Distinctive Members: The Effects of Solo Arrangements on Evaluations of Solos and Similar Others

This study investigated the effect of group composition on judgments of African Americans. White male and female college students responded to photographic slides of female work groups in which the racial composition of the group was systematically altered to represent varying degrees of distinctiveness. Each participant judged the effectiveness of individual group members, as well as the competency of the overall group. Findings suggested that work groups which contained a distinctive (or solo) group member may affect judgments about similar others encountered later who share the solo's rare characteristic. Results are discussed in terms of the effect of these types of arrangements in organizational settings, and implications of these findings for practitioners and managers are discussed.     

High-Risk,High-Gain Choices: Commentary on Paper by Philip A. Ringstrom

In this commentary building on Philip Ringstrom's paper, I address how improvisation, an unpremeditated spontaneous activity emerging within an interactive context, can be analytic even when not shaped consciously by the analyst's reflective capacity and therapeutic judgment. A microanalysis of the nonverbal dimensions of the analytic exchanges that Ringstrom offers is used to illustrate how affective experience can be attended and coconstructed on a subsymbolic process register carried on kinesthetic, somatic, and acoustic dimensions that may or may not be transduced to symbolic expression for mutative analytic impact to have occurred. The metaphor of jazz is added to the metaphor of improvisational theater to help elaborate this view.     

Practical Skills and Practical Wisdom in Virtue

This paper challenges a frequent objection to conceptualizing virtues as skills, which is that skills are merely capacities to act well, while virtues additionally require being properly motivated to act well. I discuss several cases that purport to show the supposed motivational difference by drawing our attention to the differing intuitions we have about virtues and skills. However, this putative difference between virtue and skill disappears when we switch our focus in the skill examples from the performance to the performer. The ends of a practice can be used to judge not only the skilfulness of a performance, but also the motivational commitment of the performer. Being virtuous requires both acting well and being properly motivated to do so, which can be captured by viewing virtues as the moral subset of skills. In claiming this, though, I resist the idea that there is no element in virtue that is not found in other skills. Virtue requires being practically wise about how practices fit into a conception of the good life, but other skills do not. I further argue that this difference doesn't undermine the ‘virtue as skill’ thesis, as it's the connection between virtues and morality that requires practical wisdom.     

Accompaniment in Jazz and Psychoanalysis

The author explores a fundamental role of the analyst as improvisational accompanist. This role requires a dedicated attention to the shared rhythmic dimension of the interaction, a mode of psychoanalytic attention of embodied self-awareness and sensitivity–that is, embodied attunement to the pulse of the interaction. Directed action follows by providing various forms of accompaniment that depend on the nature of the patient’s needs and emotional state. By refining our accompaniment to meet clinical situations and challenges, we enlarge the range of analytic engagement. Using examples from jazz, the way the rhythm section finds the right form of accompaniment to support the soloist’s creativity and unique voice, the analyst similarly accompanies his or her patient, providing a temporal framework, a pulse that affirms emotionally shared states, recognition, differentiation, and creative expression. Various forms of analytic accompaniment include steady and present beat, an unobtrusive and loose presence, an interactive and conversational presence, or disruptive rhythms. From experiences of solid support and recognition, accompaniment can fuel the patient’s improvisations, allowing him to move away from the analyst and create a clearer differentiated voice. As the patient separates, he ventures out into new or difficult territory, the analyst’s presence is there following.     

Reiteration: The ‘Imperative of the Word’ and Echoing the ‘Significative Terms’

Abstract

The act of reiteration is viewed as a therapeutic reply that is especially responsive in the face of what Lacan (1977) and Heidegger (1927/1962) respectively refer to as “empty speech” and “idle talk.” By hearing and selecting those key signifiers and phrasings that bear the client's story of distress, the act of reiteration allows us to focus and address the “subject who speaks” rather than the commonsense storyline itself. As an active and continuing punctuation of the client's direct discourse at the level of the word, the act of reiteration is only the first moment of a more complete narrative reply. But in keeping the therapist ever grounded in the client's direct expressions, it is this first moment of reiteration that leaves the therapist positioned to be responsive to the client's discourse of “rhetorical displacements,” of intimation and allusion, as these “echo” from “elsewhere.”     

