Despite the implied critical stance of dystopian narratives, there is a strand of beautiful, aesthetically pleasant dystopias—inherently ambivalent texts that are—both fascinating and horrifying. Drawing from examples in literature and television, this article argues that “beautified dystopias” generate a surplus of aesthetic enjoyment, harboring a mystifying potential in tension with the critical-satirical potential of dystopias. In a rereading of Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, this article first examine how D-503's aestheticizing voice—although undeniably constructed for a satirical effect—fosters a degree of fascination toward (...) the dystopian world in excess of Zamyatin's intentions. Second, taking Black Mirror's “Fifteen Million Merits” as an example of contemporary televisual dystopias, this article argues that the supposedly ironic construction of beautified cinematic mise-en-scènes deepens and complicates the underlying ambivalence of “beautified dystopias.” The author's assumption is that this is not an exceptional case, but rather an integral part of the current dystopian structure of feeling. (shrink)

This paper explores the conditions under which feminine beautification constitutes a feminist practice. Distinguishing between the process and product of beautification allows us to isolate those aesthetic, interapos;Subjective, and embodied elements that empower rather than disempower women. The empowering characteristics of beautification, however, are difficult and perhaps impossible to represent in a sexist context; therefore, while beautifying may be a positive experience for women, being viewed as a beautified object in current Western society is almost always opposed (...) to women's equality and autonomy. (shrink)

Aesthetic beautification is a familiar artistic phenomenon. Even as they face death, heroes and heroines in operas still sing glorious music. Characters in Shakespearean tragedies still deliver beautifully eloquent speeches in the throes of despair. Even when depicting suffering and horror, paintings can still remain a transfixing delight for the eyes. In such cases, the work of art represents or expresses something to which we would, in ordinary life, attribute a negative valence, but it does so beautifully. Doubtless there (...) is not a single explanation for what transpires in art of this sort or in our experience of it. With some aesthetically beautified art, its foremost goal might be giving aesthetic pleasure, and the beauty of the aesthetic form, even when depicting horrors, is in the service of this primary aim. In other art, the beautification might seek to be jarring and thought-provoking, highlighting a disconnect between the aesthetic frame and what is portrayed. These routes explain much of aesthetic beautification. But I am particularly interested in considering another, still more specific, response: finding ourselves somehow consoled by the beautification. I begin with some reflections on aesthetic beautification in general, and then turn to consider how beautification and consolation might be connected, and what to make of this. (shrink)

Hegel has identified what I have preemptively designated a third aesthetic realm--in addition to natural beauty and artistic beauty--one greatly connected with human life . . . art applied to the enhancement of life . . . But the other border of what I shall designate the Third Realm is equally non-exclusionary, especially when we consider what Hegel singles out under the head of beautiful people--the kind of beauty possessed by Helen of Troy, say, which we must suppose a wonder (...) of nature. But Helen's choice of hairstyles, makeup, or garments would have belonged to the Third Realm, since it would have been chosen for enhancement, like the setting of a jewel. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung In Körper schreiben sich Attraktivitätsnormen oder auch die Vorstellung der Verschiedenheit genau zweier Geschlechter ein - was ich hier als bodification verhandle. Auf der anderen Seite konzipiere ich beautification oder Schönheitshandeln als ein Medium der Kommunikation, das der Inszenierung der eigenen Außenwirkung zum Zweck der Erlangung von Aufmerksamkeit und Sicherung der eigenen Identität dient. In welcher Weise nun Bilder und Praxen des Schönheitshandelns mit Normalitätsvorstellungen verknüpft sind, wie diese hergestellt werden und auch unterlaufen werden können, ist Thema dieses (...) Beitrags. Dabei entwickle ich die These, dass nicht primär der Körperbezug und auch nicht das Geschlecht mit der Empfänglichkeit bzw. Resistenz gegenüber Ideologien und Naturalisierungen rund um Schönheitshandeln zu tun haben, sondern vielmehr der Bezug auf Sexualität, genauer: die offene und reflektierte Fähigkeit und Bereitschaft, über Sexualität zu sprechen. (shrink)

