Arts and Humanities, Misc

The article presents the chess composition as a logical art, with concrete examples. It began with Arabic mansuba, and later evolved to new-strategy designed by Italian Alberto Mari. The redefinition of mate (e.g. mate with a free field) or a theme to quasi-pseudo theme, opens the new space for combinations, and enables to connect it with other fields like computer science. The article was exhibited in Holland Park, W8 6LU, The Ice House between 18. Oct - 3. Nov. 2013.

Carel Fabritius left behind few but important works of art. We are concerned here with the View in Delft, and attempt to make two points about it. The first is that this small painting manages to break away from the classical perception of perspective, an endeavor informed mostly by new findings in the field of optics of the time. The second point, theoretically related to the first, stresses compositional elements that would bring View in Delft closer to a meditation on (...) the fleetingness of life, making it a "town-scape" vanitas. (shrink)

Essay on the modern artistic ego as sponsored by the exhibition, "Gustav Courbet," February 27-May 18, 2008, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, USA. A version of this essay appeared in Gavin Keeney, "Else-where": Essays on Art, Architecture, and Cultural Production 2002-2011 (CSP, 2011), pp. 191-98.

Essays and documents in support of the works of Gaialight - DOCUMENTS: The Passion of Jeanne d’Art (2007) - Letter to Gaia (2007) - “Art as Such”: This is Not Pop ... (2008) - Writing Toward Darkness (2009) - Scarlett Words: Light America (2009) - The Darklight Elaboration (2010) - The Darklight Elaboration: Zeitgeist or Episteme? (2010) - Cam Girls (2011) - Brooklyn Buzz (2011) - Brooklyn Buzz: The Semi-divine Metropolis (2011) - Reconnaissance: Light War, Mass Surveillance, Video Games (2011) (...) - First Cause (2011) - Met Ladies (2011) - When Cam Girls Met Ladies (2011) / OUTTAKES (2007): 15 Questions About Editioned Art Photography (2007) - A Few Awkward Questions for Francesca Woodman (2007) - October Revolution (2007) . (shrink)

Essays and documents surveying the post-communist architectural scene in the Czech Republic. - 1/ “Wild & Wilder” (1997) – A brief travelogue with comments on Kew Gardens, London, and Mies van der Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat (1930), Brno. 2/ “Angel City” (1999) – A short report on Jean Nouvel’s Golden Angel office tower in Smíchov, Prague. 3/ “Read & Weep: Scandal in Bohemia” (1999) – Essay on post-communist machinations within the architectural scene in the Czech Republic, including reports on: Jean Nouvel’s (...) Angel City and its critics; charges of “lite (postmodern) neo-functionalism” here and there; a cooked “open” competition for a proposed Kupka museum in an old mill on the island of Kampa (in the Vltava); a tourist-dodging transit through Josip Plečnik’s gardens at Prague Castle; and stories and legends regarding the Star Pavilion and oak wood at White Mountain. 4/ “The Body of the City” (2001) – Critique of Richard Meier and Partners’ proposed ECM Radio Plaza, a series of towers meant to complete an unfinished, communist-era “Rockefeller Center” in the Pankrác district of Prague. 5/ “Gnomic Works: The Sculptural Works of Kurt Gebauer” (2002) – Essay on the sculpture of Czech artist Kurt Gebauer with images from his exhibition in Zlín in 2001. 6/ “House of the Wind: May Day” (2004) – Prose poem written on May Day 2004 regarding wandering around Olšanské hřbitovy, a mostly 19th-century cemetery in the Žižkov district of Prague. 7/ “Architectural Eyewash” (2004) – An essay surveying: various complaints within the Czech architectural community regarding an outbreak of “architectural eyewash” in the 2004 Chamber of Architects’ Grand Prix competition; rumors and innuendo regarding a proposed Kupka museum on Kampa; complaints about Daniel Libeskind’s proposed Dalí House, Prague; etc. 8/ “Moravian Shadows” (2004) – Essay on “cultural shadows” in the context of Czech architecture, with a nod to Nietzsches’ The Birth of Tragedy. 9/ The Near & The Far: Moravian Garden (2006) – Notes and discurses on a very small, yet “immense” South Moravian country garden in Skryje, Czech Republic. (shrink)

A draft White Paper associated with Fulbright Specialist Program lectures at the University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia, in March-April 2015, concerning neo-liberal capitalist exploitation of academic research and publications.

