scholarly journals Understanding Dalit Literature: A Critical Perspective Towards Dalit Aesthetics

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Priyanka Kumari ◽  
◽  
Maninder Kapoor ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Indian Literature ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
High Culture ◽  
The Real ◽  
Sanskrit Poetics ◽  
Indian Aesthetics ◽  
Low Culture ◽  
Art For Art's Sake

Indian literature has always been governed by classical norms. Literature has been divided into ‘high culture’ and ‘low culture’. The non-Dalit writing revolves around ‘rasa’ and the motive is ‘art for art’s sake’. Dalit aestheticism is ‘art for life’s sake’. When certain forms and styles are applied imitating Sanskrit poetics, Shakespearean language or Aristotle’s ‘Poetics’, literature is considered to be following beauty parameters that are considered to be necessary for artistic pleasure. This kind of claim of holding traditional Indian aesthetics as a law book for all kinds of literature cannot be validated. The assertion of mainstream aesthetics as aesthetics for pan India is bound to exclude the truth of disregarded subjects. There is a need for Dalit literature to follow alternative aesthetics as the writings are the real story of pain and survival. How can pain be read for the purpose of pleasure? In the case of Dalit literature, the artistic yardsticks are not destroyed rather they are rejected. The traditional aesthetics will not be able to do justice with Dalit literature. Sharankumar Limbale writes “To assert that someone’s writing will be called literature only when ‘our’ literary standards can be imposed on is a sign of cultural dictatorship” (Limbale, 2004, p. 107). This paper will be an attempt to discuss the need for alternative aesthetics to understand Dalit literature.

Between High Culture and Low Culture; and also The Difference Between Popular Culture and Folk Culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Kunal Debnath
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Folk Culture ◽  
Common People ◽  
High Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Low Culture

High culture is a collection of ideologies, beliefs, thoughts, trends, practices and works-- intellectual or creative-- that is intended for refined, cultured and educated elite people. Low culture is the culture of the common people and the mass. Popular culture is something that is always, most importantly, related to everyday average people and their experiences of the world; it is urban, changing and consumeristic in nature. Folk culture is the culture of preindustrial (premarket, precommodity) communities.

Organising the Library: The Books on the Shelves

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konrad Hirschler
Keyword(s):  
High Culture ◽  
Popular Book ◽  
Run Off ◽  
Multiple Copies ◽  
Low Culture

The second chapter discusses the thematic profile of the books held in the Ashrafiya. The teaching in this institution was focused on Koran recitation and its patron al-Ashraf has been depicted in modern scholarship as a rather narrow-minded Sunni ruler. Consequently, one might expect a run-off-the-mill diet of books emanating from a small number of disciplines. The chapter challenges such assumptions and shows that books relating to disciplines such as Koran, ḥadīth and even law are small in number. Rather we find a broad range of topics covered, including the antique knowledge (e.g. Aristotle and Galen), medicine, pharmacology, pre-Islamic poetry, theology and mirror for princes. This is also reflected in the content of those works that were held in multiple copies: the library’s most popular book were the Maqāmāt by al-Ḥarīrī with 15 copies. The chapter is also challenge dominating assumptions about madrasa-libraries with regard to sectarian issues (the library had many Shiite works) and issues of high culture vs low culture (it contained many ‘low-culture’ works).

Art and Brand Contamination

2019 ◽  
pp. 339-354
Author(s):  
Marta Massi ◽  
Chiara Piancatelli ◽  
Sonia Pancheri
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
The Other ◽  
Brand Awareness ◽  
Arts Organizations ◽  
High Culture ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Low Culture ◽  
The One ◽  
Cross Fertilization

Albeit often perceived as two worlds apart, low culture and high culture are increasingly converging to collaborate in mutually advantageous ways. Brands—including the name, term, sign, symbol, or combination of them that identify the goods and services of a seller or group of sellers, and differentiate them from those of the competitors—are the new territory where high culture and low culture co-exist and collaborate, creating new possibilities of cross-fertilization and hybridization between the two. Through the analysis of successful examples coming from different industries, this chapter aims to highlight how brands have blurred the distinction between low culture and high culture. On the one hand, brands can use the heritage of the arts world to gain authenticity and legitimate themselves in the eyes of consumers and the society. On the other hand, artists and arts organizations, such as museums and other art institutions, can indulge in popular culture in order to become appealing to younger target markets and enhance their brand awareness and image.

