<p>Lucie Lagerbielke (1865-1931) is a fairly unknown writer who lived and worked in Stockholm. All her life she was writing with a strong aim to tell her truth and she had an aspiration to change the world for the better.  Her main points of views in her authorship were; oneness, the power of love, a belief in a supreme purpose to be served, religious mysticism and the interest in understanding and to prove the transcendent on a scientific basis. </p><p>In my discussion I relate to Rita Felski and her expression <em>the popular sublime,</em> a term she applies to illustrate a sublime way of writing that was common in women popular fiction in the late nineteenth-century. This romantic literature with escapist tendencies was popular among the ordinary readers but very seldom met with success with the professional critics.</p><p>Focus in this BA thesis is the spiritual Lagerbielke and in what way she wants to change the society. I have analyzed two of her novels, <em>Daniel- ett lifsöde</em> and <em>En sällsam upplefvelse</em> with intention to examine how she used her novels to plead for her cause.</p><p>By making such an analysis I come to the conclusion that both her novels have the purpose to emphasize her philosophy of life. <em>En sällsam upplefvelse</em> focus on explain the supernatural scientifically and in the novel <em>Daniel – ett lifsöde</em> her intend is to enlighten oneness and selfless love. </p>

Lucie Lagerbielke (1865-1931) is a fairly unknown writer who lived and worked in Stockholm. All her life she was writing with a strong aim to tell her truth and she had an aspiration to change the world for the better.  Her main points of views in her authorship were; oneness, the power of love, a belief in a supreme purpose to be served, religious mysticism and the interest in understanding and to prove the transcendent on a scientific basis.  In my discussion I relate to Rita Felski and her expression the popular sublime, a term she applies to illustrate a sublime way of writing that was common in women popular fiction in the late nineteenth-century. This romantic literature with escapist tendencies was popular among the ordinary readers but very seldom met with success with the professional critics. Focus in this BA thesis is the spiritual Lagerbielke and in what way she wants to change the society. I have analyzed two of her novels, Daniel- ett lifsöde and En sällsam upplefvelse with intention to examine how she used her novels to plead for her cause. By making such an analysis I come to the conclusion that both her novels have the purpose to emphasize her philosophy of life. En sällsam upplefvelse focus on explain the supernatural scientifically and in the novel Daniel – ett lifsöde her intend is to enlighten oneness and selfless love.

<p>"Scriblerian Ethics" proposes that the aesthetic and ethical standpoint of the writings of the Scriblerians (Pope, Swift, Gay, Arbuthnot, Oxford, Parnell) can be better understood through an attunement to their orientation towards the Longinian sublime and to the metamorphic poetics of Ovid. The project holds the negative and critical features of the group's writing in abeyance, as it attempts to account for the positive, phenomenological concepts and features of Scriblerian satiric and non-satiric writing. The intensities and affiliations of Scriblerian writing that emerge from this study gesture aesthetically and ethically beyond historical subjectivity to an opening to alterity and difference. This opening or hope for the achievement ethical dimension of writing is divulged as the intimate motivation of the literary or aesthetic components that accompany the negative, referential, and critical features of Scriblerian writing.</p><p>Examining closely the major writings of Pope and Swift in conjunction with the collaborative writings of the Scriblerus club, the project describes the concern with temporality that emerges from Longinian and Ovidan influence; the Scriblerian reflexivity that culminates in a highly virtual aesthetics; and the ethical elaboration of an orientation toward hospitality that emerges from this temporal and virtual aesthetic orientation. A "Scriblerian ethics" is an affinity for a hospitality not yet achieved in political, economic, and cultural life. Finally, the project analyzes throughout its readings of Scriblerian writing the violence that nevertheless accompanies Scriblerian aesthetics, examining the figures of modernity, criticism, and sexual violence (rape) that permeate Scriblerian texts as barriers or resistances to the achievement of an ethical orientation to alterity.</p> / Dissertation

Thèse de doctorat : Philosophie : Paris 12 : 2007. Thèse de doctorat : Université ELTE de Budapest : Paris 12 : 2007. / Thèse soutenue en co-tutelle. Thèse uniquement consultable au sein de l'Université Paris 12 (Intranet). Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr. 433 réf.

Si le sublime occupe une place privilégiée au sein de la réflexion philosophique, esthétique et littéraire, rares sont les travaux qui y sont consacrés pour les œuvres de la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle. C’est pour tenter de pallier ce manque que cette thèse analyse le sublime dans les contes et nouvelles de Mérimée, Barbey d’Aurevilly et Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. En nous appuyant sur la réflexion du sublime amorcée par Longin et prolongée notamment par Burke, Kant, Schiller ou encore Hugo, il s’agit de définir son évolution et surtout sa spécificité en cette période de crise profonde, où le sublime apparaît comme une réponse à la conquête d’autonomie de la Littérature par rapport à la science et à la question de sa finalité. Dans un premier temps, la thèse aborde la question du sublime d’un point de vue rhétorique. Nous examinons ainsi la capacité du langage à exprimer et à représenter le sublime en oscillant entre une rhétorique de l’effet, fondée sur l’expressivité du langage dans la mise en scène des conteurs et l’organisation rhétorique de la narration, un questionnement sur le tragique et enfin une rhétorique de l’ineffable, puisque le sublime ressort à bien des égards d’un imprésentable. Dans un deuxième temps, le sublime est analysé en tant que poétique fondée sur un dispositif paroxystique et oxymorique. Enfin il est envisagé en tant que véritable acte esthétique où il tend à rejoindre le concept de sublimation et à se faire, notamment par une expérience du mal, le lieu non seulement d’une connaissance, d’une croyance, mais surtout d’une métamorphose profonde aussi bien de l’homme que de la littérature elle-même, qui y trouve un moyen de lutter contre les valeurs de la modernité tout en fondant une écriture résolument moderne.