Drops Dripped - WKCD - What Does It Do? - Techne - Faux Year Zero - Commercium as Ethics - Fictitious Space - The Module - The Image - Art, Love, Revolution. A version of this essay appeared in Gavin Keeney, "Else-where": Essays in Art, Architecture, and Cultural Production 2002-2011 (CSP, 2011), pp. 285-306.

In this paper I shall argue that useful correspondences can be drawn between the role of depiction in showing a view of the world and the realisation that would view God as a picture of experience in the world, since both can be seen to illustrate an art of interpretation. The perceptual insight that is gleaned in mystical-philosophical consciousness converges on the idea of a realm that is marked as divine, and by exploiting mental and linguistic imagery this mindful awareness (...) can be made concrete in the form of a written text, which can be seen to be analogous to a pictorial representation. The writer of a text purportedly sees and knows the domain of divine reality through sensible and conceptual means and then reduces this consciousness to a planar form, which is observable as an artistic rendering. The reader, who is at the same time a viewer, is invited to perceptually and imaginatively attend to the artifact as a manifestation of the experient's understanding of the functional nature of God, and in this apprehension of the divine scenario in the textual picture the interpretative motif of God-in-the-painting is revealed. (shrink)

In an online, participatory class, we interpreted The Dream of the Black Planet knowing nothing of the dreamer beyond age and gender, and having none of the dreamer’s associations. Our interpretation included a series of predictions about the dreamer. When it was complete, we asked the bringer of the dream (who had until then been silent and was not visible to us -- her video camera was switched off ) to give us more information about the dreamer. Our predictions were (...) mostly confirmed. The dreamer is in a car with his dad. It is not clear who is driving. This record is another iteration of an experiment that is described more fully in the paper The Dream of the Six-Legged Dog: An Experimental System that Tests Symbolic Meaning, soon to be published. This iteration repeats and confirms the evidence given in that paper. AUDIO RECORD OF COMPLETE BLACK PLANET CLASS: link is given on 1st page of the text you download from this page. (shrink)

One of the most widely read books in the world, considered a metaphor for the human condition, and suitable for a variety of interpretations, The Adventures of Pinocchio has had a major impact on world culture. The book responds to a prerogative that belongs only to masterpieces: that of being out of time. The book focuses on the psychological investigation of his central character Pinocchio, while trying to discover a humanity lost in the vacuum of technology and science. The myth (...) of Pinocchio is used to condemn the culture of violence and consumerism. Collodi successfully uses metaphorical interactions, bipolarities, and ambiguous miracles. Pinocchio's identity is often played to the limit, imagined by himself and everyone he meets along the way. Pinocchio is the name of life that is simultaneously inorganic, human and animal. The Adventures of Pinocchio explore how experiences gained in heterotopic space give the individual the ability to change panoramic vision, and how these experiences can ultimately show us how we can recover or restore our existence as individual subjects. -/- CONTENTS: -/- Abstract Carlo Collodi The Adventures of Pinocchio Pinocchio The Myth The Psychology The Duality The Heterotopy The Identity Artificial Intelligence The Humanism The Becoming The Demiurge The Education Bibliography -/- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20541.38887. (shrink)

Mathematics has a long track record of refining the concepts by which we make sense of the world. For example, mathematics allows one to speak about different senses of "sameness", depending on the larger context. Phenomenology is the name of a philosophical discipline that tries to systematically investigate the first-personal perspective on reality and how it is constituted. Together, mathematics and phenomenology seem to be a good fit to derive statements about our experience that are, at the same time, well-defined, (...) precise, and significant to our inner lives. However, there are difficulties stemming from the fact that phenomenology deals with inherently subjective things. Phenomenological investigations seem to lose their appeal when trying to approach them in the clear-cut way afforded by mathematics. How to overcome this obstacle? We argue that the Arts play a special role in mediating between the precise statements of mathematics and the sometimes fuzzy nature of our experience. Mathematics and art are complementary ways to come to a comprehensive understanding of reality. (shrink)

