Book & Film Reviews

Book & Film Reviews is a column in "MELINTAS" containing reviews of books and films published recently that bring different interpretation and inspiration to the fields of philosophy and religion

Tatapan Medusa dan Okularsentrisme: Budaya Visual dan Persoalan Sinema Kontemporer

This article presents some fundamental matters in visual culture. Philosophy has been grappling with important issues of image and ocularcentrism. These matters have shaped and brought impacts on the world’s visual culture. On the one hand, an image with all its possible interpretations today tends to be captured as an object and not so much as something that is at the same time plural and moving. On the other hand, people’s way of seeing tends to be blurred by the ocularcentrism. This might be a crucial problem that brings significant implications on one of the most important aspects of human life, that is, art activity, and particularly on cinema. The author of this article invites the readers to be aware of the negative inclinations around the issues of image and ocularcentrism. Some of the important challenges in the cinematic world are how people continually reformulate their experience of an image and how the ocularcentrism character in our visual culture can be positioned in the heart of the matter. In an effort to respond to these challenges, one can approach philosophy in a different way in order to refresh his or her way of seeing that might have been tiresome and cloudy

Mata Bestari, Benak Meraki: Menuju Budaya Post-Visual

The history of philosophy can be seen from a perspective as a story about the struggle between vision and visuality. In this space, at least during the Enlightenment period, seeing becomes one of the most decisive factors for knowing. ‘Seeing’ is no longer understood simply as a biological activity leading to knowing (“seeing is knowing”) but also a category and a catalog of knowledge (“seeing is believing”). Postmodernism shows that what actually happens is often exactly the opposite (“believing is seeing”). By starting with some kind of trust, people claim that they can see. There is a very close relationship and also a wide separation between seeing and knowing, that is, between the eye and the mind. However, in today’s cinematic society or visual and digital culture, the boundaries or bridges between the eye and the mind are becoming increasingly blurred. In this blurring of boundaries, the eye becomes simply a sort of camera machine: whatever is in front of it becomes a ‘prey’ and becomes something that is considered finished, and is threatened of being defined definitively and coldly. This is a challenge for philosophy. This article is an invitation to an awareness of the trend towards the fading boundaries, and simultaneously deals with the dangers of its unawareness. Insofar as one is aware of this tendency, can the bestari eyes (the educated eyes) and the meraki minds (the beautiful minds) be created

Mata Bestari, Benak Meraki: Menuju Budaya Post-Visual

The history of philosophy can be seen from a perspective as a story about the struggle between vision and visuality. In this space, at least during the Enlightenment period, seeing becomes one of the most decisive factors for knowing. ‘Seeing’ is no longer understood simply as a biological activity leading to knowing (“seeing is knowing”) but also a category and a catalog of knowledge (“seeing is believing”). Postmodernism shows that what actually happens is often exactly the opposite (“believing is seeing”). By starting with some kind of trust, people claim that they can see. There is a very close relationship and also a wide separation between seeing and knowing, that is, between the eye and the mind. However, in today’s cinematic society or visual and digital culture, the boundaries or bridges between the eye and the mind are becoming increasingly blurred. In this blurring of boundaries, the eye becomes simply a sort of camera machine: whatever is in front of it becomes a ‘prey’ and becomes something that is considered finished, and is threatened of being defined definitively and coldly. This is a challenge for philosophy. This article is an invitation to an awareness of the trend towards the fading boundaries, and simultaneously deals with the dangers of its unawareness. Insofar as one is aware of this tendency, can the bestari eyes (the educated eyes) and the meraki minds (the beautiful minds) be created

Book & Film Reviews

Book & Film Reviews is a column in "MELINTAS" containing reviews of books and films published recently that bring different interpretation and inspiration to the fields of philosophy and religion

Mengimajinasikan Ulang “Yang Sakral”: Anateisme, Pertaruhan, dan Hal-Hal yang Tidak Selesai

Religion has often been defined as a response to the sacred. However, this also means that religion is considered meaningful if only one has an idea of the sacred. The problem surfaces when religion seems to be dominated with its brutal and savage face. In these tendencies, any criticism addressed to  religion or any suggestion for the sake of changing views about religion will never be considered meaningful or taken into account if the believers do not touch the issue of the sacred at all. This article invites its readers to explore and to reimagine the idea of the sacred and at the same time offers different and imaginative perspectives in the light of Richard Kearney’s concept of anatheism. Humans do not need to separate the sacred from the so-called sensus numinis, not only because they can become and move towards the sacred, but because their lives, bodies, minds, and actions are esentially sacred

Book & Film Reviews

Book & Film Reviews is a column in "MELINTAS" containing reviews of books and films published recently that bring different interpretation and inspiration to the fields of philosophy and religion

Book & Film Reviews

Book & Film Reviews is a column in "MELINTAS" containing reviews of books and films published recently that bring different interpretation and inspiration to the fields of philosophy and religion

Book & Film Reviews

Book & Film Reviews is a column in "MELINTAS" containing reviews of books and films published recently that bring different interpretation and inspiration to the fields of philosophy and religion

Book & Film Reviews

Book & Film Reviews is a column in "MELINTAS" containing reviews of books and films published recently that bring different interpretation and inspiration to the fields of philosophy and religion