What Makes Art Art?

1975 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-12
Author(s):  
Mary H. Kaprelian

Those of us in the field of dance may encounter difficulties discussing the many facets of dance among ourselves, but most of us take for granted that dance can be an art form. Currently, however, there are many approaches to dance including chance choreography, the dance happening, non-dance, and minimal dance which are in radical contrast to what has generally been accepted as the art of dance. It is reasonable to raise questions about how the new dance forms fit into the established scheme of things. It is reasonable to also raise questions about the defining properties of art in general. The purpose of this paper is to point out very briefly, some of the thoughts of respected aestheticians on the concept of art. An examination of pertinent aesthetic theory will indicate there can be no simple answer to the question, “What is art?”. There is no one theory of the artistic which offers a comprehensive explanation. A cross section of references chosen for their readability, accessibility, and relatedness bears this out. Although there are no articles devoted specifically to dance, one can sift through the material and find what pertains not only to art in general, but also to dance.Because the world of art is always changing, the phrase, “work of art,” is bound to be used in varying ways. Paul Ziff has pointed out the difficulties in arriving at a definition of art. Disputes occur simply because of what critics mean when they refer to something as being a work of art. Ziff maintains that these disputes must always be examined in the social context in which they occur.

2008 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Māhealani Rowe

Every year, for hundreds of thousands of tourists, seeing “real Hawaiian hula” in a hotel or in a packaged lū'au setting is standard fare. Commonplace too is receiving one's introduction to hula through any of the many competitions that take place annually in Hawai'i and, with increasing frequency, throughout the world. Still others find hula marketed for its exercise benefits, peddled as the latest fitness fad in gyms and malls across the country. But is hula the allure of exotic dancers evoking prurient responses from tourists, one moment tantalized by undulating hips only to be teasingly chastised the next to “keep your eyes on the hands”? Is it the crisp, impeccably synchronized movement danced before panels of judges at the several hula competitions that mark the year for many hula hālau? Is hula the movement, the meaning conveyed through the movement, or the full context out of which movement casts itself into an art form that inspires passion and perpetuates a traditional way of living?For Mary Kawena Pukui, credited with helping to bring the rich traditional context of hula into the present, hula is “a general name for many types of Hawaiian folk dances” (1942/1980, 70). Pukui's laconic description says everything, and nothing. Everything because hula is the unique dance of the Hawaiian people. Everything because despite the homogenizing influence of hula competition, which has brought only a limited range of the vast hula repertoire to the public's attention over the past thirty-five years, hula encompasses many different styles and types of dances. But it says nothing because hula simply cannot be reduced to Hawaiian folk dance. Hula is a moving encyclopedia inscribed into the sinews and postures of dancers' bodies. It carries forward the social and natural history, the religious beliefs, the philosophy, the literature, and the scientific knowledge of the Hawaiian people.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (49) ◽  
pp. 205-217
Author(s):  
Nikola Bubanja ◽  

Donne’s poems with a distinctive focus on the intimate / public opposition may be read in the biographic context of the poet’s ambitions in terms of social position. The paper at hand, however, aims to offer a different social context for these poems (Good Morrow, Sun Rising, Canonization, Break of Day). The concept of intimate in these poems, it is argued, is not to be read as stemming from the pressure of the public, but rather as an element of a narrative construed by the interpretative community. In that sense, it is not the intimate that begets the desire for withdrawing from the public; rather, it is the social narratives, such as the narrative of separation and initiation, that construe the intimate. Further, all of Donne’s poems invoked in the paper are aubades, and aubades can also be seen as poetic realizations of a segment of the narrative of separation, illumination and the return of the hero (as defined by Campbell). Thus, Donne’s aubades are poetic representations of the nadir of the schematic circle of the monomyth – of the moment directly preceding the reintegration of the hero into the society, with separation and illumination looming from the background. Though problematization of the return is well within the scope of the original concept of the monomyth (as are many of the variations found in Donne’s verses, like the external intervention, the lack of will to exchange the tranquility of the illumination for the raggedness of the world, etc.) Donne seemingly finds room for integrating the metapoetic into the scheme: the ordinary (Petrarchan) verses will not do to pass on the experience of the illumination, but Donne’s new idiom, one that shies not from painting resurrections with orgasms, itself withdrawn from the many, if read right, might prove a vehicle of saints, which will intercede with the higher understanding and exist- ence for the benefit of the understanders. Thus, Donne also seemingly sees his poetry as rein- vigorating and consequently, participating in the creation of the social narratives of intimacy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110244
Author(s):  
Katrin Auspurg ◽  
Josef Brüderl