Among the extant masterworks of Roman art, there is probably none that has generated more scholarly debate than the Portland Vase over the interpretation of its elegant frieze. No fewer than forty-four different theories attempting to interpret the scenes on the vase have appeared in the last 400 years. In the main, the theories fall into two categories, those relating the frieze to Greek myth, and those linking the figures to Roman personages. Moreover, there is no consensus whether the frieze (...) is two separate scenes or one continuous story. The obstacle to interpreting the frieze is that all but one of the figures lack identifying attributes. This paper will demonstrate (1) that in lieu of standard iconography, a synthesis of visual and literary tropes in the form of hidden letters, that is, cryptograms, tells the viewer how to read the frieze; (2) that scene A of the frieze illustrates specifically lines 26-30 of Catullus 64 by visually rendering the epithets and tropes used in those lines; (3) that visual reproductions of other tropes in Catullus 64 further substantiate the relationship between frieze and poem; (4) that scene B of the frieze is an intentional aberration from the poem; (5) that there is a complex and unfinished interaction between scenes A and B which the viewer must complete; and (6) that in the final analysis, the frieze duplicates both the theme and central structure of Catullus 64.10 . (shrink)

All interpretations of the Portland Vase frieze to date have failed to see, much less explain, a crucial figural attribute in the frieze, one that proves to be both explicit and explicatory, and whose location and appearance secures the identification of not one but, indeed, three figures. Furthermore, the attribute lies at the heart of a distinct schema of figural grouping and arrangement which has also gone unheeded in previous treatments of the Portland Vase frieze. By dint of this previously (...) unknown attribute, one can straightforwardly read the opening scene of the frieze using the attributes therein provided, but the opening scene only. To complete the task, a second methodology–that which I laid out in Arion in 1992–is a categorical sine qua non. One can, as I have already shown, successfully navigate the entire frieze using the second methodology alone but, as so many others have shown, not contrariwise. These new findings–the attribute and figural plan–are clear proof that the artistic vision of the Portland Vase was purposefully executed in a two-part program. (shrink)

This paper’s aim is to establish an explanation for the separation of Northern minds, by examining the influence of a variety of factors on the shaping of people’s sense of identity at the time. Near the end of the 16th century the Groningers had proven to be a people with a mind of their own—impetuous, unruly and, in the end, unwilling to join the Republic in its efforts to liberate itself from its oppressive Spanish overlord. One by one the Dutch (...) cities had joined the revolution, but the city of Groningen refused. The ‘Ommelanden’—the city’s surrounding territory—however, did not—laying bare a critical disagreement between two ‘classes’: the Saxon city elite and the predominantly Frisian countryside nobles (Dutch plural: landjonkers/jonkheren). (shrink)

This essay presents a multifold argument on Oakeshott's aesthetics. First, his famous essay "The Voice of Poetry" deals more explicitly and thoroughly with art than is often acknowledged. Second, aesthetic experience is a competitor to philosophic insight in so far as it discloses the coherence of a world of ideas through its uniting form and content; yet "art" remains a mode. Third, the essay points out that the absence of history from any major role in Oakeshott's most important treatment of (...) art is a puzzle worthy of consideration. It is argued that Oakeshott's exclusion of history is intimately related to his interest in art's non-temporality, specifically, the ability of art to create a fictive "world of the text" which includes representations of human action in time which are set apart from both history and practical human conduct. (shrink)

The general idea of strong foundationalism is that knowledge has a foundation in well warranted beliefs which do not derive any warrant from other beliefs and that all our other beliefs depend on these foundational ones for their warrant. Although inerrancy posits Scripture as a solid foundation for theology, the idea that the doctrine of biblical inerrancy involves a strong foundationalist epistemology is deeply problematic. In fact, inerrancy does not require any particular view of the structure of knowledge, and notable (...) sources on inerrancy tout it in ways inconsistent with most forms of strong foundationalism. (shrink)

Encyclopedia living reference work entry about Jacob Burckhardt, his ife, his main works and his historiographical method. In particular the entry focuses on Burckhardt's masterpiece, "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy".

Philosophy of art, reflective practice of art and painting, meta-philosophy, meta-philosophical methods.

The paper argues that the digitalization enterprise revives, beyond the post-modern period of interpretive anarchism, the XIXth century ideal of philological probity.

