Materialities

There are many motives for making art, but economic drivers are often acknowledged as key attributes of artistic success. In particular, they figure in discussions about the strategic orientation of successful artist's careers. However, in the literature on which this thesis is based, commercial factors are seen as important but limited, in relation to the actual range of Abbing, H.

The early ethnological works of Alfred Métraux are analysed bearing in mind his first fieldwork trip to the Chiriguano, in 1929. The paper discusses personal, academic and professional features of Métraux’s ethnological experience, the nature of the 1929 trip and his concrete relationships with the Chiriguano groups and individuals. Next, we analyse his ideas on material culture as a privileged means of understanding the synthesis of Andean, Chaco and Amazonian cultural influences. Finally, the dilemmas and limitations of his analytical approach regarding Créole cultural influence and social and cultural change are discussed. [Key words: Alfred Métraux, Chané, Chiriguano, material culture, change.]
Se analiza la etnología temprana de Alfred Métraux a la luz de su primer viaje de campo a los chiriguanos, en 1929. Se discute el perfil personal, académico y profesional de Métraux, las peculiaridades de su trabajo de campo en 1929 y sus relaciones concretas con los indígenas chiriguanos en el terreno. Se examinan luego sus ideas sobre la cultura material como campo experimental privilegiado para rastrear procesos de síntesis de influencias culturales andinas, chaqueñas y amazónicas, así también sus dilemas y límites a la hora de interpretar el factor de la influencia criolla y el proceso de cambio social y cultural en un sentido amplio. [Palabras clave: Alfred Métraux, Chané, Chiriguano, cultura material, cambio.]

Over the course of an influential career spanning several decades, Tim Ingold, Professor Emeritus at the University of Aberdeen, has established himself as a preeminent voice in the field of Social Anthropology. Author of studies including The Perception of the Environment (2000), Being Alive (2011) and The Life of Lines (2015), this interview was inspired by the potential of his wide-ranging scholarship to unearth some fascinating avenues for research in literary studies. The breadth of his writing on habitation, perception and skilled practice, suggests myriad applications for his thinking beyond the purely anthropological, and particularly for bridging the concerns of literary and environmental studies. The philosophical depth of his work, apparent in his analyses of processes of growth and formation in both biological and socio-cultural domains (indeed questioning the supposed divisions between these fields), proves that his scholarship provides a refreshing counter-narrative to many prevailing schools of thought in current literary theory, especially to much of the discourse of New Materialism and Speculative Realism. In addition, this interview contains his views regarding certain emerging issues in literary studies, such as the material practices of reading, and the ascendency of the computer screen over the printed book, areas where his anthropological perspective is both stimulating and revealing. As a renowned scholar who has recently surveyed the changes in the academy and in disciplinary relationships throughout his long career, his observations provide valuable insights into the capability of the arts to guide us into a wider, more interconnected world. Crucially, his responses also speak to the world of academia, and how we can foster a practical awareness of ecological issues within the often-rarefied spheres of academic research and practice. Resumen A lo largo de varias décadas de influyente trayectoria, Tim Ingold, profesor emérito de la Universidad de Aberdeen, se ha consolidado como una de las voces más importantes del campo de la antropología social. El autor de obras como The Perception of the Environment [La percepción del ambiente] (2000), Estar vivo (2011) y La vida de las líneas (2015) accedió a esta entrevista, inspirada en el potencial de sus amplios escritos, la cual pretende desvelar algunas posibilidades de investigación fascinantes en lo que a los estudios literarios se refiere. La amplitud de sus escritos sobre los asentamientos, la percepción y las habilidades prácticas sugiere una infinidad de usos para sus reflexiones que van más allá de lo meramente antropológico y que se refieren, en especial, a su relación con las cuestiones de los estudios literarios y medioambientales. La profundidad filosófica de su obra, que resulta evidente en sus análisis de los procesos de crecimiento y formación, tanto en ámbitos biológicos como socioculturales (y que, de hecho, cuestionan la supuesta separación entre ambos campos), demuestra que sus estudios ofrecen una novedosa contranarrativa a las corrientes de pensamiento predominantes en la teoría literaria actual, sobre todo

