Transformations of the Sacred in Contemporary Chicana Culture

Abstract

Focusing on the transformation of the sacred icon La Virgen de Guadalupe into a secularized and sexualized modern woman in illustrations by Yolanda M. López and Ester Hernández, the rearticulation of ex-votos in Sandra Cisneros's short story ‘Little Miracles, Kept Promises’, and the development of a lesbian form of spirituality in Ana Castillo's Massacre of the Dreamers, this essay argues that it is the tradition of syncretism and cultural hybridization within the folk version of Mexican Catholicism and its concomitant propensity toward the deconstruction of binary oppositions (such as colonizer versus colonized; male versus female; body versus soul; sexuality versus spirituality) that forms the basis for many of the feminist revisions, reinterpretations, and transformations of Catholic figures, motifs and texts in contemporary Chicana art.     

SIGNALING STATIC: ARTISTIC,RELIGIOUS, AND SCIENTIFIC TRUTHS IN A RELATIONAL ONTOLOGY

Abstract. In this essay I point toward the difficulties inherent in ontological objectivity and seek to restore our truth claims to validity through a relational ontology and the dynamic of coimplication in signals and noise. Theological examination of art and science points toward similarities between art, religion, and science. All three have often focused upon a “metaphysics of presence,” the desire for absolute presence of the object (the signified, the divine, the natural object). If we accept a relational ontology, however, we must accept that the revelation of presence is always simultaneously a concealment. This helps explain technoscientific achievement without recourse to a philosophically flawed objectivity. Twentieth‐century information theory shows the impossibility of a “pure signal.” By accepting that signal and noise are permanently interconnected, we begin to see how noise makes signal possible and even how noise becomes signal (allowing the discovery of novel facts). Information theory thus underscores important similarities and leads toward new approaches in aesthetics, Christian theology, and scientific research. By comparing art, religion, and science, I argue that rejecting a metaphysics of presence without rejecting presence itself allows human beings to know the world. Although religion, science, and art often seek the absolute presence of their objects, they function better without.     

Creativity and involvement in art in different types of synaesthesia

The aim of the present study was to test the relationship between different types of synaesthesia and their involvement in art, creative, and visual abilities. We tested 20 grapheme‐colour, 18 sound‐colour, 19 grapheme‐colour‐and‐sound‐colour, 20 sequence‐space synaesthetes, and the same number of controls matched by age, gender, and education. We assessed the number of artistic professions, involvement in art, and the performance in psychometric tests of divergent and convergent creativity, as well as visual and visuo‐spatial abilities. Results show a higher prevalence of artists among synaesthetes, especially sound‐colour synaesthetes. Sound‐colour synaesthetes also showed a higher involvement in artistic activities overall while sequence‐space synaesthetes showed higher involvement in visual art. Only grapheme‐colour‐and‐sound‐colour synaesthetes showed significantly higher divergent creativity compared to matched controls. Additionally, overall, synaesthetes scored higher in visuo‐spatial abilities (i.e., mental rotation). For synaesthetes and controls, visuo‐spatial abilities correlated with divergent creativity. We discuss that synaesthetes’ higher involvement in art is not necessarily reflected in their basic creative abilities.     

SCIENCE‐AND‐RELIGION/SPIRITUALITY/THEOLOGY DIALOGUE: WHAT FOR AND BY WHOM?

In recent years the science‐and‐religion/spirituality/theology dialogue has flourished, but the impact on the minds of the general public, on society as a whole, has been less impressive. Also, religious believers and outspoken atheists face each other without progressing toward a common understanding. The view taken here is that achieving a more marked impact of the dialogue would be beneficial for a peaceful survival of humanity. I aim to argue the why and how of that task by analyzing three possible purposes of the dialogue and their logical interdependence, suggest conceivable improvements of the quality and extent of the current efforts toward a negotiated action plan, and consider an enlargement of the circle of the actors involved. The dialogue that has been carried on between science and religion/spirituality/theology could be expanded and usefully applied to some major problems in the present world.     

《周易》在东晋的传播及其对文学艺术的影响

东晋时期,学校讲授、私人传授和清谈是《周易》直接传播的主要方式。《周易》卜筮也对《周易》的传播起了推波助澜的作用。《周易》对文学艺术的影响主要表现在语词、意象、形式、观念、文论和小说等方面。     

The Phenomenological Approach to Art Therapy

The present paper discusses the phenomenological approach to art-therapy and suggests an operational terminology for its main theoretical concepts. First we present the general assumptions that underline art therapy. Definitions, leading approaches, and the therapeutic effect of artwork are considered. Next we indicate the need for relevant and particular theories of art therapy. Phenomenological theory is examined as a case in point because of its popularity among art therapists. Despite its philosophical appeal, however, we find phenomenological theory lacking the operational terminology that is essential to form a coherent and distinct school of therapy. In the present paper, we extract from phenomenological theory operational principles, which can be followed and applied by art therapists. In this analysis, we take into consideration Betensky's pioneer attempt to create the bridge between phenomenological theory as applied in verbal psychotherapy and art therapy. We end by discussing the urgent need to operationalize other verbal psychotherapeutic theories so they are relevant for art-therapy practice and may help create greater similarities among art therapists of the same school of psychotherapy.     

No Ethics Without Things

Just as recognition and pursuit of the human good take place in language and action, so too do they unfold in encounter with the material and visual. The ethical crises, projects, and striving we see in everyday religious life are worked out not just in the intersubjective play and politics of language but also in encounter with, in dwelling with, material and visual substances and forms. This essay considers the material conditions that make possible the “ethical pleasures” sought by Indonesian painter A. D. Pirous in making and displaying contemporary works of “Islamic art,” most especially works that make “visual recitation” of passages from the Qur'an.     

神经美学：探索审美与大脑的关系

神经美学采用神经科学的技术手段来探索审美的神经机制。本文从审美认知加工过程的角度来探讨审美的心理学原理及其神经机制。回顾了近年来神经美学取得的主要成果, 研究发现与审美加工相关的脑区主要涉及感知觉、运动、情绪以及奖赏等机能系统。神经美学的三个重要研究主题是真与美、离身认知与具身认知以及认知与情绪。未来研究应从时间维度来探讨审美体验的动态性, 从跨艺术形式以及跨文化的视角来探讨审美神经机制的普遍性。     

Reinventing the Self in the Face of Received Transgenerational Hatred in the African American Community

There are many clinical methods for understanding and transforming the impact of historical trauma, and reinventing the self in the clinical process. However, the approach advocated here requires that regardless of what clinical method of intervention is chosen, a particular strand must run through the process of treatment to produce durable and meaningful change. This strand must run through psychoanalysis, creative and expressive arts therapies, as well as many forms of intervention in aggrieved communities. The strand includes understanding human suffering, the way that particular suffering is mentalized by the victimized group and subsequently reenacted by generations to come. In technical terms there must first be many profiles of understanding of the historical injury. Then there must be an understanding of how the aggrieved community has stored in their communal memory those psychological hurts—those feelings of humiliation and changing historical accounts of the actual injuries. Subsequently those sendimentations of historical grievances are enacted within the transference in the clinical situation where the grievances are not only staged, but re-staged, distorted or extended. Then comes the most decisive obligation the clinician has towards the analysand, patient, client or community that is attempting to transform itself. That decisive obligation is to extract the errand or ambush towards extinction and to undergo the unpleasant drudgery of constantly engaging the mandate to die or destroy oneself in order to find new and more flexible forms of adaptation.