Search

Stone consolidants have been used in conservation practices for decades, with an increasingly interdisciplinary scientific attention to their composition and performance. This article is an ethnographic account of the process of testing a new consolidant's efficacy, drawn from fieldwork and interviews with scientists and heritage professionals involved in a European project in 2013. I illustrate, in line with prior scholarship on laboratory time, how time is a central tool of laboratory control, which must be managed to produce evidence of consolidant efficacy. Yet the 'fast time' of controlled experimental conditions is also suspect for those working in the field of heritage. By tracing the temporal tensions between scientific evidence making, laboratory practice and heritage practitioners' values, I illustrate that the project of materially fixing stone in time means intervening on heritage futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Etudes Romanes de Brno is the property of Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Not without contradiction, the poetry of Alberto Caeiro, of Greco-Pagan aesthetics, which defends the sensitive world as the only reality and insists on the use of the five senses as the only possible way of acquiring knowledge, can only be better understood when read against the backdrop of a Christian worldview. Based on a reading of the Christian myth of the Fall of man, the article analyses the fundamental contradictions of Caeiro's poetic project, categorically contesting his "bucolic naivety". Through reflections on human self-consciousness and the naturalness or artificiality of "(not) to think", together with a look at the ontology of language, we argue that, according to Caeiro, the human condition is essentially a contradiction, and that the apology of the "sensations" in his poetry does not stem from a naïve hedonism, but can be considered an alternative way to rescue man from the prosaic world, restoring him to an Edenic vision.

Dubbed speech has often been accused of sounding artificial and somewhat exaggerated, mainly because it features a type of melody that substantially differs from both spontaneous speech and domestic fictional dialogue. This paper explores the most significant vocal patterns that shape a recognisable melody in Castilian-Spanish dubbed dialogue in order to ascertain whether they really contribute to the artificiality of the target version or, on the contrary, help preserve the credibility of the film production and viewers' cinematic illusion. The discussion reveals that dubbed speech is characterised by certain vocal features specific to this genre that, despite differing from the ones used in spontaneous speech and screen acting, appear to work effectively in dubbing and are generally tolerated by audiences. There seems to be room, however, for naturalising some of these patterns in an effort to achieve an acceptable balance between what conveys the impression of spontaneity and what sounds natural within the context of dubbing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to specify the General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR) function within the tax law interpretation system as a legal tool against tax avoidance. On the one hand, the idea is to enlighten its correct application and, on the other, to review its impact on the rule of law principle. For this purpose, the Spanish, Peruvian, and Chilean GAAR are analysed from a dogmatic perspective. Using the tools of the general theory of law, it is argued that applying a GAAR necessarily involves the activities of legal interpretation, argumentation, and requalification and may be compatible with the rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glass prevailed in nineteenth-century European culture as both material and metaphor. Its transparency, its ability to create optical illusions, and the sound of glass musical instruments suggested a presence that appealed to the senses even as it misguided them. In this article, I argue that glass helps to define an object that both resembles and yet contradicts humanity in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann and J. Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann. Hoffmann and Offenbach referenced glass’s visual and sonic attributes to depict the artificiality of the automaton Olympia. They also drew on associations between glass and illusion to enforce the negative meaning of its artificiality. This reading reflects nineteenth-century authors’ and artists’ responses to visual perception’s susceptibility to external manipulation. It also reveals cultural anxieties over the definition of humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender coercion and artificial femininity in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (1963) and Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted (1993) are portrayed as significant subjects of controversy in America’s 1950s and 1960s, for cultural conventions endorsed by malecentred modern psychiatry restrained the possibility of female identity beyond normativity. Modern psychiatry based on the foundations of nineteenth- century’s ethics proposed a model of femininity grounded on the notions of wifehood and motherhood, so female rebellion against social standards was pathologised since resistance was considered insane and opposed to female nature. As a consequence, the conflict between femininity and modern psychiatry diagnosed disobedience as a mental state for which women needed to follow aggressive psychiatric treatments and hospitalization. The presence of McLean hospital in both literary works resembles the imprisonment that femininity must prevail to shape the feminine experience according to social demands. So trauma and body studies allow to comprehend how brutality against the body results in mental deterioration and dualism, as the violence presented in both novels seems to be directed to the body for the psyche is the immaterial dimension of the individual. Phenomenological theories are also used to revise the dualism between body and mind, given that violence prevents the characters from unity, and commitment in the psychiatric ward approves the creation of an artificial femininity to create a simulated identity. Hence, McLean is represented as a hierarchy where its three stages, Wymark, Caplan, and Belsize perform the function of creating manufactured entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aid organizations, activists, and the media often use graphic depictions of human suffering to elicit sympathy and aid. While effective, critics have condemned these practices as exploitative, objectifying, and deceptive, ultimately labeling them 'poverty porn.' This paper examines people's ethical judgments of portrayals of poverty and the criticisms surrounding them, focusing on the context of charity advertising. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that tactics that have been decried as deceptive (i.e., using an actor or staging a photograph) are judged to be less acceptable than those that have been decried as exploitative and objectifying (i.e., depicting an aid recipient's worst moments). This pattern occurs both when evaluating the tactics themselves (Studies 1a-1c) and when directly evaluating critics' arguments about them (Study 2). Studies 3 and 4 unpack the objection to deceptive tactics and find that participants' chief concern is not about manipulating the audience's responses or about distorting perceptions of reality. Participants report less concern about non-deceptive manipulation (using emotion to compel donations) and 'cherry-picked' portrayals of poverty (an ad showing an extreme, but real image) so long as there is some truth to the portrayal. Yet they are more sensitive to artificial images (e.g., an actor posing as poor), even when the image resembles reality. Thus, ethical judgments hinge more on whether poverty portrayals are genuine than whether they are representative. This work represents the first empirical investigation into ethical judgments of poverty portrayals. In doing so, this work sheds light on how people make sense of morally questionable tactics that are used to promote social welfare and deepens our understanding of reactions to deception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irak’ta kimlik meselesi çoğunlukla yapaylık varsayımı üzerinden tartışılmaktadır. Bu ana akım yapaylık tezi, devlet-altı ve devlet-üstü kimlikleri önceleyerek devlet kimliğinin yokluğunu veya güçsüzlüğünü ispatlamaktan ziyade bu kimliğin üstünü örtmektedir. Bu makale, Irak’ta devlet kimliğinin mevcudiyetini, nüfuzunu ve kapsamını tarihsel ve güncel yansımaları üzerinden araştırmaktadır. Makale, Iraklılığın diğer aidiyet boyutlarının yanında bir alternatif teşkil edip etmediğini, bu kimliğin hangi yollarla kurgulandığını ve siyasî ve toplumsal olarak nasıl bir karşılığa sahip olduğunu araştırmaktadır. Bu anlamda, Irak siyasetini ve toplumunu tarihsel olarak okumanın ana paradigması olan yapaylık tezine karşılık Iraklılık kimliği üzerinde konumlandırılan bir bakışın Irak’ta kimliğin tarihini alternatif bir yoldan okuma imkânı verdiği ve alternatif bir kimlik tarihi ortaya çıkardığı savunulmaktadır. Bu okuma neticesinde bu kimlik tarihine dair birbiriyle alakalı dört farklı sonuca ulaşılmaktadır: İlk olarak, incelenen tarih içerisinde Iraklılığın önemli bir ideolojik/kültürel etken olarak hazır bulunduğu görülmektedir. İkinci olarak, Iraklılığın Irak’taki diğer aidiyet boyutlarıyla çoğu zaman bir etkileşim içerisinde olduğu gözlemlenmektedir. Üçüncü olarak, dönemlere ve aktörlere bağlı biçimde Iraklılığın kurgulanışında önemli farklılaşmalar tespit edilmektedir. Dördüncü olarak, Iraklılığın devletin ve seçkinlerin politikalarının ötesinde toplumsal yayılımı gözetilmektedir.

