Pub Date : 2015-06-14DOI: 10.1163/24683949-00301006
C. Hezser
The images of the clown and the freak and representations of the grotesque body are recurrent motifs in modern Jewish literature, film, art, theatre and dance. Kafka’s novella Metamorphosis is an early prototype of the changeling who leaves conventional human appearance behind and is gradually transformed into an insect-like creature. The story served as a prototype for Woody Allen’s film Zelig, in which the main protagonist adopts a variety of different personas, amongst them a Nazi in the Third Reich. The theme of morphing into a freak, clown, or grotesque body reappears in various forms in contemporary Jewish culture and art: The American Jewish writer Philip Roth declared in the 1960s that he was not a Jewish sage but a Jewish freak. Freakishness, clowns, and the circus have a subversive potential: they constitute a digression from what is considered normal appearance and behaviour and play with presumptions, expectations, and social values. A study of this subject reveals the constant dialogue between religion and culture as far as Judaism is concerned.
{"title":"Freak, not Sage: An Exploration into Freakishness in Modern Jewish Culture","authors":"C. Hezser","doi":"10.1163/24683949-00301006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24683949-00301006","url":null,"abstract":"The images of the clown and the freak and representations of the grotesque body are recurrent motifs in modern Jewish literature, film, art, theatre and dance. Kafka’s novella Metamorphosis is an early prototype of the changeling who leaves conventional human appearance behind and is gradually transformed into an insect-like creature. The story served as a prototype for Woody Allen’s film Zelig, in which the main protagonist adopts a variety of different personas, amongst them a Nazi in the Third Reich. The theme of morphing into a freak, clown, or grotesque body reappears in various forms in contemporary Jewish culture and art: The American Jewish writer Philip Roth declared in the 1960s that he was not a Jewish sage but a Jewish freak. Freakishness, clowns, and the circus have a subversive potential: they constitute a digression from what is considered normal appearance and behaviour and play with presumptions, expectations, and social values. A study of this subject reveals the constant dialogue between religion and culture as far as Judaism is concerned.","PeriodicalId":160891,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Dialogue","volume":"136 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131857240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-06-14DOI: 10.1163/24683949-00302006
Angelika Böck
To what extent are artists and sitters (or researchers and “objects” of investigation) implicated in their representations of others? How implicated are we when we identify with the way different cultures or perspectives represent ourselves? Understanding how specific forms of representation reveal differently authored perceptions of the individual is a critical concern. My overarching concern, as an artist, is to start mapping contemporary practices of identity formation and expression through the investigation of specific non- Western and subcultural modes that prioritise different codes and social processes of cultural production – modes that do not privilege the gaze. Crucially, the case studies operate a strategic reversal of the classical artistic and scientific approaches: both sides in this dialogue of interpretation and representation involving the artist/researcher and the cultural actor are equally subject and object. The resulting artworks present distinct cultural practices as new possibilities for portrayal, and acts of selection, interpretation and definition as forms of cultural production.
{"title":"Portrait as Dialogue: Exercising the Dialogical Self","authors":"Angelika Böck","doi":"10.1163/24683949-00302006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24683949-00302006","url":null,"abstract":"To what extent are artists and sitters (or researchers and “objects” of investigation) implicated in their representations of others? How implicated are we when we identify with the way different cultures or perspectives represent ourselves? Understanding how specific forms of representation reveal differently authored perceptions of the individual is a critical concern. My overarching concern, as an artist, is to start mapping contemporary practices of identity formation and expression through the investigation of specific non- Western and subcultural modes that prioritise different codes and social processes of cultural production – modes that do not privilege the gaze. Crucially, the case studies operate a strategic reversal of the classical artistic and scientific approaches: both sides in this dialogue of interpretation and representation involving the artist/researcher and the cultural actor are equally subject and object. The resulting artworks present distinct cultural practices as new possibilities for portrayal, and acts of selection, interpretation and definition as forms of cultural production.","PeriodicalId":160891,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Dialogue","volume":"138 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116050969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-06-14DOI: 10.1163/24683949-00301004
T. Barrett
Any dialogue conducted via mutually unintelligible languages constitutes no more than a dialogue of the deaf. Yet intelligibility in dialogue at the most basic linguistic level seems to have provoked little extended discussion in China, even though in practice getting one’s ideas across was plainly a major concern, in the late Ming period (1368-1644). Whilst Buddhists of the period had ceased in any real sense to act as translators of fresh Buddhist materials into Chinese from other languages, we do find an essayist with things to say about translation. This was Hanshan Deqing (1546–1623), a major Buddhist monk of the age. Yet his essays are not readily to be found in his Buddhist writings, but in the preface to his annotations to the Daoist classic Daode jing. It is therefore within the context of dialogue with another rival tradition that his remarks were made, and so they have a particular relevance for those with an interest in the conduct of inter-religious dialogue in the Chinese tradition.
