Download or read book Bioaesthetics written by Carsten Strathausen and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2017-10-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, bioaesthetics has used the latest discoveries in evolutionary studies and neuroscience to provide new ways of looking at art and aesthetics. Carsten Strathausen’s remarkable exploration of this emerging field is the first comprehensive account of its ideas, as well as a timely critique of its limitations. Strathausen familiarizes readers with the basics of bioaesthetics, grounding them in its philosophical underpinnings while articulating its key components. Importantly, he delves into the longstanding problem of the “two cultures” that separate the arts and the sciences. Seeking to make bioaesthetics a more robust way of thinking, Strathausen then critiques it for failing to account for science’s historical and cultural assumptions. At its worst, he says, biologism reduces artworks to mere automatons that rubber-stamp pre-established scientific truths. Written with a sensitive understanding of science’s strengths, and willing to refute its best arguments, Bioaesthetics helps readers separate the sensible from the specious. At a time when humanities departments are shrinking—and when STEM education is on the rise—Bioaesthetics makes vital points about the limitations of science, while lodging a robust defense of the importance of the humanities.
Download or read book Bioesthetics in Oral Rehabilitation written by Loris Prosper and published by Quintessenza. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Choreographies of the Living written by Carrie Rohman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-09 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Choreographies of the Living explores the implications of shifting from viewing art as an exclusively human undertaking to recognizing it as an activity that all living creatures enact. Carrie Rohman reveals the aesthetic impulse itself to be profoundly trans-species, and in doing so she revises our received wisdom about the value and functions of artistic capacities. Countering the long history of aesthetic theory in the West--beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and moving up through the recent claims of "neuroaesthetics"--Rohman challenges the likening of aesthetic experience to an exclusively human form of judgment. Turning toward the animal in new frameworks for understanding aesthetic impulses, Rohman emphasizes a deep coincidence of humans' and animals' elaborations of fundamental life forces. Examining a range of literary, visual, dance, and performance works and processes by modernist and contemporary figures such as Isadora Duncan, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and Merce Cunningham, Rohman reconceives the aesthetic itself not as a distinction separating humans from other animals, but rather as a framework connecting embodied beings. Her view challenges our species to acknowledge the shared status of art-making, one of our most hallowed and formerly exceptional activities.
Download or read book The Indispensable Excess of the Aesthetic written by Katya Mandoki and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: TheIndispensable Excess of the Aesthetic: Evolution of Sensibility in Nature traces the evolution of sensibility from the most primal indications detectable at the level of cellular receptors and plant tendril sensitivity, animal creativity and play to cultural ramifications. Taking on Darwin’s insistence against Wallace that animals do have a sense of beauty, and on recent evolutionary observations, this book compellingly argues that sensibility is a biological faculty that emerges together with life. It argues that there is appreciation and discernment of quality, order, and meaning by organisms in various species determined by their morphological adaptations and environmental conditions. Drawing upon Baumgarten’s foundational definition of aesthetics as scientia cognitionis sensitivae, this book proposes a non-anthropocentric approach to aesthetics as well as the use of empirical evidence to sustain its claims updating aesthetic understanding with contemporary biosemiotic and evolutionary theory. The text leads us along three distinct but entwined areas: from the world of matter to that of living matter to the realm of cultivated living matter for exploring how and why sensibility could have evolved. It points out that aspects traditionally used to demarcate and characterize human aesthetics—such as appreciation of symmetry, proportion and color, as well as pleasure, valuation and empathy, sensory seduction, creativity, and skills for representation, even fiction—are present not only in humans but among a variety of plant and animal species.
Download or read book The Arts and The Brain written by and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2018-05-17 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arts and the Brain: Psychology and Physiology beyond Pleasure, Volume 237, combines the work of an excellent group of experts who explain evidence on the neural and biobehavioral science of the arts. Topics covered include the emergence of early art and the evolution of human culture, the interaction between cultural and biological evolutionary processes in generating artistic creation, the nature of the aesthetic experience of art, the arts as a multisensory experience, new insights from the neuroscience of dance, a systematic review of the biological impact of music, and more. - Builds bridges and makes new connections between neuroscientists, psychologists and the arts world - Unravels the neural, neuroendocrine, physiological, hormonal and evolutionary dimensions of the arts - Contains chapters from true authorities in the field
Download or read book Transformative Arts written by Gary A. Berg and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-03-02 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional fine arts are often regarded as rarefied, something accessed by the uniquely talented and displayed in impressive museums or on lavish stages. Art thusly conceived is something that most people never practice in their lives. Yet in day-to-day life we all experience creative satisfaction through interaction with the physical and social environment that is a form of artistic practice. In Transformative Arts: Biological, Digital, and Everyday Aesthetics, Gary A. Berg explores what we gain through understanding ways to live imaginative lives and considers the increasingly important collaborative role of computers and interaction with nature.
