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ETD Abstract Container

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The Reality of the Unseen

Keener, Anne M
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1404930395

Abstract Details

2014, Master of Fine Arts, Ohio State University, Art.
This thesis paper takes the form of a proposal for a writing project based on a book by William James on the varieties of religious experience. When artistic experience is set alongside religious experience questions open up on both sides of the comparison. If experience for a religious person stands in relation to the Divine how do we describe or name that which experience, for some artists, stands in relation to? By using the book by James as a structural template to investigate artistic experience, chapters such as conversion and the reality of the unseen inflect the discussion of artistic experience. Some first-hand testimonials from artists, at least on the surface, show connections with religious utterances. Religious and artistic feeling as a matter of concern is distinguished from matters of fact in the work of sociologist Bruno Latour. Matters of concern take the form of a web like connectivity or gatherings where multiple agencies flow together, coalesce and dissipate. Latour and James are put into conversation to argue against reducing artistic and religious experience to a social that lurks behind everything; rather both theorists affirm the experiential progressive composition of worlds held in common. James finds that the Divine as a gathering admits to a great complexity with each attitude being a syllable in human natures total message, it takes the whole of us to spell the meaning out completely. In this treatment of artistic experience in the context of religious experience we do not have one world that we orient our viewpoint toward rather multiple worlds, some characterized by privileging artistic experience as formative.
Laura Lisbon (Advisor)
Lisa Florman (Committee Member)
Todd Slaughter (Committee Member)
18 p.
Aesthetics
artistic experience; religious experience; painting

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Keener, A. M. (2014). The Reality of the Unseen [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1404930395

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Keener, Anne. The Reality of the Unseen. 2014. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1404930395.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Keener, Anne. "The Reality of the Unseen." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1404930395

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1404930395
972
© 2014, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.