The paper addresses the contemporary features of aesthetic capitalism (Böhme, 2001; 2017) in the city, connecting beauty studies with established analyses of ‘territorial stigmatization’ (Wacquant, 2007) in the framework of critical whiteness studies. My argument is that beautification practices in marginal public spaces can be regarded as an attitude of aesthetic neocolonialism. The text investigates the role that art plays in establishing spaces of difference, focusing on the analysis of the idea of beauty exhibited and used in processes of (...) urban transformation. This beautifying operation could mask the intent of domesticating the ‘urban exotic’, representing the aesthetics of the ‘urban other’, overlapping processes of hypervisibilization and invisibilization within the production of normative white visual domains. The resulting transformation is viewed as a new field of value extraction from the urban space while at the same time being a new arena for privilege and inequality production. (shrink)

Beauty has captured human interest since before Plato, but how, why, and to whom does beauty matter in today's world? Whose standard of beauty motivates African Americans to straighten their hair? What inspires beauty queens to measure up as flawless objects for the male gaze? Why does a French performance artist use cosmetic surgery to remake her face into a composite of the master painters' version of beauty? How does beauty culture perceive the disabled body? Is the constant effort to (...) remain young and thin, often at considerable economic and emotional expense, ethically justifiable? Provocative essays by an international group of scholars discuss beauty in aesthetics, the arts, the tools of fashion, the materials of decoration, and the big business of beautification—beauty matters—to reveal the ways gender, race, and sexual orientation have informed the concept of beauty and driven us to become more beautiful. Here, Kant rubs shoulders with Calvin Klein. Beauty Matters draws from visual art, dance, cultural history, and literary and feminist theory to explore the values and politics of beauty. Various philosophical perspectives on ethics and aesthetics emerge from this penetrating book to determine and reveal that beauty is never disinterested. Foreward by Eleanor Heartney; "Introduction" by Peg Brand [Weiser] included here. Authors include Marcia M. Eaton, Noel Carroll, Paul C. Taylor, Arthur C. Danto, Kathleen M. Higgins, Susan Bordo, Dawn Perlmutter, Eva Kit Wah Man, Anita Silvers, Hilary Robinson, Kaori Chino, Sally Banes, and Peg Brand's essay "Bound to Beauty: An Interview with Orlan." (available on PhilPapers). (shrink)

Abstract:In 1965 the “beautification” movement, spearheaded by “Lady Bird” Johnson, ushered in a new phase for American utility companies, under increasing pressure from environmentalists, regulatory bodies and the public, who protested against the continued expansion of energy facilities. In response, utilities such as Southern California Edison, incorporated aesthetics into their corporate strategies to manage an increasingly strained relationship with their consumer base. This ranged from painting infrastructure to launching new design models for transmission lines and converting overhead lines underground. (...) Far from universally welcomed, Southern California Edison's beautification programmes were often met with resistance in communities, due to economic costs being passed on to the consumer. This led to an extensive debate about who benefited from the aesthetics of the energy landscape: was it the utility company, the developer, the homeowner, or the communities in which they were set? Considering three distinct groups with an interest in the aesthetics of the energy landscape, Southern California Edison, federal and state regulatory bodies, and homeowner groups, this article examines how the battle over the visibility of energy infrastructure was set within the social and urban politics of Los Angeles in the late 1960s. By throwing into relief this set of competing interests, it explores how the aesthetics of the energy landscape was not unitary, but fractured along conflicting political, social, and class-based lines. It argues that energy aesthetics was less the experience of the eye alone than a reflection of broader powers struggles within community, state and nation. (shrink)