"Nos muros urbanos que historicamente acolheram o poder e a disciplina, inscreve-se também o inconsciente selvagem de tudo aquilo que permanece indomesticado. Efémeras, dispersas, negligenciadas ou rasuradas, as expressões disruptivas visuais da cidade são traços que, tal como os fósseis do arqueólogo, sobrevivem para testemunhar uma realidade profunda que subjaz ao domínio do que foi instituído. Dar-lhes visibilidade é um exercício detectivesco através do qual se procura adivinhar os segredos provocadores ou resgatar os vestígios da amálgama de modos possíveis de habitar e imaginar a cidade. Algo sempre escapará e o seu mapeamento total é impossível. Apesar disso, é nesse desafio que nos podemos rever, tal como Walter Benjamin descrevia o flâneur baudelairiano, enquanto botânicos do asfalto, ou seja, enquanto testemunhas activas que podem regenerar – na condição de absorverem a vitalidade do seu objecto de observação – o espaço que, pelo movimento, ocupam."

Celebrity chefs foster a relationship of intimacy with consumers, which is compounded by presenting styles, social media and the opening up of their personal lives. These intimacies are extended into domestic spaces through the material objects, such as kitchen equipment, specialist ingredients and cookbooks, which are brought into the home. This article interrogates the ways a group of UK consumers interact with this ‘stuff’ of celebrity chefs and explores the ways these interactions (re)produce chefs and make them present in consumer homes. As such, it elucidates how focusing on the material objects that consumers personalise and associate with a celebrity chef can provide new insights into assessing the ways such chefs influence food and eating practices, as well as showing how these objects enable consumers to actively produce their food identities and social relations. As these relations are social and economic, attention is drawn to the manner in which the fostering of intimacies can obfuscate commercial relations.

Michael Hauskeller (Erstmals erschienen in:Das Münster 52/2 (1999), 168-177.) I. Ob es eine christliche bzw. unchristliche Kunst gibt, ist eine Frage, die innerhalb und außerhalb kirchlicher Kreise bis heute kontrovers diskutiert wird. Die Antwort aber hängt wesentlich davon ab, was man unter dem Begriff christliche Kunst verstehen will. Man könnte versuchen, es sich leicht zu machen, und einfach alle Kunstwerke zu christlichen erklären, die auf irgendeine Weise tradierte christliche Inhalte zur Darstellung bringen, als da wären die Verkündigung Mariae, die Geburt Christi, die Madonna mit dem Kinde, Szenen aus dem Leben Jesu, Kreuzigung und Auferstehung, der Fall der Engel, der Sturz der Verdammten, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen und Märtyrer und ähnliches -so wie wir es insbesondere von der mittelalterlichen Kunst gewohnt sind. Bei näherer Betrachtung zeigt sich allerdings, daß der Versuch einer inhaltlichen Bestimmung unzureichend bleibt, da der Inhalt jederzeit durch die Art seiner Darstellung ins Nicht-oder gar Unchristliche gewendet werden kann. Ein sehr krasses Beispiel für diese Entstellung christlicher Inhalte durch ihre Präsentation ist sicher das Gemälde Max Ernsts von 1926 "Die Jungfrau züchtigt das Jesuskind vor drei Zeugen, André Breton, Paul Eluard und dem Maler" (Abb. 1). Darauf sehen wir die Madonna, die, wie es sich gehört, einen Glorienschein trägt, mit dem nackten Jesuskind auf ihrem Schoß. Allerdings hält sie es nicht wie gewohnt in ihren Armen oder auf den Knien, sondern so, daß sein Gesicht zu Boden gewandt ist, und holt gerade zu einem weiteren Schlag auf sein schon arg gerötetes Hinterteil aus. Sie prügelt also offenbar ordentlich drauf los, so ordentlich, daß dem Jesuskind bereits sein Nimbus vom Kopf gefallen ist. Die Madonna trägt eine blutrotes Kleid, und drei Männer (die sich als die genannten Surrealisten entziffern lassen) schauen bzw. hören durch ein Fenster links hinter der Madonna der Züchtigung zu. Nicht nur auf den Gläubigen mag das Bild