Download or read book Everyday Aesthetics written by Katya Mandoki and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Katya Mandoki advances in this book the thesis that it is not only possible but crucial to open up the field of aesthetics (traditionally confined to the study of art and beauty) toward the richness and complexity of everyday life. She argues that in every process of communication, whether face to face or through the media, fashion, and political propaganda, there is always an excess beyond the informative and functional value of a message. This excess is the aesthetic. Following Huizinga's view of play as an ingredient of any social environment, Mandoki explores how various cultural practices are in fact forms of playing since, for the author, aesthetics and play are Siamese twins. One of the unique contributions of this book is the elaboration and application of a semiotic model for the simultaneous analysis of social interactions in the four registers, namely visual, auditory, verbal and body language, to detect the aesthetic strategies deployed in specific situations. She argues that since the presentation of the self is targeted towards participants' sensibilities, aesthetics plays a key role in these modes of exchange. Consequently, the author updates important debates in this field to clear the way for a socio-aesthetic inquiry through contexts such as the family, school, medical, artistic or religious traditions from which social identities emerge.
Download or read book Neuroaesthetics written by Martin Skov and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beginning of psychological aesthetics is normally traced back to the publication of Gustav Theodor Fechner's seminal book "Vorschule der Aesthetik" in 1876. Following in the footsteps of this rich tradition, editors Martin Skov and Oshin Vartanian view neuroaesthetics - the emerging field of inquiry concerned with uncovering the ways in which aesthetic behavior is caused by brain processes - as a natural extension of Fechner's 'empirical spirit' to understand the link between the objective and subjective worlds inherent in aesthetic experience. The editors had two specific aims for this book. The first was to highlight the diversity of approaches that are underway under the banner of neuroaesthetics.Currently, this topic is being investigated from experimental, evolutionary, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging perspectives to tackle problems in the visual arts, literature, music, and film. Its quintessentially interdisciplinary nature has functioned as a breeding ground for generating and testing hypotheses in multiple domains. The second goal was more integrative and involved distilling some of the key features common to these diverse strands of work. The book presents a possible framework for neuroaesthetics by highlighting what the contributors consider to be its defining features and offering a working definition of neuroaesthetics that captures these features. "Neuroaesthetics" will provide an empirical and theoretical framework to motivate further work in this area. Ultimately, the hope is that puzzles in aesthetics can be solved through insights from biology, but that the contribution can be truly bidirectional.
Download or read book Holistic Approach to Sustainable Development written by Pramod Singh and published by M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd.. This book was released on 1995 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with burning problems of the Indian Environment. The volume reveals the role of science and technology in the development of industry in rural, urban and remote areas, impact of new economic policy and the new role of government, need for a new integrated science, technology and industrial development policy, strategy and perspective role of NGO\'s utilization of natural resources and their improved sustainability for future scientific and industrial development.
Download or read book Determined Spirits written by Christine Ferguson and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-04 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the Spiritualist movement's role in disseminating eugenic and hard hereditarian thought
Download or read book Flowering Trees written by P. K. Valsalakumari and published by New India Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nature has gifted man with trees for his sustainable livelihood. Trees are an integral part of any landscape. Apart from beautifying our surroundings, trees are used functionally to improve the quality of environment particularly in urban areas, where the environment is degrading at a faster rate. The significance of growing trees is widely understood in recent days. The book on 'Flowering Trees' begins with describing India's heritage in growing trees, the spiritual and religious significance of trees and role of trees in indigenous landscaping and sacred groves, where their main function is conservation of biodiversity. The functional values of trees in modern landscaping such as to reduce glare, climate modification, pollution control, their ecological value and various uses for aesthetic purposes are dealt with in detail in this book. Avenue planting is also described in detail. Principles and designs for planting trees, methods of planting, cultural practices, pruning, problems in tree growing and various methods to overcome them are also described. The psychological effects of plants on human beings and the astrological significance of trees are discussed in this book. The book includes detailed descriptions of ornamental, economic and medicinal trees. Separate s on trees for Bonsai and renewable energy are also included in this book.
Download or read book Found in Alberta written by Robert Boschman and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 2014-10-29 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Found in Alberta: Environmental Themes for the Anthropocene is a collection of essays about the natural environment in a province rich in natural resources and aggressive in development goals. This is a casebook on Alberta from which emerges a far wider set of implications for North America and for the biosphere in general. The writers come from an array of disciplinary backgrounds within the environmental humanities. The essays examine the oil/tar sands, climate change, provincial government policy, food production, industry practices, legal frameworks, wilderness spaces, hunting, Indigenous perspectives, and nuclear power. Contributions from an ecocritical perspective provide insight into environmentally themed poetry, photography, and biography. Since the actions of Alberta’s industries and government are currently at the heart of a global environmental debate, this collection is valuable to those wishing to understand the natural and commercial forces in play. The editors present an introductory argument that frames these interests inside a call for a rethinking of our assumptions about the natural world and our place within it.