On the basis of an interpretation of key passages in The Gay Science, this paper examines Nietzsche's idea of amor fati—love of fate. Nietzsche's idea of amor fati involves the wish to be able to learn how to see things as beautiful. This gives the impression that amor, love, is supposed to play some role in the beautification of fate. But Nietzsche also explains amor fati in relation to his desire to be a devoted “Yes-sayer.” This pulls the interpretation (...) of amor in a different direction; for now it seems as if the love Nietzsche wants to cultivate is supposed to be expressed in a positive, affirmative attitude toward one's fate. How to think this duality under the single idea of amor fati? I develop a novel reading of amor fati as a form of practice, as something that we can do, and explain in its light how the two moments of love are to be brought together. The relation of amor fati to the “Eternal Recurrence of the Same” is also addressed: mastering the practice of amor fati can enable one to pass successfully the test of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same. (shrink)

In this article, based on a critical metaphor analysis, we identify and describe multimodal metaphors involving the human body and its conceptualizations in five auteur films of the 2010s. Studies on the human body in cinema have documented how it changes according to underlying ideologies. Our research focuses on the role of image schemas and metaphors as they embody meanings and sociocultural paradigms. Metaphors also frame how the body is conceptualized according to dominating ideological practices such as (a) commodification, (b) (...) the integration between artificial and organic, (c) dissatisfaction, (d) dynamics of beautification and idealization, and (e) politicization of the human body. We show how metaphors are creative tools to reframe meanings and representations of the body and how the body is a construct refashioned within the cinematic discourses of these films. (shrink)

In this article, I formulate a Deweyan argument in support of guerrilla gardening, or the political activity of reclaiming unused urban land, sometimes illicitly, for cultivation and beautification through gardening. Historically, gardening movements in the United States have been associated with relief projects during periods of economic downturn and crisis, urban blight and gentrication, as well as nationalism, nativism and racism. Despite these last few unfortunate associations, the American philosopher John Dewey detached gardening from the nativist’s tool-kit, portraying it (...) as a gateway for young people toward enriched adult experiences, not as a technique for assimilating immigrant children to a distinctly American way of life. One of those experiences that school gardening can prepare children for is political activism, particularly involvement in gardening movements. Dewey did not mention this collateral benefit. Nevertheless, an argument can be made that garden advocacy—or, more specifically, participation in politically-motivated gardening movements such as guerrilla gardening—is an acceptable interpretation, or elaboration, of what Dewey meant by “a civic turn” to school and community gardening. (shrink)

When we use secure computer systems, we engage with carefully orchestrated and ordered interactions called “security ceremonies”, all of which exist to assure security. A great deal of attention has been paid to improving the usability of these ceremonies over the last two decades, to make them easier for end-users to engage with. Yet, usability improvements do not seem to have endeared end users to ceremonies. As a consequence, human actors might subvert the ceremony’s processes or avoid engaging with it. (...) Here, we consider whether beautification could be one way of making ceremonies more appealing. To explore beautification in this context, we carried out three studies. Study 1 surveyed 250 participants to derive a wide range of potential dimensions of “beautiful ceremonies”. These statements were sorted into dominant themes and converted into statements, which fed into the second study, with 309 respondents, to reveal the dominant dimensions constituting beauty. Study 3 asked 41 participants to carry out a Q-sort, which revealed the ways that people combine the identified dimensions when characterising security ceremonies as “beautiful”. These studies have allowed us to pin down the perceived dimensions of beauty in the context of security ceremonies, and also to understand how people combine these dimensions in different ways in judging security ceremonies to be beautiful, confirming the old adage of beauty being “in the eye of the beholder”. We conclude by highlighting the constraints imposed by the overarching requirement for security to be maintained in the face of any usability improvements and beautification endeavours. (shrink)