The paper is devoted to the research of Vladimir Nabokov’s conception of theatricality in relation to drama as a literary form and stage performance. It presents the study of Nabokov’s understanding, artistic meaning and function of the conception, as well as the ways of its realization in all Nabokov’s plays. With regard to theatricality, the literary devices of the theatricalization of reality and ‘theatre within the theatre’, used by Nabokov for the purpose of emphasizing the content, expressing the author’s presence, and ironizing towards aesthetic and ethical phenomena, among others have been studied in the material of the plays The Tragedy of Mr. Morn, The Man from the USSR, The Event, and The Waltz Invention. These dramatic works include the whole range of attributes of the theatricalized reality and metatheatre: sporadically appearing scenes of an ‘internal’ play; duality of personages and performance of several roles by the same hero; heroes’ attempts to foretell the course of action, direct the play, and correct the ‘acting’ of another characters; personages using theatrical attributes and decorations.

This essay historicizes cultural and psychic economies in the postwar United States under the sign of material scarcity. It situates the proliferation of plastic flowers in domestic space within a context of bureaucratic anxieties surrounding natural resource scarcity, and trends toward 'outdoor living' that were an offshoot of the ideology of economic growth. Interrogating repeated, if relatively unexamined, invocations of 'anxious' suburban subjects in descriptions of postwar society, the essay suggests that plastic flowers shored up a sense of stability and permanence at a time when nuclear annihilation, Cold War paranoia, and population growth combined to render life uncertain and potentially unsustainable. The essay concludes by reflecting on how legacies of that epoch – and the fiction of permanence offered by plastic flowers – endure in contemporary fantasies of limitless progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Empathic interactions with animated game characters can help improve user experience, increase immersion, and achieve better affective outcomes related to the use of the game. Method. We used a 2x2 between-participant design and a control condition to analyze the impact of the visual appearance of a virtual game character on empathy and immersion. The four experimental conditions of the game character appearance were: Natural (virtual animal) with expressiveness (emotional facial expressions), natural (virtual animal) with non-expressiveness (without emotional facial expressions), artificial (virtual robotic animal) with expressiveness (emotional facial expressions), and artificial (virtual robotic animal) with non-expressiveness (without emotional facial expressions). The control condition contained a baseline amorphous game character. 100 participants between 18 to 29 years old (M=22.47) were randomly assigned to one of five experimental groups. Participants originated from several countries: Aruba (1), China (1), Colombia (3), Finland (1), France (1), Germany (1), Greece (2), Iceland (1), India (1), Iran (1), Ireland (1), Italy (3), Jamaica (1), Latvia (1), Morocco (3), Netherlands (70), Poland (1), Romania (2), Spain (1), Thailand (1), Turkey (1), United States (1), and Vietnam (1). Results. We found that congruence in appearance and facial expressions of virtual animals (artificial + non-expressive and natural + expressive) leads to higher levels of self-reported situational empathy and immersion of players in a simulated environment compared to incongruent appearance and facial expressions. Conclusions. The results of this investigation showed an interaction effect between artificial/natural body appearance and facial expressiveness of a virtual character's appearance. The evidence from this study suggests that the appearance of the virtual animal has an important influence on user experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hegel has long been considered a major thinker of progress. This paper extends Hegel’s philosophy of progress into an outline of a philosophy of technology. It does this not by directly reading the little Hegel wrote on the subject, but by introducing six central Hegelian ideas that bear on the technological thought. It argues that, for Hegel, (1) mankind is destined to change its destiny; (2) that true change involved qualitative change; (3) that true change is conceptual, and not material, change; (4) that history progresses immanently according to its own laws; (5) that history progresses towards ever greater artificiality; and that (6) artificiality is closely linked to freedom. These ideas cohere into a Hegelian metaphysics of technology, which is supportive of the technological enterprise. This paper is meant both to sketch a metaphysical understanding of the technological enterprise, and to trace the intellectual roots of contemporary technological utopianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To narrow down the ultimate contrast in English poetry is to attempt a contrast between Byron and Shakespeare. George Gordon, Lord Byron, the originator of the concept of the Byronic hero. Lord Byron founded what may be called an exoteric Lake school; and all the readers of verse in England, we might say in Europe, hastened to sit at his feet. But Byron and Byronism were something immeasurably greater than anything that is represented by such a view as this: their real value and meaning are indeed little understood. Byronism was a revolt against artificiality; the new pessimism is a revolt in its favor. One of the best tests in the world of what a poet really