27 research outputs found
Apophatic Elements in the Theory and Practice of Psychoanalysis: Pseudo-Dionysius and C.G. Jung
No full textThis thesis identifies apophatic elements in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis through an examination of Pseudo-Dionysius and C.G. Jung. Pseudo-Dionysius brought together Greek and Biblical currents of negative theology and the via negativa. The apophatic concepts and metaphors which appear in the work of Pseudo-Dionysius are identified. The psychology of Jung can be read as a continuation and extension of the apophatic tradition. The presence of neoplatonic themes in Jung’s work is discussed, as well as his references to Pseudo-Dionysius. There is a thorough examination of Jung’s discussion of opposites, including his reception of Nicholas of Cusa’s concept of the coincidence of opposites. The role of the transcendent function in Jung’s psychology is reviewed. The work of contemporary scholars of religion, philosophers and Jungian theorists are compared to Jung’s using the lens of apophasis. There is an exploration of ways in which motifs in Pseudo-Dionysius’ Ecclesiatical Hierarchy resonate with contemporary psychoanalytic psychotherapy. This study demonstrates that apophatic motifs saturate Jung’s work. It provides a platform for research into apophasis in the wider field of psychoanalysis
Poiesis and Obstruction in Art Practice
No full textThis PhD thesis examines the concept of poiesis, that is ‘calling into existence that which was not there before’, in the context of obstruction in studio practice. It poses the question ‘Is there a methodology that engages with obstruction which in turn calls new work’? In this thesis, the concept of poiesis emerging from the late Dr. Murray Cox’s ‘Aeolian Mode’, is analyzed alongside a concept of praxis, (a philosophical companion to poiesis), familiar to artistic practice. This thesis describes the orientation of the original idea, The Aeolian Mode, clinically developed by Dr. Murray Cox in Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital. This PhD seeks to identify if there are similar ‘tenets of approach’ held within the methodology of ‘The Aeolian Mode’, that would be useful or are identifiable in artistic studio practice. This thesis draws on the work of the philosopher, Professor Richard Kearney, specifically Kearney’s ideas on the necessity of ‘the other’ for ‘radical possibility’ to occur. It maps a context of both Freudian and Jungian interpretations of art practice, identifying how these ideas have shaped the way art is seen today. Furthermore, it challenges the Freudian idea of ‘pathography’ and favours a Jungian approach of ‘individuation’ in the understanding of creative processes. It develops a ‘methodology of the conversation’, interviewing students, established artists, tutors about their approaches to obstruction/poiesis in art practice. Additionally, it examines my own obstruction to painting and identifies the methodology that released me from this obstruction. Conducting these interviews on art practice has enabled me to confirm my initial concerns about Freudian ‘pathography’ whilst validating the possibility of the Jungian concept of ‘individuation’ being of use to art practice. Finally, this PhD discusses the implications for further study and research, which have emerged during the ‘methodology of the conversation’ and the task of dissolving my obstruction to painting
Time, Space and Fantasy' in the novels of H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke and J. K. Rowling: A Critical Study
No full textNot availabl
Small Fiber Neuropathy: A Clinical and Practical Approach
No full textSmall fiber neuropathy (SFN) is a peripheral nerve condition causing neuropathic pain and autonomic complaints. Skin biopsy is an important diagnostic tool for diagnosing SFN. SFN is associated with conditions like diabetes mellitus and autoimmune diseases, but in 53% of the patients, the etiology remains unknown. Treating the underlying condition is the first-line treatment, but most patients will also need symptomatic treatment based on the biopsychosocial model. SFN can be managed by several health care professionals, including nurse practitioners, neurologists, pain specialists, and physiatrists. This article provides evidencebased information on the diagnostics of SFN and offers guidance for interdisciplinary treatment.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
The Way of Transformation (The Laban-Malmgren System of Dramatic Character Analysis)
No full textThe dissertation is a 'critical edition' of a system of actor training based on three main sources: a vocabulary of movement analysis developed by Rudolf Laban in the last years of his life; C. G. Jung's theory of psychological functions and types; and the acting system of C. Stanislavski and his main followers. The three strands were brought together by the dancer and acting teacher Yat Malmgren (1916-2002), who taught his system for over forty years to some of the major figures of world theatre and film: Peter Brook, Pierce Brosnan, Simon Callow, Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Adrian Noble among others.
The dissertation is presented in two volumes:
- Volume I sets the system in context, historically as well as in terms of current discourses about the nature of acting. It includes a survey of its origins, followed by an in-depth examination of its three main sources, focusing on the central concept of energy in acting. Further chapters describe:
a. a systematic, step-by-step psychophysical approach to analysing character, the actor's own self and to ways of bridging the two in the process of transformation. The author captures the salient features of a method of work which informs aspects of Western acting practice.
b. the light thrown by the system on the idea of theatre character. The author puts forward the idea of a character 'independent' of both actor and text.
c. the applications of the system in training and professional practice, based on interviews with a number of prominent British actors and directors.