HIV and AIDS is still menace bedeviling society particularly in 3rd world countries such as Zimbabwe. The impacts of HIV/AIDS are gravely felt within workplaces as affected employees suffer from stigma and prejudice. Organizations also suffer as the pandemic leads to high absenteeism and a high rate of employee turnover. This writing therefore addresses the impact of HIV/AIDS in organizations and communities and how the Zimbabwean Government, NGOS, Trade Unions and Companies have been battling this pandemic and the achievements made (...) to date. (shrink)

We are considered to be highly evolved conscious beings, but if we look at ourselves, do we actually feel that we are there; wise men or Homo sapiens as we call ourselves? In today’s world, reward based conditioning forms our contemporary culture that deeply defines how we look at life and how we intuitively perceive our consciousness. Presently, acquisitions are our priority and we behave as narcissistic conditioned puppets and let governments and corporations rule our lives. We are hypocrites that (...) can see, but behave blind; blinded within the realms of our short-termed thrills, joys and beliefs. Augmenting logical questioning and logical conditioning is the only way we can come out of this state that cannot be done individually, it has to be a collective effort. This paper is an attempt to understand our very own evolved consciousness and its relation to the current world with the true meaning of our existence, where we seek to understand it from a logical sense. (shrink)

Modern cognitive and clinical psychology offer insight into how people deal with natural disasters. In my methodological paper, I make a strong case for incorporating experimental findings and theoretical concepts of modern psychology into environmental historical disaster research. I show how psychological factors may influence the production and interpretation of historical sources with respect to perceptions of and responses to disasters. While previous psychological approaches to history mostly involve psychoanalysis, I focus on empirical psychology. Specifically, I review a number of (...) well documented heuristics, biases, and memory modulations as described by cognitive psychology. Moreover, I argue that including investigations on disaster related mental disorders would complement the environmental historical research of natural disasters. My approach highlights a strong potential for interdisciplinary collaborations among environmental historians and psychologists. (shrink)

In the spring of 2015, a series of shanshui landscapes by cartoon artist Feng Zikai decorated official China Dream posters in Shanghai, and could since then be encountered in the streets and subway stations of all major cities. While the dissem- ination of national values and active citizen participation in the government’s envi- ronmental modernization program is clearly the major trajectory, this rapprochement towards a formerly prosecuted artist concomitantly illustrates the current reorientation towards local traditions and cultural continuity in China’s (...) state ideology and propa- ganda work. At the same time, the 2014/15 Shanghai arts scene contributed a number of avant-garde landscape art works that pronounced their creators’ concern about the environmental crisis. It will be argued that there is a subliminal dialogue between Xi Jinping’sproject of landscaping the China Dream and the artists’ selective reclamation of shanshui aesthetics in their ecocritical approaches. Whereas the national propa- ganda machine strives to appease opposition against rampant industrial pollution and heritage demolition, the cultural sphere responds by taking the government’s tam- pering with traditional ethico-aesthetic principles at its word. (shrink)

This article presents a quantitative way of modeling the interim decisions of clinical trials. While statistical approaches tend to focus on the epistemic aspects of statistical monitoring rules, often overlooking ethical considerations, ethical approaches tend to neglect key epistemic dimension. The proposal is a second-order decision theoretic framework. The framework provides means for retrospective assessment of interim decisions based on a clear and consistent set of criteria that combines both ethical and epistemic considerations. The framework is broadly Bayesian and addresses (...) a fundamental question behind many concerns about clinical trials: What does it take for an interim decision (e.g., whether to stop the trial, or continue) to be a good decision? I provide simulation illustrating the modeling of interim decisions counterfactually using the framework. (shrink)

¿Un proyecto de humanidades planeado y desarrollado usando tecnología digital se inscribe aún en la tradición de las disciplinas de los estudios humanísticos, o bien se trata de otra cosa? ¿Habrá una diferencia real entre un proyecto hecho con las formas usuales de investigación en las humanidades y un proyecto hecho con tecnología digital? ¿Cómo evaluar la diferencia? ¿La hay?