What is Abstract Art? Loving art is all about perspective. To truly experience art, to let it infiltrate your brain and take you somewhere new, you have to find pieces that speak to you. Each person has a unique perspective that can never be truly comprehended by any other person. Art is a wonderful medium through which we get to know each other, and ourselves, a little better. There are a wide variety of art styles, themes, and mediums. Some of them speak to us, and some of them do not. One major delineation between approaches deals with perspective. On one side, you have artists that try to reproduce reality in their pieces. While they might change aspects of that reality, like choosing a color scheme to evoke emotional tenor, the base image is still there: like a forest, mountain, or house. The other perspective allows for an entirely new interpretation of an image that cannot be matched, point for point, with the base image. It is an abstract interpretation of a scene, or an emotion, or a memory. You can see a number of Abstract Art from veryniceart.com Abstract art is known for being independent from visual references to the real world. It uses the same media, the same tools, but the output is completely different and often unrecognizable as a place or a person to the viewer. Historically, Western art revolved around artists creating pieces from a logical perspective that did its best to mimic visual reality. From the Renaissance to the mid 1800s, this was the predominant art form out there. The increasing globalization of culture that started in the mid 19 th Century resulted in the meeting of different artistic forms from all around the world. Cultures in all corners of the earth had thus far developed their own perspectives and methods for expressing them, but suddenly these different approaches started to influence each other and kick off whole new avenues of expression. The industrialization of several nations that began in this era also changed perspectives and philosophies, which naturally led to new forms of art to reflect these changes.

FILIP LIPIŃSKI / The Image of Psycho. On interpictorial dialogue of works by Edward Hopper and Alfred Hitchcock

The article is an analysis of a citational way of being of a well-known picture by the American artist Edward Hopper entitled House by the Railroad in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and the resulting dialogue between these two works. There are frequent references in literature on both artists to a supposed director’s inspiration with Hopper’s painting or the house it depicts. Leaving the question of the author’s intentions aside, I am interested in the viewer’s visual experience
which is based a mnemonic inscription of the painterly image into the filmic image and vice versa, as well as a possibility of contemporary, intetextualityinspired interpictorial reading. Its core is a question about an apparently insignificant difference: is it all about the house or the picture? The conclusions that can be drawn from a careful examination of House by the Railroad, especially the relation between the railroad and the building, related to its differential,
spectral being in Psycho, indicate the necessity of perceiving Hopper’s quotation as meaning-productive, irreducible pictorial structure. However, as a result of the legitimized by the viewer’s look repetition in the film and the narration proposed by Hitchcock, it is marked with difference, interpreted and, in a way, “dissolved”. Psycho is a filmic environment which tests the potential of Hopper’s
painting, just like the picture, which, while haunting the Bates’ house, transforms and condenses the filmic text, emphasizing the perspective of the look which is shared by the film characters and the viewer in front of the screen – and in front of the picture.

This paper explores the materiality of food production and consumption within the household in Bronze Age Cyprus. The focus is on embodied encounters with the “stuff of food” – the pots, pans and other kitchen implements that were used on a daily basis – and how these shaped people’s lives. Throughout the Early and Middle Bronze Age, generations of families on Cyprus used Red Polished pottery to serve and consume food and drink: the round-bottomed pots were not designed to be laid on a table indicative of the development of very specific customs of dining at home. The very limited range of pottery (wares and forms) available to the Early-Middle Cypriot householder suggests a monotone cultural experience. The introduction of vessels with flat bases or ring bases at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age might indicate a move to dining around a table – a radically different engagement with the physical, material world which undoubtedly affected social relations within the Cypriot household. This was accompanied by radical shifts in production practices – a move away from household production into the realm of craft specialists – alongside which there was an explosion in the range of tableware for consumption of food and drink and of utilitarian wares used within the kitchen. This paper interrogates the implied transformations in the cultural knowledge embedded within people’s engagement with their material world and the very different visual and tactile experiences involved in the daily use of pottery in the LBA Cypriot household.

In this paper a socio-material perspective on education is proposed that takes the local practices of teachers and learners seriously while still accounting for practices that extend beyond the here and now of a given situation. Through this transsituative shift education is not understood as being confined to local sites of instruction but understood as a nexus of practices conducted at various sites connected to each other via material objects and other material entities. This also reconciles ethnographic research with the institutional dimension of education and allows a micro-sociological account of wider societal implications of education. Throughout the article examples from ethnographic research on the epistemic role of material objects in science and mathematics classes in German secondary schools are used.

