KAGAWA TOYOHIKO (1888–1960): WITNESS TO THE COSMIC DRAMA

At home and abroad, Kagawa Toyohiko was probably the best‐known Japanese Christian evangelist, social reformer, writer, and public intellectual of the twentieth century, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature twice (1947, 1948) and the Nobel Peace Prize three times (1954, 1955, 1956). Appealing to the masses with little knowledge of Christian faith, Kagawa believed that a positive, religio‐aesthetic interpretation of nature and science was a key missiological concern in Japan. He reasoned that a faith rooted in the kenotic movement of incarnation and self‐giving must strongly support the scientific quest. A voracious reader of science and especially biology, he argues for “directionality,” or what he calls “initial purpose” in the long, painful, cosmic journey from matter to life to mind (or consciousness). Through an antireductionistic, a posteriori methodological pluralism that sought to “see all things whole,” this “scientific mystic” employed Christian, Buddhist, Neo‐Confucian, personalist, and vitalist ideas to envision complementary roles for science and religion in modern society.     

Making Energy Infrastructure: Tactical Oscillations and Cosmopolitics

Abstract

Integrating renewable energy sources into the power grid and ensuring public interest in energy is a key concern in many countries. What role may art play, and what political strategies do artists employ, in order to intervene in the infrastructuring of energy and public environments? As the case study here, a Copenhagen art and energy competition invited artists and designers from around the world to submit ideas for large-scale public artworks that can generate utility-scale renewable energy. The competition process had a smooth and consensus-seeking political strategy, manifested in a set of tactical oscillations. In order to engage with local stakeholders and ensure the success of the competition, the project managers oscillated between presenting the competition as part of existing policy initiatives and as posing alternatives to existing policy. They oscillated between being situated in a pragmatic present and in an unprecedented future; between being tied to the specific site of the competition and belonging to no place in particular; and not least between being predominantly an art project and primarily an infrastructure project. Remarkable differences between cosmopolitics and smooth politics appear here, especially compared to the literature analysing the roles played by art and design when imagining new ways of living with energy. Oscillation between smooth politics and cosmopolitics may provide a generative way forward for actors wishing to engage in the infrastructuring of environments.     

‘We’ve shared a lifetime with one another’: using reflective visual/verbal journals to develop graduate student relationships

The success of graduate students relies on factors beyond mere cognitive ability, with fostering peer and professional relationships as definitive influences on achievement. Research shows that positive faculty/student relationships are a significant factor in the success of graduate students and that art-making is an effective way to encourage the reflective thinking needed to nurture these relationships. In this article, we examine the relationship between arts informed pedagogy, specifically the use of a visual/verbal journal, and the formation of graduate relationships. The majority of the students in this collaborative inquiry entered their doctoral program at the same time the research class began and all engaged in an artfully imagined introduction to qualitative research course.     

‘For Beauty is nothing but the barely endurable onset of Terror’: Outline of a general psychoanalytic aesthetics

Even close to 80 years after Freud's words that psychoanalysis “has scarcely anything to say about beauty” (Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, SE 21, p. 82) the question of a specific psychoanalytic aesthetic is still faced with a deficit in theory. Since aesthetics is related to Aisthesis, the Greek word for ‘perception’, a psychoanalytic aesthetic can solely emerge from a psychoanalysis of perceptive structures. The term ‘kinaesthetic semantic’ is introduced in order to exemplify via music how perceptive experiences must be structured for them to be experienced as beautiful. The basic mechanisms – repetition of form (rhythm, unification) and seduction (deviation, surprise) – are defined. With the help of these mechanisms an intensive contact between perceiving object and kinetic subject, the physical self, is established. The intensive relatedness is a requirement for the creative process in art and also for psychic growth on the subject's level. The described basic mechanisms of the aesthetic process in music can also be encountered in painting and poetry. By the means of a self‐portrait by Bacon it will be examined how, in art, terror and traumatization are represented via targeted disorganization of beauty endowing mechanisms, hence finding an enabling form of confrontation and integration of fended contents.     

Philosophy Makes No Progress,So What Is the Point of It?

Philosophy makes no progress. It fails to do so in the way science and mathematics make progress. By “no progress” is meant that there is no successive advance of a well‐established body of knowledge—no views are definitively established or definitively refuted. Yet philosophers often talk and act as if the subject makes progress, and that its point and value lies in its doing so, while in fact they also approach the subject in ways that clearly contradict any claim to progress. This article presents evidence for, and a theoretical explanation of, the view that philosophy makes no progress, concluding with an account of what philosophy is and what the point and value of it is. Philosophy should not be shy about being what it is, nor should it pretend to be what it is not. What it is should be reflected in philosophizing and the way it is taught.     

Black Mountain College: A Creative Art Space Where It Was Safe to Fail

Black Mountain College is remembered as an artistic utopian alternative to institutional learning. Its faculty and students included some of the most important creative thinkers of the 20th century. Its foundation was built on the philosophy of “learning by doing.” But what made Black Mountain such a dynamic educational environment? Today, the financial burden of higher education places a lasting strain on students that inhibits creative growth. Does the educational structure of the college system impede our learning? Black Mountain was a legendary educational experiment, which offers a model for contemporary art education.     

艺术治疗的概念、发展及教育

综述了国内外近10年来关于艺术治疗的文献资料,回顾了艺术治疗的概念、学科范围界定、应用、发展,比较了中西方艺术文化差异,同时对于艺术治疗与健康和疾病的关系,及其机理等进行了探讨.也对国外艺术治疗在高等院校中的课程设置、讲解内容等进行了阐述.根据作者多年的研究和教育实践,试图探索出中国艺术治疗学科体系的构建框架.     

终末期癌症病人诊治中的心理特征与人文关怀

在诊治终末期癌症病人过程中不仅要关心他们的躯体方面,更要关心他们的心理方面,在诊治过程中要根据他们的独特的心理特征来进行人文心理关怀,维持生命质量和保证他们应有的人格尊严.     

艺术教育的精神保健功能

艺术治疗是一个古老的话题,向我们揭示了艺术活动在促进人类的精神成长和心理健康方面的意义和价值.学校中的艺术教育作为教育制度中最能体现人文关怀的学科,不应回避青少年对于精神保健和心理卫生的需求.从艺术治疗中汲取有益的经验,探索艺术活动如何为青少年提供长期而稳定的心理支持,是艺术教育在现代社会应该承担的职责.     

医学与艺术:临床医学和医学人文学关系探索

医学与艺术是医学人文学研究的重要课题.医学与艺术有着广泛的联系,涉及对临床医学性质的争论,医学人文学对临床医学教育与实践的作用,艺术对医学的表现与理解,以及作为治疗康复手段的艺术.