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In this paper, the author presents a philosophical analysis of the famous manga series, Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen) by Keiji Nakazawa, which is the author’s quasi‑fictional memoir of his childhood as an atom bomb survivor in Hiroshima, Japan. Against the backdrop of larger issues of war and peace, Gen’s family struggles with his father’s ideological rebellion against the nation’s militaristic rule, leading to the family’s persecution. The story then chronicles the cataclysmic effects of the bomb, and the fates of Gen and other survivors as they live through the aftermath of the detonation and the hardships of the American occupation. The author's framework for critique follows Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology, which applies the descriptive method of phenomenology to cultural texts.
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The object of the article is to assess whether the concepts of erotica and the erotic can be identified with the hermeneutic interpretation of art as understood by Hans Georg Gadamer. The starting point of the discussion is Susan Sontag’s essay ‘Against interpretation’, in which the concept of the erotic interpretation of art is outlined and which culminates with the author setting up a deliberate opposition between the erotics of art and hermeneutics. The present article is an attempt to present the issue of the eroticism of hermeneutic interpretation on the basis of Sontag’s essay, and thus a response to the provocation contained in this essay. In the final part of the text, another possible approach to the issue of the postulated eroticism of hermeneutics is presented. The first part of the present article is devoted to explaining what Sontag means when she writes about the erotics of art and hermeneutics. The next part will demonstrate the connections and similarities between the concept of erotic art presented by Sontag and Gadamer’s concept of the hermeneutic interpretation of art. In the third part of the article I present Gadamer’s proposition and answer the question of whether the hermeneutic interpretation of art can be erotic. The final part of the article is devoted to invoking additional arguments for linking erotics and hermeneutics, followed by a summary
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Not many readers will recognize ‘Disowning Knowledge: Seven Plays of Shakespeare’ by Stanley Cavell as either a piece of philosophical writing or literary criticism, so it may be useful to ask what method Cavell uses to read literature, what are the main features of his approach, and whether he has a coherent view on what reading literature means. I examine Cavell’s interdisciplinary eclecticism, the feature which makes his work so original, and I describe his moving away from the British and American analytic tradition in which he was trained to other sources of inspiration, especially Thoreau. I also stress the important fact that Cavell does not avoid autobiographical motifs in his writings, the style of which derives to some extent from the Jewish tradition of storytelling. In his writings Cavell declares his adherence to an ahistorical approach, maintaining that in a sense philosophy is trans historical. In many of his books the central issue is the challenge that skepticism poses, and he endeavors to make a convincing case against it. Although Cavell’s work covers a broad range of interests, including tragedy and literature, as well as Romantic poetry, Shakespeare, Henry James and Samuel Beckett, I try to answer the question of why his analyses of skepticism in literature focus especially on the works of Shakespeare.
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The notion of presentation (Darstellung) is a key concept of Truth and Method and of Gadamer’s hermeneutics as a whole. It has however many levels of meaning that this article seeks to sort out: presentation as 1) performance, 2) interpretation, 3) revelatory epiphany and 4) participation (festival). The aim of this article is to show how this strong conception of presentation makes it possible to understand the unity of Truth and Method and to grasp the non relativistic intent of its important theses on interpretation and language: in both cases, interpretation (or the linguistic expression) must be understood as the unfolding of meaning that stems from the work or the thing itself.
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This essay centers on Romare Bearden’s art, methodology, and thinking about art, and likewise explores his attempt to harmonize personal aesthetic goals with sociopolitical concerns. Following an investigation of Bearden’s work and thought, we turn to Hans Georg Gadamer’s reflections on art and our experience (Erfahrung) of art. As the essay unfolds, we see how Bearden’s approach to art and the artworks themselves resonate with Gadamer’s critique of aesthetic consciousness and his contention that artworks address us. An important component of Gadamer’s account is his emphasis on the spectator’s active yet non mastering role in the event of art’s address – an event that implicates the spectator and has the potential to trans¬form him or her. As we shall see, Gadamer’s notion of aesthetic experience sharp¬ly contrasts with modern, subjectivizing aesthetics, as it requires not only active participatory engagement, but it also brings about a transformed “vision” and understanding of one’s self, others, and the world. In closing, we return to Bearden in order to explore how his art unearths a crucial activity of our being in the world. I call this activity “un fabricating one’s world” and discuss how it expands and en¬riches Gadamer’s account.
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The article contains a hermeneutic interpretation of the art of Grzegorz Sztabiński, a contemporary Polish artist creating drawings, paintings and installations. It starts with definitions of transcendence, hermeneutic interpretation, metaphysi¬cal cognition, and artistic installation. The main section is comprised of descrip¬tions and interpretations of the artist’s works, created throughout his career, in¬cluding his own comments and those of his critics, especially in relation to the cycle Pismo natury – Transcendencja [The Writing of Nature: Transcendence]. The text explains how the artist finds the signs of writing to be traces of transcendence concealed in nature and how the relationship between the artwork and the place is used to build the new contexts of each exposure (serving always to discover the transcendence). Finally, the game of models of distinguishing the object of meta¬physical cognition is described and in conclusion the metaphysical cognition dis¬covered in the hermeneutic interpretation of an artwork is found as a way of being in the world proposed by art.
