toplum tarafından tartışılmadan kabul edilmesini ön görmektedir. Egemen sınıflar bunu yaparken tek tip bir dünya görüşü ortaya koymak yerine muhalefeti etkisizi hale getirecek bir yöntemle hakim kültürün evrensel olduğu fikrini oluşturmak isterler. Bu yolla devlete bağımlı halk kitleleri mevcut toplumsal yapıyı koruyacak şekilde belirli idealler, amaçlar ve kültürel sembolleri destekleyerek egemen sınıfların hegemonyasını kabul etmiş olur. Böylece mesela belirli sanat dalları eskimiş/köhnemiş, çağın beklentilerini karşılamayan, modern estetik bakışı doyurmayan gibi ifadelerle nitelendirilirken, diğer bazıları bunun tersi bir yerde konumlandırılarak modern, çağdaş, geçerli, uygun sanat olarak görülüyorsa, bunun altında sadece estetik bir değerlendirme olmayıp iktidarın kendini sürdürmek için belirli bir kültür yorumunu yaymak istemesinin bir sonucu olabilir. Bu sebeple sanat alanındaki faaliyetler, süreçler, akımlar, saf estetik bakışı ile sanatçı öznesinin ürettiği tekil eserler olmaktan çıkarak belirli iktidar formlarının yeniden üretim biçimine dönüşebilirler. Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nde tek partili dönem kültür politikaları bu perspektiften ele alındığında benzer örüntüleri görmek mümkün olacaktır. Tek partili dönem boyunca kültür ile ilgili yaklaşımların belirli aşamalardan geçtiği görülmektedir. Uzun yıllar etkisini sürdüren en önemli yaklaşım Türkiye’nin ilk sosyologlarından birisi olarak kabul gören Ziya Gökalp’e ait olmuştur. Batı sanatlarının kültür alanına hakim olmasında meşruluk temellerini atan önemli bir yaklaşım olarak, kültür ve medeniyet kavramlarını birbirinden ayırmıştır. Bu yaklaşım ile birlikte kendi kültürel öğelerimizi Batı tekniği ile sunmak evrensel bir yaklaşım biçimi olarak sanat alanına uzun yıllar hakim olmuştur. Bu yaklaşım ile birlikte İsmet İnönü döneminde medeniyetin kaynağı Türk kültür öğelerinde değil yine Batı tarihinde aranmıştır. Hümanist evre olarak görülen bu dönemde bu dönemde Yunanca ve diğer Batı dillerinden eserler Türkçe’ye tercüme edilmiş, Yunan klasikleri tiyatrolarda oynamış, Köy Enstitülerinde Yunan heykellerinin replikaları yapılmıştır. Yine tek partili dönemde kültürel üretim üzerinde uygulanan sansür ile estetik anlayışın şekillenmesine çalışılmıştır. Tek partili dönem boyunca devlet sanat ürünleri üzerinde bir denetim kurarak ne tür eserlerin üretilebileceğine, hangi tür, biçim ve içerikte üretim yapılabileceğine müdahale etmiştir. Bu müdahale bir taraftan üst ve evrensel görülen Batı sanatlarının halka kabul ettirilmesi hem de tek parti ideallerinin bu sanatlar aracılığıyla halka sevdirilmesi için gerçekleşmiştir. Bu sebeple devrim düşüncesini anlatan eserler desteklenirken, geçmişi hatırlatacak, devrim ideolojisiyle çelişen eserler sansüre uğramıştır. Bu çabanın pratik sonuçları, o dönemde ortaya çıkan eserlerin biçim ve içeriğinde görülmektedir. Öncelikle tek partili dönemde Batı sanatları dışında bir üretimin olmadığı görülür. Yine bu dönemde resim, tiyatro, mimari, gibi sanat dallarına ait eserlerde tek partili dönemin sürekli övülürken Osmanlı negatif sunulmuştur. Yeni estetik algıda eskiye ait unsurların olumlu anlamda yer almasına sıcak bakılmamıştır.

The Political Aesthetics of Middle Class Housing in (not so) Neoliberal Mozambique

AbstractThis article explores the social and material repercussions of middle class aspirations in a system that is still infused by socialist aesthetics in Maputo, Mozambique. We argue the activation of “middle classness” reproduces ingrained inequalities and boundaries. This is demonstrated through two ethnographic case studies of urban housing, long central to imaginaries of prosperity. First, fearing downward mobility, members of the upper middle class seek to embody a liberal ideology of “autonomy”, while simultaneously being dependent on state structures. Second, members of the lower middle class attempt to create enclaves to experiment with forms of privatisation normally only accessible to a privileged elite. Through this examination of the ways in which a spectrum of privileged urbanites attempts to secure their position in the face of a precarious future, the article outlines middle classness under contemporary capitalist conditions and how this is shaped by the legacies of the past.