{"title":"Deqing and Daoism: A View of Dialogue and Translation from Late Ming China","authors":"T. Barrett","doi":"10.1163/24683949-00301004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24683949-00301004","url":null,"abstract":"Any dialogue conducted via mutually unintelligible languages constitutes no more than a dialogue of the deaf. Yet intelligibility in dialogue at the most basic linguistic level seems to have provoked little extended discussion in China, even though in practice getting one’s ideas across was plainly a major concern, in the late Ming period (1368-1644). Whilst Buddhists of the period had ceased in any real sense to act as translators of fresh Buddhist materials into Chinese from other languages, we do find an essayist with things to say about translation. This was Hanshan Deqing (1546–1623), a major Buddhist monk of the age. Yet his essays are not readily to be found in his Buddhist writings, but in the preface to his annotations to the Daoist classic Daode jing. It is therefore within the context of dialogue with another rival tradition that his remarks were made, and so they have a particular relevance for those with an interest in the conduct of inter-religious dialogue in the Chinese tradition.","PeriodicalId":160891,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Dialogue","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132345960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-06-14DOI: 10.1163/24683949-00302007
Francesca Pierini
This essay reflects on Anglo-American literary representations of Italian culture from the perspective of postcolonial theory. Throughout history, many national and cultural entities have defined themselves in relation to foreign and “exotic” civilizations; this equally applies to “the exotic within Europe.” Through a discussion of the works of writers as various as E.M. Forster (The Story of a Panic, 1903), Frances Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun, 1997), and Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love, 2006), the essay describes a tradition that celebrates Italy as an authentic cultural experience and at the same time “orientalises” such a tradition by depicting it as a destabilizing threat and challenge to the “rational mind,” allegedly represented by Anglo-American culture. The essay attempts to disclose the degree of “imagined identity” that emerges from an on-going productive dialogue with the “other within oneself.”
{"title":"Anglo-American Narratives of Italian Otherness and the Politics of Orientalizing Southern Europe","authors":"Francesca Pierini","doi":"10.1163/24683949-00302007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24683949-00302007","url":null,"abstract":"This essay reflects on Anglo-American literary representations of Italian culture from the perspective of postcolonial theory. Throughout history, many national and cultural entities have defined themselves in relation to foreign and “exotic” civilizations; this equally applies to “the exotic within Europe.” Through a discussion of the works of writers as various as E.M. Forster (The Story of a Panic, 1903), Frances Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun, 1997), and Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love, 2006), the essay describes a tradition that celebrates Italy as an authentic cultural experience and at the same time “orientalises” such a tradition by depicting it as a destabilizing threat and challenge to the “rational mind,” allegedly represented by Anglo-American culture. The essay attempts to disclose the degree of “imagined identity” that emerges from an on-going productive dialogue with the “other within oneself.”","PeriodicalId":160891,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Dialogue","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125505805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-06-14DOI: 10.1163/24683949-00302003
Hiroshi Yoshioka
What is the meaning of “Japanese” culture? In earlier ages, it was about temples, Noh plays, Kabuki, Utamaro and Wabi-sabi. These traditional icons have, since the Meiji era (1868-1912), been identified as typically Japanese. Are they, however, still relevant today? Has there been any crucial mutation in the cultural identity of Japan? In the contemporary era, more and more people associate Japanese culture with Manga, animation and video games, in other words with cultural developments of the post-World War II era. The Japanese Government has actively promoted the popularity of these new aspects of Japanese culture as evidenced in their eagerness to adopt the expression “Cool Japan,” inspired by its British predecessor’s “Cool Britannia.” Everyone does not share that perception though. Following the 11th March 2011 series of disasters, Japanese artist Tadasu Takamine (1968-) worked on a critical questioning of Japanese society and culture, culminating in a work titled Tadasu Takamine's Cool Japan that was shown at the Art Tower Mito, in Ibaraki Prefecture (2012). The present essay reflects on and develops further the message conveyed by Takamine about contemporary Japanese cultural identity.
