The Look of Love

I begin to suggest an alternative to the notion of vision based in alienation and hostility put forth by Jean‐Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud, andfacques Lacan. I diagnose this alienating vision as a result of a particular alienating notion of space presupposed by their theories. I develop lrigaray's comments about light and air to suggest an alternative notion of space that opens up the possibility that vision connects us to others rather than alienates us from them.     

Exploring the Paradox of the Enjoyment of Sad Films

The concept of met emotions (appraisals of emotional reactions) was used in three studies designed to explore the enjoyment of sad films and to develop a scale that would reflect such gratifications. Study 1 showed that sad reactions in response to this type of entertainment were positively related to enjoyment and that females reported stronger reactions both in terms of enjoyment and in terms of sad responses than males. The Sad-Film Scale (SFS) developed in Study 1 was positively associated with measures of empathy, femininity, and positive appraisals of sad emotions. Study 2 found evidence of the scale's reliability and validity. Study 3 demonstrated predictive validity of the SFS in terms of the enjoyment of a specific sad film and in terms of favorable ratings of met emotions reported directly after viewing a sad film.     

READING THE BURNING BUSH: VOICE, WORLD AND HOLINESS

The story of Moses' encounter with God at the Burning Bush has played a central role in the evolution and development of Christian metaphysics. This essay presents a reading which seeks to pay greater attention to the dynamics of the text itself and to the modes of reading which it engenders. These, it is argued, can be shown to be unique in that they confront the reader with an apparatus of attentiveness to the sensible real of the empirical world which, far from being suppressed by the act of reading, is actually foregrounded as a place and time of possible divine disclosure.