The Demos and Its Critics

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Maltais ◽  
Jonas Hultin Rosenberg ◽  
Ludvig Beckman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
The Real ◽  
Normative Conception

AbstractThe “demos paradox” is the idea that the composition of a demos could never secure democratic legitimacy because the composition of a demos cannot itself be democratically decided. Those who view this problem as unsolvable argue that this insight allows them to adopt a critical perspective towards common ideas about who has legitimate standing to participate in democratic decision-making. We argue that the opposite is true and that endorsing the demos paradox actually undermines our ability to critically engage with common ideas about legitimate standing. We challenge the conception of legitimacy that lurks behind the demos paradox and argue that the real impossibility is to endorse democracy without also being committed to significant procedure-independent standards for the legitimate composition of the demos. We show that trying to solve the problem of the demos by appeal to some normative conception of democratic legitimacy is a worthwhile project that is not undermined by paradox.

Educational potential of picture books on the example of language and reading workshops as part of the “ZA PROGIEM – wyprawy odkrywców project

2020 ◽  
Vol 587 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-80
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Centner-Guz
Keyword(s):  
Picture Books ◽  
Book Art ◽  
Educational Activities ◽  
High Culture ◽  
The Real ◽  
Reading Culture ◽  
Development Of Language ◽  
School Pedagogy ◽  
Educational Potential ◽  
Power Project

The study is an analysis of picture books used during the “Słowami o obrazach – obrazem o słowach” [en. Words about pictures – picture about words] workshops, carried out within the Power project: “ZA PROGIEM – wyprawy odkrywców by the Department of Pre-school Pedagogy of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin and a report on their course. Attempts were made to show the importance of picture books in shaping children's readership, but also to illustrate how to use picture books in didactic and educational activities related to the development of language, intellectual and visual competences of children. The study also aims to prove that book art is a fascinating area for children, and used in a thoughtful way by the teacher, can become an expression of the real participation of children in high culture, especially reading culture. K

One Heart and One Soul (Acts 4.32 and 34) in Dhuoda's “Manual”

1992 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn W. Olsen
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Ivory Tower ◽  
High Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Low Culture

For the contemporary historian, whether male, gray-haired and ensconced in the ivory tower of an old-fashioned political or intellectual history, or female, young, and happily dismantling the tower by the seige-machine of social history, Carolingian society is a source of continuing wonderment. For those with a love of order and of the enjoyment of the fruits of their labor, Carolingian society especially in the years just preceding and following Louis the Pious's death in 840, mirrors all the anxieties of a committed band of representatives of high culture surrounded by the rising seas of low culture. For those riding the crests of the sea, Carolingian society speaks of the possibilities open in a society of little structure and much mobility to those of imagination, not tied to the past.

The Showman in the Art House

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. T. McKenna
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
High Culture ◽  
Dwight Macdonald ◽  
Low Culture

Having achieved fame as America’s foremost purveyor of low culture, Levine began dealing in arthouse cinema at a national level—a field of endeavor that many felt he was unsuited for. This chapter focuses on Levine’s packaging of arthouse cinema for American audiences in the early 1960s and on the criticisms occasioned by critics and commentators, who accused Levine of being an interloper and dilettante. The chapter shows how, with the questioning of the concept of “high culture” at this time, cultural gatekeepers and elites sought to fortify their positions and to exert an even greater authority over movie culture. Levine was an ideal target for critics such as Dwight Macdonald and Bosley Crowther, but this chapter argues that their criticisms actually worked in Levine’s favor by portraying him as the maverick outsider that he portrayed himself to be. The chapter also investigates accusations that Levine was seeking critical redemption and an improved public image through his dealings in art cinema—accusations that were never true but were directed at him for the remainder of his career.

Liquid Meaning in Sanskrit Poetics

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-44
Author(s):  
E. H. Rick Jarow
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Silent Reading ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Sanskrit Poetics ◽  
Indian Aesthetics ◽  
Literary Work Of Art ◽  
Poetic Work

Chapter three surveys classical Indian literary theory and looks at how rasa (liquid meaning) became considered to be the goal of the literary work of art. The chapter considers a vision of the poetic work of art that is radically different from the models of private, silent reading that most Westerners have been brought up with. The text discusses how rasa is achieved through resonant suggestion, and how the meaning of a poem is understood in terms of its taste. The production of rasa is viewed through classical Indian aesthetics as well as though works of Western literary critics who have put forth resonant ideas. The Meghadūta is seen as an exemplary work in this regard.

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