Since Plato and Aristotle the concept of imitation that is mimesis, has often alluded to the re-presentation of nature, in another sense, the artist is the interpreter of ''the nature'' of the ''appearances'' of the visible at the same time ''invisible'' objects. The Romantic objective for authenticity preserving in everything its own national character and taste, altered the concept of imitation in painting, which during the Renaissance was seen as a way to achieve one's personal style. Since its invention, writing (...) found its place first in stone then on paper and apart from the long-distance communication required by trade, has also served as a non-verbal communication tool to complete the linear distance between ideas. From here on the wheel paradox, the quest of how could be possible to evoke deepest emotions in the viewer, found itself in the philosophical approach and remarks of the artist on the practice of the common sense to the aesthetic perception. The common sense applied to the expressive features e.g., manifested in the marbles of Michelangelo and Puget having full of feeling and all the means of life, and this to some extent compensated for their lack of flawless appearances. (shrink)

Original meaning generally and authorial intent specifically are relevant to textual meaning. The author is not dead—a reasonable common-sense view in the absence of extremely good contrary evidence. If anyone should offer such evidence, they will not be able to take credit for it—at least not for writing it down! Accordingly, humanities teachers should train students to understand original meaning and authorial intent. This is one reason the humanities will continue to be relevant to other fields of study. Finally, this (...) is one reason to support a critical thinking pedagogy. I also connect these considerations to some of the major textual and cultural issues in South Asia. (shrink)

Starting from the notion of the Ideal Feminine, this paper discusses the representation of trauma and the portrayal of women as open wounds in the designs of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. Particularly, I explore how the McQueen’s Deadly Woman and Galliano’s Doll question the boundaries between mortality, sexuality and decay. By examining the relationship between fear, desire and disgust in the aesthetic representation of the wounded fashioned body, I argue that in their works disgust functions as an empowering emotion, (...) contributing to the perception of the aversive fashioned body as a feministic act. (shrink)

A man or woman who has a great spiritual sensitivity, who is interested in matters of faith and religion, or who dedicates a good part of his time to the cultivation of the spiritual life, is almost always associated with a priest or a nun, sometimes even in a derogatory way for the rest of the people. It seems that the interest in the spiritual was something exclusive to some. However, Alexander Schmemann is an example of how a great sensitivity, (...) a deep interest in matters of faith and religion, and a great dedication of time to the cultivation of the spiritual life are combined with being a father of a family. That is why this book will particularly appeal to many men who are already married or who want to be and at the same time want to lead a solid, consistent and coherent life of faith. (shrink)

Press Release for Works for Works, Book 1: Useless Beauty (Punctum Books, 2022).

C’est la CEPT (a.k.a. “Emptiness within Emptiness”) as open-ended, performance-based cinematic project grounded in ambient architectural and scenographic utility, utilizes a semi-abandoned building (badminton court) in Ahmedabad, India, origin of the School of Architecture (c.1962), later CEPT University, for a polemical and tragi-comic investigation of the vagaries of institutional memory, inclusive of intentional repressions. The pseudo-psychoanalytical prospects of the project question whether “emptiness” is a concept relative to subjective versus objective states. By hypothetically placing one form of emptiness within another (...) – i.e., via submission of the theatrical-cinematic work to a design competition for an installation at the EMST, a never-opened museum in Athens, Greece – an empty “ancient” building in India (the East) is conjoined with an empty new (i.e., never-opened) building in Greece (the West), the conflation becoming a means for doubling the subjective states under investigation and inducing hoped-for catharsis on all accounts. (shrink)

In two very influential papers from 2008, Tamar Gendler introduced the concept of “alief” to describe the mental state one is in when acting in ways contrary to their consciously professed beliefs. For example, if asked to eat what they know is fudge, but shaped into the form of dog feces, they will hesitate, and behave in a manner that would be consistent with the belief that the fudge is really poop. They alieve that it is disgusting, while they believe (...) it is not. This paper investigates laughter from self-proclaimed egalitarian, tolerant folk, in response to oppressive jokes that might fit the alief-model. If I merely alieve the content of a joke at which I laugh, will that constitute morally exculpating reasons for such laughter? And what else might it imply? This paper will provide insights at the intersections of humor studies, ethics, epistemology, phenomenology, and the philosophy of mind, all while being moderately and appropriately amusing. (shrink)

