Past Issues
EPISTÉMÈ / December 2008 Vol. 2
Habitat, Central City, Pastoral : Some Elements of City Aesthetics
EPISTÉMÈ :: Vol.2 pp.1-48
AbstractAesthetic sense of the space should be resumed as an unity of contradictions. It can be discovered at the moment of contemplation between the labors within the ordinary life. Then, man sees the spatial horizon of his own and understands that it could be beautiful. This understanding leads him to the dream of happy habitat. The visions of beautiful landscape then concentrate on those of habitat. The use of this kind of happy and beautiful habitat can not and should not be reduced as a practical dimension. The feeling of man on his space has and needs its ontological aspects. In this ontological vision on his habitat, space opens to the infinite mystery. Space is now here and there, infinitely. Man needs his comfortable habitat and, at the same time, wants it open to the infinite space. And architecture and city want this dream of man to be true, in his ordinary life.
- EndNote
- RefWorks
- Scholar's Aid
- BibTeX
Spiritual Geography of Osaka, Kyoto and Edo in Chosun's Literary Class
EPISTÉMÈ :: Vol.2 pp.51-95
AbstractAfter the 16th century's japanese invasion, the main thoughts of literary class of Chosun on japanese culture in general was a lower and savage one. One of reasons of this underestimation is surely the feeling of Chosun's literary class that the civilized people was forced to be through the savage period of their history. After the 17th century, Japan invited some high-class literary class to Japan so that the new relationship between Korea and Japan could be reestablished. But, armed strongly with their culturally superior feeling on that of Japan, Chosun's literary class who went to Japan never succeeded to see the reality of Japan, that is, the progress of Japan. This article examines the concrete aspects of this “blindness” throughout the letters, formal reports and the informal sayings of this literary class who went to Japan so that this tragic history will never to be repeated again.
- EndNote
- RefWorks
- Scholar's Aid
- BibTeX
Mediterranean Cities in Middle Age's Islamic Maps
EPISTÉMÈ :: Vol.2 pp.97-121
AbstractMediterranean sea is a civilization of passage and transference, statistic and dynamic. She is an Uterus, the Mother of all civilizations that were born around her. Mediterranean world becomes immediately a political world. Mediterranean civilization since her Greek pass ways is a link that binds all the territories around her. She is nobody's property and stands as herself. She is a space of cultural intercourses. And she is more than one thousand years at the heart of the islamic world. Mediterranean civilization is a complex one that holds Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic and European cultures all together. It can be viewed as a representative model par excellence for the exchange of the civilizations. Islamic Maps in Middle Age show that they are deeply influenced by from the ancient Greek Civilization to the Indian, Persian and Byzantine Cultures both in practical and theoretical levels. They seem to be more abstract, that is geographical, than concrete or practical. But simultaneously, they seem to concentrate more on secular purpose like governing, trade and voyage than on religious one like theology in early Christianity world at the same period. We conclude that they are made mainly for the purpose of practical reasons.
- EndNote
- RefWorks
- Scholar's Aid
- BibTeX
Experience of the City - Small Urban Sociology of the Café -
EPISTÉMÈ :: Vol.2 pp.123-133
AbstractThe public space is a notion much used in human and social sciences since the thesis of Jürgen Habermas entitled “The public space”. In this work, Habermas describes “the process during which the public constituted by individuals making use of their reason appropriates the public sphere controlled by the authority and transforms it into a sphere where the criticism practices against the power of the State”. The process in question is to be dated in the XVIIIth century in England (about thirty years later in France), century of development of the urbanization and the emergence of the notion of space deprived in the bourgeoisie of cities. Habermas shows how the meetings of lounge and cafés contributed to the reproduction of the discussions and the political debates, which enjoy an publicity through the media of this time (epistolary relations, rising press). The café is the place of the familiarity, the support of the urban sociability. It is also a tool of the construction of the social link. He allows to normalize the interactions which become established between the individuals. It is a recognized exit of the world of the leisure activities. It is because the city, and more particularly the café, is conceived as the place of the fulfillment of our modernity and the manufacturing of the citizen. We find collected the symbols of an integrated social system there: the political activity, the justifiable culture … We multiply the friendly or loving meetings there.
- EndNote
- RefWorks
- Scholar's Aid
- BibTeX
Urban Poetics and Photography : Methodology and Selected Case Studies
EPISTÉMÈ :: Vol.2 pp.135-147
AbstractThe paper discusses analyses of urban experience through the lens of photography. It posits that urban photography exhibits the mythological and poetic structure of the urban experience. The term “urban poetics” is used to elucidate this structure. The point of this paper's discussion is not to focus on the objective structure of the city, but rather, the personal and collective urban experience. For this purpose, as a means of directing our attention to urban representations, beginning with photography, the paper refers to what I have termed the “analysis of urban representations.” Thus, we will be guided by the goal of illuminating the poetic structure of urban experience through this analysis of urban representations. This analysis is not only a clue to the ways in which photographic works examine the mythological and poetic structure of urban experience. Through this discussion of architects and poets' relationship to the photographic medium, I have also sought to demonstrate the possibility of elucidating the “urban poetics” present in architecture and poetry. In my book, Urban Poetics, I also discuss architectural theory, painting, and film; however, I think photographic urban representation is a particularly powerful material in the analysis of mythological and poetic structure in urban experience. Ultimately, this is the reason I have chosen to focus on photographic representations of urban space in this paper.
