Showing papers by "Mieke Bal published in 2009"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the value of such unsettled concepts for interdisciplinary work in the Humanities and explore the changeability that becomes part of their usefulness for a new methodology that is neither stultifying and rigid nor arbitrary or "sloppy".
Abstract: Interdisciplinarity in the humanities should seek its heuristic and methodological basis in concepts rather than in methods. Concepts are the tools of intersubjectivity: They facilitate discussion on the basis of a common language. But concepts are not fixed. They travel – between disciplines, between individual scholars, between historical periods and between geographically dispersed academic communities. Between disciplines, their meaning, reach and operational value differ. These processes of differing need to be assessed before, during and after each ‘trip’. All of these forms of travel render concepts flexible. It is this changeability that becomes part of their usefulness for a new methodology that is neither stultifying and rigid nor arbitrary or ‘sloppy’. This paper aims to explore the value of such unsettled concepts for interdisciplinary work in the Humanities.
61 citations
01 Mar 2009
TL;DR: The authors argue that too exclusive or tenacious a focus on cultural, ethnic, racial, and other identities erects more boundaries than it levels, and argue that a messy mixture of identities not only enhances but in fact constitutes the vibrancy of cultural life.
Abstract: Taking up some moments from the documentary film Becoming Vera, in this article I offer a plea for a cultural life "de-limited" by identity (Schimanski and Wolfe). Through the awaking cultural awareness of a three-year-old girl who negotiates borders established by education, linguistics, gender, and nationality, mostly by ignoring their relevance, I speculate that too exclusive or tenacious a focus on cultural, ethnic, racial, and other identities erects more boundaries than it levels. Secondarily, I contend that a messy mixture of identities not only enhances but in fact constitutes the vibrancy of cultural life. The film also shows the unavoidable framing of individuals - in this case, the framing of a child - that occurs simultaneously to their negotiation of borders.
3 citations
01 Jan 2009
TL;DR: In this article, the authors endorse the idea that commitment is part of academic work and argue that it can only become productive if it is accompanied by a specific complement (commitment to…) and an elaboration of how that commitment can be exercised to the benefit of society and the knowledge academics produce for it.
Abstract: What does it mean to endorse the idea that commitment is part of academic work? In recent decades, commitment, from a swearword, has become an academic program. But inevitably, it can only become productive if it is accompanied by a specific complement (commitment to…) and an elaboration of how that commitment can be exercised to the benefit of society and the knowledge academics produce for it. For commitment within academic work cannot take the commitment to the production of knowledge, the academy’s primary task, lightly at all.
2 citations
TL;DR: The play Picasso's Closet as mentioned in this paper unsettle the audience via the "out-of-the closet" revelations about Picasso cowardice against and complicity with the Nazi regime.
Abstract: Mieke Bal comments on Ariel Dorfman's play Picasso's Closet. The thrust of Picasso's Closet is to ethically unsettle the audience via the “out-of the closet” revelations about Picasso's cowardice against and complicity with the Nazi regime. The multiplication of story lines, of identities, and of actors underlines different ethical stances, staged, exposed, but not judged. This does not reflect a refusal to commit or a free-floating indifference, but a direct rejection of moralistic judgment and its resulting moral superiority. Instead, and along with the refusal of facile identification, this multiplication, when added to the singular case, seeks to use affect as a medium rather than and a means to manipulate emotions. Picasso's Closet resituates the political in art in the self-conscious artifice of the theatrical.
2 citations