Epistemological Turn Research Articles

Where the New World Is: Literature about the U.S. South at Global Scales by Martyn Bone

Reviewed by: Where the New World Is: Literature about the U.S. South at Global Scalesby Martyn Bone Anne Stefani Where the New World Is: Literature about the U.S. South at Global Scales. By Martyn Bone. The New Southern Studies. ( Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018. Pp. xxiv, 280. $64.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-5186-5.) Martyn Bone's new book starts where his previous study ends. In the epilogue to The Postsouthern Sense of Place in Contemporary Fiction(Baton Rouge, 2005), Bone calls on scholars of the U.S. South to change perspectives on the region and its literature by taking a transnational turn. Where the New World Is: Literature about the U.S. South at Global Scalesdemonstrates the relevance of such a call. A major purpose—and achievement—of Bone's latest book is to convince scholars to rethink the U.S. South and its literary representations from a global perspective. In an equally important epistemological turn, the author also contributes to a remapping of both southern studies and American studies by expanding the ways of understanding the South in literature and scholarship. The preface and introduction include a challenging critical and historiographical discussion of the transnational turn in American and (new) southern studies, building on the debate among historians and literary and cultural critics about the South. They also present the book's theoretical and analytical frameworks—"historical-geographical materialism" and "theories of 'scale'"—in a clear and convincing way (p. x). Positioning himself unambiguously on the historian side of the discussion, Bone asserts the necessity of historicizing and contextualizing his subject, following a recent "materialist turn" in his field and keeping with the evolution of a globalized world (p. 20). The study covers a rich selection of literary works dealing with the South written by southern and nonsouthern writers from the United States and other countries. The first six chapters—devoted respectively to Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, John Oliver Killens, Russell Banks, Erna Brodber, and Cynthia Shearer—examine how American and non-American writers have "resituated the U.S. South at global scales" (p. xi). The seventh chapter analyzes the fiction of three Asian American immigrant authors—Monique Truong, Lan Cao, and Ha Jin—exploring "the role of migration in reconfiguring the region transnationally" (p. xi). In the epilogue Bone reaffirms his point "that literature about (rather than from) the South is not simply or reductively 'regional'" by applying his approach to the works of four American authors: Toni Morrison, Peter Matthiessen, Dave Eggers, and Laila Lalami (p. xi). The thesis developed throughout is that, although the South still exists as an identifiable entity, its definition and scope have been reconfigured as a result of economic globalization and its demographic avatars, notably "migration to and [End Page 748]from the region, across and between various regional, national, and transnational borders" (p. xii). Consequently, Bone argues, the South no longer suffices as a scale unit in southern studies and needs to be reconsidered in relation to a range of other scales. He privileges three transnational scales: hemispheric, transatlantic, and transpacific. In choosing to widen his perspective to the largest possible scales, Bone explicitly moves beyond the new southern studies paradigm developed in the last two decades. He specifically addresses what he considers as lingering limitations in the field—namely, a persistence of binary models in critical analysis, the enduring myth of southern exceptionalism (precluding any dialectical interaction between region and nation), and a literary form of nativism based on the assumption that only native-born southerners qualify as southern writers. This original and stimulating approach leads him to engage scholars with revisionist interpretations, including of Hurston, Banks, and Morrison, while reclaiming writers neglected or overlooked by critics (see, for instance, the chapter on Killens). The book brilliantly dismantles enduring analytical tools, notably the black/white and North/South binaries. Bone also succeeds in demonstrating that southern exceptionalism and regionalism have become irrelevant as a result of the transnational turn (see chapter 7 on the transpacific scale), while at the same time reaffirming the relevance of the South as a space of dialectical interaction between transnational, regional, and local scales. All in all...

