What is unique and essential about theatre? What separates it from other arts? Do we need 'theatre' in some fundamental way? The art of theatre, as Paul Woodruff says in this elegant and unique book, is as necessary-and as powerful-as language itself. Defining theatre broadly, including sporting events and social rituals, he treats traditional theatre as only one possibility in an art that-at its most powerful-can change lives and bring a divine presence to earth. The Necessity of Theater analyzes the (...) unique power of theatre by separating it into the twin arts of watching and being watched, practiced together in harmony by watchers and the watched. Whereas performers practice the art of being watched-making their actions worth watching, and paying attention to action, choice, plot, character, mimesis, and the sacredness of performance space-audiences practice the art of watching: paying close attention. A good audience is emotionally engaged as spectators; their engagement takes a form of empathy that can lead to a special kind of human wisdom. As Plato implied, theatre cannot teach us transcendent truths, but it can teach us about ourselves. Characteristically thoughtful, probing, and original, Paul Woodruff makes the case for theatre as a unique form of expression connected to our most human insticts. The Necessity of Theater should appeal to anyone seriously interested or involved in theatre or performance more broadly. (shrink)

In this article, it is often pointed out to a more specific area by using the term Ṣūfi art on the basis of the aforementioned understanding. Thus, an analytic approach is adopted along with the usage of deductive method, and a layer of meaning is tried to be established through criticism and analysis. Firstly, a basic framework was constructed by mentioning the origins of Ṣūfi art. Then the attention was drawn to the sacredness included in Ṣūfi art in terms (...) of its historical frame and ontological structure. It is asserted that Ṣūfi art is based on four basic arguments: beauty, creativity, transcendence, and imagination. Ṣūfis considered art as an activity of beauty and the expressive power of it. Relying on the basic motive that Allah is the Greatest Artist, the Ṣūfis believe that the beauty of their art is a manifestation of Divine Names. They saw art as an expression of manifestation and unveiling. The Ṣūfis, who deemed the world in terms of Divine Beauty (Jamāl), witnessed the manifestations of the Divine Attribute of Beauty in all things; as a result of this witnessing, the masterpieces of Islamic art came into existence. It is the sapiental and the gnostic outlook that underlies this success of the Ṣūfi orders (tariqa) in Islamic history. In Ṣūfism, the perfection (kamāl) presupposes the beauty (jamāl); and each beauty presupposes also the perfection. Therefore, it is not possible to distinguish beauty from perfection in the Ṣūfi art. The sense of loving the beauty is so strong for them that they have tried to reflect the perfect beauty they witness in their works of art, to give an external presence to the phenomenon of beauty and to make the spiritual reality visible that is innate within their beings. Ṣūfism is in a sense an effort to seek beauty. It has been an endless longing to seek, search and witness The All Beauty, that is God Himself. The effort to search for Divine Beauty is sometimes revealed by tune, and sometimes by harmonious words or by a single line. Then, they turn into music, poetry, calligraphy and illumination. According to the maxim stating “There is a path from heart to heart”, these works were transmitted from one generation to another, ensuring the continuity of this Divine tune. Despite the fact that Ṣūfi works make no pretensions to be art as such, they were widely accepted, influenced the masses and gained appreciation in that they were created by people with a sincere heart, intimate sentiments and a deep world of contemplation. The second stage of the gnostic dimension in Islamic arts has been tried to be expounded through the ultimate goal of Ṣūfi art. In Ṣūfi tradition, the aesthetics and sensitivity of art attract attention at every opportunity, but the Ṣūfis did not consider art as their main aim. For them, art denotes only a means. Ṣūfis, who appeal to the eyes, ears and mind with the artistic forms, endeavoured to permeate to the hearts with the spiritual atmosphere provided. With their performances, exuberance and success in different branches of fine arts, they mobilized the aesthetic sentiments in each person's nature and ensured that the human pleasure become accorded with the divine pleasure. Focusing on the sapiential and gnostic dimension of Islamic arts, the basic principles of Ṣūfi art are emphasized as the third stage. It is also suggested that these principles also have a religious content are marked with religious style, have a strong sense of sacredness, possess generality and the peculiarity, have symbolic and representative aspects, are based on symbolism and have traditional characteristics, their style of expression is based on revelation, and are not intended to provoke carnal desires. As to the fourth remarkable factor within the sapiential and gnostic dimension of Islamic art, the Ṣūfi worldview behind the mentioned artistic works is given. As to the fifth remarkable factor in the gnostic dimension of Islamic arts, the thought behind the world of art sustained in the dervish lodges (tekke) is discussed. These dervish lodges were emphasized as the most important places where the beautiful word, beautiful sound and beautiful line converge and these lodges were evaluated as the kitchen where the fine arts were prepared and as the boiler where the arts are cooked. It is due to these features that each of the dervish lodges in Ottoman Empire became a kind of education and fine arts centre. In these lodges, many musicians, composers, poets, illuminators, bookbinders, carvers, engravers and marbling masters were trained. While the dervishes in the dervish lodges exhibited their own unique works of art, they also carried out the requirements of their spiritual trainings (sayru sulūk). (shrink)