HEAVENLY SEMANTICS: SOME LITERARY-CRITICAL APPROACHES TO SCRIPTURAL REASONING

This essay i) shows how certain key virtues of the practice of Scriptural Reasoning (SR) offer correctives to a mode of western rationality that regards itself as “supra‐traditional” and universally valid; and ii) illuminates those virtues with the help of literary theory which shares SR's concern with how texts and their interpretation affect possibilities for human life in any given context. It identifies four “marks” of SR (particularity, provisionality, sociality and surprise) and works with three conversation partners who use literary theory (Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mikhail Bakhtin and John Beer), to offer a positive account of SR's traditioned, critically imaginative character.     

Kristeva's Thought Specular: Aesthetic Disobedience as a New Form of Revolt

In Revolt, She Said, Julia Kristeva makes the intriguing suggestion that contemporary art may serve (or provoke) a benevolent form of experimental psychosis. Expanding on this idea in a recent essay, she argues that such art-induced psychosis becomes distinct in its capacity for triggering wholesome impulses toward social reform broadly conceived, that is, impulses which carry a political as well as a moral charge, but fall outside the domain of professional politics and ethical theory proper. To make this case and to emphasize the significance of Kristeva's work for exploring the contested territory of the politics of aesthetics (in Jacques Rancière's phrase), the present discussion brings Kristeva's important but under-researched notion of the “thought specular” to bear on Jonathan Neufeld's conception of “aesthetic disobedience.” By co-engaging these authors, one can extrapolate a model for participatory art that is not framed by rationalist standards of author intentionality or by communication-theoretical approaches, which cast the spectators as impassive recipients of the artwork's presumed political message. Rather, witnessed by Tania Bruguera's long-term work entitled Immigrant Movement International, participation in aesthetic disobedience can deliver on Kristeva's promise of intimate revolt in the context of artistic activism or “artivism.”     

What Does It Mean to Be a Postcolonial Feminist? The Artwork of Mithu Sen

This article examines what the work of New Delhi‐based artist Mithu Sen brings to thinking about being a postcolonial feminist. Using images from Sen's solo exhibit in New Delhi and New York titled Half Full (2007), I theorize on the complexities that proliferate when thinking about postcolonial feminism. Sen's images play with “an” identity to showcase the hybrid and mobile configuration of postcolonial subjectivity. Sen's provocative aesthetic urges us to rethink defining a set of conditions or tenets for postcolonial feminism. Rather, her aesthetic politics propels through humor and provides a prism to constantly reimagine postcolonial feminist subjectivity by urging a consideration of maps that intersect and overlap.     

Jazz and Musical Works: Hypnotized by the Wrong Model

It is difficult to place jazz within a philosophy of music dominated by the concepts and practices of classical music. One key puzzle concerns the nature and role, if any, of musical works in jazz. I briefly describe the debate between those who deny that there are musical works in jazz (Andrew Kania) and those who affirm that there are such (Julian Dodd and others), and I distinguish between claiming that there are no musical works in the jazz tradition and the more provocative claim that they are not performed in jazz performances. I argue that each side of this debate is partially right and that the first step toward resolving the puzzle is to reject inappropriate concepts of a musical work. In particular, Kania's and Lydia Goehr's accounts, derived from classical music practice, are rejected as general accounts of musical works. I then contrast the norms governing work performance in classical music (the werktreue ideal) with the practices governing performances of works in jazz, which I call realization or staging. Finally, I propose a model of jazz appreciation that incorporates a role for jazz works and that fundamentally differs from the way that classical musical performances are appreciated.     

When Virtues,Roles and Duties Fail: Early Greek and Chinese Accounts of Akrasia

Both the Mohist canon and the works of Aristotle recognize that people sometimes fail to act according to virtues, roles and duties, what in a Western context is called akrasia or “weakness of will,” an important topic in both Greek and contemporary philosophy. I argue that questions of akrasia are treated different in the early Chinese and ancient Greek philosophy. Greek accounts focus on issues of will and control, while some Chinese thinkers treat akrasia as a lack of a skill, and the failure to act in the right way is less lack of will than lack of skill. I begin with a brief account of the problem of akrasia as first presented by Plato in the “Protagoras” and Republic, and developed by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. I then turn to akrasia in an early Chinese context, focusing on a very different Mohist view of akrasia as lack of a skill. Finally, I contrast the “skill” the Mohists find lacking with a very different account of skill in the Zhuangzi.     