Entre o legado musical e a redescoberta da escuta na pós-modernidade

O presente artigo propõe-se primeiramente a examinar o argumento de Seth Kim-Cohen sobre a existência de um divisor de águas nas artes em meados do século XX a que atribui a origem de uma “virada epistemológica e ontológica” cultural profunda – situada, na música, no ano de 1948. Kim-Cohen aponta nessa data a confluência de três eventos decisivos para isso: o início das experimentações sonoras do engenheiro Pierre Schaeffer, nos estúdios da ORTF (Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française) e a primeira composição silenciosa de John Cage – lançando os princípios da música concreta e da aleatoriedade na música, como alternativa ao paradigma da música ocidental erudita. O terceiro evento assinalado por Kim-Cohen refere-se às gravações elétricas pioneiras de Muddy Water, em que a tecnologia, usada tanto na gravação como na reprodução sonora, por um lado amplifica e modifica o som acústico, por outro interfere na relação presença/ausência, dada pela interação entre os próprios músicos na performance musical, entre músicos e ouvintes, entre produção sonora e espaço acústico, além de tornar possível, a ampla circulação e utilização de músicas.
 Sob essa perspectiva, o artigo busca compreender os possíveis efeitos da introdução de tecnologias na produção e reprodução sonora, no século XX sobre a escuta na pós-modernidade e, de outro lado, sobre a composição musical, em particular, sobre a poética do compositor Luciano Berio, enquanto pensamento musical e estético. A escolha desse compositor entre tantos se justifica primeiramente pelo interesse na maneira como mostra articular muitas das questões que se apresentaram à sua geração, especialmente no que concerne à relação entre legado, ruptura e inovação, entre som-em-si e os significados implícitos em suas escolhas, entre o seu itinerário pessoal e a consciência do seu tempo, entre expressão pessoal e o sentimento de responsabilidade histórica, entre a representação da nacionalidade e a alteridade.

The reconceptualisation of knowledge base in the pre-service teacher education curriculum: Towards ELF pedagogy

This article examines “what will be taught” or the knowledge base demonstrated in the English language teacher education curricula by using the framework of English as a Lingua Franca. The need for enhancing the professionalism of English teachers in the ascendancy of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in Indonesia demonstrates a critical point where pre-service teacher education holds strategic roles. This epistemological turn needs to ensure that the teachers are devised with knowledge base as well as contextual approach suited to each particular educational environment. Fifteen Indonesian pre-service teacher education programmes were randomly selected and meta-analysed to aggregate the extent of reconceptualisation of the knowledge base provision by focusing on the curricula’s emphasis (linguistics and/or language proficiency) and the integration of socio-cultural perspective. Although these curricula cannot wholly represent cultural responsiveness and pedagogical practices, they could serve as sites concerning the values and knowledge held as important in the institution. We argue that there is a need to place a greater emphasis on the language proficiency that matches the ELF paradigm, as well as to reconceptualise the knowledge base to respond to the diverse Indonesian socio-cultural realities encountered by the recontextualising agents, the teachers. The reconceptualisation of knowledge base would foster greater awareness of sociocultural relativity and learning expectations of teaching ELF situated in the Indonesian educational context.

De mediações em mediações: a questão da <i>tecnicidade</i> em Martín-Barbero

In this article, we will analyze the epistemological turn proposed by Martín-Barbero when he shifted his attention from the cultural mediations of the communication to the communicative mediations of the culture. The main focus of the analysis will be on the importance that the notion of technicality – alongside institutionality, sociality, and rituality – had in this epistemological turn. His notion of technicality will be put in the discussion here by some studies on new media and materiality of communication.

On Research History and Neanderthal Occupation at its Northern Margins

Epistemology and research history significantly shape scientific understandings, debates, and publication strategies, albeit often implicitly. In Palaeolithic archaeology in particular, these factors are rarely examined in depth. Here, we present a historiographic analysis of how research history has influenced the debate concerning the possible Neanderthal occupation in Scandinavia. We provide a qualitative discussion of this contentious research field as well as a citation network analysis that visualizes, quantifies, and hence clarifies some of the underlying conceptual, geographic, and temporal patterns in the development of the debate. Our results show significant regionalism as a structuring principle driving this debate as well as a basic rift between professional and avocational archaeologists in how they interpret and publish the available data. We also identify a troubling lack of cross-referencing, even when taking language barriers into account. We argue that the debate about Neanderthal occupation in Scandinavia has been shaped (negatively) by the following phenomena: regionalism, nationalism, lack of research and researchers, non-cumulative work, publication in Nordic languages, science by press release/sensationalism, and a lamentable trend towards arguments ad hominem. In order to take this research field forward, we propose an epistemological turn towards a cumulative, international, and hypothesis-driven agenda based on renewed research efforts and novel citizen science tools.

Notas para una ontología de la comunicación II: sobre las "Materialidades de la comunicación"

This paper aims to encourage an “epistemological turn” in the theoretical reflections on the theories of communication. It addresses issues and perspectives that, according to the readers and to communication specialists, are li le considered or taken into account in the field of theoretical production in Spanish and Portuguese. e long years of empirical research and reflection about the theories of communication have rarely expanded the field of thought towards theoretical perspectives including an ontological foundation about the complexities and multidimensionality of communication processes. e school of materialities of communication provides a very important perspective about the training of Communication students and about the reflections for the construction of theory on the field. e article presents a three-dimensional approach to reference processes in communication.