- Volume II consists of a detailed, annotated description of the system. It is based on a free transcript of recordings of Yat Malmgren's teaching and amounts to a 'manual' for those interested in studying and/or teaching the system. The volume is illustrated throughout.
Appendices include original materials derived from Laban's last years of work, published here for the first time
Investigating the ‘empire of secrecy’ — three decades of reporting on the secret state
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University LondonIt has often been argued that journalism has been the most effective means of holding the intelligence services to account in western democracies. This thesis examines whether that proposition holds true in the United Kingdom and if so, whether such oversight has been consistent. Accountability by the news media is compared with the expanding range of UK official oversight mechanisms. The author utilises a body or work from over three decades of reporting on the intelligence services and further research on accountability to examine these questions. The author suggests this work is timely, given the controversy prompted by the former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, who leaked a substantial archive of secret intelligence documents. This thesis concludes that the news media were often effective, if not consistent, in bringing intelligence to account in the second half of the 20th century. Since the start of the 21st century monitoring the secret state has become more challenging as a result of a changing economic, global and national political environment. Government legislation and technology makes it increasingly difficult for journalists to obtain confidential sources and then undertake their Fourth Estate role. Finding new methodologies is an urgent task for journalists, as history reveals that if intelligence agencies operate without scrutiny from outside government, abuses take place. Never before has government and its intelligence services had such powers and techniques of invasive mass surveillance available, and thus the potential to control the population and particularly those who dissent
Art and the unconscious : a semiotic case study of the painting process
No full textThis dissertation is an attempt to design an interpretation model for the comprehension of unconscious content in artworks, as well as to find painting techniques to free the unconscious mind, allowing it to be expressed through artwork. The interpretation model, still in its infancy, is ripe for further development. The unconscious mind is a fascinating subject—in art production as well as in many scientific fields. This hidden part of the mind, being the source of creativity, constitutes an important foundation for many possible and valuable inquiries in multiple areas of knowledge. In the present study, the unconscious is approached from an art-educational perspective.
The nature of the unconscious is addressed through the theories of Carl Gustav Jung and Charles Sanders Peirce, as well as through the information gained from data the author produced herself during the experimental painting process she devised for this study. For psychological distinctions not addressed by Jung, the theories of Sigmund Freud are used to forward this inquiry into the unconscious mind.
A research method was created to bring Peirce’s theories into consonance with Jung’s amplification method. Since Peirce’s theories are challenging to read, to avoid misinterpretation, the author used Phyllis Chiasson’s 2001 book Peirce’s Pragmatism: The Design for Thinking as a secondary source. Peirce’s three modes of reality—firstness, secondness, and thirdness—were utilized to interpret artworks. This three-mode reality allows interpreters to reflect on their subjective feelings and then to compare them to collected data. The interpreters’ intuitive self-interpretations often correlate well with the more objective data.
In this approach to interpretation, the work of art is seen as a sign, in the Jungian as well as in the Peircean sense, and interpretation seeks to discover a sign’s objects—icon, index, and symbol. Additionally, the objects are studied in combination with Peirce’s designation of the sign’s character elements—sinsign, qualisign, and legisign. Peirce’s theory offers a logical and productive structure for approaching a variety of signs and reaching a multiplicity of interpretations.
Jungian theories inculcated a combined psychological and artistic perspective for the interpretation of artworks. Jung’s method of amplification is an effort to bring a symbol to life, and it is used as a technique to discover—through the seeking of parallels—a possible context for any unconscious content that an image might have. In amplification, a word or element—from a fantasy, dream, or, in this study, artwork—is associated, through use of what Jung called the active imagination, with another context where it also occurs. It must be remembered that unconscious images in artworks do not easily open themselves up for interpretation. One way to interpret possibly unconscious images is for the interpreter to become vulnerable by employing his or her own unconscious mind to interpret an artwork; such use of the active imagination can enable a subjective experience of the artwork on the part of the interpreter, who might thereby uncover unconscious content.
Moreover, in this study, Jung’s theory of archetypes is employed, in parallel with Peirce’s and Jung’s theories of the sign, to illuminate an artwork’s images by connecting them with collective unconscious archetypes. The author relied upon The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images (Ronnberg and Martin 2010) as the main source for interpreting possibly unconscious elements in the artworks. This approach is especially powerful when artists interpret their own artwork—possibly leading to a galvanizing self-discovery as they revisit past encounters, personal highlights, and other pieces of unconscious content that might reveal previously unknown meaning important to their life. By comparing archetypes to the unconscious content in their own lives, people can discover themselves.
Unconscious phenomena were approached on both the theoretical and empirical levels. Different methods and ideas were used to stimulate the author’s unconscious thinking while performing artwork analyses of three paintings: surrealist Salvador Dalí’s (1904–1989) Assumpta Corpuscularia Lapislazulina; abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock’s (1912-1956) The Deep; and one painting by the author herself, and for which the process of painting is videorecorded (www.astagallery.com/academic.html).