This book is about representations of the body in all fields (fine art, medicine, ethnography, racial studies, biology). It is intended for artists, art students, and people interested in theories of art.

This is the 2021 revision. Every couple of years I rewrite and update this book. The original was published by Stanford University Press in 1999 and is now out of print. This revision (the third "edition") includes examples from contemporary art, and assignments for classroom use.

All comments & questions are welcome!

Le cinéma (ce qu'on appelle cinéma), qui n'est pas encore qu'au principe, deviendra au terme de son évolution la plus formidable trouvaille du monde, en ce sens qu'il dressera devant l'humanité une surhumanité ainsi qu'en face de la création une surcréation. Ce cinéma futur multipliera de ses natures la Nature » Saint-Pol-Roux (1925-1930), Cinéma Vivant, Rougerie, 1972, p. 15. ! Our analysis will be based on the Freudian theories applied to the narration of the three first movies which chronologically form the "second trilogy" of the Star Wars 1)Saga: Star Wars (1977, re-baptized Episode IV, A New Hope in 1999), 2) The Empire Strikes Back (1980, Episode V), 3) Return of the Jedi (1983, Episode VI), and the first edition of the biography of Georges Lucas written in 1983, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas by Dale Pollock.

"The material nature of painting is considered as a leading actor throughout art history, as well as the source of its viability as a contemporary medium of artmaking in contemporary art practice.
Viewing painting in the context of its art historical present, this manuscript examines painting’s history in art, its death by art theory, and its resurrection in various forms in contemporary art practice. In this context, prevailing art historical theories are examined in order to position painting in contemporary society.
The rhizomatic web theorized by DeLeuze is revisited to both explain and expand the material presence of paint in conceptual art practice, as well as to connect art theory, art history and art-making. In this context, painting is considered as a complex mode of thinking and positioned as both a post-modern avant-garde strategy and a medium of artistic significance in a post-medium age.
Integral to the discussion is resonance, the quality embodied in a work of art that continues to engage the viewer in visceral communication over time. Resonance is therefore a determining characteristic in the viability of painting in any age.
The role of materiality in resonance is explored and identified as the embodiment of painting’s ontology. This is materiality of surface and beyond, distilled from the characteristics of the paint, the painter’s experience with the paint, and its presentation to the viewer in such a way as to evoke a visceral response.
Painting is alive; painting has evolved and is yet evolving. Even now, painting is reconfiguring and reinventing itself in the artifacts themselves as well as in the context of contemporary art theory."

This keynote paper for Workshops on Psychoanalysis & Art History raises questions about the ability of neuroscientific theory to replace older psychoanalytic models. On the one hand, scholars in the arts and humanities have raised important doubts about the ability of brain science to offer real insights into such complex cultural phenomena as the history of art. If neuroscience turns out only to offer very limited theoretical tools, then it is likely we are not going to abandon psychoanalysis any time soon. On the other hand, a growing number of art historians, especially new researchers, find neuroscience more robust and ‘of the moment’ than psychoanalysis and are beginning to apply neuroaesthetic ideas to art-historical problems. Concepts such as ‘mirror neurons’ and ‘neuroplasticity’, for example, suggest new ways of understanding behavioural responses to works of art and the importance to artists of the natural environment. This paper, however, urges caution. It is argued that rather than abandoning psychoanalytic approaches to the history of art we should instead review the method. The greatest value of the current excitement about neuroscientific ‘discoveries’ might be to make us question what actually constitutes a psychoanalytic approach and to update the concepts that we all too habitually employ.

The over-arching tendency of anime research in academia (both inside and outside of Japan) has been to see anime as a “Japanese media product,” analyzing anime for sociological readings of Japan and its society. However, attending to anime’s media-form—its conventionality and the material actualities of its production processes—would reveal that while Japan is a central node in anime’s production, significant portions of the animation of anime productions have actually been produced throughout Asia for decades. In addition, there are an increasing number of anime produced outside of Japan (for Japan and other markets). Such facts invite multiple inquiries: How do we account for anime’s transnational labor, operating inside and outside of Japan? How do we conceptualize cultural production when anime’s visual conventions are animated outside of Japan? Are these merely “copies” of “authentic (Japanese) anime”? Can we conceive of a new geography to engage with this transnational dynamic?
From this standpoint, contrary to the tendency to “read Japan through anime,” there is a complex politics of place that intersects with the framework of the nation, in conflict with the transnational flows that define this moment of globalization, all enacted through the media-form of anime. Drawing on media studies and performance studies, this paper examines how anime’s performance of media-form does not insist on the neat, ordered world of the nation-state, as on multiple different levels anime explores a difficult, complex geography, enacting the tensions of contemporary globalization. Such complexities are revealed through an analysis of place-focused anime depicting locations in Japan and China (specifically the Chinese-Japanese co-production, Shikioriori), highlighting the dynamics of transnationality rather than a (national) locality on multiple levels.