Mimicry, camouflage, transvestism, chance or cryptic anamorphism, fascination – all ways of changing clothes, habits and habitats in nature as well as in culture, in any symbolic field created by human beings during their history. Art and artification, aestheticization, stylization and beautification are all practices reflecting the need and desire for biological as well as social adaptation, all performances producing functional and fictional frames, boundaries or hierarchies in ordinary life, including the artworld. They can persuade and convince by creating (...) consensus and belief, but they can also lead to a different common sense, a sensorium – a sensorial medium and an aesthetic mediation open to a new world and to new experiences. -/- By investigating mimetism as a fundamental and polymorphic aesthetic performance, this issue of «Aisthesis» aims to rethink the concept, value, and function of mimesis and its media in the context of camouflage, simulation, and dissimulation, where images do not reveal themselves as such, but are to be perceived unambiguously as what they are not – as hieroglyphs or puzzles. In the animal kingdom, as well as in war or in ordinary public life, camouflage consists in taking on the traits, colours, and shapes of a given form or environment. This is a twofold process: on the one hand, by blending two or more shapes in one, the camoufleur seeks to remain hidden and to mislead the others in order to keep a vital secret or an ephemeral whim; on the other hand, however, he/she aims to be recognized by a specific milieu or group, thus betraying a craving for communication and familiarity, as well as a need to convey an agreeable appearance and to share a way of life. (shrink)

