Pending on Art

Artification is mostly approached from a contextualist perspective where “art” refers to objects that are presented and appreciated within socially recognized art institutions. Artification then means that the notion of art is extended to non-art areas. Yet it can be argued that contextualism is circular, since it starts with an unquestioned assumption about what art is. Another weakness of contextualism is that by privileging theory it tends to downplay the role of creative and appreciative practices. Alternative approaches are possible, and this article explores in a preliminary way what a naturalist approach could mean for how we see art and artification processes. The naturalist approach developed here considers the arts first of all as cultural practices that evolve together with discourse, but where discourse is not privileged over practice. As Wittgenstein suggested, understanding (and skillfully practicing) any art is about socially mediated, long-term engagement. By analyzing the evolutionary and onto-genetic origins of art and its function in all human cultures, and by describing the criteria of art as a cluster, naturalism opens the border between art and non-art. With naturalism, we can ask whether some of the changes described as artification allow us to recognize art outside institutionally legitimized art worlds. It allows us to ask to what extent something is art; it provides a perspective where phenomena can be studied case by case; and it re-introduces the relevance of evaluative criteria in the process of identifying or recognizing art

Agriculture, Aesthetic Appreciation and the Worlds of Nature

Agriculture has received relatively little attention in environmental aesthetics, given its importance culturally for the physical sustenance of societies and from an eco-system perspective. In this article I take some steps towards developing a life-world approach to the agricultural landscape, where the intimate and long-term relationship between farmer and land is understood as having the potential for being a norm rather than the opposite of an aesthetic appreciation of landscape. This requires a narrative understanding of landscape, where culture and nature are seen as plural and relative to each other. I claim that the aesthetic competence of the farmer is inseparable from personal interest, which makes appreciation more acute and vivid both in perceiving nuances and in realising the existential drama of landscape. Finally I suggest that practicing agriculture is a genuine way of knowing nature and that some familiarity with agriculture should be included in all environmental education

Hygrophorus calophyllus

Peer reviewe

Dissertatio academica, de ruboris musculorum pretio: vario habitu, sede & origine. Quam consensu experient. facult. medic. Aboëns. braeside [sic] Gabriele Bonsdorff, philos. & medic. doct. anat. chir. & art. veter. prof. reg. & ordin. facult. medic. h. a. decan. pro summis in medicina honoribus publicae censurae submittit Adolphus Reginaldus Boucht stip. Haartmannianus, Tavastensis. In audit. mathematico die VII Junii MDCCCVI. h. a. & p. m. s

Dedicatio: Gabriel Bonsdorff.Arkit: 1 arkintunnukseton lehti, A-D4.Painovuosi nimekkeestä

Job strain among blue-collar and white-collar employees as a determinant of total mortality: a 28-year population-based follow-up

Objectives To investigate the effect of job demand, job control and job strain on total mortality among white-collar and blue-collar employees working in the public sector. Design 28-year prospective population-based follow-up. Setting Several municipals in Finland. Participants 5731 public sector employees from the Finnish Longitudinal Study on Municipal Employees Study aged 44–58 years at baseline. Outcomes Total mortality from 1981 to 2009 among individuals with complete data on job strain in midlife, categorised according to job demand and job control: high job strain (high job demands and low job control), active job (high job demand and high job control), passive job (low job demand and low job control) and low job strain (low job demand and high job control). Results 1836 persons died during the follow-up. Low job control among men increased (age-adjusted HR 1.26, 95% CI 1.12 to 1.42) and high job demand among women decreased the risk for total mortality HR 0.82 (95% CI 0.71 to 0.95). Adjustment for occupational group, lifestyle and health factors attenuated the association for men. In the analyses stratified by occupational group, high job strain increased the risk of mortality among white-collar men (HR 1.52, 95% CI 1.09 to 2.13) and passive job among blue-collar men (HR 1.28, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.47) compared with men with low job strain. Adjustment for lifestyle and health factors attenuated the risks. Among white-collar women having an active job decreased the risk for mortality (HR 0.78, 95% CI 0.60 to 1.00). Conclusion The impact of job strain on mortality was different according to gender and occupational group among middle-aged public sector employees.peerReviewe

Maisema elintilana : kulttuuri, luonto ja estetiikka

Aineisto on Opiskelijakirjaston digitoimaa ja Opiskelijakirjasto vastaa aineiston käyttöluvist

Ruumiin paikka estetiikassa

Aineisto on Opiskelijakirjaston digitoimaa ja Opiskelijakirjasto vastaa aineiston käyttöluvist

Retirement as a predictor of physical functioning trajectories among older businessmen

Background Associations between retirement characteristics and consequent physical functioning (PF) are poorly understood, particularly in higher socioeconomic groups, where postponing retirement has had both positive and negative implications for PF. Methods Multiple assessments of PF, the first of which at the mean age of 73.3 years, were performed on 1709 men who were retired business executives and managers, using the RAND-36/SF-36 instrument, between 2000 and 2010. Questionnaire data on retirement age and type of pension was gathered in 2000. Five distinct PF trajectories were created using latent growth mixture modelling. Mortality- and covariate-adjusted multinomial regression models were used to estimate multinomial Odds Ratios (mOR) on the association between retirement characteristics and PF trajectories. Results A one-year increase in retirement age was associated with decreased likelihood of being classified in the 'consistently low' (fully adjusted mOR = 0.82; 95%CI = 0.70, 0.97; P = 0.007), 'intermediate and declining' (mOR = 0.89; 95%CI = 0.83, 0.96; P = 0.002), and 'high and declining' (mOR = 0.92; 95%CI = 0.87, 0.98; P = 0.006) trajectories, relative to the 'intact' PF trajectory. Compared to old age pensioners, disability pensioners were more likely to be classified in the 'consistently low' (mOR = 23.77; 95% CI 2.13, 265.04; P = 0.010), 'intermediate and declining' (mOR = 8.24; 95%CI = 2.58, 26.35; P < 0.001), and 'high and declining' (mOR = 2.71; 95%CI = 1.17, 6.28; P = 0.020) PF trajectories, relative to the 'intact' PF trajectory. Conclusions Among executives and managers, older age at retirement was associated with better trajectories of PF in old age. Compared to old age pensioners, those transitioning into disability and early old age pensions were at risk of having consistently lower PF in old age.Peer reviewe