This book is about representations of the body in all fields (fine art, medicine, ethnography, racial studies, biology). It is intended for artists, art students, and people interested in theories of art.

This is the 2021 revision. Every couple of years I rewrite and update this book. The original was published by Stanford University Press in 1999 and is now out of print. This revision (the third "edition") includes examples from contemporary art, and assignments for classroom use.

All comments & questions are welcome!

'Clean War, Invisible War, Liberal War: The Clean and Dirty Politics of Guantánamo' argues that the Global War on Terror (GWoT) now ranks as one of the costliest and most extensive wars of the last hundred years and is certainly one of the largest counter-terrorism operations in history. A war of this scale, however, ‘could not be initiated and sustained without widespread public consent or at least acquiescence … without beliefs and forms of knowledge [in this case] about the nature of terrorism and counter-terrorism’. And whilst there is an extensive literature exploring the GWoT in connection with the ‘Just War’ tradition and its interpretation, this chapter’s aim is to explore the ways in which ideas about what is ‘just’ are communicated, in this case to explore the interconnections between ‘just’, ‘humane’, and ‘clean’. As is argued here, Guantánamo in particular became a central plank in the US Administration’s efforts to produce constructions of the GWoT as a ‘clean war’ and maintain an image of the USA as a champion of human rights. To make this case, this chapter examines several of the ways in which Guantánamo served to physically embody the overall discourse of the USA as engaged in a ‘clean’ form of warfare. It did so through a construction of Guantánamo as precise, proportionate, legal, and ordered through practices of concealment, redefinition, and redirection, which are each addressed in turn. But it did so in the light of resistance to these practices, which are considered in the final section.

This is a book about people who have had strong emotional reactions to artworks. It tells a history of times and places when strong passions were expected, and contrasts them with the habits of the last hundred years. The book also has letters from people who have cried, and those who haven't or wouldn't.

Chapter 5 is "Crying Over Bluish Leaves." It is about my own experiences in the Frick Collection, looking at Giovanni Bellini's "Ecstasy of St. Francis." At first I had a very strong reaction to the painting, but it was diluted and finally dispersed as I read art historical accounts of the painting, and of Bellini's cultural context. Art history is pictured here as a kind of poison well, which endangers certain kinds of responses.

The book is in print and on Kindle; this is the only chapter I'm posting here. This upload lacks an illustration of Giovanni Bellini's Ecstasy of St. Francis, which is easily available in high resolution online. (Try the Google Art Project.)

Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings (New York: Routledge, 2001).

The theme of this issue is “Materialities across Asia,” exploring how attending to materiality and medium can reveal the transnationality of media in/across/from Asia. The focus of this issue tended to be on East Asia, but the various frameworks employed aim to emphasize media-specifics and cross-border flows more generally. Analyzing contemporary media such as anime, manga, webtoons, 2.5D theater, the labor that produces them, and the sites of their sale and engagement with fans, this issue underlines how materiality seems to both locate us and expose the intensity of movements occurring.

This book is about the nature of images. It begins with a theory about how semiotics is more or less ruined by images, even though parts of it can be recovered in an historically specific fashion. The book compares familiar Western images with less familiar objects in order to question what we take as natural properties of images. One chapter is about neolithic marking; another is about the prehistoric Balkan Vinca culture, which produced writing-like artifacts; a third is on Persian and Chinese texts about images.

This chapter surveys concepts of figure and ground in a number of different disciplines, including cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis, and Gestalt psychology, in order to broaden and problematize the largely phenomenological and modernist senses of figure and ground that continue to dominate critical writing.