Humour as an art of descent and negative dialectics : a deleuzian analysis of the functions of humour in Trevor Griffiths' Comedians

This essay undertakes an exploration of Trevor Griffiths’ Comedians to delineate the socio-cultural, moral and psychological functions of humour in it and to scrutinize how Griffiths adopts a negative-dialectical method to assay the socio-political efficacy of a socialist aesthetics by counterpointing various modes of humour against each other in this specific historical period (1970s). Nevertheless, the common thread here, as will be demonstrated, is that the modes of humour permeating Comedians are saliently tainted by various shades of tragedy. Chiefly drawing on Deleuze’s distinction between humour and irony, the thrust of the argument here is that, in Comedians, humour features as a means of psychological and ontic-ontological descent (into the sub- or unconscious of personal or national history) and of critical movement between immanent social-historical surfaces. Humour, in its negative-dialectical mode is also argued to feature as a political strategy - where both sadistic irony and masochistic humour are possible strategies. More specifically, humour serves as a catalyst for putting metaphysics into motion. Metaphysics, in Comedians, designates the metaphysical conception of history, to wit, history as a determinate, teleological narrative. To put such a metaphysical history into motion means to expose its immanence and reveal it to be a historical process and a human construct, susceptible to being altered.

Studying and Analyzing the Patterns of Bekasam Fabrics in the Fergana Valley

In national clothes, traditions go back to the history of any nations, some of the forms of social relations, enlightenment, religion and aesthetics are expressed, in which the ideals of the taste, beauty of our nation, the peculiarities of Economic Conduct and some aspects of family life are also visible.

Research on Innovative Design and Evaluation of Agricultural Machinery Products

In order to meet the user’s increasing demands for integrated quality of agricultural machinery products, a new KE-TRIZ approach based on Kansei engineering (KE) and theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) was proposed. Designers used semantic difference (SD) method and principal component analysis (PCA) method to quantify and reduce the dimensions of the extracted perceptual vocabulary, which aimed to select the comprehensive variables that represented the user’s needs. TRIZ theory was used in the product emotional intention to elaborate the invention principle of products’ appearance structure and functional technology, and improvement explanation was put forward based on further contradiction analysis. Then, the industrial design theory was combined with the innovation design of agricultural machinery products. In order to explain the reliability of innovative design, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used in objective assessment. Finally, a walking rotary cultivator design was used as a case to check the above methods. The research can effectively adjust the contradiction between rationality and sensibility in products and apply it to the product equipment with function as the main part to design the products of comprehensive quality that conform to the trend of social aesthetics so as to form the brand effect of high added value. The results showed that these methods were effective and feasible for the innovative design of agricultural machinery products.

Review: Improvisation and Social Aesthetics, edited by Georgina Born, Eric Lewis, and Will Straw

Book Review| August 01 2019 Review: Improvisation and Social Aesthetics, edited by Georgina Born, Eric Lewis, and Will Straw Improvisation and Social Aesthetics, edited by Georgina Born, Eric Lewis, and Will Straw. Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017. vii, 345 pp. Rob Wallace Rob Wallace ROB WALLACE is a Lecturer in the Honors College at Northern Arizona University. In addition to numerous articles, reviews, recordings, and poetry, he is the author of Improvisation and the Making of American Literary Modernism (Continuum, 2010) and coeditor of People Get Ready: The Future of Jazz Is Now! (Duke University Press, 2013). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the American Musicological Society (2019) 72 (2): 595–599. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2019.72.2.595 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Rob Wallace; Review: Improvisation and Social Aesthetics, edited by Georgina Born, Eric Lewis, and Will Straw. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 August 2019; 72 (2): 595–599. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2019.72.2.595 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search Improvisation and Social Aesthetics, the latest volume in the series Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice published by Duke University Press, is a welcome addition to the ever-expanding field of critical improvisation studies. Indeed, many of the book's contributors are innovators in the field, and many are also directly involved with the international research project that inspired the book series, now called the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, or IICSI. (The present reviewer is a Research Associate of this institute.) The book itself originated in a conference held at McGill University in 2010, one of the many symposia that generated IICSI. This brief context is important, since many musicologists may not be directly familiar with IICSI, and because a wide swath of the research coming from IICSI is beyond the range of conventional musicological discourse. Nevertheless, as the presence of figures such as Georgina Born, Lisa Barg, and... You do not currently have access to this content.

Common sense as extremism: the multi-semiotics of contemporary national socialism

ABSTRACTThis paper explores how national socialist aesthetics and semiotics are regimented within the Swedish Nazi milieu today. In order to treat fascism as contemporary ideology, the article applies intertextuality and provenance as analytical concepts in the analysis of how Nazism is re-emerging discursively. The analysis contributes unique insights, as the dataset consists of extremist discourse aimed at providing members of the most prominent Swedish Nazi movement with guidance on how to embody and express national socialism in their everyday lives. The analysis reveals that common-sense notions about ‘a natural life’ and mainstream aesthetics concerning an outdoor lifestyle emerge as central expressions of a ‘natural’ and ‘healthy’ embodiment of national socialism. This aesthetic finds its ideological motive in opposition to a ‘sick’, ‘Jewish’ and ‘parasitical’ way of living. Mainstream notions are thus turned into vehicles for political extremism.

