The Improvisative

Author(s):  
Tracy McMullen

This chapter explores the ramifications of musical improvisation for understanding self and other. It argues that contemporary cultural theory is over-invested in Hegelian notions of the self as created through the field of the other and the concomitant emphasis on “recognition” as the central factor in the construction of the subject. This emphasis on recognition is, in part, installed through the theory of performativity. The article illuminates problems with this theory and then offers an alternative theory, the “improvisative,” that focuses on “generosity” rather than “recognition.” It argues that the practice of the improvisative may offer a better approach to effecting human agency than the performative. An examination of the improvisative practices of middle and high school age girls at the Girls’ Jazz and Blues Camp in Berkeley, California demonstrates this effectiveness.

Author(s):  
Erel Shvil ◽  
Herbert Krauss ◽  
Elizabeth Midlarsky

The construct “self” appears in diverse forms in theories about what it is to be a person. As the sense of “self” is typically assessed through personal reports, differences in its description undoubtedly reflect significant differences in peoples’ apperception of self. This report describes the development, reliability, and factorial structure of the Experience of Sense of Self (E-SOS), an inventory designed to assess one’s perception of self in relation to the person’s perception of various potential “others.” It does so using Venn diagrams to depict and quantify the experienced overlap between the self and “others.” Participant responses to the instrument were studied through Exploratory Factor Analysis. This yielded a five-factor solution: 1) Experience of Positive Sensation; 2) Experience of Challenges; 3) Experience of Temptations; 4) Experience of Higher Power; and 5) Experience of Family. The items comprising each of these were found to produce reliable subscales. Further research with the E-SOS and suggestions for its use are offered.  DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v4i2_shvil


2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-181
Author(s):  
Kirsten Linnemann

Abstract. With their donation appeals aid organisations procure a polarised worldview of the self and other into our everyday lives and feed on discourses of “development” and “neediness”. This study investigates how the discourse of “development” is embedded in the subjectivities of “development” professionals. By approaching the topic from a governmentality perspective, the paper illustrates how “development” is (re-)produced through internalised Western values and powerful mechanisms of self-conduct. Meanwhile, this form of self-conduct, which is related to a “good cause”, also gives rise to doubts regarding the work, as well as fragmentations and shifts of identity. On the one hand, the paper outlines various coping strategies used by development professionals to maintain a coherent narrative about the self. On the other hand, it also shows how doubts and fragmentations of identity can generate a critical distance to “development” practice, providing a space for resistant and transformative practice in the sense of Foucauldian counter-conduct.


2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurul Ain Safura ◽  
Nyimas Aisyah ◽  
Cecil Hiltrimartin ◽  
Indaryanti Indaryanti

Abstract: This study aims to determine the ability of students in solving non-routine problems in learning mathematics in high school. The focus of the study is the ability of students in solving non-routine problems that include the value of objectism, value of control, value of mystery, value of progress, value of rationalism, and value of openness. The subject of this study was determined purposively, that was based on the diversity of answers. The selected subject was six students of class X SMA in Palembang. The data were collected using observation, test, and interview which were then analyzed descriptively. The results show that in general the ability of students in solving non-routine problems is dominated by the value of objectism, control, rationalism, and progress. The other two values which did not dominantly appear were mystery and openness. Keywords: mathematical value, non-routine problemNILAI MATEMATIKA (MATHEMATICAL VALUE) SISWA PADA PEMBELAJARAN MATEMATIKA MENGGUNAKAN SOAL NON RUTIN Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui kemampuan siswa dalam menyelesaikan soal non rutin pada pembelajaran matematika di SMA. Fokus penelitian adalah kemampuan siswa dalam menyelesaikan soal non rutin yang meliputi nilai objektisme, nilai kontrol, nilai misteri, nilai kemajuan, nilai rasionalisme, dan nilai keterbukaan. Adapun subjek penelitian ini dipilih secara purposive, berdasarkan keberagaman jawaban. Subjek yang terpilih adalah enam orang siswa kelas X SMA di Palembang. Data dikumpulkan menggunakan observasi, tes, dan juga wawancara, yang kemudian di analisis secara deskriptif.  Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa secara umum kemampuan siswa dalam menyelesaikan soal non rutin masih didominasi pada nilai objektisme, nilai kontrol, nilai rasionalisme, dan nilai kemajuan. Dua nilai lain yang tidak dominan muncul adalah nilai misteri dan nilai keterbukaan.Kata Kunci: nilai matematika, soal non rutin


