DOCSLIB.ORG

Masks and Sartre's Imaginary: Masked Performance and the Imaging Consciousness

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Masks and Sartre's Imaginary: Masked Performance and the Imaging Consciousness Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Communication Dissertations Department of Communication 4-20-2007 Masks and Sartre's Imaginary: Masked Performance and the Imaging Consciousness William Keith Tims Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_diss Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Tims, William Keith, "Masks and Sartre's Imaginary: Masked Performance and the Imaging Consciousness." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2007. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_diss/10 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Communication at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MASKS AND SARTRE’S IMAGINARY : MASKED PERFORMANCE AND THE IMAGING CONSCIOUSNESS by W. KEITH TIMS Under the Direction of Greg Smith ABSTRACT The use of masks in performance and actor training is often linked to the imagination, but there is seldom discussion of the nature of this imaginary link. Using the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre (most especially his work The Imaginary ) and the writings of modern mask theorists, this dissertation examines the relationship between masks and the imaging consciousness in both masked actors and the audiences who observe them. We discover that a mask is an analogon for an Other and that a mask authorizes games of identity which play out imaginatively in the performance milieu. In fact, generally speaking, a mask in performance is apprehended in a more imaginative way than a non-masked performance. Further than this, the mask illustrates the basic nature of the human consciousness and identity espoused by Sartre: that who we are is not a product of our psychology, but rather, the product of our imaginations and our choices. The dissertation concludes by suggesting that masks point to an alternative approach to character creation which likewise rejects psychology, and instead relies on physicality, abstraction, and ambiguity, all of which are essential to activating the imaging consciousness. INDEX WORDS: Masks, Performance, Sartre, Imaginary, Movement, Ambiguity, Aesthetics, Consciousness, Imagination, Analogon, Identity MASKS AND SARTRE’S IMAGINARY: MASKED PERFORMANCE AND THE IMAGING CONSCIOUSNESS by W. KEITH TIMS A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2007 Copyright by William Keith Tims 2007 MASKS AND SARTRE’S IMAGINARY: MASKED PERFORMANCE AND THE IMAGING CONSCIOUSNESS by W. KEITH TIMS Major Professor: Greg Smith Committee: Gayle Austin Thomas Flynn Shirlene Holmes Raphael Miller Angelo Restivo Electronic Version Approved Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May, 2007 iv Table of Contents List of Figures v Chapter 1 – Introduction 1 Chapter 2 – Masks, Movement, and the Imagination 23 Chapter 3 – Trance and the Imaginary 56 Chapter 4 – Character Development through Masks and the Imaginary 93 Chapter 5 – The Mask and Sens 138 Chapter 6 – Masks, Audiences, and the Imaginary 185 Chapter 7 – Conclusion 231 Works Consulted/Bibliography 242 v List of Figures Page 1. LeCoq’s “Jesuit” mask (57). 139 2. A “Rangda” mask (Hartley Film Foundation). 139 3. Sunflowers, Van Gogh. 155 4. The Thinker, Rodin 156 5. Hare’s Moon Cage. 165 6. An Appel mask (111). 169 7. Another Appel mask (87). 170 8. Many Appel masks (95). 170 9. Eldredge’s “simple character mask” (86). 172 10. More “simple character” masks (86). 173 11. Benda’s “Golden Beauty” mask (72). 175 12. Benda’s “Beelzebub” mask (75). 176 1 Chapter 1 – Introduction A recurring theme in the literature surrounding masks and their use in performance is that masks are tied to the imagination. Some authors discuss how masks affect their wearers, inspiring new ways of using the body and new personae from the image of the new face. Others discuss how masks invite the audience to imagine; the performances are as much about the audience’s own ideas as those of the performers. But what does “imagination” mean in the context of performance? If masks indeed are tied to the imagination, what does this say about the nature of masks? And what do masks’ imaginary ties have to say about the nature of the imagination itself? The writings of Jean-Paul Sartre offer one perspective on the imagination in the context of performance. Sartre was an existentialist philosopher and dramatist who wrote extensively about the nature of consciousness and attempted to echo his philosophy in his plays, art critiques, and essays on the creative process. Sartre’s best known work is Being and Nothingness, in which he outlines his ideas about the nature of human consciousness. However, an earlier, less well-known work of his titled The Imaginary deals with Sartre’s conception of the imagination and its role in human consciousness. Coupled with Sartre’s own 2 ideas on aesthetics and performance, Sartre offers a new perspective on mask theory. By reading Sartre against existing major mask theorists one discovers new ideas about mask theory. The core assertion is this: Generally speaking, audiences and actors alike apprehend masked performances in a more