In 2018, Silberzahn, Uhlmann, Nosek, and colleagues published an article in which 29 teams analyzed the same research question with the same data: Are soccer referees more likely to give red cards to players with dark skin tone than light skin tone? The results obtained by the teams differed extensively. Many concluded from this widely noted exercise that the social sciences are not rigorous enough to provide definitive answers. In this article, we investigate why results diverged so much. We argue that the main reason was an unclear research question: Teams differed in their interpretation of the research question and therefore used diverse research designs and model specifications. We show by reanalyzing the data that with a clear research question, a precise definition of the parameter of interest, and theory-guided causal reasoning, results vary only within a narrow range. The broad conclusion of our reanalysis is that social science research needs to be more precise in its “estimands” to become credible.


2021 ◽  

Historians of political thought and international lawyers have both expanded their interest in the formation of the present global order. History, Politics, Law is the first express encounter between the two disciplines, juxtaposing their perspectives on questions of method and substance. The essays throw light on their approaches to the role of politics and the political in the history of the world beyond the single polity. They discuss the contrast between practice and theory as well as the role of conceptual and contextual analyses in both fields. Specific themes raised for both disciplines include statehood, empires and the role of international institutions, as well as the roles of economics, innovation and gender. The result is a vibrant cross-section of contrasts and parallels between the methods and practices of the two disciplines, demonstrating the many ways in which both can learn from each other.


2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-71
Author(s):  
Zh.K. Madalieva ◽  

The article discusses in detail the essence and meaning of ritual as a social action. The study of the nature of this phenomenon involves, first of all, the study of various approaches to the definition of the concept of "ritual" and related phenomena. Analyzing the existing definitions, the author comes to the conclusion that "ritual" is a certain set of actions that have symbolic meaning. The symbolism of the ritual is manifested in its connecting role with the world of the sacred, sacred. The article emphasizes that in the consciousness of a person in a traditional society, the sacred world is present in the real world through ritual. As an archaic form of culture, ritual was also a way of regulating and maintaining collective life. The ritual served as a means of integrating and maintaining the integrity of the human community, giving it stability. Therefore, the article focuses on the social functions of the ritual in both public and individual life.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-118
Author(s):  
Milan Orlić

Post-Yugoslav literature and culture came out of the stylistic formations of Yugoslav modernism and postmodernism, in the context of European cultural discourse. Yugoslav literature, which spans the existence of “two” Yugoslavias, the “first” Yugoslavia (1928–1941) and the “second” socialist Yugoslavia (1945–1990), is the foundation of various national literary and cultural paradigms, which shared the same or similar historical, philosophical and aesthetic roots. These were fed, on the one hand, by a phenomenological understanding of the world, language, style and culture, and on the other, by an acceptance of or resistance to the socialist realist aesthetics and ideological values of socialist Yugoslav society. In selected examples of contemporary Serbian prose, the author explores the social context, which has shaped contemporary Serbian literature, focusing on its roots in Serbian and Yugoslav 20th century (post)modernism.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 55-62
Author(s):  
Nicholas Overgaard

