The Progressive Era’s New Optimists

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 376-384
Author(s):  
Arielle Zibrak
Keyword(s):  
Progressive Era ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Social Good ◽  
Elizabethan Drama ◽  
Textual Production ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Class Divisions

Abstract New scholarship in the literature and print culture of the Progressive Era emphasizes the socially and politically transformative power of aesthetic experience. Through their attention to the physical as well as ideological spaces in which the dual projects of political reform and cultural formation via textual production and consumption were carried out, these scholars offer an account of Progressive-Era aesthetic products ranging from fiction to journalism to comics to productions of Elizabethan drama as democratic sites of social good. While previous criticism of the era’s literature aligned its ideological orientation with the regressive politics of nativism and rising class divisions, these scholars, through both recovery and rereading, take a more optimistic approach that emphasizes the reciprocal nature of the textual engagement undertaken by immigrants and the working class.

Co-Composing an Aesthetic Self Through Play: Towards a Transformative Framework for Dementia Care

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bing Yu Li
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Play Intervention ◽  
Innovative Program ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
Caring Relationship ◽  
Design And Methods ◽  
New Phase

Abstract Background and Objectives Aging and deterioration mark a new phase in many older adults’ life, highlighting the importance of creativity and imagination. This article introduces the implementation of an innovative program, Play Intervention for Dementia (PID), at a nursing home in Hong Kong, with emphasis on its contribution to the conceptual framework for understanding selfhood of older adults with dementia. Research Design and Methods As a community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) project, this study democratized knowledge production by integrating voices of practitioners with diverse backgrounds through video-based methods. Results Play, as an activity replete with free expressions and impulsive interactions, is an ideal realm for exploring and establishing selfhood with older adults with dementia. It has been found that “aesthetic self”, an alternative self emerging from immediate aesthetic experience and carrying transformative power within the caring relationship, is a necessary element of self-construction in life with dementia. Discussion and Implications Integrating theories and practice, this framework provides a new lens for understanding and responding to selfhood, disease, and life.

scholarly journals Books about postdramatic theatre

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-171
Author(s):  
Vera V. Kotelevskaya
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Binary Oppositions ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
The Times ◽  
Radical Theatre ◽  
Bodily Contact ◽  
Self Reference

The review considers three books on post-dramatic theatre (in various studies it is also called anti-mimetic, radical, post-modern theatre, metatheatre, etc.). Different concepts of post-dramatic theatre are brought together by what may be considered as experiments per se, overcoming or problematizing genre and media boundaries, neutralizing binary oppositions, such as subject – object, playwright – director, platform – hall, actor – character, etc. I analyze the concept of H.-T. Lehmann (“Postdramatic theatre: 1999), who argues concerning the main feature of the “radical theatre” in weakening the connection with the text of the play, “re-theatricalization”, and rejection of the mimesis. For E. Fischer-Lichte (“Ästhetik des Performativen”, 2004 / “The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics”, 2008), the main feature of the newest theatre is “performativity” – the production of aesthetic meaning within the event of a performance, and not in the perception of an artifact by an observing subject. The criteria for the so called “performative turn” in drama and theatre, which, according to Fischer-Lichte, are self-reference, materiality, bodily contact, the liminality of aesthetic experience, and the transformation of the spectator. The neoconservative point of view of G. Stadelmaier (“Director’s Theatre. On the Scenes of the Spirit of the Times”, 2016), which expresses nostalgia for the tradition, is considered as polemic in respect to the innovations of the post-drama

scholarly journals Situated Cognition, Dynamic Systems, and Art

Janus Head ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 407-431
Author(s):  
Ingar Brinck ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Systems ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Perception And Action ◽  
Situated Cognition ◽  
Dynamic Systems Theory ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Local Agent ◽  
Embodied Practice ◽  
Dynamic Interplay

It is argued that the theory of situated cognition together with dynamic systems theory can explain the core of artistic practice and aesthetic experience, and furthermore paves the way for an account of how artist and audience can meet via the artist's work. The production and consumption of art is an embodied practice, firmly based in perception and action, and supported by features of the local, agent-centered and global socio-cultural contexts. Artistic creativity and aesthetic experience equally result from the dynamic interplay between agent and context, allowing for artist and viewer to relate to the artist's work in similar ways.

The Impact of the Social Context on Aesthetic Experience

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Mastandrea
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
The Social ◽  
Affective Processes ◽  
The Family ◽  
Socio Demographic Factors ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Impact

Not only cognitive and affective processes determine an aesthetic experience; another important issue to consider has to do with the social context while experiencing the arts. Several studies have shown that the aesthetic impact of a work of art depends on, to an important extent, the different socio-demographic factors including age, class, social status, health, wealth, and so on. The concepts of cultural and social capital by Pierre Bourdieu and the production and consumption of artworks by Howard Becker are discussed. Another important aspect of the impact of the social context on aesthetic experience deals with early art experience in childhood within the family—considered as the first social group to which a person belongs.

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