Originally published as On Pictures and the Words That Fail Them (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, reissued 2011).

The paper discusses the implementation of a multi-agent system as an integral component of a hybrid, digital-physical architectural environment. It contributes to the existing practice-based architectural research in two ways: 1) by describing an innovative integration of a multi-agent system for surface patterning; and 2) by discussing this integration in terms of emergent materiality. This case-study demonstrates suggestive creative approaches and observes in the field the operation of a concept that promises to be useful for future analysis, research and design."

An exhibiton review of 'Master Drawings Uncovered: Piranesi's Paestum' at Sir John Soane Museum, London (until May 2013)

Also exhibited at:
The Tchoban Foundation, Museum for Architectural Drawing, Berlin, 1 June–31 August 2013

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 23 January–17 May 2015

John Wilton-Ely’s book 'Piranesi, Paestum and Soane' accompanies the exhibiton ( Prestel, 2013)

This paper focuses on Red Lustrous Wheelmade (RLW) arm-vessels from Cyprus, central Anatolia and Cilicia, with the aim of examining how these objects were handled, used and embedded in social and cultural practices in the three regions. The approach taken draws upon the materiality of objects – both the physical properties, as well as human-object entanglements – as well as theoretical approaches exploring embodiment and material habitus. Examining the material qualities of the arm vessels should help us to better understand how people physically interacted with these and incorporated them within distinct social practices. This paper also explores the social messages encoded within the visual vocabulary of the arm-vessels, situating this within a wider understanding of drinking scenes from the Cypro-Levantine social worlds, specifically to throw light upon embodied practices and material habitus. Through this discussion I hope to highlight that these objects should not simply be considered as museum pieces or catalogue entries; but instead we should attempt to understand how they were integrated within social and material worlds. were items that were handled,

This is a paper invited for the Irish art magazine "Circa," which had a special issues on the state of painting in 2004. It argues that painting's supposed dead ends (the eternal return of the monochrome, the end of the medium and of medium-specificity) are tropes in the ongoing practice of painting.

I distinguish five kinds of writing about painting, in an attempt to step back from current critical impasses:

1. Writing that promotes or judges, as in exhibition catalogues.

2. Writing that classifies, for example some art historical accounts.

3. Writing whose primary purpose is to ask if painting is dead, or how it is dead, or how it lives on under different conditions; for example Tom Mitchell's essay about small communities of painters in Florida.

4. Writing that asks about painting's distance from modernism--for example Clark, Jones, Krauss, Melville, Shiff, and other  historians.

5. Writing that takes painting as an occasional subject, and is interested mainly in political contexts--for example Jameson, Bhabha, Canclini.

This is the first sketch for a chapter in the book "Project of Painting." The idea is to acknowledge the tremendous range of writing on painting by beginning at the greatest possible distance, and then focusing in on individual discourses.

If I were a Stag explores the anthropological concepts
of Perspectivism through an installation that hopes
to demonstrate how the idea that animals and plants
can also have a soul is not that foreign to the western
worldview. This collaboration between artists and
anthropologists invites you to engage empathetically
with other forms of life on earth through a collage
using natural elements like water, clay, sand and fire,
and human-made objects, images and sounds.

Intermaterial relations between individual genres of material culture are a constant phenomenon in antiquity. There are, however, specific periods of time with particularly strong interdependencies. This applies in particular to the Late Republic and Early Empire (2 nd century B.C.-1 st century A.D.). The aim of this paper is to focus on this period from a diachronic perspective by taking into account different genres of ancient 'art', such as pottery, glass or marble objects. The analysis of all these genres shows especially that the mere imitation of formal characteristics played a lesser role than the creative appropriation and emulation of these characteristics. In order to tackle the phenomenon of intermaterial relations, the concept of skeuomorphism is abandoned in favour of the art-theoretical concept of 'intermateriality', which is introduced and further developed here.