imaginary way than non-masked performances. While there are many factors that influence the degree to which a particular performance can be described as “more” imaginary than another, and these factors make it admittedly difficult to directly compare one style of performance with another, there are certain elements of human imagination that Sartre defines which are called into greater play in the presence of a well-animated mask. As a result, we can observe how masks operate as objects that have connections to our imaginations and sense of identity and how these connections affect performances. In addition, masked performance can also offer a new perspective on Sartre’s concepts of the imagination in that masks illustrate the operations of consciousness. Some questions arise: What would Sartrean philosophy have to say about the role of masks in character creation? What might Sartrean concepts have to say about how audiences apprehend a masked performer compared to an unmasked performer? What are the aesthetic qualities that make a particular mask/performance more effective from a Sartrean point of view? What is the relationship between existing mask theory and Sartrean ideas of the 3 imagination? How might Sartre’s ideas of the imagination be used to construct an aesthetic for masked performance? In an attempt to answer these questions, we will employ hermeneutics as a methodology, performing a close comparative reading of Sartrean philosophy against several texts on mask acting. Sartre’s The Imaginary served as the main work in this project. Some of Sartre’s other works (e.g. Being and Nothingness, Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions , “On Intentionality,” etc.) as well as other authors’ writings about Sartrean concepts of imagination, aesthetics, and consciousness are added to Imaginary to form a body of Sartrean thought. Also included are Kendall Walton’s ideas of make-believe and the writings of select Gestalt aesthetic authors. This body of work becomes the primary text against which the role of the mask in performance was read as expressed in various 20th and 21st century mask acting texts. Sartre’s Theories of the Imagination It is important at the outset to lay out Sartre’s philosophy which formed the core of the body of his thought, beginning with Sartre’s work The Imaginary, since this line of thought will be referenced throughout the dissertation. As its title suggests, The Imaginary outlines Sartre’s ideas about imaginary objects, how they are understood by consciousness, and what is the nature of consciousness itself that humans can imagine at all. Sartre opens The Imaginary by identifying two different ways that an object can be given to us: via 4 perception or imagination. Perception comes from observation: our studying over time of an object in the “real” world. Perception is necessarily incomplete. If I look at a piano, for instance, I will only see the side at which I am looking. If the lid is closed, I do not see the strings inside. Where perception is incomplete, imagining is total. It is a synthetic act that links knowledge to elements “more properly imagined” ( Imaginary 8-9). The piano in my imagination may have all sides of itself given to me, strings included, as well as sounds, memories, and emotions that I may have. The synthetic act of creating an image does not rely on knowledge alone. Intentionality is another factor. By intentionality, Sartre means that feature of consciousness by which it aims at an other-than-consciousness; in other words, that characteristic by which consciousness focuses on an object. It is the “lens” by which we view that object, and it is a lens we create ourselves. Whatever object that appears to us in the imagination we already have an intention toward it—an expectation, idea, or determination—but in a properly imaginative way. This is my piano, or that is the house where I used to live, we might say, if the piano and house are absent. Sartre cites Husserl that a consciousness is a consciousness of something ( Imaginary 11). “Consciousness and the world are given at one stroke: essentially external to consciousness, the world is nevertheless essentially relative to consciousness” (“Intentionality” 4). It is not only my knowledge of a piano that creates the imaginary piano for me, but my intention towards the imaginary piano itself. In my mind’s eye, the imaginary piano is given to me in a 5 “quasi-observation” attitude, but it teaches me nothing new. It is given to me as it is, and as I intend it to be, all at once.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Key Texts and Contributions to a Critical Theory of Society