{"title":"After “Cool Japan”: A Study on Cultural Nationalism","authors":"Hiroshi Yoshioka","doi":"10.1163/24683949-00302003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24683949-00302003","url":null,"abstract":"What is the meaning of “Japanese” culture? In earlier ages, it was about temples, Noh plays, Kabuki, Utamaro and Wabi-sabi. These traditional icons have, since the Meiji era (1868-1912), been identified as typically Japanese. Are they, however, still relevant today? Has there been any crucial mutation in the cultural identity of Japan? In the contemporary era, more and more people associate Japanese culture with Manga, animation and video games, in other words with cultural developments of the post-World War II era. The Japanese Government has actively promoted the popularity of these new aspects of Japanese culture as evidenced in their eagerness to adopt the expression “Cool Japan,” inspired by its British predecessor’s “Cool Britannia.” Everyone does not share that perception though. Following the 11th March 2011 series of disasters, Japanese artist Tadasu Takamine (1968-) worked on a critical questioning of Japanese society and culture, culminating in a work titled Tadasu Takamine's Cool Japan that was shown at the Art Tower Mito, in Ibaraki Prefecture (2012). The present essay reflects on and develops further the message conveyed by Takamine about contemporary Japanese cultural identity.","PeriodicalId":160891,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Dialogue","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115809650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-06-14DOI: 10.1163/24683949-00301009
T. Lobetti
Whenever disagreement arises, dialogue is often presented as a natural remedy to conciliate opposing subjects. Absence of dialogue resulting in conflict appears thus as being somehow unnatural, a behavioural trait artificially induced by a variety of cultural forces, religion in particular. In this paper I would like to argue that the opposite case might be truer. Dialogue is in fact a most unnatural and unlikely event and, for this reason, to consider it as the natural foundation for a shared universal ethics is a potentially dangerous oversight. Dialogue is heavily dependent on consciousness and language, which are not discreet natural entities, but rather complex culturally-influenced constructs. We shall then explore the problem of the constructions of meaningful dialogues in the light of considerations on the formation of consciousness, taking into account the way in which metaphysical beliefs delimit and shape our epistemological possibilities and our understanding of self and alterity.
{"title":"The Pietas of Doubt:","authors":"T. Lobetti","doi":"10.1163/24683949-00301009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24683949-00301009","url":null,"abstract":"Whenever disagreement arises, dialogue is often presented as a natural remedy to conciliate opposing subjects. Absence of dialogue resulting in conflict appears thus as being somehow unnatural, a behavioural trait artificially induced by a variety of cultural forces, religion in particular. In this paper I would like to argue that the opposite case might be truer. Dialogue is in fact a most unnatural and unlikely event and, for this reason, to consider it as the natural foundation for a shared universal ethics is a potentially dangerous oversight. Dialogue is heavily dependent on consciousness and language, which are not discreet natural entities, but rather complex culturally-influenced constructs. We shall then explore the problem of the constructions of meaningful dialogues in the light of considerations on the formation of consciousness, taking into account the way in which metaphysical beliefs delimit and shape our epistemological possibilities and our understanding of self and alterity.","PeriodicalId":160891,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Dialogue","volume":"27 12","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131923708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-06-14DOI: 10.1163/24683949-00301011
Cosimo Zene
The correlation between dialogue and religion, both as conceptual apparatuses and as current practices, has had a long history. The purpose of this essay is to isolate one such instance – the “critical dialogue” taking place amongst scholars of religions – which involves also the dialogue scholars establish with their field of study and/or a given religious tradition. Following a brief clarification of terminology used, I will proceed to discuss concrete examples of critical dialogue within the Study of Religions and how this might be enhanced. Finally, I will draw some partial conclusions which might pave the way for this critical dialogue to improve and continue.
