The German filmmaker Werner Herzog controversially associates “truth” and “reality” in film with Kant’s notion of the sublime by explicitly treating the sublime as a key element in developing his notion of ecstatic truth. I critically examine Herzog’s interpretation of Kant’s sublime and the relations he establishes between the sublime and his own key aesthetic notion of ecstatic truth. I examine how the sublime in Herzog’s films arises from encounters with the overwhelming force and power of nature experienced by his (...) characters in the feature films and participants in the documentaries. I question whether Kant’s conception of the sublime is the one that best aligns with Herzog’s aesthetic aims and I contrast Kant’s transcendental sublime with what I describe as the physiological sublime of Edmund Burke. I draw some conclusions about the moral dimension of the sublime in the context of the relationship between humans and nature within the frame of contemporary ecological concerns. (shrink)

Translated from: W.V.O.Quine, W. H. O. (1986): Philosophy of Logic. Second Edition. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 47-61.

In the paper I am concerned with various manifestations of aesthetic fear and anxiety, that is, fear and anxiety triggered by works of art, which I am discussing from aesthetic as well as anthropological perspectives. I am analysing the link between fear and pleasure in catharsis, in Edmund Burke’s notion of the sublime, and in reference to Goya’s Black Paintings and to Paul Virilio’s thought. Both aesthetic fear and aesthetic anxiety exist alongside other emotions, such as pity and sadness, and, (...) most notably, with pleasure which is autonomous or arises from the fascination with evil. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article attempts to construct a distinct formulation of the sublime via an inspection of some of Jacques Derrida's principal works. Through a reading of his assessment of Kantian sublimity and a development of the dialectical from deconstruction, two patterns of the sublime can be formulated. These two constructed patterns of the sublime, which I shall name “sublime of différance” and “aporetic sublime,” are predicated on the notions of infinity and dialecticism. The aporetic sublime includes in its constitutive structure the (...) element of an orientation to an irreducible other. It is argued in the article that these constructions are open to an incorporation of the sublime as located beyond subjectivity and discourse. (shrink)

While the groundbreaking insights that contemporary theorists have formulated with regards to space---as a multiplicity without essence, as an active event, and as inseparable from subjectivity, power, Otherness and time---have ostensibly purged it of its traditional understanding as absolute, a specific visuality characteristic of Cartesian perspectivalism remains privileged in its theorization which force it to remain so. While the complexity of space cannot be recovered from an abstract contemplation of its visual geometry in a way that reflects these contemporary concerns, (...) there have unfortunately been relatively few attempts to imagine space away from the visual in a way that challenges its traditional absoluteness. To this end, it is argued that because sound and music contain implicit and explicit spatialities, the sonic represents a rich and unexplored area from which to imagine a radical non-visual space that discursively organizes space according to a different economy through which to challenge its assumed visuality. And yet, even when space has been approached through sound, there is a tendency to exteriorize sound into an object or a set of practices that robs it of its defining quality---its own "soundfulness". By breaking down those factors that are considered salient to how space is conceived today along sonic rather than visual lines, the argument is made that the "soundfulness" of sound's physical properties gives it a complex texture of excess that is corporealized within the body and forwards the philosophical possibility of unfolding the spatiality of sound according to vectors beyond the visible in a way that, while reflecting contemporary concerns, prevents its return to absoluteness. To take seriously this "soundfulness" thus allows us to recuperate the sonic as a philosophical and political way of experiencing and knowing the world, including that of space. The arguments, as well as being drawn from the insights of contemporary spatial theory, the physics of sound, the phenomenology of listening, rhizomatic and feminist theory, quantum mechanics and musicology, will be explained through an understanding of space as sound and exemplified in The Disintegration Loops, a post-minimalist musical piece by sonic artist William Basinski. (shrink)

Since the Romantic period, painters have no longer made use of traditional Christian iconography to express religious transcendence. Taking their cue from Schleiermacher's Reden Über die Religion, painters have sought for new, personal ways to express religious transcendence. One example is Caspar David Friedrich's Monk by the Sea. Rosenblum argues, in his Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition, that there is a parallel between Friedrich and the abstract expressionist Rothko with respect to the expression to religious transcendence. In this (...) article I investigate how the experience of transcendence that Rothko's paintings want to evoke is to be described. Is it an experience of the sublime in the Romantic tradition? Is it the evocation of the ultimate in accordance with Tillich's broad concept of religion? Does it display affinity between Rothko and the first generation of abstract painters such as Kandinsky and Malevich? Or is it a transcendent experience that cannot be situated so easily within the options supplied? After determining Rothko's understanding of transcendence, some issues will be brought up that could be fruitful for Christian theology. (shrink)

Inspired by a passage from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, this article considers the possibility of a “medical sublime.” It works through a history of the sublime in theory and in the arts, from ancient times to the present. It articulates therapeutic dimensions of the sublime and gives contemporary examples of its medical relevance. In addition, it develops the concept of sublime-based stress-reduction workshops and programs. These workshops bring the sublime out of the library and the museum into the lives of (...) the healthcare community—patients, families, clinicians, staff, concerned others—in the service of better navigating human vulnerability and finitude. Opening the cannon of aesthetic theory and the arts as resources for the human condition is at the heart of health humanities. The sublime can be an invaluable tool in this task. (shrink)

For over 2000 years, the sublime has been a source of fascination for philosophers, artists, and even the general public at times. We have written hundreds of treatises on the subject, put forth innumerable definitions and explanations, and even tried to reproduce it in art and literature. But, despite our efforts, our understanding of the sublime remains elusive. In this paper, the sublime is explored as a potential human experience that can be evoked by an image. Drawing upon concrete experiences, (...) the phenomenon of sublimity suggests a compelling, embodied response to the visual object that can evoke a fundamental change of being. (shrink)

En el presente artículo me propongo, en primer lugar, exponer los aspectos que determinan una polaridad y un contraste entre lo bello y lo sublime a lo largo del siglo XVIII. En segundo lugar, mostrar que esa tensión constante no implicó una oclusión, contradicción, o superación de una estética respecto de otra. Por último, intentaré dar cuenta de los alcances éticos que fue adquiriendo lo sublime, lo cual permite pensar esta noción como un sentimiento espiritual-moral de reunificación y elevación que (...) trasciende las fronteras del gusto y lo meramente bello. In this paper, firstly, I propose to show the aspects that determine a polarity and a contrast between the beautiful and the sublime throughout the 18th century. Secondly, I will maintain that this constant tension did not mean an occlusion, contradiction, or overcoming of an aesthetic on the other. Finally, I will try to account of the ethical scope was acquiring the sublime, which suggests this notion as a spiritual-moral feeling of reunification and elevation beyond the boundaries of taste and the merely beautiful. (shrink)