scholarly journals Renegotiating Aesthetic Disinterest for the Literature Classroom

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mildrid Bjerke

This paper discusses a dialectic between a so-called disinterested appreciation of literature and what I refer to as the ‘neoliberal ethos’. I am interested, primarily, in the influence of this dialectic on literary pedagogy. I will argue that the way in which the neoliberal ethos has permeated educational settings creates a need for a reconceptualised notion of aesthetic disinterest, without which we will struggle to coherently argue for alternative conceptions of the value of education, especially arts and humanities education. I hope to show that reviving the concept of disinterest will facilitate a renegotiation of the literature classroom as a space for genuine aesthetic experience and non-instrumental discussion.

2010 ◽  
Vol 51 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 141-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Grant

In recent years, music theorists and analysts have devoted a great deal of attention to the phenomenon of hypermeter, drawing some of their most representative examples from the late works of Haydn. Although this recent trend in analysis has shed much light on Haydn’s music, it has left questions of history distinct from the mode of listening it engages. This article argues that the way we understand conceptualizations of listening and aesthetic experience can greatly inform the way that we understand hypermeter and the question of style in history. Drawing on eighteenth-century theories of music and literature, it recontextualizes Haydn’s hypermetric style with respect to a larger world of aesthetic experience.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 378-407
Author(s):  
Zdenko Š Širka

Abstract This article finds its inspiration in the new interpretations of Gadamer’s hermeneutics, which underline the turn in his later period, and which focus on the conception of aesthetic experience as an experience of transcendence. The main thesis is that the understanding of artworks, as Gadamer describes them in contrast to the Kantian subjectification of aesthetics, can be paralleled with the way Orthodox biblical theology struggles to approach Holy Scripture in the context of Church and Tradition. The aim of this article is to bring new material to the growing reception of Gadamer among Orthodox scholars, and to initiate further discussion on the topic by showing the parallels and areas where this reception could continue.


1991 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-10
Author(s):  
Rosalind Cottrell

When I was growing up in the 1950s in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the urban Delta, the closest I came to an anthropologist was the man who dug the dump site near our home looking for old scrap iron to sell. Certainly there was no expectation for me to become an anthropologist from my grandmother, the matriarch of our family. However, she had moved to the city after the death of her husband with expectations of a better life for her four girls. Stressing education as "the way out," she told stories about her slave uncle who recognized the value of education and learned to read from two young girls he drove to school. In turn, he taught this daily lesson to his family around the fire each night. The many evenings sitting on our front porch, and on the front porch of neighbors, watching and listening to grandma's stories and the stories of others, set a foundation for anthropology in my life and led to my becoming a medical anthropologist.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Holly McLeod

<p>Education is good for development. This positive relationship between education and development is often stated without challenge, resulting in education being posited at the forefront of global development strategies. Yet, within the subject of Development Studies, postdevelopment theorists have questioned the very basis of ‘development’, not only its definition but also the inherent assumption that it is necessarily desirable and positive. Instead, they point to examples such as Buen Vivir and argue that we should explore different ways of conceptualising what is a good life.  The present research has sought to examine the way the Pasifika community in Wainuiomata, Aotearoa perceives and engages with education to fulfil its own vision of development. Some 30 research participants contributed their valuable time and energy to this project through semi-structured interviews, offering insight into their own educational experiences and aspirations. Through employing a methodological approach informed by the ethos of talanoa and participatory research, this research has privileged the narratives of participants, giving voice to their experiences within an academic context.  This research has identified that while the experiences of these families within Aotearoa’s education system have been frustrating and challenging, such adversity has not served to disenfranchise Pasifika families from engaging within this educational system. Rather, it has served as motivation to create better educational experiences for youth in this community today. Furthermore, the vision of development aspired toward by this community is one that draws both similarities and contrasts with mainstream conceptions of development. The existence of alternative conceptions of development supports post-development’s call for development practise to examine local context and community aspirations, and to value community knowledge and action. In examining the way this community has engaged with education to progress their own vision of development, it was found that Pasifika families in Wainuiomata are taking ownership of their own development, and are actively involved in creating better educational outcomes for their youth.</p>