Coming to Know by Asking Questions

The paper explores the intricate interplay of two parallel developments: on the one hand, the Socratic turn in epistemology with its shifting focus on information retrieval, evidence-based reasoning, and the cognitive relevance of questions; and the advance of dynamic epistemic logic with its accent on knowledge-acquisition. Both are relevant for any realistic model of knowledge which pays due attention to learning. It is argued that the formal models are still wanting in some key respects, but the development of alternative and mutually complementing logical systems marks a promising trend for re-establishing the close links between epistemology and epistemic logic.

Reportaje: la metodología del periodismo

I sustain in my book El reportaje como metodologia del periodismo: una polifonia de saberes (Reportage as the methodology of journalism: polyphony of knowledge) ( 2017), that journalism leads, guides, inteprets, explains, teaches and above all tries deeply to understand the world and its running; thus its essence is freedom of thought, expression and social dialogue or conversation to set in place and to enhance consensus and democractic participation. In this process, journalism shows and enligthens ways (methods) through reportage, which has been very much so studied as a journalist genre around the world; countless books and articles have been published about it and several universities have granted PhD titles for theses written about it. The North American and European bibliography on it is abundant - which have been taken in consideration at this research - and widely known; but little is known of what has been done in our continent. Therefore, in this book I put in perspective two major examples: Brazil and Colombia. Nevertheless, I must emphasize that when this subject is addressed, it is done so through the lens of journalistic genres,¹ but not under the dimension of the “methodology of journalism”, which has been away from the eyes of theoreticians, scholars and researchers. In this sense, my book is an epistemological turn, as it is inovative and pioneer for contributing with another vision, which studies, analyses and proposes “reportage as the methodology of journalism”, by presenting some findings and by opening new theoretical perspectives in journalism.

'We are not you': a methodological proposal against the meaning reduction of the travellers'/recipients' encounters within touristified scenarios

Encounters between people and collectives in touristified scenarios can be studied as relations between alterities. Many studies contribute neither to making an advantageous use of those encounters as the object of study or understanding their richness; these studies tend to avoid their problematisation as multidimensional human relationships. This way, some theoretical-methodological and epistemological turns can shed some light on the barriers in this respect. Among them, the current paper suggests considering current tourism as mobility, placing it in the social sciences and humanities as an epistemological and theoretical-methodological substratum, where there can be research of concrete experiences with qualitative methods to account for empathic or conflictive aspects while still considering the historical interpretations and the influencing discourses between ones and others.

The Right to Write the History

This article reflects on the history of medicine as an academic discipline. It analyzes in particular the debates that took place in France between the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. The first part recalls the main features of the discussions about the history of medicine since it was identified as an autonomous discipline up to the epistemological turn that, in the middle of the 19th century, opposed partisans of a “philological and scientific” to partisans of a “heroic” history of medicine. The second part deals with the debates that began in France in the 1960s-1970s over the legitimacy of a history of medicine written by physicians, and the foundation of a history of medicine written by professional historians. The third part proposes a reflection on the future of research and teaching in this field in France, and highlights the need for cooperation between physicians and specialists in the human and social sciences.

El mundo como artefacto. Tomás Maldonado en el foco del diseño medioambiental (1996-1972)

Years before Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen characterized the current geological period on earth as the “Anthropocene Era” due to the transformative domination of the planet by humans, designer Olt Aicher –the founder of the legendary Hochschule fur Gestaltung in Ulm, Germany– had already coined the term “ The World as Design”. Although these concepts might seem to be a unique response to the conditions that currently prevail on our “ Small Planet” ( Richard Rogers), the fact is that they are not new at all. The modern vanguards were noted for their attempts to develop an allencompassing, comprehensive architecture, arousing early suspicion of a totalitarian element. By the advent of postmodernism, if not earlier, the modern quest for a Gesamtkunstwerk in which coordinated industrial production would ensure the continuity and unity of the world of “good forms” seemed to have become irretrievably obsolete. However, environmental urgencies once again demanded a full understanding of the increasingly artificial physical surroundings, thereby reviving a modern conception of the entire world as an artifact. This article aims to make a contribution to a history of planetary visions and environmental approaches that is worthy of study. For this purpose, it addresses the critical position defined by Argentine born design-theorist Tomas Maldonado between 1966 and 1972. In those years new scientific approaches such as cybernetics, ecology, semiotics, and system theories triggered an epistemological turn in the expanding design disciplines, offering a rational common base for the interdisciplinary methodology of a comprehensive “environmental design”. In his analysis of design disciplines in regard to their approaches towards the human environment Maldonado also included political and social concerns, as evidenced in his book Design, Nature and Revolution. Toward a Critical Ecology ( New York 1972, first published in 1970 in Italy as La speranza progettuale). The article focusses on the connections between the various contexts that originated this book, written in Ulm, Princeton, and Milan, in order to gain deeper knowledge of Maldonado’s design philosophy within the international debates on “ environmental design” and “ existing landscapes”. Maldonado’s notions of human condition and human environment are certainly still relevant to a world increasingly designed and determined simultaneously by scarcity of resources as well as by expanding globalization and digitalization.