Si le sublime occupe une place privilégiée au sein de la réflexion philosophique, esthétique et littéraire, rares sont les travaux qui y sont consacrés pour les œuvres de la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle. C’est pour tenter de pallier ce manque que cette thèse analyse le sublime dans les contes et nouvelles de Mérimée, Barbey d’Aurevilly et Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. En nous appuyant sur la réflexion du sublime amorcée par Longin et prolongée notamment par Burke, Kant, Schiller ou encore Hugo, il s’agit de définir son évolution et surtout sa spécificité en cette période de crise profonde, où le sublime apparaît comme une réponse à la conquête d’autonomie de la Littérature par rapport à la science et à la question de sa finalité. Dans un premier temps, la thèse aborde la question du sublime d’un point de vue rhétorique. Nous examinons ainsi la capacité du langage à exprimer et à représenter le sublime en oscillant entre une rhétorique de l’effet, fondée sur l’expressivité du langage dans la mise en scène des conteurs et l’organisation rhétorique de la narration, un questionnement sur le tragique et enfin une rhétorique de l’ineffable, puisque le sublime ressort à bien des égards d’un imprésentable. Dans un deuxième temps, le sublime est analysé en tant que poétique fondée sur un dispositif paroxystique et oxymorique. Enfin il est envisagé en tant que véritable acte esthétique où il tend à rejoindre le concept de sublimation et à se faire, notamment par une expérience du mal, le lieu non seulement d’une connaissance, d’une croyance, mais surtout d’une métamorphose profonde aussi bien de l’homme que de la littérature elle-même, qui y trouve un moyen de lutter contre les valeurs de la modernité tout en fondant une écriture résolument moderne.

In this thesis I discuss personal identity (the self) as it relates to authoritative contexts (the sublime). I show how these contexts confer meaning on personal and cultural narratives, which in turn confer meaning on facts and knowledge claims. I outline three conceptions of the self and sublime (Richard Rorty's, Charles Taylor's and Robert Kegan's), and address the implications of these for education. In conclusion I isolate a common product of all three perspectives---unconditional love---and recommend a 'will to positive description' as a necessary and desirable pedagogical goal.

At the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, French artist, Sophie Calle presented for public consumption a starkly simple yet elegant work entitled Pas Pu Saisir La Mort. The work was not only a comprehensive investigation of the Biennale theme for that year of capturing a fleeting moment in life but was also an ethically challenging and confrontational piece. Calle chose to display a video loop from the final moments of her mother Monique Sindler's life. As the title in a childlike manner informs the viewer, the subject of the work is Calle's inability to physically comprehend this moment. She, to add in the poignantly missing referent to the English translation of the title, “couldn't capture death”. Calle prompts the audience not only to watch but to actively look for the universally ungraspable moment of Monique's passing. Pas Pu Saisir La Mort is unique piece which both characterises Calle's work while also marking a departure from her normal style of working. It raises challenging issues of the ethical responsibilities of the contemporary art Biennale and of a more moral nature for the audience by placing them in the intimate role of voyeur. At the centre of aesthetic theory and within contemporary art writing the idea of a connection to universal concepts or notions of an underlying humanity within art is referenced, debated and negated. I believe in Pas Pu Saisir La Mort Calle engages with this discussion through foregrounding the idea of the contemporary sublime and re-evaluates art's connection to modernist universals as illuminated though the recent work of Thierry De Duve in particular his concept of 'nous voici' or work with speaks to the 'we' of humanity.

This thesis considers the links between identity and landscape in key works by American artist Roni Horn, focusing on a selection of her photo-installations and books. In particular it argues that Horn approaches landscape as a performative category through which to address the performativity of identity, and that in doing so her work privileges the viewer as an embodied participant. Drawing on a feminist approach grounded in phenomenology, the thesis locates androgyny as a key structuring principle in the artist’s work. Identifying herself as neither male nor female, Horn employs the notion of in-between-ness to negotiate gender binaries of male/female and to describe the indeterminate and contingent nature of androgynous being. Importantly, the thesis argues that Horn addresses these issues of identity by staging experiences in her work that invite the viewer to perform the very processes by which identity is defined and played out. This strategy is examined through concepts of doubling, the sublime, horizons and dwelling, each of which in their own way involve a sense of orientation and disorientation that gestures toward the in-between-ness of androgyny. The thesis also considers the tensions between visuality and embodiment in Horn’s work. Her use of photographic images within an installation practice is one that establishes a complex set of relations between the opticality of the photograph and the actuality of ‘real’ space. It is argued that the experiential potential of Horn’s photo-installations and books is only realised through the dialectical relation between visuality and embodiment in which both are equally privileged. / Full thesis with illustrations can be requested via Inter-Library Loan.

The principle objective of this thesis is to expand the term “technological sublime” to include technologies of artificial intelligence. In defining new realms of the technological sublime, we must not only consider the ecological integration of technology within natural surroundings, but also appreciate modern technological objects that instigate sublime experiences. This work examines science fictional portrayals of interactions with sentient artificial intelligence in I, Robot, 2001: A Space Odyssey and other major works of science fiction. In each of these works, characters who encounter technologies possessing artificial intelligence share sublime experiences. This thesis considers various levels of embodiment associated with the objects of artificial intelligence and discusses the sublime qualities of both cybernetic and android beings. Finally, this work examines how our perceptions of environment are altered by the introduction of virtual reality and virtual landscapes, which consequently affects our mindscapes and contribute to the technological sublime.