_Purpose._ The purpose of the research is to outline the strategies of desacralization of writers by means of merch, to determine the positive and negative aspects of the search for new meanings in the reproduction of cult figures. _Theoretical basis._ The article examines merch as a tool that encourages people to change sacred meanings and ideas about writers as bearers of the sacred for Ukrainians. The source base of the study is the works devoted to the problems of the sacred (...) in philosophical thought, as well as the process of desacralization in art and literature. The peculiarities of the destruction of tendencies regarding the notions in the perception of writers as idols of the nation, the formation and emergence of new meanings regarding sacred figures are highlighted and described. The relevance of this study is due to active searches in business, propaganda, agitation for the use of literary practice, transformation and new contexts of literary idols. _Originality._ Until now, the change in the processes of sacralization and desacralization of writers by means of merch has not been considered as a reversal of worldview in culture, vectors of changes in the dominants of spirituality in the world picture. It turned out that the metacategory of the sacred has been studied by many scholars, both foreign and domestic, in recent years. The problems of the sacred are in the centre of attention of sociologists, philosophers, literary critics, and culturologists, but merch as a basis for the desacralization of man was not considered in publications in the field of mass communication theory. Scientists considered the worldview vectors of the sacred and desacralization as processes that are inherent not only in postmodernity, but also those that accompanied Ukrainian culture during previous periods. It is determined that the most noticeable manifestations of desacralization are the reproduction of the figure of Kobzar, moreover, in quite unusual and even provocative images of him. However, the majority of Ukrainians positively perceive the updated images of the prophets of the Ukrainian nation and talk about the permanence of their worldview, despite the change and reinterpretation of many years of later development. _Conclusions._ Conscious desacralization of literary images is gradually gaining momentum. We observe a tendency to positive perception of merch with the figures of T. Shevchenko, I. Franko, H. Skovoroda, Lesia Ukrainka in a new interpretation: during the war, on the barricades – wherever the struggle for Ukrainian statehood is taking place. From the results of the survey it becomes clear that stereotypical perceptions of writers need to be changed, but only if it is an organic fusion with value imperatives, only emphasizes and affirms the spiritual greatness of Man and serves the growth of Ukrainian society and every Ukrainian. (shrink)

How do we talk meaningfully about the sacred in contexts where conventional religious expression has so often lost its power? Inspired by the influential work of David Jasper, this important volume builds on his thinking to identify sacrality in a world where the old religious and secular debates have exhausted themselves and theology struggles for a new language in their wake. Distinguished writers explore here the idea of the sacred as one that exists, paradoxically, in a space that is both (...) possible and impossible: profoundly theological on the one hand, but also deeply this-worldly and irreligious on the other. This is a sacredness that is simultaneously 'present' and 'absent': one which encompasses – as Jasper himself characterises it – 'the impossible possibility of an absolute vision'. The book teaches us that the sacred assumes a renewed potency when fully engaged with the creativity that happens across religion, literature, philosophy and the arts. (shrink)

In the spirit of Fontenelle's "Dialogues des morts", Dorschel stages an imaginary conversation between 18th century composer Joseph Haydn and 20th century composer Anton von Webern. In the section of Hades reserved for composers, they confront their different musical poetics.

Rosario Assunto, an Italian philosopher of aesthetics begins one of his most interesting and dense essays with a terrifying image about the Earth where we live—“calvizie della terra dissacrata” (1983, 15)—meaning that the Earth becomes bald because of the actions of the man and loses every characteristics of beauty and sacredness. According to Assunto’s theory the homo oeconomicus is the author and the promoter of a Promethean, titanic, industrial, and malodorous town where the sense of art, beauty, and the (...) harmony in landscape are forgotten and erased. The Modern homo oeconomicus is satisfied in his thoughts and works with such a desecrated and raped Earth, rather, he desires this kind of landscape as a symbol of his own progress. I remember that when I first red this essay I asked myself what kind of philosophy I could propose in such a horizon and what kind of analysis I could develop. Maybe geophilosophy could now give some answers. Geophilosophy, according to the version I will propose, deconstructs the usual and reductionist grammar about the concept of space and place, suggesting a new expressive, perceptive and, finally, ethic possibility for the relation between human beings and places. In this article I provide my interpretation of geophilosophy, inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s words, the first philosopher of XX century who wrote about this concept. Then I will analyze nonplaces according to the famous definition proposed by the Marc Augé and I will go beyond the French anthropologist’s definition suggesting a new interpretative model for places and non-places by linking my idea of geophilosophy to Deleuze’s concept of rhizome. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the complexity of the concept of place and finally put into evidence that places, which constitute our roots, are all the spaces we have around, even non-places. The Post-modern era mainly producesnon-places: geophilosophy has to explain the philosophical and cultural reasons for this production by pointing out which possible modalities of connection we can find between contemporary human beings and places. (shrink)