Modern social order is premised on a shared conception of and obedience to a set of defined temporal systems. Time is therefore a powerful tool with which to layer, classify and police the nature of social order. This article explores the relationship between temporality and the social in China’s capital, Beijing. The article draws on observations of Chinese film of the 1990s, the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2011, and the Chaoyang district beautification campaign, to identify (...) how temporal structures and symbols are traded and manipulated in the pursuit of political rectification and harmony. The article is based on an extended review of Michael Dutton’s recent book, Beijing Time, and refers its new observations to the examples and premises in that book, which are in turn informed by Dutton’s other work on policing and street life in China. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Irreplaceable Cannot Be ReplacedEllen HarveyThe Irreplaceable Cannot Be Replaced, Ellen Harvey, 2008. Photographs: Jan Baracz.People in New Orleans were invited to submit images or descriptions of irreplaceable places, people, or things lost to Hurricane Katrina. Eleven submissions were chosen at random and the artist painted 16” x 20” oil paintings based on those submissions. All thirty texts that were submitted were framed and exhibited along with the paintings (...) at the Contemporary Arts Center/New Orleans as part of the exhibition Something from Nothing, curated by Dan Cameron. Texts without a painting were accompanied by a framed black panel. At the end of the exhibition, all of the paintings and the framed texts were given away to the participants.Ellen Harvey was born in the United Kingdom and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited extensively in the US and internationally and was most recently included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Recent solo exhibitions include Private Collections at Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, The Museum of Failure at Luxe Gallery, New York, Beautiful/Ugly at Magnus Müller in Berlin, Bad Mirror at Galerie Gebruder Lehmann in Dresden, Mirror at the Pennsylvania Academy, and A Whitney for the Whitney at Philip Morris at the Whitney Museum at Altria. She took part in the Whitney Independent Study Program and the PS1 Studio Program. Recent awards include a Pennies from Heaven Grant, a Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative Grant, a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant, a Palm Beach County Cultural Council Grant, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. She has completed projects for both the New York and Chicago Transit Authorities, most recently including a mosaic for the new Metro-North Yankee Stadium Station. The New York Beautification Project was published by Gregory Miller in 2005, and Ellen Harvey: Mirror was published by the Pennsylvania Academy in 2006. Click for larger view View full resolutionI am 87 years old living in a trailer on our property in New Orleans.We had 5 ft of water, which remained in the house 6 weeks creating mold to the ceiling.We lost everything. When I read Chris Rose’s column (he’s my favorite columnist in the whole world) it brought to mind my mother’s two dining room chairs that had been around as long as I can remember. I had them restored in about 1976 by Senior Citizens in classes of the “Peoples Program” sponsored by the nuns on Mirabean Ave. The wood was polished and varnished with a light brown stain and the seats were re-caned. I was born in 1920 so the chairs could be 75 years old. Anyway I can imagine you will have many interesting subjects to choose from but I’m submitting mine hoping I’ll be one of the very fortunate ones selected.I am terrible at drawing but will give you as complete a description as I can.I loved those chairs and enjoyed them for extra seating on holidays and at parties and they were conversation pieces.Alice Delaney[End Page 2] Click for larger view View full resolutionThere are so many “washed away” treasures, that the memorialization of even just one will be everlastingly meaningful to the community.I am submitting photographs of porcelain dolls, which I had crafted prior to the disaster. The dolls shown were created from commercial molds and were ready to go to a “new home.” Needless to say these dolls were submerged under water for at least two weeks. I call them my “children of the flood” but have not had the courage to disassemble them. I was able to rescue some doll parts and am in the process of cleaning, sorting and sanitizing them for future assembly.If I am ever able to get back to my very rewarding hobby, which was helpful in supplementing my retirement income, I will have to replace my electronic kiln and most of my doll making supplies. Many of the molds that were destroyed are no longer available. However, I will keep the memories dear, I have been fortunate enough to replace my sewing machines and some of the fabric used for clothing and doll... (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Dialectic of Praxis -- I. Philosophy of Subjectivity and -- Historical Materialism 7 -- A. What is the "Toposical Tachiba"? 7 -- B. The Present and Past of Umemoto's Theory of Subjectivity 17 -- C. The Basis and Structure of Degeneration 36 -- II. Confused 'Dialectic of the Subject of Cognition' 48 -- A. Destruction of the Logic of Origo 48 -- 1. Summary of Umemoto's Epistemology 49 -- 2. Umemoto's Defect in Epistemology 56 -- 3. (...) Reversed Hegelianism 60 -- B. Objective Cognition and the Logic of Self-Awareness 68 -- 1. Ontology and Epistemology 68 -- 2. Negation of "Two Circular Structures" 76 -- 3. Objective Cognition and Value Consciousness 82 -- C. Evaporation of Praxiology 89 -- 1. Alienation and Self-Awareness 89 -- 2. Objectivization of Praxis 96 -- 3. Strained Interpretation of Uno's Theory 99 -- 4. Political Economy, Materialist Outlook of History, -- and Praxiology 107 -- 5. A Domain Proper to the Theory of -- Revolutionizing Praxis 116 -- III. Defects in Criticism of Uno's Economics 131 -- A. Problem Awareness 132 -- B. Fall into a "View that the Principles are Lost -- in the Historical Process" 137 -- C. Historicistic Remedy for the Theory of the -- Circulation Form 155 -- 1. Beautification of a Distorting Tendency to -- Emphasize the Circulation Form 156 -- 2. Complementation of the 'Theory of Form -- without the Logic of Substance' 169 -- 3. On the Trans-Historicization of the -- 'Dual Character of Labour' 178 -- IV. Political Economy and -- Materialist Outlook of History 195 -- A. 'Anatomy of Bourgeois Society' and -- 'Anatomy of History' 195 -- B. Consolidation with Reversed Hegelianism 202 -- C. 'Logic of Circularity' and 'Logic of History' 218 -- V, Political Economy and the -- Logic of Revolutionization 231 -- A. Defects in the Understanding of Political Economy 232 -- B. Distortion of 'Labour-Power Commodity' 255 -- 1. On the Dialectic: Commodity Market and the -- Production Process 255 -- 2. Private Property and Capitalist Property 261 -- 3. Negation of the Negation: Sublation of the -- Commoditization of Labour-Power 268 -- C. Capitalist Thingivation and the -- Logic of its Revolutionization 282 -- Afterword 301 -- Supplementary Notes to the English Edition 303 -- Index 309. (shrink)

