Oscar Wilde and the Confidence Trick

Critics have long highlighted the centrality of forgery in Oscar Wilde. This essay focuses instead on the idea of the confidence trick in Wilde’s life and work, with a special focus on ‘The Portrait of Mr. W. H.’. The capstone of the confidence trick is the so-called long con, a type of elaborate deception that resembles an extended theatrical performance. With its properties of narrativity and plot-making, the long con subsumes forgery. Its use in literature points to literature itself as a piece of trickery. Through cultural, biographical and textual analysis, this essay dwells on the various striking ways by which Wilde’s fictions are entangled with reality as they are pervaded by the long con trope. By considering Wilde’s perceived image in his 1882 American tour and his brushing shoulders with famous conmen, the essay first suggests that the confidence trick and dandyism share common ground. It demonstrates that the confidence trick is akin to Wilde’s ‘lying’ and catalytic as an aesthetic performance. The cultural consciousness of the confidence trick is strongly present in such works as An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, which are built around long cons. ‘Mr. W. H.’ features a long con and in targeting the reader operates as one. Paradoxically, because of its open exploration of forgery, the story as a confidence trick in literature is failproof, imperceptible, and so perfect.

En defensa del concepto de “actuación estética” como actuación teatral verosímil

Este trabajo atañe a la experiencia teatral desde la estética y las ciencias cognitivas. Se defiende la idea de que la actuación estética puede ser entendida como actuación verosímil. Si la experiencia estética posee tres dimensiones –sensorial, conceptual y hedonista–, la verosimilitud en la actuación se lograría en términos de una estrecha y apropiada relación entre ellas. La experiencia estética del espectador sería, pues, una consecuencia de lo que éste percibe, piensa y siente. A su vez, los estudios empíricos permiten establecer criterios objetivos de evaluación para juzgar una actuación como verosímil, tanto por parte del actor como del espectador. In Defense of the Concept of “Aesthetic Performance” as Truthful Theatrical PerformanceThis work concerns Aesthetics and Cognitive Science. Furthermore, deals with theatrical issues, defending the idea that an aesthetic performance can be understood as a truthful performance. If the aesthetic experience has three dimensions –sensory, conceptual and hedonistic–, the truthfulness of the performance would be achieved thanks to a close and appropriate relationship between them. The aesthetic experience of the spectator would thus be a consequence of what he/she perceives, thinks and feels. At the same time, empirical studies allow to establish objective criteria of evaluation for judging the truthfulness of a performance, by both the actor and the spectator. Recibido: 03 de agosto de 2020Aceptado: 14 de diciembre de 2020

Aesthetic-based competences lead to a sustainable learning practice

Purpose The purpose of the article is to explore how aesthetic-based competences are developed in and through leaders’ organisational practice and how these competences may lead to a sustainable learning practice in everyday life in organisations. Design/methodology/approach: The article focuses on how aesthetic-based experiments can change leaders’ organisational practice, when instrumental rationality is transformed into aesthetic rationality. This happens when leaders learn to move the everyday drama, the so-called social drama, into an aesthetic drama in order to transform organisational habits and devastating paradigms. Findings: The study of how leaders learn to transform their practice, based on a study at Copenhagen Business School in the period 2014–2017, documents that leaders can learn aesthetic performance that transforms their organisational practice when the learning processes are integrated into everyday life. Originality/value: The combination of aesthetic performance and learning processes has potential for a lasting and sustainable transformation, when the learning concept is rooted in leaders’ organisational practice as a bodily embedded aesthetic rationality.

A Theory of Microactivist Affordances

This article proposes a new theory of affordances that is developed through a critical disability and performance lens. Through parallels to be drawn between the creative space of aesthetic performance and the performance of everyday life lived with disability, this new theory situates affordances in the improvisatory space of performance, and introduces the notion of “micro-activist affordances” as a way to understand mundane acts of world-building that could emerge from encounters with a world of “disorienting affordances.” Experiencing disability is inherently disorienting. The environment, as years of disability activism have shown us, is built with a very limited conception of the human being in mind. But the environment can also be disorienting when experiencing bodily pain and chronic disease. I argue that disability, in all of its various manifestations, is experienced as the shrinking of the environment, and its readily available affordances. But, as I shall also argue, precisely at such moments of shrinking, something else happens. When the environment is narrowed down in its offerings, I propose that it is the creative space of performance (on or offstage) that opens up to make it afford otherwise. This very potential to invent affordances is precisely how I conceptualize everyday lives lived with disability as being analogous to the reimagined space of aesthetic performance and its reorientations.

Color effects on visually perceived surface roughness of leg with pantyhose

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the influence of pantyhose color on the visually perceived surface roughness of a pantyhose covered leg, and to examine the resultant evaluation index. Design/methodology/approach A sensory evaluation of the visually perceived surface roughness of a leg model with typical pantyhose of various colors and apparent yarn count was performed among Japanese females along with a statistical analysis. The relationship between the visually perceived surface roughness of the leg with pantyhose and the characteristics of the visual information of the pantyhose which was obtained by image analysis were investigated. Findings The color of the pantyhose had a clear influence on the visually perceived surface roughness of a leg with pantyhose. The characteristics of the visual information of the leg with pantyhose, namely, the shape of the histogram on the luminance distribution proved to be useful as the evaluation index of the visually perceived surface roughness. Originality/value Development of a novel pantyhose with superior aesthetic performance that meets the requirements of the wearer can be expected to lead to an improvement in the quality and performance of hosiery. This paper provides the quantification of aesthetic performance of pantyhose.