This chapter explores the practice of Body Weather (BW), a postmodern dance methodology, addressing how BW performers experience and enact agency in this context of practice. Adopting a cognitive ecological, ethnographic, and phenomenological approach, this work focuses on the creation of AURA NOX ANIMA (2016) – a short dance film directed by Sydney-based visual artist Lux Eterna and filmed on the sandy dunes in Anna Bay, New South Wales, Australia – to underscore the role played by the physical and cultural (...) environment in shaping BW performers’ sense of agency. Through the analysis of salient features of BW methodology, that include the practice of bisoku, slow movement, and the cultivation of an attention to the changing ‘weather’ of the performance ecology, this chapter suggests an ecological notion of agency as a key concept in the study of embodied cognition in performance. The chapter emphasises the relevance of addressing the environment-culture-context situatedness in the study of performance practices. (shrink)

I discuss the roles of journalism in aspirational democracies, and argue that they generate set of pressures on attention that apply to people by virtue of the type of society they live in. These pressures, I argue, generate a problem of democratic attention: for journalism to play its roles in democracy, the attentional demands must be met, but there are numerous obstacles to meeting them. I propose a principle of salience to guide the selection and framing of news stories that (...) I argue may help address the puzzle: the public-as-protagonist principle. -/- . (shrink)

This article attempts to comprehend the current issues and hurdles that Indian colleges affiliated with Tamil Nadu State Universities encounter when trying to subscribe to a software that detects plagiarism. The study’s goals are to determine whether colleges employ anti-plagiarism software, whether they ensure that their student-given assignments are free of copyright infringement, whether tutors teach about academic misconduct, and what people seem to think of anti-plagiarism software. We surveyed for this study and distributed the questionnaires among college administrators, principals, (...) and librarians. The study respondents are 15.9 per cent principals, 64.2 per cent library professionals, and 19.9 per cent college administrators. The survey study report shows that 70.9 per cent of the majority of the colleges did not subscribe. 41.7 per cent gave the reason it is too expensive, and 30.5 per cent of respondents thought that for their college, it is unnecessary to subscribe. However, nobody has confirmed whether or not all colleges possess access to plagiarism detection software. Thus, according to this investigation, further Indian states must be involved in this research to understand the specific context fully. This report advises the UGC to enforce the requirement that colleges have plagiarism detection software; they either provide colleges additional money to subscribe to such software, or the university must grant free access to the affiliated colleges. (shrink)

Current evidence supports how deviant behavior can be predicted by sociodemographic factors, subjective well-being, and perceived religiousness. However, there is limited research when it concerns specificity such as Muslims justifying deviant behavior, and their subjective well-being and perceived religiousness within a single study. Most studies used Christian population or using a non-denominational approach. Therefore, in this study, data from World Value Survey Wave 6 was used to examine the Muslim population (N = 20,559) and deviant behavior justification. Sociodemographic factors, subjective (...) well-being (life satisfaction, happiness, and state of health), and perceived religiousness (prayer frequency and importance of God in life) were hypothesized as predictors. Results revealed that these hypotheses are supported. However, many of these predictors are weak, having minimal effect. This is with the exception of having the worldview of God being important in one’s life, being both a strong and statistically significant predictor of deviant behavior justification. The more a person views God being important in life, the more it predicts a decrease in deviant behavior justification. This research provides a novel finding on the belief-behavior nexus, specifically concerning Muslims justifying deviant behavior when two forms of perceived religiousness—ritualistic and worldview—are being compared. (shrink)

This paper briefly presents the historical and philosophical link between Enlightenment philosophy and the emergence of Postmodern philosophy, i.e., the transition from modernity to postmodernity. While identifying and recognizing the “difference” and the sharp contrast, I will concentrate on showing the “continuity” between the two philosophies. This paper shows that postmodernism can be understood as ultra-modernism in at least two dimensions 1) in opting for a particular critical methodology and 2) in the intensification of subjectivity. This enactment of deconstructive criticism, (...) skepticism, relativism, and subjectivism has generated a cultural condition that suspects and distrusts every knowledge and truth claim. As a result, the matters which are related to our shared communal concerns are becoming ambiguous. (shrink)