    1 Introduction: Key Texts and Contributions to a Critical Theory of Society Beverley Best, Werner Bonefeld and Chris O’Kane The designation of the Frankfurt School as a known by sympathisers as ‘Café Marx’. It ‘critical theory’ originated in the United was the first Marxist research institute States. It goes back to two articles, one writ- attached to a German University. ten by Max Horkheimer and the other by Since the 1950s, ‘Frankfurt School’ criti- Herbert Marcuse, that were both published in cal theory has become an established, inter- Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (later Studies nationally recognised ‘brand name’ in the in Philosophy and Social Science) in 1937.1 social and human sciences, which derives The Zeitschrift, published from 1932 to from its institutional association in the 1920s 1941, was the publishing organ of the and again since 1951 with the Institute Institute for Social Research. It gave coher- for Social Research in Frankfurt, (West) ence to what in fact was an internally diverse Germany. From this institutional perspec- and often disagreeing group of heterodox tive, it is the association with the Institute Marxists that hailed from a wide disciplinary that provides the basis for what is considered spectrum, including social psychology critical theory and who is considered to be a (Fromm, Marcuse, Horkheimer), political critical theorist. This Handbook works with economy and state formation (Pollock and and against its branded identification, concre- Neumann), law and constitutional theory tising as well as refuting it. (Kirchheimer, Neumann), political science We retain the moniker ‘Frankfurt School’ (Gurland, Neumann), philosophy and sociol- in the title to distinguish the character of its ogy (Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse), culture critical theory from other seemingly non- (Löwenthal, Adorno), musicology (Adorno), traditional approaches to society, including aesthetics (Adorno, Löwenthal, Marcuse) the positivist traditions of Marxist thought, and social technology (Gurland, Marcuse).
    [Show full text]
  • Imaginary Democracy
    Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, Vol. 33 (1998), 31-54 IMAGINARY DEMOCRACY 0JVIND LARSEN Copenhagen Business School The imaginary democracy theory should be of equal interest to sociology and the study of politics. The task of sociology is to interpret the imaginary as it comes to expression in the symbolic order of social institutions. Just as the task of psychoanalysis is to discover the suppressed pathological traits of the soul, the task of sociology is to uncover the sup- pressed pathological traits of institutions. The role of the study of politics in this theory is to come to a fundamental understanding of the political as an imaginary relationship. Introduction Before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, very few people looked at what characterizes democracy itself. Democracy was first and foremost understood as the opposite of the totalitarian regimes of Eastern Europe. This is no longer the case. Today there is no other form of rule which competes with democracy. It is therefore quite natural that a great interest has arisen in finding out what it is then that characterizes democracy. In this context, there is a danger that de- mocracy simply becomes identified with the particular historical form it has taken for us. By making such an identification, there is a risk that we will never come to an understanding of democracy itself, but merely confuse it with a particular historical form. There is, in other words, need for an understanding of democracy through which we have the opportunity to relate to the historical forms which democracy has taken not just in our time, but throughout history.
    [Show full text]
  • The Symbolic, the Imagrnary, and the Real
    The Symbolic,the Imagrnary,and the Real : Inauguralmeeting of SFP,Paris : 8tl'July 1953: JacquesLacan P1-52of On the Names-of-the-Father: Jacques Lacan. translatedby BruceFink JacquesLacan spoke on "The Synrbolic,the Imaginary, and the Real" immediately beforewriting the so-calledRome Report on "The Functionand Field of Speechand Langua-eein Psychoanalysis"(published in theEcrits) during the summerof 1953,a paperthat markedthe publicdebut of "Lacan'steaching," as it was latercalled. The earliertalk includedthe first thematicpresentation of the famoustriad that undergirdedall of Lacan'swork for the next threedecades and that went on to becomeits essentialobject - not merelya conceptualobject, but a mathematicaland materialone as well in the form of the Borromeanknot andits derivatives. Publishedin Frenchat EcoleLacanienne de Psychanalyse - Pas tout Lacan - 1950i1959: ,. ", Available, ,".,,.http.//wu'w.ecole-lacanienne.net/documents/1953-07-08.doc Cetteconferer'rce ( Le.symbolique,l'imagirtaire el le reel r.firtpronortceele Bjuillet 1953pourout'rir les actit,itesde la Societt.fi'curEctisede Psvchcuralvse. Cette versirtrt e.stannoncee dans le cataloguede la Biblirfihit1uede I'e.l.p. contmever.sion J.L. Il existeplusieurs autres version.s,sensiblement di//erentes a certains endroits,dont une pante dan.sle Bulletinde l'Associationfreudienne, 1982, n" I. Referencesto SigmundFreud Wolf Man . The Historyof an InfantileNeurosis : 1918(SE XVII) RatMan : Notesupon a caseof Obsessionalneurosis . 1909 (SE X) Beyondthe pleasureprinciple 1920(SE XVIII) My friends, you can see that, for the first so- called scientific presentation of our new Sociery, I have selecteda title that is quite ambitious. I will thus begin first by apologizing for it, asking you to consider this presentation both as a summary of viewpoints that those here who are my students know well, with which they have become familiar over the past two years through my teaching, and also as a sort of preface or introduction to a certain orientation for studying psychoanalysis.