Although we accept that a scientific mosaic is a set of theories and methods accepted and employed by a scientific community, scientific community currently lacks a proper definition in scientonomy. In this paper, I will outline a basic taxonomy for the bearers of a mosaic, i.e. the social agents of scientific change. I begin by differentiating between accidental group and community through the respective absence and presence of a collective intentionality. I then identify two subtypes of community: the epistemic community that has a collective intentionality to know the world, and the non-epistemic community that does not have such a collective intentionality. I note that both epistemic and non-epistemic communities might bear mosaics, but that epistemic communities are the intended social agents of scientific change because their main collective intentionality is to know the world and, in effect, to change their mosaics. I conclude my paper by arguing we are not currently in a position to properly define scientific community per se because of the risk of confusing pseudoscientific communities with scientific communities. However, I propose that we can for now rely on the definition of epistemic community as the proper social agent of scientific change.Suggested Modifications[Sciento-2017-0012]: Accept the following taxonomy of group, accidental group, and community:Group ≡ two or more people who share any characteristic.Accidental group ≡ a group that does not have a collective intentionality.Community ≡ a group that has a collective intentionality. [Sciento-2017-0013]: Provided that the preceding modification [Sciento-2017-0012] is accepted, accept that communities can consist of other communities.[Sciento-2017-0014]: Provided that modification [Sciento-2017-0012] is accepted, accept the following definitions of epistemic community and non-epistemic community as subtypes of community:Epistemic community ≡ a community that has a collective intentionality to know the world.Non-epistemic community ≡ a community that does not have a collective intentionality to know the world.[Sciento-2017-0015]: Provideed that modification [Sciento-2017-0013] and [Sciento-2017-0014] are accepted, accept that a non-epistemic community can consist of epistemic communities.


2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Van Oudtshoorn

Jesus� imperatives in the Sermon on the Mount continue to play a significant role in Christian ethical discussions. The tension between the radical demands of Jesus and the impossibility of living this out within the everyday world has been noted by many scholars. In this article, an eschatological-ontological model, based on the social construction of reality, is developed to show that this dialectic is not necessarily an embarrassment to the church but, instead, belongs to the essence of the church as the recipient of the Spirit of Christ and as called by him to exist now in terms of the coming new age that has already been realised in Christ. The absolute demands of Jesus� imperatives, it is argued, must relativise all other interpretations of reality whilst the world, in turn, relativises Jesus� own definition of what �is� and therefore also the injunctions to his disciples on how to live within this world. This process of radical relativisation provides a critical framework for Christian living. The church must expect, and do, the impossible within this world through her faith in Christ who recreates and redefines reality. The church�s ethical task, it is further argued, is to participate with the Spirit in the construction of signs of this new reality in Christ in this world through her actions marked by faith, hope and love.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 274
Author(s):  
I Gusti Ayu Widayanti ◽  
I Made Surada ◽  
I Made Adi Brahman

<p><em>Lontar Calonarang's literary works is a work of art. Calonarang term other than as one of the works of literature, Calonarang also means characterization</em><em> </em><em>or the name of a man in the play known as Rangda ing Girah. Calonarang is also known as art form such as wayang pacalonarangan and in staging pacalonarangan dance drama. Lontar Calonarang is a lontar manuscript that specifically tells about Calonarang revenge using black magic against the people in Girah village. This is because the people in the village of Girah no one wants to marry Calonarang child is Ratna Manggali. Lontar Calonarang literary work is interesting to read and researched because this literary work has a philosophical meaning of construct so easy to be understood in depth. </em></p><p><em>The results that can be obtained from this literary work are Teachings contained in lontar Calonarang include Rwa Bhineda, Catur Asrama, and Tantra. The function of the teachings contained in the Calonarang lontar is the religious function, the social function, and the function of cultural preservation. While the philosophical meaning derived from this literary work is the meaning of balance, meaning of education, and the meaning of divinity.</em><strong><em></em></strong></p>


2020 ◽  
pp. 119-125
Author(s):  
Nicolas Bommarito

This chapter provides an overview of the wide variety of Buddhist practices. Though people who practice Buddhism would all self-identify as Buddhist, what Buddhism means to them and the role it plays in their lives is very different. Think about the social context. For some Buddhists, Buddhism is deeply intertwined with both family life and powerful social institutions. This social context affects how practice looks for each. The role of ritual is also different for each. Moreover, there are different background assumptions about the supernatural in play. Another difference is the place of meditation in the lives of each of these Buddhists. None of this is to say that any of these people are practicing “real” or “authentic” Buddhism. It is merely to highlight the ways in which Buddhist practice varies around the world.


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