A Terrible Beauty

ABSTRACT

Despite their well-known etymological disparity the aesthetic remains synonymous with the beautiful. The basis of this relationship is the notion that the sensory, represented by the aesthetic, needs to be seen in terms of beauty before it can be elevated to the plane of ideas and social ethics. In truth the association undermines the potential for aesthetics to demonstrate the sensory nature of consciousness and justice. Outlining an earlier conception of aesthetics as sensual consciousness and contrasting this with the impoverishment of the beautiful as either a sensory or ethico-political concept, this article argues the case for aesthetics to be given both a distinct and superior status to the beautiful.     

进化美学的起源及其与进化审美心理学的辨析

19世纪末开始流行的进化论观点和现有的进化心理学研究成果为审美心理学在研究对象和方法上的拓展提供了有力的支持。概述了审美心理学的起源与发展,及进化论观点对审美心理研究思路的影响。通过对进化美学和进化审美心理学在研究对象、方法和所要解决的问题等方面的比较,探讨二者的联系,并总结其间的差异和共通之处。     

设计美学:学科性质、演进状况、存在问题与可行路径

随着消费社会的日益扩展,日常生活的审美化不断蔓延,设计的社会地位日益凸显.设计最后能否被消费者所接受、所认同,其中一个重要的因素就是审美.近年来设计美学的研究呈日益发展壮大之势,但时至今日,其学科性质、对象范围、演进状况、存在问题等依然没有引起学界重视,迫切需要对此加以清理,探寻建设性的可行路径,以利于设计美学的更好发展.     

Introducing Sensory Studies

ABSTRACT

Color serves a variety of purposes in society from identifying groups to conveying symbolic meanings to providing aesthetic pleasure. More subtle effects of color can be found in the environments that human communities construct around themselves. At Doon School, an elite boys' boarding school in northern India, color is intimately associated with the students' activities, social relationships and sensory experiences. It defines their status and shapes their everyday lives. The uses of color at the school are consistent with a wider social aesthetic emphasizing restraint, logical thought and the training and presentation of the body. Many of these values can be seen to have their origins in the school's colonial history and postcolonial aspirations.     

唐长安大明宫、太极宫三清殿小考

唐都长安的大明宫与太极宫内各有一处名叫三清殿的建筑,宫中还有玄元皇帝庙和数处道观,这些均为道教性质的建筑,此外,长安城中还有太清官的建筑,也是一处道教建筑。它们之间的关系如何,各自具有何种功能？笔者认为宫中的三清殿是专供皇帝从事道教活动的场所,玄元皇帝庙则属于皇室家庙的性质,宫中的道观则供宫中其他人员,如嫔妃、宫人和宦官们从事道教活动的场所,至于太清宫乃是进行国家祭祀的场所之一。三清殿的建筑对后世产生了较大的影响。     

鉴赏力,同情,崇高:博克美学三题议

博克的美学思想是对英国经验主义美学的总结．鉴赏力、同情、崇高等是博克美学中的几个重要范畴。只有把博克放在当时的美学语境中,才能看清他在美学上的贡献。     

‘Theories are made only to die in the war of time’: Guy Debord and the Situationist International as strategic thinkers

The Situationist International (SI) has been one of the main reference points during the past 40 or more years within social movement organizing, cultural studies, social theory and philosophy. While the SI has been understood in many ways as inheritors and elaborators of an unorthodox Marxist politics drawing heavily from the history of the avant-garde, relatively little attention has been paid to the specifically strategic dimension of their thought and practice. This is surprising, especially in Debord's case, given how much his work also draws from the history of military strategy. This paper will particularly examine the strategic aspects of Debord and the SI's thought and politics and how they rethink the nature of strategy through collective forms of aesthetic–political practice.     

Restabilizing attachment to cultural objects. Aesthetics,emotions and biography

The scholarship on aesthetics and materiality has studied how objects help shape identity, social action and subjectivity. Objects, as ‘equipment[s] for living’ (Luhmann 2000), become the ‘obligatory passage points humans have to contend with in order to pursue their projects (Latour 1991). They provide patterns to which bodies can unconsciously latch onto, or help human agents work towards particular states of being (DeNora 2000, 2003). Objects are central in the long term process of taste construction, as any attachment to an object is made out of a delicate equilibrium of mediators, bodies, situations and techniques (Hennion and his collaborators (Hennion and Fouquet 2001; Hennion and Gomart 1999). In all of these accounts objects are the end result of long‐term processes of stabilization, in which the actual material object (a musical piece, a sculpture, an art installation, a glass of wine, the oeuvre of Bach as we know it) is both a result and yet a key co‐producer of its own generation. Whereas the literature has been generous and detailed in exploring the processes of assembling and sustaining object‐centered attachments, it has not sufficiently engaged with what happens when the aesthetic elements of cultural artifacts that have produced emotional resonance are transformed: what do these artifacts morph into? What explains the transition (or not) of different cultural objects? And relatedly, what happens to the key aesthetic qualities that were so central to how the objects had been defined, and to those who have emotionally attached to them? To answer these questions, this article uses as exemplars two different cases of attachment, predicated on the distinctive features of a cultural object – the transcendence of opera and the authenticity of a soccer jersey – that have undergone transformations.     

西周用乐状况及相关美学问题

西周是中国礼乐文明的奠基期,也是诗、礼、乐对中国社会开始形成全面影响的时期。音乐不仅涉及贵族日常生活的方方面面,而且是国家大型典礼活动必不可少的组成。从专业乐工、贵族子弟到国家统治者,一条音乐从技术到德性、再到政治性隐喻的不断递升和放大之路已初步呈现。礼乐并举,表现在现实层面上的以礼节乐,最终则表现为乐对礼的融会和超越。所谓西周礼乐政治,是以诗、礼、乐作为隐喻或象征的政治。诗、礼、乐又确实以其真实的形式贯穿于政治活动中,既作为政治的隐喻,又是具体的政治实践手段。诗、乐、舞的层级关系将人的审美经验带入了超越之境;音乐与政治的密切关联则赋予了政治审美韵致,开了后世中国诗性政治的滥觞。     

论徐志摩景物诗的新诗美学

分析徐志摩诗歌景物描写的创新意识,论述徐志摩自然观的中西文化根源及其景物诗的现代诗美特征:表现强烈的自我存在,取景造境富于绘画感和音乐感,诗歌风格富于现代的灵动感。