The Virtuous Fall

The medieval Church's concern with moral reform contributed to the emergence of a genre of literature in the thirteenth century dedicated to the vices and virtues. Inspired by monastic and scholastic traditions, treatises such as Laurent d'Orléans's Somme le roi encouraged the avoidance of sin and provided the faithful with a moral taxonomy that ultimately ensured their access to heaven. Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls and Meister Eckhart's Discourses of Instruction challenge this virtue‐centered approach to salvation. Relying on their shared claim that the fall of the just man is in fact a virtue, this essay argues that their moral theology is grounded not on the a posteriori act of penance needed for salvation, but on the a priori consent of the will. This alternative view of moral life finds support in previous strands of the Christian tradition, and in particular in Peter Abelard's theory of intentionalism.     

Signifyin(g) within African American Classical Music: Linking Gates,Hip‐Hop,and Perkinson

Many authors have had occasion to explore the practice of signifyin(g), a seminal expressive concept within African American culture most often described as a rhetorical and literary device. Few, however, have examined the practice of signifyin(g) within African American musical composition in the European, or “classical,” style. This article explores the application of signifyin(g) as an analytical lens in the examination of “classical” music by African American composers, beginning with the previous investigation of signifyin(g) practices within other forms of African American music, ranging from Miles Davis's jazz standards to the lyrics of Nas and Cardi B. This exploration concludes with the analysis of a specific classical work by an African American composer (Coleridge‐Taylor Perkinson's Lament for Viola and Piano) as a case study.     

Strategy Flexibility: On Jausovec's Flexible Thinking: An Explanation for Individual Differences in Ability

We examined some of the factors that influence evaluations of improvised music. Using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT), 10 expert judges evaluated 16 pieces of music, improvised on an electronic keyboard. Overall evaluations of improvisations were associated with their perceived complexity, creativity, and technical goodness. These predictors accounted for 76% of the variance in preference judgments. The intrinsic motivation of improvisers was also assessed, and was correlated with overall evaluations. No support was found for a nonlinear relation between the perceived complexity of the music and its aesthetic appeal, as suggested by Berlyne's optimal-complexity model. We outline a model linking characteristics of improvisers and their improvisations to judges' overall liking for the music. The benefits of using the CAT to assess music are also discussed.     

TALKING THE WALK AND WALKING THE TALK: Stanley Hauerwas's Contribution to Theological Ethics

Stanley Hauerwas's contribution to the study of Christian ethics is analyzed in the course of offering an overview of his work, including (1) his early reflections on “vision,”“narrative,” and moral agency; (2) his continuing focus on Christian virtues and practices in contrast to the ethos of moral and political liberalism; and (3) his specific attention to the meaning of peaceableness and the rejection of violence. The essay concludes by considering Hauerwas's legacy as a postliberal theologian, a critical participant in American Protestant ethics, and a conversation partner with Roman Catholics.     

Presidential address: Lessons from infancy: New beginnings in a changing world and a morality for health

Health care professionals working in infancy are optimistic about its development and its incentives for moral connectedness. Recent research shows that such an attitude is grounded in what I summarize under the headings of “fundamental modes of development” and a “basic morality,” features that characterize infancy when there is adequate support from an emotionally available caregiver. Early moral attainments include the infant's developing sense of rules, reciprocity, empathy, and internalized standards. Social referencing, negotiation, and the use of guidance are important processes in late infancy that occur in the context of interpersonal and intrapsychic conflict. Infancy experiences guided by these processes later become a basis for the preschooler's sharing, negotiation, and sense of fairness. These considerations provide lessons for thinking about health as a positive state. They also highlight the importance of positive emotions and shared meaning as we work to prevent and treat developmental problems. We have much to learn from infants and each other, especially as we continue our cross-cultural collaboration and research.     

Improvisation as a Meta-Counseling Skill

Counselor education tends to see the development of basic counseling and communication skills as the foundation of clinical training. Improvisation has historically and primarily been connected to theater training and as a performance mechanism. By developing skills in spontaneity and the nature of narrative (or story) one becomes more able to be in-the-moment with a client or clients and thus less anxious and more able to meet the client where they are. As such, improvisation can really be seen as a meta-counseling skill—a skill that can form a firmer foundation for the learning of the basic counseling and communication micro-skills. This article outlines the core concepts of improvisational training for counselors and includes examples of improvisational games that can specifically help in preparing counselor trainees for their future clinical work.