The present work is a beautific monograph over Kant’s philosophy. It begins with the proper analysis of nature and significance of content copernican revolution. The author has systematically formulated the epistemic and non-epistemic implications of Kant’s Philosophy the epistemic implications cover the philosophical issues and seminal significance: the notion of space and time, the nature and function of categories, distinction of phenomena and noumena, refutation of idealism and Kantain transcendental idealism, transcendental unity of pure apperception, nature function and limitations of (...) reason (vernuft) and few more. The non-epistemic implication encompass: metaphysical, ethical and aesthetic implications. In metaphysical implication the author clearly demonstrated the limit of reason as a theoretical reason can’t venture into the realm of metaphysical(noumenal) entities such as God, Soul and cosmos- leading to reputation of metaphysics. The ethical implication is directed towards ,analysing the nature and good will, holy will and autonomous will, and apart from that a critical treatment is offered to categorical imperative postulated and maxims of morality. The aesthetics implication tries to analyse the content notion of beauty, sublime and teleology of nature. It is on account of the conceptual clarity, linguistic beauty and systematic exposition of the subject matter that book will receive the enthusiastic response from the students and scholars of philosophy. -/- This book is also Peer reviewed in JICPR, Volume XIX, No. 2, April-June, 2002 by Prof. Laksminarayan Lenka, Department of Philosophy, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong. (shrink)

Mimicry, camouflage, transvestism, chance or cryptic anamorphism, fascination – all ways of changing clothes, habits and habitats in nature as well as in culture, in any symbolic field created by human beings during their history. Art and artification, aestheticization, stylization and beautification are all practices reflecting the need and desire for biological as well as social adaptation, all performances producing functional and fictional frames, boundaries or hierarchies in ordinary life, including the artworld. They can persuade and convince by creating (...) consensus and belief, but they can also lead to a different common sense, a sensorium – a sensorial medium and an aesthetic mediation open to a new world and to new experiences. -/- By investigating mimetism as a fundamental and polymorphic aesthetic performance, this issue of «Aisthesis» aims to rethink the concept, value, and function of mimesis and its media in the context of camouflage, simulation, and dissimulation, where images do not reveal themselves as such, but are to be perceived unambiguously as what they are not – as hieroglyphs or puzzles. In the animal kingdom, as well as in war or in ordinary public life, camouflage consists in taking on the traits, colours, and shapes of a given form or environment. This is a twofold process: on the one hand, by blending two or more shapes in one, the camoufleur seeks to remain hidden and to mislead the others in order to keep a vital secret or an ephemeral whim; on the other hand, however, he/she aims to be recognized by a specific milieu or group, thus betraying a craving for communication and familiarity, as well as a need to convey an agreeable appearance and to share a way of life. (shrink)

This paper pursues the philosophical significance of a relatively unexplored point of Platonic aesthetics: the social dimension of beauty. The social dimension of beauty resides in its conceptual connection to shame and honour. This dimension of beauty is fundamental to the aesthetic education of the Republic, as becoming virtuous for Plato presupposes a desire to appear and to be admired as beautiful. The ethical significance of beauty, shame, and honour redound to an ethically rich notion of appearing before others which (...) corresponds to a public conception of virtue. I suggest how this dimension of beauty in Plato – particularly the emphasis on beautification – proves fruitful for reconsidering the scope and the nature of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

Digital imaging has provided scientists with new opportunities to acquire and manipulate data using techniques that were difficult or impossible to employ in the past. Because digital images are easier to manipulate than film images, new problems have emerged. One growing concern in the scientific community is that digital images are not being handled with sufficient care. The problem is twofold: (1) the very small, yet troubling, number of intentional falsifications that have been identified, and (2) the more common unintentional, (...) inappropriate manipulation of images for publication. Journals and professional societies have begun to address the issue with specific digital imaging guidelines. Unfortunately, the guidelines provided often do not come with instructions to explain their importance. Thus they deal with what should or should not be done, but not the associated ‘why’ that is required for understanding the rules. This article proposes 12 guidelines for scientific digital image manipulation and discusses the technical reasons behind these guidelines. These guidelines can be incorporated into lab meetings and graduate student training in order to provoke discussion and begin to bring an end to the culture of data beautification. (shrink)

B\ig fraud, little lies -- Serial cheaters -- Storytelling and beautification -- Researching for results -- Corporate cooking -- Skewed competition -- Stealing authorship -- The funding effect -- There is no profile -- Toxic literature -- Clinical trials -- The jungle of journal publishing -- Beyond denial -- Scientific crime -- Slow science.