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Wening Udasmoro

In literature, questions of the self and the other are frequently presented. The identity politics that gained prominence after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001 has occupied considerable space in this debate throughout the globe, including in France. One example of a novel dealing with the self and other is Michel Houellebecq’s Soumission (2015). This article attempts to explore the processes of selfing and othering in this work. The politics of identity that seems to present Muslims and Islam as the other and French as the self is also extended to other identities and aspects involved in the novel. This article attempts to show, first, how the French author Houellebecq positions the self and other in Soumission; second, the type of self and other the novel focuses on; and third, how its selfing and othering processes reveal the gender hierarchy and social categorization of French society. It finds that the novel presents a hierarchy in its narrative through which characters are positioned based on their gender and sexual orientation, as well as their age and ethnic heritage.


Autism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136236132095101
Author(s):  
Alexandra Zinck ◽  
Uta Frith ◽  
Peter Schönknecht ◽  
Sarah White

Recent studies on mentalizing have shown that autistic individuals who pass explicit mentalizing tasks may still have difficulties with implicit mentalizing tasks. This study explores implicit mentalizing by examining spontaneous speech that is likely to contain mentalistic expressions. The spontaneous production of meta-statements provides a clear measure for implicit mentalizing that is unlikely to be learned through experience. We examined the self- and other-descriptions of highly verbally able autistic and non-autistic adults in terms of their spontaneous use of mentalistic language and meta-representational utterances through quantitative and qualitative analysis. We devised a hierarchical coding system that allowed us to study the types of statements produced in comparable conditions for the self and for a familiar other. The descriptions of autistic participants revealed less mentalistic content relating to psychological traits and meta-statements. References to physical traits were similar between groups. Within each group, participants produced a similar pattern of types of mental utterance across ‘self’ and ‘other’ conditions. This suggests that autistic individuals show a unique pattern of mental-state-representation for both self and other. Meta-statements add a degree of complexity to self- and other-descriptions and to the understanding of mental states; their reduction in autism provides evidence for implicit mentalizing difficulties. Lay abstract Autistic people can have difficulties in understanding non-autistic people’s mental states such as beliefs, emotions and intentions. Although autistic adults may learn to overcome difficulties in understanding of explicit (overt) mental states, they may nevertheless struggle with implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states. This study explores how spontaneous language is used in order to specifically point to this implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states. In particular, our study compares the spontaneous statements that were used in descriptions of oneself and a familiar other person. Here, we found that autistic and non-autistic adults were comparable in the number of statements about physical traits they made. In contrast, non-autistic adults made more statements about mentalistic traits (about the mental including psychological traits, relationship traits and statements reflecting about these) both for the self and the other. Non-autistic and autistic adults showed no difference in the number of statements about relationships but in the number of statements about psychological traits and especially in the statements reflecting on these. Each group showed a similar pattern of kinds of statements for the self and for the other person. This suggests that autistic individuals show the same unique pattern of description in mentalistic terms for the self and another person. This study also indicates that investigating spontaneous use of language, especially for statements reflecting about mental states, enables us to look into difficulties with implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states.


Paragraph ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-391
Author(s):  
Amy Sherlock

This article considers the photographs of Francesca Woodman in terms of the complex and ambivalent set of relations they configure between photographer, photographed subject and viewer. Usually described as ‘self-portraits’, the subject of these fleeting, fractured images simultaneously presents itself whilst seeming to withdraw from them. The self, there where it most openly declares itself, disappears. Drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy's concept of exposition, or exposure, which posits the self as being in-exteriority, thinking the intimacy of subjectivity in terms of an originary relation to the outside or the other, I seek to problematize the possibility both of the portrait and the self that is its subject.