The cultural turn in peace research: prospects and challenges

The local turn in peace research emphasises the crucial role of cultural context and culturally determined conceptualisations of conflict, security and peace. It emerged as a critique of the liberal peace paradigm that promotes a happy alliance of democracy, economic development and peace. However, an epistemological turn towards culture has not yet taken place due to long-standing solutionist and quantitative traditions, but also due to the difficulties dominant peace and conflict studies disciplines have in conceptualising the local and culture. Drawing on lessons learned from previous cultural turns in conflict and peace theory such as ADR, traditional justice and HTS, the article argues for a twofold cultural turn in peace studies, with regard to (1) the repositioning of culture and anthropology and (2) the need for a change in the research culture of peace studies that will take anthropologists on board as equal partners.

Teaching and learning guide for: Towards sociology from the arts: An epistemological turn

Teaching and learning guide for: Towards sociology from the arts: An epistemological turn

Towards sociology from the arts: An epistemological turn

AbstractOver the past two decades, Howard Becker's Art Worlds and Pierre Bourdieu's The Rules of Art were guidelines for the dominant paradigms in sociology of art. Nevertheless, according to Bourdieu, sociology and art do not make a good match. To overcome this dilemma, the French sociologist Nathalie Heinich proposed a “sociology from art,” based on the uniqueness of artists and their works, but she neglected artworks as sociological subject. A realistic and persistent criticism against sociology from the arts claims that artworks are fictions created by artists, therefore epistemologically unacceptable as social realities. Is it possible the making of sociology from artworks? Through theoretical review and using the example of literature, I will argue in this paper that artworks are important heuristic resources and a legitimate subject of sociological research.

La frontera y su espacio temporalidad: Aproximaciones a las movilidades y a las relaciones culturales en los Andes

Throughout their own history, the states of Argentina and Chile have carried out diff erent kind of actions in order to control borders and practices of their inhabitants. However, transhumant social groups through adaptation and resistance strategies succeeded on maintaining their ancestral mobilities. The aim of this texts it o make a balance of the trajectory of the research about this issue that has been carried out in the central west area of the Chilean Argentine border since 2000. The following questions guide this revision: what have been the epistemological turns that guided our studies about this borderland?; What kind of textual and visual representations had been involved in this research? And, lastly, which perspectives did the case study off er to challenge the border paradigm in which we had formed?. Which new lines of research stem from this perspective?

An Paradoxical Approach and Epistemological Turn on Space, Prepared for Alternative Space through Asiatic Ideas

An Paradoxical Approach and Epistemological Turn on Space, Prepared for Alternative Space through Asiatic Ideas

The Ideas of Cultural–Historical Epistemology in Russian Philosophy of the Twentieth Century