means is his meter. Byron's poetry is eminently characteristic of the present age. It is essentially undramatic, and altogether repugnant to the social spirit of the age of Shakespeare. The question how much of true poetry lies behind and independent of the scenery and properties of Byronism, that this paper aims to debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses two peculiar cases of ‘otherness’ (alterity), as witnessed on stage at an exhibition of Chinese and African cultures presented by the Finnish Missionary Society from 1926–1928. This exhibition consisted of a man-made figure (re)presenting the Ovambo (African) culture of South-West Africa, in concert with Chinese figures who were made to represent the contemporary culture of China. Of note is the fact that the Chinese part of the exhibition was not as contemporary as proposed. In fact, it had imperial qualities. Both sections of the exhibition were ‘made-in-Finland’ type artificial representations which bordered on total inauthenticity as the organizers did not have anything more indigenous or native to the lands presented at hand. In short, they had to be both inventive and resourceful. In any case, the public (urban middle- and high-class, schoolchildren, teachers, academic and educated people in general) did not seem to care about the ambiguous mixture of apparent (‘white’) identity and (‘black’, Chinese) alterities as they were – for the most part – satisfied with the exhibition, which served as a very rare attraction in Finland at that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of identity in Iraq has been debated usually through the lens of the artificiality assumption. This mainstream thesis assumes an absence or weakness of the state/national identity and prioritizes sub-state and supra-state identities. This article examines the existence, scope and content of the national identity in Iraq through its historical and current manifestations. It questions whether the Iraqi identity has constituted an alternative dimension of belonging among the multiple identities of Iraq, in which ways this identity is imagined and constructed, and how it is performed in social and political domains. In this context, it argues that an examination of the Iraqi identity gives an alternative reading of the history of identity in Iraq. Such a reading draws four interrelated conclusions: First, the Iraqi identity has been an important ideological/cultural factor in Iraqi history. Second, Iraqiness has often been in interaction with other identity dimensions. Third, there have been significant differentiations of the imaginations of the Iraqi identity depending on the period and actors. Last, the Iraqi identity has extended beyond the policies of the state and elites and has expanded into the Iraqi society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pursuit of Happinessis a 2017 co-production of the American group Nature Theater of Oklahoma and the Slovenia-based, multinational En-Knap dance company. The genre-defying production provocatively misleads the audience through the textual as well as performative aspects of the piece. From slapstick scenes, through dynamic dance movements, all the way to philosophically challenging perceptions about the nature of our reality, the play balances on the edge of timid expressions of existentialist angst, Baudrillardian overload of simulacra, and an attempt to address a mechanical reproduction of art (and life) reminiscent of Walter Benjamin.This contribution endeavours to present an analysis of Pursuit of Happiness as an explosive contemporary piece that portrays a disintegrating world, where fear and anxiety engulf people's lives as suddenly as the play's formal structure breaks and changes. Following Jill Dolan's ruminations about "hopeful performatives", the paper seeks to plot out a set of such performatives and narratives in the selected play, and to show how they function in the liminal combination of dance and drama, movement and performance, art and life, and how these narratives can become part of what Elliot Leffler and Michael Mellas call divergent dramaturgy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show that reproducibility is a severe problem that concerns simulation models. The reproducibility problem challenges the concept of numerical solution and hence the conception of what a simulation actually does. We provide an expanded picture of simulation that makes visible those steps of simulation modeling that are numerically relevant, but often escape notice in accounts of simulation. Examining these steps and analyzing a number of pertinent examples, we argue that numerical solutions are importantly different from usual mathematical solutions. They are do not merely approximate the latter, but introduce new problems, including issues of artificiality, stability, and well-posedness. Consequently, simulation modelling can attain reproducibility only to a certain degree because it is working with numerical solutions (in a sense we specify in the paper). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maghreb’s desert, an eternal landscape of slow and irrational creation, or the Motya’s Salterns, geometrical landscape, logical and violent. Both landscapes capture our attention: the desert enhances nature, it is not susceptible to enduring changes and only works through a set of unrecognizable rules. Motya’s Salterns are an artificial product of scheduled changes, where man is the author of transformations driven by logical principles. In the past, the man-nature-territory relationship was a perfect harmony, where changes were not violent, but balanced, and distinguishing nature from artificiality was possible.