The article attempts to comprehend the phenomenon of an event in the religious dimension. An event is considered as a phenomenon characterized by a singularity, that is, an individual character of expression, belongs to the sphere of non everyday life, does not coincide with the usual framework of understanding of the world and does not correspond to empirical factual. The need for a more active philosophical and religious discourse of the correlation between everyday and non everyday life in the realm (...) of religion led to the necessity of address to this problem. Thus, the purpose of the article is to find out the ontological status of the event, the religious context of which manifests itself as an opposition to everyday life and leads to a transformation of the established way of life of the believer. Everyday being is characterized by features of sacredness, demonstrates the attraction to the transcendent. For this reason, the obvious and justified is the combination of the phenomena of everyday empirical world with the values ​​of another dimension of being. The presence of non everyday in everyday life is evidenced, in particular, by elements of cult practice, since they are an expression of sacral time and space, as well as a way of incarnation of eternal values. The sphere of non everyday life includes the relationship between human and God described in the Gospels, prophecies, revelation, and vision as non everyday manifestations of religious experience. Event is the opposition of the world of phenomena to beyond the exquisite world of being, the transformation, which leads to the emergence of new orders and structures. Implementation of the event contradicts the previous ideas, therefore meeting the event with standard reality is accompanied by a transformation of everyday life. Establishing the rootedness of an event into being or its transcendental origin allows us to determine the causes of an event. In a secularized world, human, for the most part, demonstrates his willingness to recognize as significant events, including those in the universe, which correspond to scientific knowledge. This happens even when the fact of the event calls into question the fundamental postulates of science. Given this discovery in science, situations in politics, art, personal life are perceived as large-scale events. Moreover, the moment of meeting with the event can be described, for example, with a poetic language that expresses certain symbols of human existence and appears as a means of objectivizing the event as an unexpected innovation. Instead, the believer perceives events of a supernatural nature as an interference of the otherworldly reality in the usual way of life. Thus, the reception of religious experience is accompanied by the transformation of the individual's everyday life. The basis of the mystical experience of the religious tradition is the experience of meeting with the Divine, which results in a change in the believer's self-consciousness, transformation of its values, senses and meanings. That is, the awareness of an event that does not belong to an established order implies the prospect of new reality emersion, which contradicts previous notions. One of the forms of gaining religious experience is the process of conversion, which results in the transformation of the ideological orientation of a person, which enables the knowledge of their own hidden depths of consciousness. Conversion, the acquisition of grace and faith express the sudden or gradual process by which the individual achieves internal harmony, awareness of his righteousness, a sense of happiness, finds support in believing in the reality of what he has discovered in religious experiences. (shrink)