“These brilliantly crafted poems inhabit a rich space where experience, psyche, myth, and the gem of language intersect. Raymond Barfield invites us to the soulful journey C. G. Jung imagined when he wrote, Everything living strives for wholeness. In reading Dreams And Griefs Of An Underworld Aeronaut we travel beside this poet mindfully searching and pointing beyond by way of his art, grief, faith, and love.” —Rachel Blum -/- “Raymond Barfield writes that he just needs ‘room, air, and the unknown,’ (...) but his collection gives us this, and far more. These poems pulse in their textured, sensual language, creating a world chromatic and incantatory, brooding with ‘puppets, shadows and tales,’ tangible and elusive at the same time. These poems draw us in and give us breath.” —Brian Swann -/- “Raymond Barfield circles us through hell in a hot air balloon that doubles as an Italian bagpipe blowing through ecstatic nights of betrayal’s rave.The poet is back to escort us through a nightmare path in chocked terza rima sonnets while a mad dog howls at the moon and a gargoyle croons in the background. Barfield gnaws his pen into flame on the darkness of the white page to perform transfusions that translate hymns of Ars Signorum into your mind. These poems take you there. It is up to you to come back.” —Kevin Gallagher -/- “In this wonderful book, Raymond Barfield draws inspiration from the narrative terza rima of Dante and from the compressions and turns of the sonnet form to compress his meditations on life, pain, love, and death into 15-line poems that amaze with their range of feelings and their turns of language. The emotional depths and verbal surprises pull the reader forward through Barfield’s fascinating layers of worlds and underworlds.” —John Bensko. (shrink)

This paper explores some aspects of the scientific study of creativity by focusing on intentional attempts to create instances of linguistic humour. We argue that this sort of creativity can be accounted for within an influential cognitive approach but that said framework is not a recipe for producing novel instances of humour and may even preclude them. We start by identifying three great puzzles that arise when trying to pin down the core traits of creativity, and some of the ways (...) taken by Cognitive Studies in this quest. We then consider what we call 'creative humour', which exhibits the core features of the aforesaid creativity. We then explore how a key cognitive approach to human communication can account for creative humour. We end by drawing lessons and highlighting limitations to cognitive approaches to creativity. (shrink)

[Both this and the Valencian versions are translations of the editor from a paper originally written in English that will appear in the Anual Review 6]. Este artículo explora algunos aspectos del estudio científico de la creatividad centrándose en la creación de humor lingüístico intencionado. Sostenemos que este tipo de creatividad puede explicarse dentro de un enfoque cognitivo influyente, pero que dicho marco no es una receta para producir ejemplos novedosos de humor, e incluso puede excluirlos. Comenzaremos identificando tres grandes (...) problemas que surgen al tratar de precisar los rasgos centrales de la creatividad y algunas de las formas adoptadas por los estudios cognitivos en esta búsqueda. Luego consideraremos a qué llamamos «humor creativo», que exhibe las características centrales de la creatividad antes mencionada. A continuación exploraremos cómo un enfoque cognitivo clave para la comunicación humana puede explicar el humor creativo. Por último, extraeremos conclusiones y destacaremos las limitaciones de los enfoques cognitivos para entender la creatividad. (shrink)

Globalization and sophisticated information technology continually flow in all aspects of human lives. Awareness and social control mainly derive from the society as the owner of literature, culture, and local wisdom. They are hoped to have deeply and powerful understanding about actualization in the presence of cultural values which exist in each ethnic in Indonesia. The awareness could create the character building “sipakatau, sipakalebbi, and sipakaraja”mutual honor, respect, and value. This research aims to find out and to describe: (a) the (...) meanings of literature/culture that have philosophical, religious, and social/humanity values and (b) the meanings of ancestral local wisdom. This research is texts and field research. Its approach is “Semiotic Symbols”.The managing of documentation and revitalization of language, literature, and culture has been done, but it is still not maximal yet. This is done in order to avoid extinction. Therefore, the teachers and lectures now must do research to reveal the meanings beyond meaning, and to teach them to their students that are contained in the songs and the ancestral local wisdom of each ethnic in Indonesia. The best solution is to teach them through education. By this way, our nation generations will know and understand their culture. Therefore, it could accelerate the character building and self dignity of our nation who has a high culture, high dignity, and high civilization. (shrink)