    [Show full text]
  • Capital's Media: the Physical Conditions of Circulation
    Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 9-26-2016 12:00 AM Capital's Media: The Physical Conditions of Circulation Atle Mikkola Kjøsen The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Nick Dyer-Witheford The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Media Studies A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Atle Mikkola Kjøsen 2016 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Kjøsen, Atle Mikkola, "Capital's Media: The Physical Conditions of Circulation" (2016). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 4156. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/4156 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract The question of what constitutes media has received little attention in Marxism and where it does, the concept is an empty abstraction. While Marxists have extensively theorized the concentration of mass media ownership, and analyzed mass media content as ideology or propaganda, critical discussions of what a medium is in the capitalist mode of production have been mostly lacking. That is to say, Marxism does not have a media ontology. Media is therefore a critical gap in Marx’s political economy. This dissertation seeks to fill this gap by asking what is a medium in the capitalist mode of production?, answering it with a value- form theory of media and a concept of “capital’s media” that takes the circulation of capital as its starting point.
    [Show full text]
  • Second Ole Lando Memorial Lecture September 2020 Contract Law and Human Dignity Christian Von Bar, Osnabrück
    1 Second Ole Lando Memorial Lecture September 2020 Contract Law and Human Dignity Christian von Bar, Osnabrück I. Introduction Ole Lando was interested in the law governing commercial contracts. This second lecture held in his memory (Professor Hugh Beale hold the first one year ago in Copenhagen) will, as I promised to his sons, also be about contract law, but it will not be about commercial contracts. Rather, I have decided to direct my (and hopefully your) attention to those aspects of contract law which are directly affected by fundamental and human rights law. At first sight one might think that the one and the other only rarely get into conflict. Agreements are normally seen as something “good”; how can they clash with human rights? But I hope to be able to show that on closer analysis there is a lot to be said about agreements which for mainly or at least predominantly constitutional reasons cannot be held up as binding contracts. II. Persons My subject is closely connected with the law governing the natural (or physical) person. Such a “person” is a human being who, within the framework of private law, deals with other human beings (and so-called “legal persons”). It is about the “public face” of the human being. Persona was the mask of an actor by which one could recognize the character he played and which helped to better understand his voice. A human being appears as a person when he or she comes into contact with other subjects of private law and puts on his or her “character mask” for this purpose.
    [Show full text]
  • Fetishism and Revolution in the Critique of Political Economy
    CONTINENTAL THOUGHT & THEORY: A JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM Fetishism and Revolution in the Critique of Political Economy Volume 1 | Issue 4: 150 years of Capital 365-398 | ISSN: 2463-333X Fetishism and Revolution in the Critique of Political Economy: Critical Reflections on some Contemporary Readings of Marx’s Capital Guido Starosta Abstract The aim of this article is to examine a series of recent contributions to the reading of Marx’s Capital that stress its specific determination as a dialectical investigation of objectified or fetishised forms of social mediation in capitalist society: on the one hand, the so-called Neue Marx-Lektüre originated in Germany towards the end of the 1960s and, on the other, the more widely circulated work of authors associated with so-called Open Marxism. The interesting aspect of these works is that they draw the implications of Marx’s critique of political economy not only for the comprehension of the fetishised forms of social objectivity in capitalism, but also for the comprehension of the forms of subjectivity of the modern individual. More specifically, all these contributions broadly share the insightful view that the content of the simplest determination of human individuality in the capitalist mode of production is its alienated existence as ‘personification of economic categories’. However, this article 365 CONTINENTAL THOUGHT & THEORY: A JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM Fetishism and Revolution in the Critique of Political Economy argues that the limits of these perspectives become apparent when it comes to uncovering the grounds of the revolutionary form of subjectivity which carries the potentiality to transcend capitalist alienation.