The representation and/or repression of Chinese women: from a socialist aesthetics to commodity fetish

Women’s bodies are often sites for exploitation, political propaganda, and the materialization of normative gender ideologies. Given the long historical transcendence and impact of patriarchal systems of thought such as Confucianism, paired with the simultaneous invisible and visible gaze of the male consumer in the market system of contemporary China, how has the female body been represented and repressed in the Chinese context? Employing the perspectives of iconology and Marxist feminism as both tools and theoretical frameworks for studying gender and gendered aesthetics in China after 1949, when a new ideology of gender equality, as well as the perception that women can ‘hold up half the sky’ began to take root in China under the leadership of the state and party. What will be discussed in this paper are the ways in which gendered bodies, the female body in particular, are constructed (engendered with meaning), governed, represented, and objectified in China through literary and artistic creation that have shaped social aesthetic values. A comparison will be made between two different time periods where the representation and repression of Chinese women went through a change from a socialist aesthetic to commodity fetish: how female images were depicted in the political propaganda posters the state and party issued during 1940s to 1980s; and how women have become newly objectified and valued in terms of their individual appearance, thus the objects of beauty, in the post-reform and opening-up.

MCMAHON, JENNIFER A., ed. Social Aesthetics and Moral Judgment: Pleasure, Reflection and Accountability. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2018, 230 pp., 10 b&w and 5 color illus., $140.00 cloth.

MCMAHON, JENNIFER A., ed. Social Aesthetics and Moral Judgment: Pleasure, Reflection and Accountability. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2018, 230 pp., 10 b&w and 5 color illus., $140.00 cloth.

Social Aesthetics and Moral Judgment: Pleasure, Reflection and Accountability

Social Aesthetics and Moral Judgment is a stimulating collection of essays that seeks to emphasize and explicate the socially situated nature of aesthetic-moral judgment. The socially accentuated a...

The neural correlates of integrated aesthetics between moral and facial beauty

Facial beauty and moral beauty have been suggested to be two significant forms of social aesthetics. However, it remains unknown the extent to which there are neural underpinnings of the integration of these two forms of beauty. In the present study, participants were asked to make general aesthetic judgments of facial portraits and moral descriptions while collecting fMRI data. The facial portrait and moral description were randomly paired. Neurally, the appreciation of facial beauty and moral beauty recruited a common network involving the middle occipital gyrus (MOG) and medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC). The activities of the mOFC varied across aesthetic conditions, while the MOG was specifically activated in the most beautiful condition. In addition, there was a bilateral insular cortex response to ugliness specifically in the congruent aesthetic conditions, while SMA was selectively responsive to the most ugly condition. Activity associated with aesthetic conflict between facial and moral aesthetic information was limited to the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), with enhanced response to the incongruent condition compared to the congruent condition. These findings provide novel neural evidence for the integrated aesthetics of social beauty and suggest that integrated aesthetics is a more complex cognitive process than aesthetics restricted to a single modality.

Social Aesthetics and Moral Judgment: Pleasure, Reflection and Accountability

Social Aesthetics and Moral Judgment: Pleasure, Reflection and Accountability

Improvisation and Social Aesthetics ed. by Georgina Born, Eric Lewis, and Will Straw

Improvisation and Social Aesthetics ed. by Georgina Born, Eric Lewis, and Will Straw

Práticas e articulações pedagógicas na educação infantil: contribuições ao processo de desenvolvimento de uma criança com autismo

O presente artigo está pautado no reconhecimento da integralidade do sujeito e da necessidade de um trabalho pedagógico que amplie as possibilidades formativas da criança na educação infantil. O objeto de estudo é o autismo e as possibilidades de desenvolvimento de Suely na relação com os pares e adultos do Centro Municipal de Educação Infantil (CMEI). A metodologia corresponde a um estudo de caso etnográfico, com pesquisa participante, empregado para acompanhar as práticas pedagógicas em um CMEI do município de Vitória, desenvolvidas com uma turma do Grupo 4/5, crianças de 04 e 05 anos. O sujeito da pesquisa corresponde a uma criança diagnosticada clinicamente com autismo. A pesquisa compreendeu o período de 02 anos (2015-2016). Como propõe Vygotsky (2005, 2006, 2007), a formação da identidade perpassa as relações sociais, estão presentes nas interações com o outro, na apropriação da cultura e no desenvolvimento da linguagem. Os objetivos da pesquisa buscaram traçar perspectivas de trabalho pedagógico para auxiliar no processo de desenvolvimento de uma criança com autismo, atendida na educação infantil. O trabalho realizado ao longo de 2015 esteve organizado a partir das interações e brincadeiras. Em 2016, buscou romper com possíveis limitações advindas do Transtorno do Espectro do Autismo (TEA), numa abordagem colaborativa. Os aprendizados que podem ser destacados na formação de Suely foram o desenvolvimento da linguagem oral, uma vez que capacita o sujeito a interagir com os demais e se apropriar de signos e produzir novos significados, a apropriação dos usos da leitura e da escrita, das capacidades de interação social, de expressão artística e estética e autonomia nas escolhas necessárias no cotidiano da instituição.