The behavior/structure methodological dichotomy as locus of scientific inquiry is closely related to the issue of modeling and theory change in scientific explanation. Given that the traditional tension between structure and behavior in scientific modeling is likely here to stay, considering the relevant precedents in the history of ideas could help us better understand this theoretical struggle. This better understanding might open up unforeseen possibilities and new instantiations, particularly in what concerns the proposed technological modification of the human condition. The sequential structure of this paper is twofold. The contribution of three philosophers better known in the humanities than in the study of science proper are laid out. The key theoretical notions interweaving the whole narrative are those of mechanization, constructability and simulation. They shall provide the conceptual bridge between these classical thinkers and the following section. Here, a panoramic view of three significant experimental approaches in contemporary scientific research is displayed, suggesting that their undisclosed ontological premises have deep roots in the Western tradition of the humanities. This ontological lock between core humanist ideals and late research in biology and nanoscience is ultimately suggested as responsible for pervasively altering what is canonically understood as “human”.

RESUMEN La realidad del conocimiento acerca de las problemáticas que afectan a la sociedad actual indica que la fragmentación del objeto de estudio sigue dominando en la ciencia en general y en la Geografía en particular. No obstante, la respuesta a los principales problemas que afectan a la Geografía se encuentran en zonas grises entre disciplinas, hecho que no puede ser de otro modo en tanto la fragmentación de los objetos de estudio desde distintos ámbitos disciplinarios es una artificialidad creada en momentos en que no era necesario preguntarse por fenómenos complejos, ya que el objetivo estaba centrado en tramos de un determinado universo. Esta práctica científica no sólo involucra a distintas disciplinas con sus particulares enfoques, sino que se traslada al interior de las mismas disciplinas bajo la adormecedora formulación de enfoque teóricos que permiten descansar en espacios conceptuales acotados, donde se puede hacer “ciencia” con comodidad, rutinariamente. ABSTRACT The reality around the social knowledge problems shows that fragmentation is still taking a wide space in science in general, but particularly in geography. This is a problem because the answer to the principal problems in relation with Geography field are included in grey areas in between different disciplines. This facts become into a normal fragmentation in the actual social studies wich are an artificial creation from the past times of the industrial revolution science, when there was no questions on the complex problems of the present society. Those were the times when science was focused only in certain applied methods to support and develop producction processes. This scientific practice is acctually involving different disciplines, but also is trespassing the methods of different sciences itself. That kind of scientific production have sleeping consequences on theoric and methodological matter of science, as soon the production branches remain in very narrow spaces that are very usefull for researchers as long as they can produce some accepted formal knowledge without to much effort.