During the twentieth century, Literary Theory emerged, consolidated itself as an academic discipline and finally fell into crisis. As part of the academic institutionalization of literary studies, Literary Theory rebutted both the old historicist approach associated with Philology and the aesthetic-philosophical approach to literary works, promoting instead an epistemological paradigm that intended to be more adequate than the previous one. Fostering the contempt for factors then regarded as “extrinsic” to the literary text, its disciplinary commitment to Linguistics was decisive for such a process. However, as a result of the very methodological limits it subscribed, along with the general criticism of traditional concepts and cognitive interests of Humanities – a criticism carried out by “linguistic” and “cultural” turns in the second half and late twentieth century –, Literary Theory steadily gave way to other discursive forms. This process concerned the institutionalization of post-structuralism and deconstruction, of cultural studies and other thematic approaches to literature – as well as its subsequent fragmentation in the current “post-theoretical” era. In a certain sense, these manifestations can be understood as part of a process of internal differentiation, as competing catalogues of description inside a same paradigm, and not as a result of a radical rupture. They all have in common a semiotic-transmissive understanding of literary textuality, merely inflected with regard to textual semantics. For this reason, the dissident theories failed to avoid problems that were analogous to those perceived in the more traditional approaches, and even inherited from them – first of all from their link to linguistics, which, besides remaining unquestioned, also became their critical device par excellence. Nevertheless, a host of other theoretical intentions gradually came forth as a counterpart to such efforts, concerning what we could summarize as the inquiry of materiality. Common to these intentions and along with this category, an epistemology of non-identity seems to operate, with a double role: on the one hand, it allows them to be more than a sheer regression to those pre-theoretical approaches earlier mentioned; on the other, it exempts them from modelling catalogues of description under the rule of linguistic-dependent theory. If we could, at first, understand this category – materiality – as a sign of a return to philology, it is also around this concept that we can perceive a return of aesthetic theory in literary studies. Our thesis questions and measures the validity of this literary theorizing, with special attention to the idea of “contingency,” non-identity. In order to do this, we inquire the theoretical-critical works of three authors: first, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s work, which strives more explicitly – and in a conceptually massive and unstable fashion – to develop the category of materiality through ways radically distinct from those subscribed by literary theory; second, the works of Jerome McGann and Johanna Drucker, which sought to implement and measure in a practical manner what could be and how such alternatives could operate, the very process through which different conceptual models gradually arose. We examine how these authors, among others, react to the current scene of literary theory and criticism, and how their inquiries resonate both within and outside of this context, that is, how they also partake in a wider epistemological discussion. Through reassessing the methods employed by literary studies, the main purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the ongoing relocation of literary theory within the framework of contemporary aesthetic thinking. Inquiring materiality implies not only to question the fundamental predicates and assumptions of literary theory, but also the attempt to change it.

Keywords: Materiality; Aesthetics; Textual Criticism; Epistemology; Non-identity.

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A Teoria Literária surgiu, consolidou-se e entrou em colapso durante o século XX. Enquanto parte da institucionalização do estudo da literatura, a Teoria rechaçou tanto o historicismo da Filologia como a abordagem estético-filosófica da obra literária, promovendo um paradigma epistemológico mais “adequado”. Decisivo foi seu compromisso com a disciplina da Linguística, que alimentou o desprezo por fatores “extrínsecos” ao texto. No entanto, em consequência dos próprios limites metodológicos que subscreveu, e junto à crítica geral aos conceitos e interesses cognitivos tradicionais das Humanidades – crítica então levada a cabo pela “virada linguística” e a seguir pela “virada cultural” –, a Teoria da Literatura pouco a pouco perdeu espaço para outras formas de discurso. Trata-se da institucionalização do pós-estruturalismo e da Desconstrução, dos estudos culturais e demais abordagens temáticas – e de sua subsequente fragmentação no atual quadro “pós-teórico.” Essas manifestações podem ser compreendidas como uma complexificação interna ao paradigma, como catálogos descritivos em disputa, e não como resultantes de uma ruptura radical. Permanece-lhes comum uma concepção transmissivo-semiótica da textualidade literária, apenas infletida no tocante à semântica textual. Por essa razão, os dissidentes não deixaram de incorrer em problemas análogos àqueles acusados nas abordagens tradicionais, e mesmo delas herdados – desde já do fato de que seu enlace com a linguística não só permaneceu inquestionado como se tornou sua ferramenta crítica por excelência. Entretanto, como contraparte dessas abordagens hoje correntes, fez-se progressivamente visível uma série de outras intenções teóricas, que se poderiam sumarizar como uma problematização da materialidade. Comum a essas outras intenções e junto a essa categoria, parece estar em operação uma epistemologia da não-identidade, dotada de uma dupla função: por um lado, permite-lhes serem mais do que simples recaídas nas abordagens pré-teóricas do historicismo e do esteticismo; por outro, exime-lhes de construírem seus catálogos descritivos com base nas mesmas regras da Teoria de penhor linguístico. Se se poderia entender a materialidade como signo de um retorno à Filologia, é também à volta dela que se percebe um retorno da Estética nos estudos literários. Nosso trabalho questiona e mensura a validade dessa teorização literária, com especial atenção à ideia de “contingência,” não-identidade. Seguimos o percurso teórico-crítico de três autores: primeiro, o trabalho de Hans Gumbrecht, que de modo mais explícito e inconstante esforça-se por elaborar a categoria da materialidade por vias radicalmente distintas daquela adotada pela tradicional teoria literária; noutro momento, os trabalhos de Jerome McGann e Johanna Drucker, que procuraram implementar e medir de maneira prática o que poderia ser uma tal via alternativa. Consideramos como eles respondem ao atual cenário da crítica literária e como suas reflexões têm ressonância dentro e fora desse contexto, isto é, como também se inserem numa discussão epistemológica mais ampla. Repensando os métodos de que se valem os estudos literários, este trabalho visa contribuir com a reorientação da teoria literária no âmbito da contemporânea reflexão estético-filosófica. Em última instância, pensar a materialidade exige não apenas que se considerem os predicados fundamentais e as premissas da teoria literária mas que se faça o esforço por sua transformação.

