ESTHÉTIQUE DU ≪SIGNE PUR≫. ADORNO, MERLEAU-PONTY ET L’ART COMME RÉINVENTION INFINIE DU RÉEL

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24
Author(s):  
Blaise Bachofen
Keyword(s):  
Political Issues ◽  
Paul Klee ◽  
Conventional Meaning ◽  
Fundamental Reflection ◽  
Conservative View ◽  
Interpretation Process ◽  
Sense Of Reality ◽  
Traditional Sense ◽  
Cognitive Actions ◽  
Contemporary Painting

AESTHETICS OF “PURE SIGN” ADORNO, MERLEAU-PONTY AND ART AS AN ENDLESS REINVENTION OF REALITY Contemporary painting has often dealt with signs, graffiti, calligraphy, and more precisely with aesthetic objects that take the form and appearance of signs, but which do not belong to any existing alphabet. These are forms that imitate signs but are what we might call “pure signs”, i.e. signifiers without a signified. This form of artistic experimentation (of which Paul Klee is the precursor) has elicited parallel and convergent analyses by Merleau-Ponty and Adorno. These authors show the ways in which this kind of artistic experimentation at once renews reflection on language and reflection on art, through a more fundamental reflection on the cognitive actions that they necessarily share, namely deciphering and interpretation. By asking how signs that have no conventional meaning can still be identified as signs–the “decryption” of which is therefore impossible–we re-actualize a question that goes back to Plato and Augustine. How can we begin to investigate and understand what we do not know yet? How does the decryption and interpretation process arise for one who does not yet know if there is something to understand? This type of artwork actually has a meaning, but not in the traditional sense. Although they are unreadable and untranslatable, such works clarifying the meaning of interpretation for us, they free us from a naive and simplistic conception of the process of understanding. They show us that interpretation is always a process of inventing and producing a new meaning, but never of actually finding a pre-existing meaning. In doing so, these kinds of artwork are inseparable from ontological and political issues. Against a conservative view of our relationship to reality, they make us aware that the sense of reality is never simply given nor definitive, and that our relationship to reality contains much more potential than we commonly believe.

Assessments of User Comments With “Alternative Views” as a Function of Media Trust

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Marlene Kunst
Keyword(s):  
Online Discussions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Argument Quality ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Media Trust ◽  
Heuristic Information Processing

Abstract. Comments sections under news articles have become popular spaces for audience members to oppose the mainstream media’s perspective on political issues by expressing alternative views. This kind of challenge to mainstream discourses is a necessary element of proper deliberation. However, due to heuristic information processing and the public concern about disinformation online, readers of comments sections may be inherently skeptical about user comments that counter the views of mainstream media. Consequently, commenters with alternative views may participate in discussions from a position of disadvantage because their contributions are scrutinized particularly critically. Nevertheless, this effect has hitherto not been empirically established. To address this gap, a multifactorial, between-subjects experimental study ( N = 166) was conducted that investigated how participants assess the credibility and argument quality of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. The findings revealed that media-dissonant user comments are, indeed, disadvantaged in online discussions, as they are assessed as less credible and more poorly argued than media-congruent user comments. Moreover, the findings showed that the higher the participants’ level of media trust, the worse the assessment of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. Normative implications and avenues for future research are discussed.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McElvenny
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This chapter sets the scene for the case studies that follow in the rest of the book by characterising the ‘age of modernism’ and identifying problems relating to language and meaning that arose in this context. Emphasis is laid on the social and political issues that dominated the era, in particular the rapid developments in technology, which inspired both hope and fear, and the international political tensions that led to the two World Wars. The chapter also sketches the approach to historiography taken in the book, interdisciplinary history of ideas.

Staging the World: The Devils as Theatrum Mundi

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 496-514
Author(s):  
Christophe Van Eecke
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Tidal Wave ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Mise En Abyme ◽  
Political Allegory ◽  
The World

When Ken Russell's film The Devils was released in 1971 it generated a tidal wave of adverse criticism. The film tells the story of a libertine priest, Grandier, who was burnt at the stake for witchcraft in the French city of Loudun in the early seventeenth century. Because of its extended scenes of sexual hysteria among cloistered nuns, the film soon acquired a reputation for scandal and outrage. This has obscured the very serious political issues that the film addresses. This article argues that The Devils should be read primarily as a political allegory. It shows that the film is structured as a theatrum mundi, which is the allegorical trope of the world as a stage. Rather than as a conventional recreation of historical events (in the tradition of the costume film), Russell treats the trial against Grandier as a comment on the nature of power and politics in general. This is not only reflected in the overall allegorical structure of the theatrum mundi, but also in the use of the film's highly modernist (and therefore timeless) sets, in Russell's use of the mise-en-abyme (a self-reflexive embedded play) and in the introduction of a number of burlesque sequences, all of which are geared towards achieving the film's allegorical import.

Ecological Limits and the Meaning of Freedom: A Defense of Liberty as Non-Domination

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Augustin Fragnière
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
Environmental Constraints ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Global Environmental Problems ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Two Alternatives

It is now widely acknowledged that global environmental problems raise pressing social and political issues, but relatively little philosophical attention has been paid to their bearing on the concept of liberty. This must surprise us, because the question of whether environmental policies are at odds with individual liberty is bound to be controversial in the political arena. First, this article explains why a thorough philosophical debate about the relation between liberty and environmental constraints is needed. Second, based on Philip Pettit’s typology of liberty, it assesses how different conceptions of liberty fare in a context of stringent ecological limits. Indeed, a simple conceptual analysis shows that some conceptions of liberty are more compatible than others with such limits, and with the policies necessary to avoid overshooting them. The article concludes that Pettit’s conception of liberty as non-domination is more compatible with the existence of stringent ecological limits than the two alternatives considered.