Despite advocating for the necessity of absolutism, Hobbes is adamant that authority can only properly be derived from an act of human artifice and consent. But if the institution of sovereignty is subject to genuine choice, how can it be necessarily absolutist? I argue that one way of resolving this apparent dilemma is to focus on how Hobbes constructs and defends his own claim to authority in the Introduction to Leviathan. By encouraging his readers to read themselves and others, rather than rely on books, Hobbes ironically calls into question his own authority at the outset of his own book. But rather than subverting his claim to authority, it only strengthens it. After examining how this seemingly paradoxical tactic works, I demonstrate how an analogous claim applies to Hobbes's account of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recent results from studies on animals suggest that functional germ cells may be generated from human pluripotent stem cells, giving rise to three possibilities: research with these so‐called artificial gametes, including fertilization experiments in vitro; their use in vivo for therapy for the treatment of human infertility; and their use in assisted reproductive technologies in vitro. While the legal, philosophical, and ethical questions associated with these possibilities have been already discussed intensively in other countries, the debate in Germany is still at its beginning. A systematic and detailed analysis of the legal framework in Germany is provided with regard to the three possibilities, including the applicable statutory laws as well as the constitutional law. The question emerges as to whether the statutory laws as well as the constitution justify a distinction to be made between embryos of artificial and natural origin. This question is subject to philosophical analysis, discussing the distinction between person and thing, dignity and price, personality and property, and nature and technique. As a result, the criterion of naturalness alone may not be sufficient to differentiate between embryos of natural and artificial origin, and other criteria need to be identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907), one of the most remarkable authors of XIX. Century French literature comes to a parting of the ways with his novel A Rebours with Zola's naturalism since he is of the opinion that naturalism is at a loose end. The work is considered as the proclamation of decadent literature because of its author's examination on literature and art as well as the matters in hand. Also, the protagonist Duke Jean Floressas Des Esseintes is regarded as the archetype of decadent protagonist because of his hatred to the society and the age he lives in and will to escape from them. Des Esseintes embarks on a quest for giving the impression of being in "somewhere else" and "another time" to get rid of his boredom. For that reason, he accepts the authority of artificiality against naturality principally. Thus, he starts imaginary journeys via his imagination and memories. However, his senses stimulated excessively by several artificiality plays affect unfavourably his psyche and drive him to the edge of madness. In this study, the function of art, literature and senses on the search of artificiality feeding Des Esseintes's neurosis and driving him to the psychological collapse will be revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both Chinese and Western philosophers have argued for the ethical importance of manners. Their approaches are sometimes criticized on the grounds that manners are artificial. I compare Xunzi’s and Kant’s responses to this claim, and discuss the relevance of both positions for the development of a theory of manners. I show that there is no single artificiality claim, but rather four different claims: the claim that polite behavior lacks spontaneity, the claim that it is insincere, the claim that it goes against human nature, and the claim that it is arbitrary. While Kant is mainly concerned with the insincerity claim, Xunzi focusses on the claim that manners are arbitrary rules. Because of their different understandings of the function of manners both authors only provide a partial answer to the artificiality claim. To arrive at a full account of manners both perspectives must be combined.

This article aims to address the nature of the contractarian argument in Hobbes and Rawls. For both, it becomes clear the two basic elements present in both political theoretical argument, ie, the state of nature and the original position. The relationship of these two elements provides a substantial view of philosophical and political project aimed at each one as their conceptual similarities and discrepancies. To highlight this issue, there is discerned in an argumentative way that relates both those basic elements of the theoretical argument, and the feasibility of applying a starting point as the foundation of political argument.

A wide number of books published each year on the Middle East suggest or imply that most of the local borders, nations, cultures, and toponyms are "artificial" and devoid of any historical basis. The name itself («Middle East»), it is often argued, was coined by the British to serve their own strategic interests. The first part of the article contextualizes and deconstructs each of these aspects, while the second warns about the counterproductive effects that these approaches are having. They shed light on the points of view and the potential interests of those who support them, rather than on the interests and history of those who will continue to live in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]