Regenerative medicine requires living cells in order for it to work. The process involves a biologist entering the body, cutting into its flesh and taking away a part of it in order to return with an improvement. In other words, to optimize the body it first needs to be deconstructed. This process is demonstrated in the project ‘Hair in Vitro’. However, the fact that it is difficult to reconcile oneself with such a ‘disfigurement’ testifies to a certain sacredness surrounding (...) the body in western culture, where its wholeness and completeness is still fundamental. Nevertheless, could one argue for the idea of an intimate, individual body; of an identity that is preponderantly distinguished and separated from the other world (especially if a human is to be acknowledged as being immersed in the world); where things reciprocally belong to each other in such a manner that they constitute the same flesh of the world? The genetic profile of an individual is actually a much more complex assemblage than a profile of just one species. Micro-organisms not only live as components of the body, but also traverse from it into the environment, and vice versa. An exchange of living substances is constantly taking place. The horny layer of the skin is thus something of a vibrant exchange market; it is a region of the dissolution of identity: interiority extends out to exteriority and exteriority goes into interiority. Concepts of interiority and exteriority become senseless here: the body and the environment are intertwined; the body disperses into the milieu, and the milieu spreads onto and into the body. With the deconstruction of the notions of the boundaries of the body and the body as a closed distinguished substance, the idea of the wholeness of the organism has lost a great deal of sense. The body should not just be considered as a multitude, but its notion should denote openness, exchangeability, traversabilty and permeability. Its structure is, in short, rhizomatic – the body is a rhizome. A body is a temporary locus of a particular organization of life. It is not a closed entity, but rather a drizzling identity. The delimitation of the body is constructed, and therefore where it ends up is drawn arbitrarily. Regenerative medicine derives from the notion of a body as a composition: a dissembling and re-assembling of bodies, as well as a restarting, delaying and slowing down of life processes. A performative installation with growing human organs such as ‘Initiation’ discloses this notion, positioning the observer into the dispersed body. A body dissolved in a milieu – a fertile yard – where human remains are given suitable living conditions for the afterlife; a platform of life where the life that once belonged to the body has emancipated itself. It thus becomes the living other of the body with which the self gets confronted. However, this life is also the body’s own identity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Education and Feminist AestheticsGauguin and the ExoticJane Duran (bio)IntroductionMuch has been made of the way in which Gauguin came to characterize the differences that he saw between the French and Tahitian populations once he had embarked on the series of voyages for which he is now celebrated.1 Although there is evidence to support a number of interpretations with respect to his portrayals of women, one theme has been paramount (...) in a great deal of the commentary: Gauguin came to see the women of Tahiti as not only emblematic of the island itself, and the island's culture, but as the embodiments of a certain sort of feminine grace. The contrasts that Gauguin himself invoked between the "naturalness" of the Polynesian women and what he took to be the falsity of women of his own class in Europe, especially France, has been the subject of much writing. In our attempts to educate undergraduates with respect to categories of oppression, we can appeal to the work of Gauguin as a valuable source of understanding concerning these issues.Given the Eurocentrism of the time, and given that it is roughly this same time period that Said will later go on to associate with the rise of Orientalism, it is probably not possible that Tahiti, its women, and its various flora and fauna could have been seen as anything other than vestiges of the natural in a world already too tamed. Words such as "savage" are used frequently in the criticism of the day to explain Gauguin's subjects, and some of the themes of his work seem to have been chosen specifically because they lent themselves to such an interpretation, at least in European eyes.2 But Gauguin goes a bit further than this crude caricature indicates, at least insofar as his portraits of female figures are concerned. It is clear that, for the [End Page 88] artist, they represent all that is to him unknown about Tahiti, and that at the same time they are coded as the natural, the innocent, and even the holy. An examination of some of his works will bear out the extent to which this is the case.IRegarding Gauguin's attitudes toward Tahiti and its women, Britt Salvesen has noted in recent commentary thatGauguin infused his art with mystery, often by depicting enigmatic female figures, traditional symbols of nature and its secrets. In Tahiti he expected to encounter exotic and sensual women. Given Gauguin's complicated position as both observer and participant in Tahitian society, his ambition to represent the "country's female type" bears close examination. He owned illustrated travel books in which, as he noted scornfully, "all the [natives] … look like Minerva or Pallas Athena." He aimed to disrupt this conventional projection of European ideals and fantasies onto Tahitian women.3As Salvesen indicates, Gauguin expected to find, and did find—by his lights—"exotic" and "sensual" women. Feminist analysis has provided us with an overwhelming amount of material about the extent to which such projections onto women as a group become a near universal human cultural trope, but few individuals allow us to make such strong comparisons with respect to projections on differing female figures as Gauguin does. That he is able to discern the ridiculousness of Academy art with its emphasis on "Pallas Athena" is obvious; what he chooses to do himself is something else again.Inaugurating a variety of personal relationships with women and girls as young as thirteen years of age,4 Gauguin developed a view of the Tahitian woman as emblematic simultaneously of the culture, of a certain sort of innocence, and of a virtually transcendental sacredness. That these images might be thought, naively, to have little to do with sensuality reflects the degree to which we fail to understand that for Gauguin, as for others after him, the sensual itself was sacred. Salvesen notes that one of the early relationships was with the "thirteen-year-old Tehamana. … [o]f Polynesian origin, [in]experienced, and of a seemingly 'impenetrable' character, Tehamana offered Gauguin the mysterious experience he sought in life and art."5If Tehamana represents one take on woman-as-elementally... (shrink)

Many cultures relate fragrances to the spiritual sphere. In Western culture, Christian tradition tends to present olfaction as a ‘spiritual’ and incorporeal sense. Moreover, Catholic religion traditionally attributes to some saints the capacity to emanate celestial fragrances that operate as indexical signs of their exceptional spiritual quality. This particular spiritual gift is known as osmogenesis. Although psychoanalysis and a part of contemporary scholarship and culture tend to place odors and olfaction at the core of bodily life, the parallel and antithetic (...) trend of connecting odors to the sphere of sacredness, spirituality and immateriality remains widespread: traces of this imagery can be found not only in figurative art and literature, but also in the communication strategies adopted by numerous brands to present their perfumes. By reconstructing and discussing some of the main features of the imaginary involving odors and spirituality, both inside and outside the circumscribed sphere of religion, this paper shows that the connection between fragrances and spirit unquestionably remains a relevant esthetic value in relation to olfactory perception in contemporary culture. (shrink)