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The paper describes the situation of art works in the times of late modernity bypresenting Gianni Vattimo, one of the most important representatives of modernhermeneutics. Art’s historical narrative has collapsed due to civilisational transformation– mainly thanks to the invention of technological means for the mass reproductionof images. Two of the primary traits of art works from a traditional perspective– originality and authenticity – have nowadays been undermined. Vattimocalls this phenomenon ‘an explosion of aesthetics’.The paper describes the situation of art works in the times of late modernity by presenting Gianni Vattimo, one of the most important representatives of modern hermeneutics. Art’s historical narrative has collapsed due to civilisational trans¬formation – mainly thanks to the invention of technological means for the mass re¬production of images. Two of the primary traits of art works from a traditional per¬spective – originality and authenticity – have nowadays been undermined. Vattimo calls this phenomenon ‘an explosion of aesthetics’.
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Despite Gadamer’s sustained engagement with poetry throughout his career, evi¬denced by his numerous publications on modern German poetry, his contributions towards a poetics have gone underappreciated. The author of this essay argues that a poetics can be drawn from his work, a poetics hermeneutically attuned to the poetic word as the true word, as the privileged site where the being of language as an event of unconcealment comes to language. Indeed, what is at stake for Gadamer in the po¬etic word is the hermeneutic understanding of language as the medium of phenom¬enological self showing. The paper further outlines the salient features of herme¬neutic poetics by highlighting, elaborating and integrating five basic traits of the poetic word as an event of language. First, because language itself appears in the poetic word it is language bound. Second, gathering itself into the unity of a linguis¬tic configuration the poetic word is self standing. Third, listening to the language of the poem the reader enables what is said to come forth. Fourth, where this occurs the poem achieves a unique presence simply by virtue of its being said. In this way, fifth, the poetic word preserves our familiarity with the world by bearing witness to its nearness.
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The task of the hermeneutics of the image is to grasp the sensual emergence of meaning, to describe the conditions of its forming and the possibilities for its un¬derstanding. Gottfried Boehm suggests an answer to the question about sensual sense and formulates the most important aspects of the potential for creation of meaning. This potential is rooted in iconic difference, which manifests itself both through the liberating power of contrast and as a relation between the part and the whole – that is, a relation between transitions, or consecutiveness, and the simulta¬neity of the image. Sensuality, which organises and articulates the pictorial mean¬ing, remains unseen, even elusive – “empty” – though it drives the play of difference and oscillation.
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The present article is an attempt to visualise the process of perception of a literary work on the basis of two theoretical concepts, separated by chronological as well as geographical distance. The first one is based on the idea of aesthetic experience understood as an effect of sahṛdayatā, formulated by Abhinavagupta in his work titled Abhinavabhāratī as well as on his observations on the relationship between the art work and a spectator, formulated in a passage from Dhvanyālokalocana. The second – on the concept of perception of a work of art, formulated by Roman Ingarden, in the first decades of the 20th century. The exemplary part of the article will focus on the place of word and image in literary works, with an attempt to depict their primary functions, on the example of Agyeya’s Goldfish, and Laughter by Tadeusz Różewicz – two artistic creations belonging, just as the two presented aesthetic theories, to the same two, apparently disparate cultures.
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The aim of the study is to show and analyse the phases and forms of enforcing/functioning of socialist realism as a dominant political and aesthetic doctrine and an institutionalised system in the literature of Bulgaria. Justification is provided for the use of concepts and historical--theoretical constructs, such as “socialist realism,” “domestication of socialist realism” etc., which make possible the emergence of a new history of literature from the times of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. The chronicles of Bulgarian socialist realism between 1948 and 1956 describe a few characteristics of the “method” in the context of the totalitarian People’s Republic, which are a direct repercussion of the practices of sovietisation applied with slight Bulgarian adaptations. The domestication of socialist realism – increasingly noticeable after 1956 – presents a limitation to the allowed freedoms of writing and publishing through authoritative discourses, accompanied by procedures which shorten the distance between the different positions in the literary field. The Bulgarian experience of socialist realist literary production brings into relief a specific model, that warrants the definition home-made socialist realism.
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In this article the author takes an historical overview of conspiracy theories and how they have been paraded in the work of Witkacy. They have been with us at least since the time of Ancient Rome, connected both with the Christians and Jews. The author argues that they have been used to explain historical events, especially at times of crisis, social change and upheaval, when nations, social groups, and individuals have felt threatened by inexplicable disasters and perils. Conspiratorial thinking detects labyrinthine plots and finds individuals or groups that can be held responsible for menacing social changes. They have clearly influenced Witkacy’s work. It is argued that the lonely protagonist is confronted by encroaching realms of otherness, ‘concentric circles of constraint and encroachment’ in the form of the cosmos, political and social order, family, and even the self.