Modern epistemology adopted the idea of historicism, of the historicity of knowledge and the self-consciousness of the cognizer. The research, undertaken within cultural–historical epistemology, also spread in the context of the prevailing tendencies in the sphere of modern epistemology. The specificity of this type of epistemology is related to a special interpretation of the history of cognition. On this interpretation knowledge represents a cultural phenomenon that has an existentially-symbolical meaning for the cognizer. Therefore this type of epistemology returns us to the dimension of knowledge, which has in fact been lost today. It returns us to the original antique notion of knowledge as “good,” as something that changes the person who acquires it. And here in this context comes forth such a feature of knowledge as its integrity. At the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Russian philosophers turned to the problem field of “integral knowledge,” the core of which lies in the unity of the integral and cognitive, which is reflected in the concreteness of knowledge. Such an understanding of knowledge enabled the articulation of a number of ideas that enriched European traditions of socio-humanitarian research and influenced the development of semiotics and structuralism both in Europe and in Russia. The ideas of R. Jakobson that stimulated the structure-semiotic research in the first half of the twentieth century are very well-known to world humanity science. Yet their epistemological potential is related to the idea of the integral knowledge. The epistemological turn towards historicism in semiotics in Russia was accomplished by G. Shpet. Jakobson communicated with Shpet at the Moscow linguistic circle in the 1920s. They both referred to the ideas of Husserl, and, as Jakobson acknowledged himself, he borrowed many ideas from Shpet—in particular, the idea of semiotics. Shpet’s helped implement the idea of “integral knowledge” that opened a perspective of the analysis of knowledge as an open symbolic sign system. This methodological approach appears to be especially topical nowadays in the sphere of humanities, which scientific character does not exclude historicism. The ideas of Russian philosophers, then, provide a productive context immediately as well as long-term prospects for developing the methodology of the humanities. The concepts that prevail in modern methodology accentuate the historical relativity and the outer social determinacy of scientific knowledge. Meanwhile the problem of the cultural–historical status of the humanities and the problem of addressing the idea of “integral knowledge” become increasingly topical and allow the transfer of the epistemological search for the conditions and the landmarks of scientificity.

Descartes’s Schism, Locke’s Reunion: Completing the Pragmatic Turn in Epistemology

Centuries ago, Descartes and Locke initiated a foundational debate in epistemology over the relationship between knowledge, on the one hand, and practical factors, on the other. Descartes claimed that knowledge and practice are fundamentally separate. Locke claimed that knowledge and practice are fundamentally united. After a period of dormancy, their disagreement has reignited on the contemporary scene. Latter-day Lockeans claim that knowledge itself is essentially connected to, and perhaps even constituted by, practical factors such as how much is at stake, how important the situation is, or how one should act. Latter-day Cartesians claim, by contrast, that knowledge is entirely constituted by truth-related factors such as truth, belief, and evidence. Each side has supported its case with claims about patterns in ordinary behavior and knowledge judgments. Lockeans argue that these patterns are best explained by positing a fundamental and direct link between knowledge and practical factors. Cartesians argue that the patterns can be equally well explained by positing an indirect link, entirely mediated by the traditional factors of truth, belief, and evidence, thereby rendering the Lockean hypothesis unnecessary. We argue that Cartesians are right about some practical factors, in particular stakes and how important a situation is, which have, at best, a modest indirect relationship to knowledge. However, Lockeans are right about actionability: whether a person should pursue a course of action is unquestionably very powerfully and directly connected to knowledge.

Epistemic justice as a virtue in hermeneutic psychotherapy

The value turn in epistemology generated a particularly influential new position - virtue epistemology. It is an increasingly influential epistemological normative approach that opts for the intellectual virtues of the epistemic agent, rather than the truth-value of the proposition, as the central epistemic value. In the first part of this article we will attempt to briefly explain the value turn and outline the basic aspects of virtue epistemology, underlining the diversity of epistemic attitudes associated with this approach and their positive impact on expanding epistemological horizons. The second part will be focused on the virtues of epistemic responsibility and epistemic justice as particularly appropriate for evaluating social processes such as, for example, testimony and conversational practices in general. In the third section we will show how the psychiatric and psychotherapeutic communicational act can be more efficiently analyzed and evaluated from the perspective of the virtue of epistemic justice, than from the traditional epistemic approach based on a monist concept of truth. The fourth and fifth section synthesize the discussion by introducing the concept of hermeneutic psychotherapy as a therapeutically and epistemically favorable framework for evaluating communicational acts in psychotherapy.

Imperfect forgiveness The pragmaticality, prudentiality and ethicality of human forgiveness

The purpose of this paper is to approach the act and process of forgiveness as an imperfect human ability for peace, exploring the pragmaticality, prudentiality and ethicality of human forgiveness before moral wrongs. To conduct my research, firstly I will assume the epistemological turn that has been developed at the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace from Universitat Jaume I. This epistemological turn means we no longer work with a negative definition of peace but a positive one, that is, we do not define peace as the absence of violence, but as the presence of social justice. Secondly, I will establish a dialogue between the Philosophy for Peace approach and Christian theology as a key element for grasping a deeper understanding of the act and process of forgiveness, since this imperfect human ability of forgiveness has been a core theme of the Christian religion during the last two thousand years. It is argued that imperfect human forgiveness is pragmatically, prudentially and ethically adequate when we need to address different moral wrongs in different contexts of violence. Therefore, fostering forgiveness in those settings may help us to build more peaceful societies, as in the same way that we have learnt to hurt each other, we can learn to forgive one another.