    [Show full text]
  • 7. Time in the Ontology of Cornelius Castoriadis
    Page No.64 7. Time in the ontology of Cornelius Castoriadis Dr Alexandros Schismenos University of Ioannina, Greece E-Mail: [email protected] ORCID iD: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8490-4223 Abstract: We can locate the problematic of time within three philosophical questions, which respectively designate three central areas of philosophical reflection and contemplation. These are: 1) The ontological question, i.e. 'what is being?' 2) The epistemological question, i.e. 'what can we know with certainty?' 3) The existential question, i.e. 'what is the meaning of existence?' These three questions, which are philosophical, but also scientific and political, as they underline the political and moral question of truth and justice, arising from the phenomenon of time, the irreversible constant flow of phenomena that undermines every claim to absolute knowledge. The purpose of this essay is to illuminate the importance of time for philosophical thought and, more generally, for human social and psychical life, in the context of the ontology of Cornelius Castoriadis. Castoriadis, who asserted that “being is time – and not in the horizon of time”, correlated history to society and being to temporality within the social-historical stratum, the ontological plane created by human existence, where “existence is signification”. Time is interpreted as the creation and destruction of forms in a magmatic, layered with a non-regular stratification, reality, where the social-historical manifests as the creation of collective human activity, in the manner of social imaginary significations. This notion of temporality is accompanied by a profound criticism of traditional rationalistic philosophy, to which Castoriadis assigns the name ‘ensemblistic/identitary’, that highlights the necessity of a new, magmatic ontology, based on the primacy of time.
    [Show full text]
  • Imaginary Significations and Education As a Social Institution
    E-ISSN 2281-4612 Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Vol 2 No 11 ISSN 2281-3993 MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy October 2013 Imaginary Significations and Education as a Social Institution Stavros Moutsios Associate Professor, International Comparative Education, Aarhus University Marie Curie Research Fellow, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Erziehungswissenschaften, Abteilung Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft, Germany Email: [email protected] Doi:10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n11p144 Abstract This paper is about culture and education as a social institution. Evidently, there is no society without culture and there is no society without institutions. Culture is incarnated in social institutions and we need to elucidate this relation in order to understand education across societies. By education we mean not only the official school system, but the entire realm of learning experience available in social institutions, or what we call today lifelong learning. Our analysis is based on the Castoriadian ontology, which considers culture embedded in the imaginary institution of society. Each society is instituted by creating its own world of imaginary significations and exists through them. In these terms, the paper argues, to understand education as an institution of a particular society, ones needs to access its world of significations. The paper explores further the methodological implications of this argument for social-scientific and educational research. 1. Introduction This paper, part of a broader theoretical project in comparative education studies,1 examines theoretically the relation between culture and education. Based largely on the ontology of Cornelius Castoriadis (1987), we maintain, that societies have not only a functional/instrumental dimension (i.e. their physical and biological reality) but also a signitive dimension, which expresses their culture.
    [Show full text]
  • Literature, Ideology, and the Imaginary
    CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture ISSN 1481-4374 Purdue University Press ©Purdue University Volume 11 (2009) Issue 2 Article 1 Literature, Ideology, and the Imaginary Marcello Potocco University of Primorska Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact: <[email protected]> Recommended Citation Potocco, Marcello. "Literature, Ideology, and the Imaginary." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.2 (2009): <https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1467> This text has been double-blind peer reviewed by 2+1 experts in the field. The above text, published by Purdue University Press ©Purdue University, has been downloaded 5357 times as of 11/ 07/19.