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In this article the author applies Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński’s claim that Witkacy’s paintings are “theatre frozen on canvas” by examining the many characters who coexist in both his paintings and dramas. This is evident not only in the content of his later drawings and paintings when he was most productive with his dramatic literary output, but also in the subject matter of earlier art pieces before he even began the fruitful period of his dramatic works. Moreover, some of the images in his artwork reflect his own real life experiences. The author borrowing a phrase from Daniel Gerould claims that Witkacy creates a “unified world of imagination” in which various characters appear in multiple literary and art works.
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In this paper I discuss how “pure form” applies to the music of composer Morton Feldman. Starting from Witkiewicz’s idea that music is the purest form of art, I discuss his speculations on the “heightened metaphysical feeling” that results from aesthetic experience. I also look at Witkiewicz’s rejection of sentimental music. I then take up the conditions of music in our time, where music is used as light entertainment. This exemplifies Witkiewicz’s fears about the use of art as a distraction to keep people happy. I then examine the music of Feldman as an antidote to these trends. His music conveys a sense of a flat surface upon which the attention of listeners drifts contemplatively with the music, experiencing it as an end in itself. I try to show how his music affects listeners at the core of their being and gives them a sense of unity in the midst of the multiplicity of everyday life.
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This article will consider Witkacy’s theatre plays alongside his contribution to dramatic theory with the Theory of Pure Form. In particular, it will examine the interplay between a sense of unity and a sense of the alogical, a term first used by the Italian Futurists. Focusing on The Water Hen but with reference to other plays as well as Futurist theoretical and dramatic counterparts, the article investigates on the one hand the interruption of narrative and linear progression, and uncertainty as to existence, identity and relationship; and on the other hand the persistent continuous underlying anxiety within the characters themselves and their sense of journey and destination. I suggest that his use of a series of arresting visual images and theatrical transformations unifies the scenes within a single dream-like world, bringing an order, however opaque, to the chaos.
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By drawing on archival materials that were previously considered missing, the author examines Witkacy’s epistolary friendship with the German philosopher Hans Cornelius, a friendship which lasted from 1935 to 1939. She explores how Witkacy and Cornelius discussed the body as an object of philosophical speculation and personal experience, and then briefly turns to the political elements in the correspondence, and in Cornelius’ recollection of the friendship during later years. Witkacy and Cornelius did not find a common language precise enough to transform their exchange of philosophical views into genuine dialogue, but their friendship became more intimate with time. It seems that the process of engaging in honest and passionate philosophical dialogue helped them develop a personal friendship which was more important than their conceptual misunderstandings.
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That ‘crisis of identity’ is one of the central problems addressed by the dramas of Witkacy is primarily linked in the mind of critics to the tradition of modernism. In this contribution I would like to suggest a change of viewpoint, and to present this problem rather from the point of view of contemporary discourse concerning identity. The problems that Witkacy’s characters have with their own existence are in accord, not only with today’s quite common conviction that individuals can experiment with their own sense of identity with relative freedom but also with the concepts of the individual ego, derived from the realms of the Social Sciences.
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Many researchers of Witkacy’s oeuvre alert us to the strong presence of ‘dandyism’ both in his literary work and in his biography. The classification of ‘dandyism’ is significant, however, for his entire work including his art. It should be recalled that ‘dandyism’ is not only seen as an exaggerated concern with appearance but also an attitude expressed in a certain individuality of style, eccentricity, nonchalance and skepticism. This paper analyzes the self-discrediting strategy in Witkacy’s work, first described by Grzegorz Grochowski. It draws attention to the way in which Witkacy assumes various roles that usually have controversial cultural connotations. These include feminine self-stylization, the role of megalomaniac, snob, or amateur. The intention of the contribution is to explore the ways in which this self-discrediting strategy has been articulated in self-portraits.
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The farce, realistic and surrealistic, trivial and yet transfigured, is an essential expression of both Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz’s 'The Beelzebub Sonata' and Michel de Ghelderode’s 'The Tragic Death of Doctor Faustus'. Both plays were written in 1925, and the subtitle of each play informs that we are at a great distance from Goethe’s transcendent drama, for Ghelderode’s play is subtitled “A Tragedy for the Music Hall” and Witkacy’s “What Really Happened in Mordovar.” This paper explores the deformation of any traces of Goethe’s tragic Faust, as each playwright situates his play in a grotesque cabaret. In both plays the Mephistophelian character has been deprived of his powers of negation, and instead as Diamotoruscant in Ghelderode’s version produces cheap tricks akin to those of Goethe’s “Witches Kitchen” in the music hall. Not only do both playwrights ridicule the potential of a twentieth-century Faust figure, but they also mock Naturalism in the theater and in Witkacy’s play even the possibility of a Theatre of Pure Form.
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