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Philipsen

This article analyses how works of art that make use of or refer to digital technology can be approached, analysed, and understood aesthetically from two different perspectives. One perspective, which I shall term a ‘digital’ perspective, mainly focuses on poetics (or production) and technology when approach- ing the works, whereas the other, which I shall term a ‘post-digital’ perspective, focuses on aesthetic experience (or reception) when approaching the works. What I tentatively and for the purpose of practical analysis term the ‘digital’ and the ‘post-digital’ perspectives do not designate two different sets of concrete works of art or artistic practice and neither do they describe different periods.[1] Instead, the two perspectives co-exit as different discursive positions that are concretely ex- pressed in the way we talk about aesthetics in relation to art that makes use of and/or refers to digital technology. In short: When I choose here to talk about a digital and a post-digital perspective, I talk about two fundamentally different ways of ascribing aes- thetic meaning to (the same) concrete works of art. By drawing on the ideas of especially Immanuel Kant and Dominic McIver Lopes, it is the overall purposes of this article to ana- lyse and compare how the two perspectives understand the concept of aesthetics and to discuss some of the implications following from these understandings. As it turns out, one of the most significant implications is the role of the audience. 


2014 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 151-182
Author(s):  
Murray Smith

A few years ago I gave a paper on the aesthetics of ‘noise,’ that is, on the ways in which non-musical sounds can be given aesthetic shape and structure, and thereby form the basis of significant aesthetic experience. Along the way I made reference to Arnold Schoenberg's musical theory, in particular his notion ofKlangfarbenmelodie, literally ‘sound colour melody,’ or musical form based on timbre or tonal colour rather than on melody, harmony or rhythm. Schoenberg articulated his ideas aboutKlangfarbenmelodiein the final section of hisHarmonielehre(1911). ‘Pitch is nothing else but tone colour measured in one direction,’ wrote Schoenberg. ‘Now, if it is possible to create patterns out of tone colours that are differentiated according to pitch, patterns we call ‘melodies’…then it must also be possible to make such progressions out of the tone colours of the other dimension, out of that which we simply call “tone colour.”’ In other words, traditional melodies work by abstracting and structuring the dominant pitch characterizing a musical sound, while ‘sound colour melodies’ work, Schoenberg argues, by structuring the combined set of pitches contained in a given musical sound (the overtones as well as the dominant pitch). Schoenberg is emphatic that, although a neglected and underdeveloped possibility within Western classical music, ‘sound colour melody’ is a perfectly legitimate and viable form of musical expression; indeed for Schoenberg it is a musical form with enormous potential.


2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (1(105)) ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
David Nicholas

PURPOSE: The research upon which this article is largely based comes from a year-long international study of trustworthiness in scholarly Communications in the digital age, Essentially, the main thrust of the project was to determine the impact of the digital transition and the new products it has ushered in, such as open access publications and the social media, on academic researchers’ scholarly practices. This paper focuses and reflects further on the disciplinary differences of scholarly researchers when it comes to using, citing and publishing and, especially, whether arts and humanities researchers are any different in the way they think and behave to their counterparts in the sciences and social sciences. APPROACH/METHODS: An international survey of over 3650 academic researchers examined how trustworthiness is determined when making decisions on scholarly reading, citing, and publishing in the digital age. The survey asked respondents whether or not they agreed with comments and ąuotes about scholarly behaviour obtained from pre-survey focus groups and interviews. Data from focus groups, interviews and the published literature are also used to explain further the results of the survey. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: In generał, it was found that traditional methods and criteria remain important across the board. That is, researchers have moved inexorably from a print-based system to a digital system, but have not significantly changed the way they decide what to trust, where to publish, what to cite or use. Social media outlets and (non-peer reviewed) open access publications are not fully trusted. However, there were some significant differences according to the discipline of the respondent and this papers focuses upon these differences by comparing the views and behaviour of arts and humanities researchers with those from other disciplines. The main findings were: a) journals and the metrics that surround them are clearly not so important to humanities scholars, but nevertheless still pretty important; b) humanities researchers take a lot more care about what they use and where content comes from; c) humanities researchers look slightly more favourably on the social media. Originality/value: As far as it is known this is the first comprehensive study of digital humanities researchers and their decisions on what they use and cite and where they choose to publish.


Author(s):  
Sanne Akkerman

This chapter discusses the way in which imagination is key to being and learning at school, given the fact that education is inherently oriented to that which is, for a large part, outside and beyond it. First, attention will be given to students’ life-wide imagination across parallel participations outside the educational context, showing how education is not isolated from other domains of life. Second, lifelong imagination is discussed as a process by which students narrate the past and anticipate the future; specifically at stake are the successive choices that students are required to make, often starting at a relatively young age during secondary education. Referring to existing studies on identity development and interest research, it is argued that the imaginary work of students is a plausible but also essential way to determine their own pathways, even in partly restricted educational settings.


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