- EndNote
- RefWorks
- Scholar's Aid
- BibTeX
미국에서의 한류를 말한다 : 하버드 대학교 동아시아학과 맥캔 교수와의 대담
EPISTÉMÈ :: Vol.2 pp.149-161
AbstractThe recent ‘Hanryu' phenomenon in U.S.A has still many mountains and rivers to cross. David McCann suggests some strategies as a koreano-phil and expert at the same time: first, the good translation in literature by the good and qualified translator with an experience, supported by the governmental planning, must be seen in a long and deep point of view. For example, concerning the Korean food, there are so many possibilities that the korean can develop and progress still on the basis of its nutritious and aesthetic point of view. In music, there are still many problems because the musical industry in U. S. A. has its own structure and distribution methods. Supported always firmly by government, the private enterprises should find their own way to adapt the american industrial environment. In film, more and more americans recognize nowadays the value and quality of Korean film, the film makers should make films that deal with the themes at the same time local and universal that touch the human mind. Today, we can tell with conviction that the real power and strength of Korean culture are now found and appreciated more and more by americans at least recent ten years, and the cultural exchange between U.S.A. and Korea has its bright future.
- EndNote
- RefWorks
- Scholar's Aid
- BibTeX
Erving Goffman - Intellectual Biography, Mains Concepts and Legacy
EPISTÉMÈ :: Vol.2 pp.163-184
AbstractThe focus of Erving Goffman's work was the organization of observable, everyday behavior, usually but not always among the unacquainted in urban settings. Using a variety of qualitative methods, Goffman developed classifications of the different elements of social interaction. The hallmark of his approach was the assumption that these classifications were heuristic, simplifying tools for sociological analysis that did not capture the complexity of lived experience. Goffman defined a frame as a way of organizing experiences: we use frames to identify what is taking place. For example, a story may be a joke, a warning, a lesson, an invitation and so on. Frame analysis is therefore the study of the ‘organization of experience'. The most fundamental frameworks are ‘primary frameworks' which reveal what is ‘really' happening either in the natural or social world. The meaning of a primary framework can be challenged in various ways. It can also be ‘keyed': this occurs when its meaning is transformed into something patterned on but independent of the initial frame. For example, a keying may convince us that what appears to be a fight is in fact just play. However, caution is needed because every keying can itself be re-keyed. In addition to keys, there are ‘fabrications'. These are frames that are designed to mislead others. Fabrications are ‘benign' when they are for the benefit of the audience or ‘exploitative' when they are for the benefit of the fabricator. In an attempt to prevent the keying, re-keying and fabrications of frames, we often attempt to ‘anchor' them so that audiences can accept them as real. With this, Goffman shows that the development of general classifications to be used to understand concrete examples of the interaction order.
- EndNote
- RefWorks
- Scholar's Aid
- BibTeX
The Peircean Symbol and Its Application to Narrative Communication
EPISTÉMÈ :: Vol.2 pp.185-215
AbstractThis paper aims to view the potentiality of the Peircean symbol as a means of narrative communication. The Peircean symbol is characterized as a triadic relation in the form of sign-object-interpretant including iconic-indexical-symbolic features of sign, and it will reveal how the three components are bound together to produce meaning in communication. The paper will thus show the relation between object and interpretant by way of sign, that is, the iconic representation of a story in narrative communication. In particular, the fact that symbol is tied to interpretant allows us to look at symbol in order to interpret in symbol-using mind, this being correlated with icon and index. The two types of sign are cooperative, functioning the collateral observation and experience for the purpose of attaining a proper interpretation in communication. As an illustration, the feature of Peircean symbol in a parable of the Bible will demonstrate and thus emphasize the symbolic communication which leads to self-control by interpreting, experiencing, and using the symbol. Consequently, the process of interpretation will affect the interpreter with a significant effect on his/her future action in communication.
- EndNote
- RefWorks
- Scholar's Aid
- BibTeX
Le Problème de l'Universalité de l'Universalité Européenne dans Paul Valéry, Jacques Derrida et Edmund Husserl
EPISTÉMÈ :: Vol.2 pp.217-262
AbstractPour répond à la question de l l'universalité, il nous faut d'abord poser une série de questions cruciales: Qu'est-ce que l'universalité? Quelle est la nature de l'universalité? Ce qui est l'universel, c'est ce qui est valable et applicable, par nature et par définition, à tout et à tous. Autrement dit, si elle est devenue possession, soit de l'un, soit de l'autre, elle n'est plus universelle. Tout comme l'univers lui-même ne peut être une possession d'une telle ou telle personne ou civilisation, l'universalité ne peut l'être non plus. Nous devrions aussi être radicaux, comme l'était autrefois Husserl, en suivant le chemin de cet esprit radical philosophique, si bien exprimé dans une expression de Husserl: “Nous devons souscrire au radicalisme qui est la nature de toute vraie science philosophique et qui ne veut rien accepter qui fût déjà donné, qui refuse tout point de départ transmis par la tradition, qui nous interdit d'être éblouis par aucune autorité, si grande fût-elle, et nous enjoint, au contraire, de chercher nos points de départ en nous plongeant librement dans les problèmes eux-mêmes et dans les exigences qui en sont coextensives.” Il ne faut pas limiter l'universalité. En un sens, ce qu'il nous faut aujourd'hui, c'est universaliser l'universalité.
- EndNote
- RefWorks
- Scholar's Aid
- BibTeX