A Preview on the Conceptualization of Contemporary Knowledge from Islamic Knowledge Management Perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Khatijah Othman ◽  
Muhamadul Bakir Yaakub ◽  
Ahmad F. Yousif
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
General Concept ◽  
Human Engineering ◽  
Islamic Perspective ◽  
Management Perspective ◽  
Traditional Sense ◽  
Philosophy Of Knowledge

The philosophy of knowledge is known as an established discipline both from Islamic perspective and Western viewpoint. Generally, it can be understood as a source of economy, power and prosperity. With the knowledge as a source of provider, the economic development, political power, business transaction and networking; rapid development in telecommunication and technology, with various other developments in human engineering and education plus, etc.‟s; human civilization flourishes.  Focusing on the philosophy of knowledge and comparing its traditional sense with modern practice might lead us to discover some ways in which knowledge should be realized, managed and applied. Obviously, the issue and criteria that determine what constitutes knowledge is indeed crucial. Therefore, this paper highlights general concept of knowledge management from Islamic perspective and its significant contribution to human development. 

Macedonia Faculties’ Students - “Chrisi Avgi” (Right Party) Followers’ Critique on the Greek Educational Policy

2014 ◽  
Vol 2013 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalerante Evagelia
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Educational Policy ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
History Books

AbstractThe present paper is involved with the Pedagogical faculties’ students’ critique on the current educational system as it has been altered after 1981. The research was carried out utilizing both quantitative and qualitative tools. Students-voters participated in the interviews whereas active voters were difficult to be located to meet the research requirements. The dynamics of the specific political party is based on a popular profile in terms of standpoints related to economic, social and political issues. The research findings depict the students’ strong wish for a change of the curricula and a turn towards History and Religion as well as an elevation of the Greek historic events, as the History books that have been written and taught at schools over the past years contributed to the downgrading of the Greek national and cultural identity. There is also a students’ strong belief that globalization and the immigrants’ presence in Greece have functioned in a negative way against the Greek ideal. Therefore, an overall change of the educational content could open the path towards the reconstruction of the moral values and the Greek national identity.

Cyborg Jotería Pedagogies: Latinx Drag Queens Leveraging Communication Ecologies in the Age of the Digital and Social Displacement

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
José Ramón Lizárraga ◽  
Arturo Cortez
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
San Francisco Bay ◽  
San Francisco Bay Area ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Drag Queen ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Online Presence ◽  
Drag Queens

Researchers and practitioners have much to learn from drag queens, specifically Latinx queens, as they leverage everyday queerness and brownness in ways that contribute to pedagogy locally and globally, individually and collectively. Drawing on previous work examining the digital queer gestures of drag queen educators (Lizárraga & Cortez, 2019), this essay explores how non-dominant people that exist and fluctuate in the in-between of boundaries of gender, race, sexuality, the physical, and the virtual provide pedagogical overtures for imagining and organizing for new possible futures that are equitable and just. Further animated by Donna Haraway’s (2006) influential feminist post-humanist work, we interrogate how Latinx drag queens as cyborgs use digital technologies to enhance their craft and engage in powerful pedagogical moves. This essay draws from robust analyses of the digital presence of and interviews with two Latinx drag queens in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as the online presence of a Xicanx doggie drag queen named RuPawl. Our participants actively drew on their liminality to provoke and mobilize communities around socio-political issues. In this regard, we see them engaging in transformative public cyborg jotería pedagogies that are made visible and historicized in the digital and physical world.

THE SINS OF THE FATHER: GENDER- BASED VIOLENCE IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyn Snodgrass
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Black Women ◽  
South African ◽  
African Women ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
South African Women

This article explores the complexities of gender-based violence in post-apartheid South Africa and interrogates the socio-political issues at the intersection of class, ‘race’ and gender, which impact South African women. Gender equality is up against a powerful enemy in societies with strong patriarchal traditions such as South Africa, where women of all ‘races’ and cultures have been oppressed, exploited and kept in positions of subservience for generations. In South Africa, where sexism and racism intersect, black women as a group have suffered the major brunt of this discrimination and are at the receiving end of extreme violence. South Africa’s gender-based violence is fuelled historically by the ideologies of apartheid (racism) and patriarchy (sexism), which are symbiotically premised on systemic humiliation that devalues and debases whole groups of people and renders them inferior. It is further argued that the current neo-patriarchal backlash in South Africa foments and sustains the subjugation of women and casts them as both victims and perpetuators of pervasive patriarchal values.

Offensive Use of Force in Peace Operations: The Force Intervention Brigade

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Menent Savas Cazala
Keyword(s):  
Host Country ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Armed Force ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Republic Of The Congo

This study focuses on the establishment of the force intervention brigade in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an offensive armed force into the equation of peacekeeping and on the paradox related to legal, military and political issues. Introducing an overtly offensive combat force will confront controversial implications for UN peacekeeping’s basic principles regarding the use of force, consent of the host country and impartiality. The intervention brigade changed unprecedentedly the boundaries of peacekeeping while creating an environment of hesitation and reluctance in spite of successful actions and its renewed mandate since 2013.

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