Palavras-chave: Materialidade; Estética; Crítica Textual; Epistemologia; Não-identidade.

В статье проводится разграничение между социологией объектов и социологией вещей. Для этого автор предпринимает расследование работы Бруно Латура Где недостающая масса? Социология одной двери как ключевого текста о технологии в акторно-сетевой теории. Были проанализированные две релевантные тексту проблемы. Во-первых, теоретическая проблема места недостающей массы в конституции современных обществ. Во-вторых, проблема стиля письма о вещах. В ходе расследования было установлено, что в расследуемом множественном тексте присутствуют два встроенных автора — «Латур» и «технолог». Эти авторы предлагают две разные концепции технологии и два разных ответа на вопрос «Где недостающая масса?». Один из выводов статьи состоит в том, что ошибочная идентификация Латура как «технолога» и предубеждение против стиля написания самопротиворечивых текстов мешают увидеть разницу между социологией объектов и социологией вещей.

In this review essay, I explore the relationship between cultures of circulation and anthropological facts. Research published in 2013 advanced the field by attending to the coproduction of globally circulating things (commodities, race, brands, authenticity, blood) and specific cultural landscapes. Building on the field’s renewed
interest in materiality, scholars showed how anthropological facts are produced at the intersection of interlocking cultural classification systems and a world that is heterogeneous and dynamic. Moving beyond the notion that shared meanings and categories are attached to or layered on people and things, this approach conceptualized such relations recursively. Scholars suggested that race—as an anthropological fact—becomes biological through social practice and, similarly, that cultural assumptions and political biases become environmental because they are embedded in our infrastructures and built landscapes. This approach permeates many of the articles reviewed and
links the clusters into which I have grouped them: “Value and Incommensurability,” “Brands and Authenticity,” “Race and Blood,” and “Infrastructure and Citizenship.” I conclude by discussing the challenges and opportunities for a sociocultural anthropology that recognizes the transformative power of global connection while refusing to give up its long-running pursuit of cultural wisdom and more humane social configurations.

Assim, uma pedra pode funcionar como rocha, como peso para um papel, como uma arma, dependendo do agenciamento em que se insira. O desafio para a semiótica da terceira fase é descrever tais agenciamentos em seus processos de desterritorializações e de reterritorializações com vistas à compreensão da máquina abstrata que os enforma. São dez as desconstruções propostas neste livro. Essas desconstruções, embora não exaustivas, dão forma a uma problemática contemporânea a ser enfrentada pelos estudos semióticos. Por enquanto, essa semiótica, entrevista por Ciro Marcondes a respeito dos trabalhos de Foucault, Derrida e Deleuze/Guattari, não ousa dizer seu nome. Por nossa conta, demos-lhe o apelido de Semiótica Crítica.