With regard to the third painting interpreted, the author is the study subject, and her artistic production is used as an opportunity to explore the unconscious mind. During the act of painting, an attempt is made to free unconscious thinking by fusing Dalí’s and Pollock’s methods as well as by testing multiple other methods. The author’s artistic production was conjoined with use of a technique that is called the verbal protocol method, which generates additional data not necessarily visible in the final artwork. This method unseals the artist’s tacit knowledge, which in normal circumstances remains silent.
In the verbal protocol method, the author, while engaged in the act of painting, speaks aloud the stream of consciousness that accompanies and guides the art-making activity; the recorded and transcribed monologue from the artistic production is supplied, in both Finnish and English, in appendices. This thinking-aloud technique allows a person to become more self-aware and to create more solutions while struggling with emergent artistic problems. Such narratives can reveal more about the painting than the completed artwork alone can convey. Along with the artist’s finished painting and the videorecorded material, narratives produced during the painting activity were interpreted. Moreover, the discoveries arising from the author’s interpretation of her own artwork are correlated with some of the latest research on the unconscious.
This study allows the reader-viewer an intimate glimpse into the author’s subjective painting experience and demonstrates the participation of the unconscious in an artwork’s creation. The interpretations methodology constitutes an interpretation model suitable for other artists and art educators to follow.
Keywords: unconscious, art, archetype, mandalaei tietoa saavutettavuudest
Adaptations of Hamlet in Different Cultural Contexts: Globalisation, Postmodernism, and Altermodernism
No full textAlthough there has traditionally been a resistance to the study of adaptations, adaptation studies as a subsection of 'intertextuality‘ currently has a significant place in academic debates. Hamlet is "the Mona Lisa of literature" (T.S. Eliot), and has been the subject of constant scrutiny, mythologizing and adaptation. Hamlet has been adapted and appropriated into and by various cultural contexts. Even confining our attention to the same medium as Shakespeare‘s text, there exists an array of theatrical adaptations in languages and cultures as diverse as Persian, Korean, Arabic, German, Russian, and Turkish. Borrowing Ludwig Wittgenstein‘s metaphor of 'family resemblance,‘ I argue the usefulness of his idea, enabling us to examine not simply a small number of common properties among adaptations of Hamlet, but rather to explore the 'complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing‘ (Philosophical Investigations, §66). I further propose subdividing the 'global family‘ of Hamlets from around the world that participate in this/these web-like resemblances into 'local families‘ of adapted Hamlets, to enable better intercultural and cross-cultural studies.
In this thesis I analyse seven theatrical adaptations of Hamlet in Turkish, Russian, Arabic and Persian cultural contexts, from the perspectives of postmodernism, globalisation and altermodernism. I also scrutinise the Persian family of Hamlet in the light of 'intertextuality‘. Given that each adaptation per se brings together 'self‘ and 'other‘ at the same time, I go on to coin two new terms: homointertextuality and heterointertextuality, in order to explore fully the various connections of the adaptations of Hamlet in Iran with the 'cultural self‘ (Persian culture) and the 'cultural other‘ (Anglophone culture)
Lessons from an aftermath : recovery of the self through trans-disciplinary applied drama practice
No full textIncludes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (leaves [198]-223).The aftermath is a region that is often associated with disruption, disrepair and trauma. Taking as his departure point his witnessing of the specific aftermath of the September 11th attacks in New York– the author returns to South Africa to locations that are concerned with the aftermath of apartheid and the aftermath of the advent of HIV/AIDS i.e. education and public health. He attempts a method of extracting elements from an aftermath as a form of redemptive critical theory (see Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato, Maurizio Passerin D’Entreves) in order to apply a combination of elements into a dialogical method of dramatic practice that might provide opportunities for recovery. This he does through a practice that is based upon participatory research involving participants from a high school and an HIV/AIDS wellness clinic
A comparative study of form and theology in the works of Flannery O'Connor and Simone Weil
No full textIn this comparative study of the form and theology of Flannery O'Connor and Simone Weil I interrogate how Weil's philosophical writings and her theology illuminate O'Connor's use of both narrative and non-fictional forms, and her Catholicism. The Introduction analyses how Weil's concept of superposed reading provides a new method of approaching both O'Connor, her writings, and O'Connor
studies, and focuses on how such apparently different women interconnect. Chapter One explores how both Weil and O'Connor attempt to write their theologies on the
souls of their readers yet are each subject to constraints imposed by form. Weil's concept of locating equilibrium between incommensurates is discussed, and her
distinctively philosophical approach to fictions and fictionality is used to investigate O'Connor's notion of prophetic fictions and the writer's role. Chapter Two assesses how both writers revivify Christian paradoxes. Weil's monstrous concept of affiiction, and O'Connor's use of the grotesque genre to jolt secular man into an
awareness of the sacred are scrutinised. Chapter Three studies how both writers consider an encounter between God and man is possible through the action of grace. My Conclusion interrogates how Weil's work can deepen our understanding of O'Connor's writings, and examines how successful O'Connor is at realising a truly
Christian literature. I conclude that despite being a writer of powerful fictions, O'Connor can not be totally successful in her mission as writer-prophet because
ultimately fiction escapes orthodoxy
