On Joy, Death, and Writing: From Autobiography to Autothanatography in Clarice Lispector\u27s Works

How does one state in words the impossibility of writing? How does one translate an author who has depicted herself as silent in the very text? The Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector dares to do so. From Agua viva, one of her first novels, to Un soplo de vida, her posthumous work, Lispector enters into an egotistic self-referential movement. She dares to speak from her work, from herself, from art, and from literature, thus mixing realities of different dimensions and erasing borders between life and letter. In Agua viva Lispector interrogates the causes and effects of the writing process in order to know it, to govern it. There, she begins to experience revelatory and joyful epiphanies that later, in Un soplo de vida, become mystical. However, the tone of this later text is quite different. There, her writing presages a forthcoming silence, and because of that the illusion of apprehending knowledge by language fades as it becomes certain of the impossible..

Dialogue \u27On The Ground\u27: The Complicated Identities and the Complex Negotiations of Catholics and Hindus in South India

Interreligious dialogue is a vital theological concern for the Catholic Church in India. Over the past three decades, church leaders, progressive theologians, and maverick monastics have experimented with various models and forms of interreligious dialogue. Quite distinct from these contrived institutional initiatives is the dynamic of intimate, subtle, and spontaneous ritual exchange and dialogue between ordinary Hindus and Catholics occurring in the arena of popular piety and rituals at the grassroots level - often in opposition to institutional norms and directives - that may be described as dialogue on the ground. In light of ethnographic research at the shrine of St. Anthony at Uvari in Tamil Nadu - that serves as a representative sample of regional shrines in rural south India - this essay focuses on the logic and grammar of a specific public ritual locally known as asanam as an illustrative case-study of the \u27dialogue on the ground,\u27 delineates the social and religious themes embedded in this ritual, and reflects on its implications for interreligious dialogue

Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq

Review of Tanya Tagaq\u27s Split Toot

Understanding the Implications of a Global Village

Whether the world is shrinking, expanding, or remaining the same metaphorical size, it is clear that how we communicate across physical and cultural boundaries is changing at an accelerated rate. With these changes comes a responsibility, as humans, to consider the implications of our shifting realities. Without an objective and inclusive analysis of these issues, we will be unprepared for the rollercoaster of cultural mayhem that could inevitably ensue. If we are in fact becoming a global village, we will be able to reach some sort of consensus as a global village about how these issues should be addressed in order to benefit all members of our village equally

Lev Vygotsky's Theory of Aesthetic Experience

In his chapter on the contributions of Lev Vygotsky to twentieth century aesthetics João Pedro Fróis provides insights into Russian and Eastern European psychology and philosophy from around the time of the Russian Revolution, into the 1950s, when Vygotsky’s work was first introduced to Western readers. Frois introduces us to the historical context of Vygotsky’s education and brief but highly influential academic career. (Vgotsky died at age thirty-eight, of tuberculosis.) While educators outside the field of art education are familiar with Vygotsky’s theories on language development, less familiar is his work on aesthetics. Thus, in The Psychology of Art, (1926/1971) the result of his work over the years 1915–1922, Vygotsky addressed the following questions: “What is the relation between aesthetic response and all other forms of human behavior? How do we explain the role and importance of art in the general behavioral system of man?” (p. 240). His text is an investigation into those questions. Frois’s chapter draws our attention to what Vygotsky considered to be key elements of human behavior. These include imagination, creativity, and Vygotsky’s particular interpretation of catharsis as it emerges from aesthetic response.As Fróis points out, Vygotsky’s work was not only influential in his day, even anticipating the work of some of his contemporaries, but continues to have an impact on writers in the fields of education, psychology and aesthetics today. What is unusual about Vygotsky’s work is the breadth of his influences and interests. Thus Fróis introduces us to Vygotsky’s early studies of literature, particularly of Hamlet, and shows how Vygotsky branched out from literature to incorporate the other arts into his spectrum of interests. Indeed, the arts seemed to provide Vygotsky with the grounding for his theory development from three perspectives— instrumental, cultural, and historical. Revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russia was a fertile ground for cultural and societal self-examination, after all, and the arts lent themselves to such examination. But Vygotsky’s interests spanned the human sciences as well as the arts. In particular, Vygotsky began to examine the psychology of the day and to bring it to bear on his study of the arts. Thus, his Psychology of Art (1926) draws heavily on his earlier critiques of Hamlet. It is in this text that Vygotsky draws analogies between perception and artistic creation, from the perspective of psychology. That is, he sees creativity as emerging from “those sensations that arise in the nervous system”, in other words perception, but that these only hint at possibilities there for development. Vygotsky’s assertion that “our capacities exceed our activity” foreshadows his theory of the zone of proximal development, a theory that educators today still find compelling. Perhaps the most surprising component of Vygotsky’s work, however, was his insistence upon a focus on the artwork as opposed to the viewer, in order to arrive at an understanding of aesthetic response as a general principle, as opposed to an isolated instance of idiosyncratic behavior. This gives Vygotsky’s work a distinctly empirical flavour, one with which Fróis obviously sympathizes. Fróis does an admirable job of guiding us through Vygotsky’s thinking in this regard. The point of being able to arrive at some kind of general principle of aesthetic experience is, as Fróis points out in his conclusion, that then aesthetic responses are capable of not only individualized meanings but of shared realities as well. The capacity for shared meanings puts aesthetic experience firmly within the educational realm.Essays on Aesthetic Education for the 21st Century, co-edited by Tracie Costantino and Boyd White, brings together an international collection of authors representing diverse viewpoints to engage in dialogue about the ongoing critical relevance of aesthetics for contemporary art education. Inspired by a conference symposium in which the four authors in the first section of the text, titled Initiating a Dialogue, explore a range of concepts including aesthetic experience, beauty, wonder, and aisthetics, this book enlarges the dialogue with eight additional chapters by authors from North America and Europe. In addition to chapters that address issues of social awareness, curriculum theory and research, and applications to practice with pre-service teachers, there are several chapters that acknowledge historical influences on current notions of aesthetics as a basis on which to open the gate into the twenty-first century. This book will be a valuable resource for graduate students in art education and curriculum studies, as well as practicing art educators, pre-service teachers, and anyone interested in the significance of aesthetics, not only in contemporary art education but the wider field of general education as well

Miracles, monsters and disturbances

The chapter Miracles, Monsters and Disturbances presents new ways in which educators, scientists and designers can collaborate together to explore the role of creativity in education both within and outside the curriculum

Technology for Submillimeter Astronomy

Despite about three decades of progress, the field of submillimeter astronomy remains quite challenging, because the detection technology is still under development and the transmission of the atmosphere is poor. The latter problem has been overcome by constructing submillimeter telescopes at excellent sites, first on Mauna Kea and later in Chile and Antarctica, and also by using airborne and space telescopes. Meanwhile, the improvements in technology over the past several decades have been remarkable. While considerable opportunities for improvement remain, existing detector and receiver technologies now often approach fundamental limits. This technological revolution has brought submillimeter astronomy from the fringes to the forefront of modern astrophysics and has stimulated major investments such as the 50-element ALMA interferometer and the ESA/NASA Herschel Space Observatory