    [Show full text]
  • The Real and the Gaze of Jacques Lacan
    Roger Williams University DOCS@RWU Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation 2019 The Real and the Gaze of Jacques Lacan John S. Hendrix Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp Part of the Architectural History and Criticism Commons, and the Arts and Humanities Commons The Real and the Gaze of Jacques Lacan John Shannon Hendrix The third category of the psyche in Lacanian psychoanalysis is the real (réel), which is neither imaginary nor symbolic in conscious or unconscious thought, and which is inaccessible to psychoanalysis itself. The real is not reality in either a conceptual or phenomenological sense, which is the sym- bolic and the imaginary: it is only proposed as an algebraic concept, as it cannot be conceived. It exists as an absence in the symbolic order (lan- guage), as the unconscious exists as an absence in conscious thought. Non- presence can be seen in the real of Lacan, and the gaze, in the dialectic be- tween the imaginary and the symbolic, and in the Hegelian dialectic between subjective and objective spirit. The real of Lacan is exterior to the symbolic, and cannot be represented by the symbolic, and yet the real has an effect on the symbolic, as the unconscious has an effect on conscious thought. The real is the inability of the signifier in language to relate to the signified, the im- possibility of meaning in language, and the impossibility of the subject. In every attempt that the subject makes to represent itself in language or percep- tion, according to Lacan, something is missed, or left behind.
    [Show full text]
  • Fromm and Horkheimer – on the Fundamentals of Critical Theory's
    42 Articles Fromm and Horkheimer – On the fundamentals of critical theory’s anthropology 1 Fábio De Maria Abstract: Erich Fromm was central to the Frank- furt Institute for Social Research under the di- rection of Max Horkheimer, but the works of each author, while handling at times similar is- sues, took different paths. The article’s aim is to analyze how Horkheimer’s anthropology, which would be of importance in Dialectic of Enlighten- ment, was built as the author critically embodied the core elements of his colleague’s social psy- chology in his essays. By doing so, Horkheimer could overcome some of the limitations of Fromm’s early work, as well as suggest new ways for critique. Keywords: critical theory; anthropology; character; Max Horkheimer; Erich Fromm; domination. 1 This text was first published (with the same title and – except for corrections, small chan- ges and a larger paragraph in one of the last pages – with exact the same content) in Bajo Palabra, Revista de Filosofía, II Época, n. 21, 2019, pp. 59–80. I would like to thank Ema- nuel Kapfinger for discussing several aspects of Fromm’s and Horkheimer’s social theo- ries with me. I also thank Rainer Funk, Thomas Kühn, Catherine Silver, Neil McLaughlin and Lynn Chancer for debating this text at the 4th International Erich Fromm Seminar for Doctoral Students and Postdocs, held in Tübingen in September 2019 by the Erich Fromm Institut and the Erich Fromm Study Center. The article is based on ideas de- veloped in my doctoral thesis, Crítica da autoridade: dominação e emancipação na obra de Max Horkheimer (»Critique of authority: domination and emancipation in the work of Max Horkheimer«), supervised by Prof.
    [Show full text]
  • Masks, Costumes, Ceremony Life in Seventeenth Century France
    Curriculum Units by Fellows of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute 1986 Volume III: Topics in Western Civilization: Ideals of Community and the Development ofUrban Life, 1250-1700 Masks, Costumes, Ceremony Life In Seventeenth Century France Curriculum Unit 86.03.02 by Harriet J. Bauman Rich in culture, literature, and the arts, France’s Seventeenth Century remains vibrantly alive today in its records. During this time, Corneille, Racine, MoliEre, La Fontaine, Pascal and Descartes were writing; Poussin, Le Vau and Le Brun were painting; and Mansard was building Versailles. One literary work in particular lends itself to a study of this century. Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme ( The WouldBe Gentleman ) by MoliEre forms the basis of this unit focusing on the “rise” of the bourgeoisie and the “fall” of the nobility, which started in the early 1600’s and ended in the late 1700’s with the French Revolution. As social class distinctions began to change, these changes were reflected in literature and art. The rise of the bourgeoisie, buttressed by the manipulations of Louis XIV, had a political and social impact on the times. “As the bourgeoisie developed, and especially as it tried to buttress its improving economic status with political gains, class distinctions became the explicit subject of ideological, literary, legal, and social debates. Economic factors, and more or less deliberate government policies, contributed significantly to changes in both facts and perceptions about the social classes.” (“The Issues of Nobility and Identity in Dom Juan and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme ”, Larry W. Riggs The French Review Vol. LIX No. 3, Feb., 1986, p.
    [Show full text]