Emphasizing the human body in all of its forms, Beauty Unlimited expands the boundaries of what is meant by beauty both geographically and aesthetically. Peg Zeglin Brand and an international group of contributors interrogate the body and the meaning of physical beauty in this multidisciplinary volume. This striking and provocative book explores the history of bodily beautification; the physicality of socially or culturally determined choices of beautification; the interplay of gender, race, class, age, sexuality, and ethnicity within and (...) on the body; and the aesthetic meaning of the concept of beauty in an increasingly globalized world. (shrink)

Any engagement with Spinoza's views on art is bound to mention his account of the rightful pleasures that the wise man takes in things that appeal to the imagination and delight his senses: beautif...

In 1967 Guy Debord published the pamphlet-sized The Society of the Spectacle, a book written in the form of a collection of short theses. Debord was criticized for inventing the “spectacle” out of thin air by thinkers of his time such as Michel Foucault. We can, however, detect salient manifestations of the Debordian spectacular society in China of the 2010s. This paper demonstrates a deep and pervasive trend of spectacularization in China by analyzing (a) Taobao as a desire-creating machine producing (...) the buy-buy-buy fanaticism, (b) the beautifying operation that has engendered perverted effects in sexual relationship, (c) the spectacular dialectic epitomized by the celebrity culture, and (d) the reality-twisting effects of the spectacles. The paper further offers a comparative analysis of the contemporary spectacles vis-à-vis the Maoist spectacles of the 1960s, which sheds light in understanding the enactment of antientertainment actions in recent years. The spectacles in contemporary China, in the fashion depicted by Debord half a century ago, have effectively produced a specific worldview of commodity and consumption, and this worldview transforms itself, through blind trust, into a type of objective force. The social terrains needed for spreading and cultivating socialist values were heavily colonized by the such spectacles (consumption, beautification, celebrity culture, entertainment); the latter have significantly absorbed the masses’ attention in the last decade to such level that it has almost occupied all spaces for communication and played the leading role in regulating people’s daily lives. The “Beauty is justice!” slogan that has been extremely popular in contemporary China reveals one significant change in Chinese culture and its sociopolitical effect: the trend of spectacularization, through elevating spectacle to the supreme value and turning the country into a spectacular (un)reality, has not only homogenized China but also effectively depoliticized the country. (shrink)

Emphasizing the human body in all of its forms, Beauty Unlimited expands the boundaries of what is meant by beauty both geographically and aesthetically. Peg Zeglin Brand and an international group of contributors interrogate the body and the meaning of physical beauty in this multidisciplinary volume. This striking and provocative book explores the history of bodily beautification; the physicality of socially or culturally determined choices of beautification; the interplay of gender, race, class, age, sexuality, and ethnicity within and (...) on the body; and the aesthetic meaning of the concept of beauty in an increasingly globalized world. Foreward by Carolyn Korsmeyer. Authors include Noel Carroll, Gregory Velazco Y Trianosky, Monique Roelofs, Whitney Davis, Eleanor Heartney, Diana Tietjens Meyers, Phoebe M. Farris, Mary Devereaux, Jo Ellen Jacobs, Karina L. Cespedes-Cortes and Paul C. Taylor, Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Stephen Davies, Jane Duran, Valerie Sullivan Fuchs, Keith Lehrer, Allen Douglas, Cynthia Freeland, Eva Kit Wah Man, Mary Bittner Wiseman, and Peg Brand's essay, "ORLAN Revisited: Disembodied Virtual Hybrid Beauty.". (shrink)

The study of aesthetics and the theories of literature and art is directly related to the creation and criticism of literature and art and is indirectly related to the aesthetic education of the people's spirit and the beautification of their life. Undoubtedly, this is an important component of cultural science. However, there is no denying that this is also a weak link in our research work. And it is precisely because of the weakness of this link that we have (...) failed to do a good job in promoting the development of literature and art and instead have allowed reactionary idealism room to function and counterrevolutionary elements opportunity to take advantage of. This was why the Hu Feng counterrevolutionary clique's sabotage activities were mainly conducted through the clique's so-called literary and artistic work. Despite the fact that the reactionary essence of Hu Feng's theory of literature and art has been exposed from all sides, there is still the need for a serious and thorough criticism of the aesthetic ideas of the Hu Feng element Li Ying, who masked himself as a 'Marxist-Leninist" and enjoyed considerable influence at the time. (shrink)