Download or read book Forms of Life written by Andreas Gailus and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Forms of Life, Andreas Gailus argues that the neglect of aesthetics in most contemporary theories of biopolitics has resulted in an overly restricted conception of life. He insists we need a more flexible notion of life: one attuned to the interplay and conflict between its many dimensions and forms. Forms of Life develops such a notion through the meticulous study of works by Kant, Goethe, Kleist, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Benn, Musil, and others. Gailus shows that the modern conception of "life" as a generative, organizing force internal to living beings emerged in the last decades of the eighteenth century in biological thought. At the core of this vitalist strand of thought, Gailus maintains, lies a persistent emphasis on the dynamics of formation and deformation, and thus on an intrinsically aesthetic dimension of life. Forms of Life brings this older discourse into critical conversation with contemporary discussions of biopolitics and vitalism, while also developing a rich conception of life that highlights, rather than suppresses, its protean character. Gailus demonstrates that life unfolds in the open-ended interweaving of the myriad forms and modalities of biological, ethical, political, psychical, aesthetic, and biographical systems.
Download or read book The Digital Coloniality of Power written by Alexander I. Stingl and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-12-16 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trouble is afoot in Digital Culture and Nerdland. These are, Alexander I. Stingl claims, not the engine of freedom and democracy that they once were hailed to be – this much is already clear in the wake of the snooping and surveillance crises that broke in recent years. Digitalization is but another version of the coloniality of power and being that has been at work for decades and centuries. He poses the question, whether Digital Age possess the legitimacy that ‘digitalization’ has claimed. His response is critically realistic, but he doesn’t stop at a critique for criticism’s sake. Inspired by the ideas of decolonial scholars, feminist science studies, current biological and neuro-cognitive research, and sociologists capable of reflection and self-criticism, Stingl attempts to ‘break’ the canvas of sociology and show that adding a third and decolonial dimension to the two-dimensional sociological imagination is indeed possible. He illustrates that it is possible that class-rooms, free speech on internet, and the inequalities in the production and distribution of a new form of social capital – digital cultural health care capital – can be subjected to a decolonial perspective along a sociological line of inquiry, if sociologists allow for relations with other disciplines and scholarship to be integrative conversations. The goal of this book is not to offer results or closed arguments but to create, instead, platforms for thinking further, opening new lines of inquiry, and to argue that it is not enough to identify problems or to attempt solve the problems with politics or best practice solutions. Instead, he proposes, we must learn to identify and make use of the opportunities that are produced by any problem. Stingl’s conclusion is, in short, that a sociology that takes the decolonial challenge and critique seriously, can not be a sociological (sub)discipline or a sociology of (a) problem, but it must be a sociology of opportunities.
Download or read book Care in Technology written by Xavier Guchet and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-03-31 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, it is widely recognized that in order to meet environmental challenges, it will not simply be enough to make our lifestyles greener; also critical is putting an end to the modern conception of the human as master and possessor of nature. However, to bear fruit, this change in anthropology must also be accompanied by a revision in our conception of technology. Since the Enlightenment and the development of industrialization, technology no longer seems to be subject to the guiding principles set by the Greeks: prudence and the search for the right measure in all, which leads to the care of beings and the world. Care in Technology analyzes the historical changes that have led technology to become an unthinkable part of care, and care an unthinkable part of technology. It also establishes the conditions for care to once again become a regulatory principle of the activity of engineers who design technology.
Download or read book Contemporary Practices in Bio art written by Lilia Chak and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2023-08-09 with total page 563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the emergence of a new subdivision in Bio-art — Dendro-art, the interrelationship between humans and plants, the recreation of vanished species of plants, the ecological education of the population, and, more broadly, environmental protection. The innovative quality of this work lies in the fact that many aspects of the phenomenon of Bio-Art are looked at from a new angle: the author of the present study is herself an artist who has received academic training in the field. Therefore, she able to examine the works of bio-artists both from the “inside” and the “outside”. The conclusions drawn from the study may be of use to students, scholars, and teachers preparing courses in art studies, technology, and natural sciences. The study materials may also be used for setting up exhibitions and compiling catalogues on various types of Bio-technological art.
Download or read book Walking as Critical Inquiry written by Alexandra Lasczik and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-06-22 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a transdisciplinary, international collection situated within a genealogy of experimental walking practices in the arts, arts-based research, and emergent walking practices in education. It brings together emerging cartographies of relation amongst walking practices ranging across arts-based, ecological, activist, decolonising, queer, critical and posthuman modes of inquiry. Its particular investment is in the proliferation of artful modes of inquiry that open up speculative practices and concepts of walking as an orientation for pedagogy, inquiry, and the everyday, resisting the gaze of privilege and the relentless commodification of human and nonhuman life processes. This is important work for the burgeoning demand for creative methodologies in the social sciences, and more specifically, for arts-based educational research.