2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 190
Author(s):  
Fabricio Pontin

This article provides a relation between the problem of shame in both Levinas and Agamben, focusing, for the most part, in the development of Levinas' metaphysics and its relation to the emotional tonality of shame in three works: "On Escape", "Time and the Other" and "Otherwise than Being". In stressing the unique take that Levinas has on metaphysics, I try to point at the tension between Jewish and Greek thought in Levinas, and his option for a radical notion of a situated understanding of the "ethical". Hence my interest in contrasting Levinas and Agamben, as Agamben's appropriation of Levinas' lexicon in his "Remnants of Aushwitz" places the subject in a political, and material, position which is ultimately uncompatible with Levinas' situational and metaphysical take on the self.***Vergonha, des-subjetivização e passividade – a metafísica do Eu em Levinas e Agamben***Este artigo fornece uma relação entre o problema da vergonha tanto em Levinas como em Agamben, focando principalmente, no desenvolvimento da metafísica de Levinas e sua relação com a tonalidade emocional da vergonha em três trabalhos: "De l'évasion", "Le Temps et l'Autre, "e" Autrement qu'être ou Au-delà de l'essence". Ao enfatizar perspectiva única que Levinas tem da metafísica, aponto tensão entre o pensamento judeu e grego em Levinas e sua opção por uma noção radical de uma compreensão situada do "ético". Daí o meu interesse em contrastar Levinas e Agamben, particularmente como a apropriação de Agamben do léxico de Levinas em seu "O que restou de Aushwitz" coloca o assunto em uma posição política e material, que, em última análise, é incompatível com a tomada de posição e metafísica de Levinas.


Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 359 (6372) ◽  
pp. 213-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teruko Danjo ◽  
Taro Toyoizumi ◽  
Shigeyoshi Fujisawa

An animal’s awareness of its location in space depends on the activity of place cells in the hippocampus. How the brain encodes the spatial position of others has not yet been identified. We investigated neuronal representations of other animals’ locations in the dorsal CA1 region of the hippocampus with an observational T-maze task in which one rat was required to observe another rat’s trajectory to successfully retrieve a reward. Information reflecting the spatial location of both the self and the other was jointly and discretely encoded by CA1 pyramidal cells in the observer rat. A subset of CA1 pyramidal cells exhibited spatial receptive fields that were identical for the self and the other. These findings demonstrate that hippocampal spatial representations include dimensions for both self and nonself.


2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
VASSILIOS PAIPAIS

AbstractThis article is principally concerned with the way some sophisticated critical approaches in International Relations (IR) tend to compromise their critical edge in their engagement with the self/other problematique. Critical approaches that understand critique as total non-violence towards, or unreflective affirmation of, alterity risk falling back into precritical paths. That is, either a particularistic, assimilative universalism with pretensions of true universality or a radical incommensurability and the impossibility of communication with the other. This is what this article understands as the paradox of the politics of critique. Instead, what is more important than seeking a final overcoming or dismissal of the self/other opposition is to gain the insight that it is the perpetual striving to preserve the tension and ambivalence between self and other that rescues both critique's authority and function.


Dialogue ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 727-734 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. J. Waluchow

In his recent book, Harm to Others, Joel Feinberg addresses the question whether a person can be harmed after his or her own death, that is, whether posthumous harm is a logical possibility. There is a very strong tendency to suppose that harm to the dead is simply inconceivable. After all, there cannot be harm without a subject to be harmed, but when death occurs it appears to obliterate the subject thus excluding the possibility of harm. On the other hand, there is an inclination to believe that harmful events can indeed occur posthumously. As Aristotle observed, “a dead man is popularly believed to be capable of having both good and ill fortune—honour and dishonour and prosperity and the loss of it among his children and descendants generally—in exactly the same way as if he were alive but unaware or unobservant of what was happening”. Feinberg sides with Aristotle on this issue and develops an intriguing theory purporting to show how posthumous harms are possible. My intention in this paper is to argue that Feinberg's account meets with such serious difficulties that we must either develop an alternative theory or agree with those who claim that death logically excludes the possibility of harm. I shall begin in §2 with a brief sketch of Feinberg's provocative theory. This will be followed in §3 by my comments and criticisms. Section 4 will close with suggestions about where Feinberg's account goes wrong and how it might be repaired.


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