Epitomized in the bodily exhibitions of ‘fitspiration’, photo-based social media is biased toward self-beautification and glorification of reality. Meanwhile, evidence is growing of psychological side effects connected to this ‘pictorial turn’ in our communication. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche poses the question how ugliness and discord can produce aesthetic pleasure. This paper proceeds from an inverse relationship and examines why glorification of appearances and conspicuous beauty fails to do the same, and even compounds suffering. Drawing on the Apollo-Dionysus (...) dualism undergirding Nietzsche’s aesthetic philosophy, I posit a deeper relation between the saturation of visual self-exhibitionism typified in fitspiration and its empirical effects. Concentrating on the medium and self-representational photograph, I argue that Instagram is primarily an instrument of Apolline artifice and that the pictorial turn which defines the present centers Apolline mediation to the detrimental exclusion of meaningful communion with its Dionysiac antithesis. For users immersed in this Apolline sphere of visual self-representation, a fractured existence beholden to conditions of the image ensues—comprising surface-level appearances, deification of the moment, and loss of existential sustenance through myth. By positioning fitspiration not as an aberration but as the logical conclusion of the medium’s intrinsic Apolline property, it becomes a litmus test of the entire visual landscape and illustrative of the implications that uncritical participation in it may bring. (shrink)

Jonathan Edwards, despite being considered one of the greatest American philosopher-theologians, has yet to grace the bioethics scene. In this essay, I contend that Edwards’ synthesis of Reformed theology and unique concept of beauty can provide a significant metaethics to Reformed theological ethics and contemporary bioethics. First, I explore Edwards’ notion of beauty and how its theocentrism integrates divine communication and creational typology in the context of redemptive history. Second, I develop a biblical framework for a covenantal, eschatological theology of (...) medicine, refracted through the lens of Edwardsian beauty, with Christ as archetypal physician and patient. Such a theology of medicine affirms the importance of desire in ethics over against a Kantian ethic of disinterested duty. Third, I end with a brief discussion of how such a framework can inform medical practice as moral formation and beautification. (shrink)

Sous l'impulsion d'associations militantes ou de politiques publiques, la ville se modifie. Le vert gagne du terrain. Plus profondément, plus durablement peut-ètre, l'environnement ordinaire des citadins contemporains est reconfiguré. Il se pare désormais d'une nouvelle esthétique urbaine, associée aux politiques de ville durable, d'urbanisme écologique... Cette esthétique transforme l'espace public. Son aspect ornemental réduit la ville et ses espaces à un décor vert, fabriqué par le capitalisme contemporain et la multiplication des innovations technologiques vertes. L'investissement des citoyens, sur un mode (...) participatif et productif, laisse place à une ville « jardinée », écologisée et gérée en partenariat. De nouvelles manières d'habiter les lieux urbains émergent peu à peu. De telles évolutions dessinent-elles les prémices d'une restructuration de l'espace social dans son ensemble? Comment des enjeux urbains condensent-ils une métaphore nouvelle de l'espace public? Spécialisée dans les questions d'environnement et d'esthétique, Nathalie Blanc est directrice de recherche au Cnrs Umr Ladyss Paris 7. (shrink)

In the foreword to Beauty Matters, Eleanor Heartney tells us that the concept of beauty, especially physical beauty, embraces ambiguous, sometimes conflicting elements. The cover picture, a poster photograph of the Kitchen Table series by Carrie Mae Weems, along with the insightful reading of it in Peg Zeglin Brand’s introduction to the book, gives testimony to the wider social, economic, and political implications of beautification practices that are discussed in the book’s essays.