{"title":"The Challenge of Critical Dialogue and the Study of Religions","authors":"Cosimo Zene","doi":"10.1163/24683949-00301011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24683949-00301011","url":null,"abstract":"The correlation between dialogue and religion, both as conceptual apparatuses and as current practices, has had a long history. The purpose of this essay is to isolate one such instance – the “critical dialogue” taking place amongst scholars of religions – which involves also the dialogue scholars establish with their field of study and/or a given religious tradition. Following a brief clarification of terminology used, I will proceed to discuss concrete examples of critical dialogue within the Study of Religions and how this might be enhanced. Finally, I will draw some partial conclusions which might pave the way for this critical dialogue to improve and continue.","PeriodicalId":160891,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Dialogue","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121628268","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-07-23DOI: 10.1163/24683949-00202002
Goutam Biswas
This essay attempts to outline a philosophical anthropology with dialogicality as its key concept. It argues that it is impossible to explicate this concept with any bias toward the ontological primacy of either the subject or the knowable object. The essay develops from the philosophy of Martin Buber who vindicated the need for subject-object binarism to be superseded by a relational ontology of human existence, that is, a space between the dialoguing I and Thou. From this point of view, different sectors of human studies – including those involving politics or socio-political crafting of human states of affairs – must be approached according to their unique dimension. The essay’s envisioning of knowledge of humans by human being beyond any subject-object dichotomy implies a new perspective of self-other relationship whereby the phenomenological notion of intentionality is apprehended in its dialogical mode.
{"title":"I and Thou","authors":"Goutam Biswas","doi":"10.1163/24683949-00202002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24683949-00202002","url":null,"abstract":"This essay attempts to outline a philosophical anthropology with dialogicality as its key concept. It argues that it is impossible to explicate this concept with any bias toward the ontological primacy of either the subject or the knowable object. The essay develops from the philosophy of Martin Buber who vindicated the need for subject-object binarism to be superseded by a relational ontology of human existence, that is, a space between the dialoguing I and Thou. From this point of view, different sectors of human studies – including those involving politics or socio-political crafting of human states of affairs – must be approached according to their unique dimension. The essay’s envisioning of knowledge of humans by human being beyond any subject-object dichotomy implies a new perspective of self-other relationship whereby the phenomenological notion of intentionality is apprehended in its dialogical mode.","PeriodicalId":160891,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Dialogue","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124904027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-07-23DOI: 10.1163/24683949-00202003
G. Wohlfart
This lecture tries to show how ancient Chinese philosophy can help us to respond in a more peaceful, defensive way to the continual dangers of war and find a practicable way between outright bellicosity on the one hand and all-too-good pacifism on the other hand. The lecture begins with reflections on Immanuel Kant’s idea of eternal peace, followed by Heraclitus’ view on war as the father of things, and finally proceeds to Sun-tzu’s Art of War, that tells us how to defeat the enemy without fighting.
{"title":"Eternal Peace – Eternal War","authors":"G. Wohlfart","doi":"10.1163/24683949-00202003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24683949-00202003","url":null,"abstract":"This lecture tries to show how ancient Chinese philosophy can help us to respond in a more peaceful, defensive way to the continual dangers of war and find a practicable way between outright bellicosity on the one hand and all-too-good pacifism on the other hand. The lecture begins with reflections on Immanuel Kant’s idea of eternal peace, followed by Heraclitus’ view on war as the father of things, and finally proceeds to Sun-tzu’s Art of War, that tells us how to defeat the enemy without fighting.","PeriodicalId":160891,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Dialogue","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126735202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-07-23DOI: 10.1163/24683949-00201002
R. Clarke
This essay explores the nature of absorbed experience which occurs when we are deeply immersed in a practical activity, such as when we make a work of art. This absorption is at the heart of all concentrated activity and reinforces those moments of engaged creativity when self-consciousness is freed from the calculations of the ego. Such occasions cannot be willed or predicted, but rather appear to arise spontaneously as in a stream of consciousness in which there is recognisable flow that is undisrupted by language. Indeed, there is evidence that in these engaged moments, language itself is held in abeyance and that embodied activity takes over as we lose ourselves in the practical experience of making. Both the literature and artists’ accounts of their practice have tended to overlook the nature of these experiences.
{"title":"Play It Again Schumann","authors":"R. Clarke","doi":"10.1163/24683949-00201002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24683949-00201002","url":null,"abstract":"This essay explores the nature of absorbed experience which occurs when we are deeply immersed in a practical activity, such as when we make a work of art. This absorption is at the heart of all concentrated activity and reinforces those moments of engaged creativity when self-consciousness is freed from the calculations of the ego. Such occasions cannot be willed or predicted, but rather appear to arise spontaneously as in a stream of consciousness in which there is recognisable flow that is undisrupted by language. Indeed, there is evidence that in these engaged moments, language itself is held in abeyance and that embodied activity takes over as we lose ourselves in the practical experience of making. Both the literature and artists’ accounts of their practice have tended to overlook the nature of these experiences.","PeriodicalId":160891,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Dialogue","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133697435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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