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7Daoism, dandyism, and political correctnessState University of New York Press. 2023.Argues that Daoism and dandyism, linked by likeminded philosophies of "carefree wandering," deconstruct the puritanism and political correctness sought by Confucianism, Victorianism, and contemporary neoliberal culture.
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7Female Tattoos and GraffitiIn Fritz Allhoff & Robert Arp (eds.), Tattoos – Philosophy for Everyone, Wiley‐blackwell. 2012-04-06.This chapter contains sections titled: A New Tattoo Space The Savage and Civilization Nothing Ladylike About Being Tattooed? Ornaments, Crimes, and the Creation of a Feminine Tattoo Space From Tattoos to Graffiti Skinscape Recuperating the Political Body.
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5The cool-kawaii: Afro-Japanese aesthetics and new world modernityLexington Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2011.The Cool-Kawaii: Afro-Japanese Aesthetics and New World Modernity, by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, analyzes and compares African American cool culture and the Japanese aesthetics of kawaii or cute and characterizes them as expressions set against oppressive homogenizations of a technocratic world. The Cool-Kawaii sheds light on the history and development of both cultures in three main ways: First, both emerge from similar historical conditions; second, both are in search of human dignity and libera…Read more
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7Mortal Vocabularies vs. Immortal PropositionsCulture and Dialogue 1 (2): 63-78. 2011.Over thirty years ago, Richard Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature declared the demise of epistemology and the arrival of a new post-Philosophical era. Rorty envisaged the intellectual activity of this predominantly literary culture as an unconstrained large-scale conversation that would flourish in an “ecstasy of spiritual freedom.” Having abandoned all systematic pretensions, edifying philosophers would add their voice to the conversation of mankind, fully aware of the radical incommen…Read more
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12parasite: A Philosophical Exploration (edited book)Brill. 2022._Parasite_ presents the ethico-biological problem of parasitism in a metaphorical and artistic fashion. In this book, philosophers explore the film using sources such as the ancient satirist Lucian’s _De Parasito_, Nietzsche’s “the vengeance of the weak,” Dostoyevsky’s “Underground,” or Marxism, among others.
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11This book shifts the focus from Critical Regionalism towards a broader concept of 'Transcultural Architecture' and defines Critical Regionalism as a subgroup of the latter. One of the benefits that this change of perspective brings about is that a large part of the political agenda of Critical Regionalism, which consists of resisting attitudes forged by typically Western experiences, is 'softened' and negotiated according to premises provided by local circumstances. At the book’s centre is an an…Read more
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19Nishida Kitarō and Muhammad ‘Abduh on God and reason: Towards a theology of placeAsian Philosophy 32 (2): 105-125. 2022.I compare the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro with the Egyptian philosopher and reformer Muhammad ‘Abduh. Both philosophies emerged within similar cultural contexts. Bot...
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6The Philosophy of Lines: From Art Nouveau to CyberspaceSpringer Verlag. 2021.This book offers a philosophical exploration of lines in art and culture, and traces their history from Antiquity onwards. Lines can be physical phenomena, cognitive responses to observed processes, or both at the same time. Based on this assumption, the book describes the “philosophy of lines” in art, architecture, and science. The book compares Western and Eastern traditions. It examines lines in the works of Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Henri Michaux, as well as in Chinese and Japanese a…Read more
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19Blade Runner 2049Film and Philosophy 25 69-84. 2021.What is the “miracle” that protein farmer Sapper Morton mentions when he says to K: “You never saw a miracle”? It is the transformation of inorganic life into organic life. Rachael, who was a replicant in the old Blade Runner gave birth to twins. Tyrell had “perfected procreation,” in the words of Niander Wallace, but his knowledge has been lost. The theme of 2049 revolves around the scientific and philosophical question whether machines can become organic. Is a human only an accumulation of par…Read more
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11Micro and Macro Philosophy: Organicism in Biology, Philosophy, and PoliticsBrill | Rodopi. 2020.What role can philosophy play in a world dominated by neoliberalism and globalization? Must it join universalist ideologies as it has in past centuries? Or might it turn to ethnophilosophy and postmodern fragmentation? Universalist cosmopolitanism and egocentric culturalism are not the only alternatives.
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23Plotinus and the Moving Image (edited book)Brill. 2017.Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy and film. It discusses Plotinian concepts like "the One" in a cinematic context and relates Plotinus' theory of time as a transitory intelligible movement of the soul to Bergson’s and Deleuze’s time-image. Film is a unique medium for a rapprochement of our modern consciousness with the thought of Plotinus. The Neoplatonic vestige is particularly worth exploring in the context of the newly emerging “Ci…Read more
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Book Reviews (review)Architecture Philosophy 4 (1). 2019.The Philosophy of Chinese Architecture by David Wang Thinking Like a Mall by Steven Vogel
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12Critical PosthumanismPensamiento y Cultura 15 (1): 20-30. 2012.el “Posthumanismo Acrítico” celebra la continuación de lo humano por medios no humanos , así como la creación de una realidad por medios “irreales”. Los posthumanistas intentan lograr un cuerpo más autónomo y con eficiencia energética, desarrollando la interacción del cuerpo-tecnología y la conciencia- digitalidad, la biotecnología o la bioinformática. A través de la interferencia mutua del cuerpo, la conciencia y la realidad, se crea un nuevo espacio de “Realidad Virtual”. El posthumanismo crít…Read more
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41H-Sang Seung: Design Is Not DesignJournal of Aesthetic Education 48 (1): 108-122. 2014.As a philosopher, the architectural question that fascinates me most is the extent to which architecture imposes a certain way of life on people. Some might answer that architecture should impose as little as possible on peoples’ lives and that, in the ideal case, things will work in the converse: people impose on architecture the way of being that they believe to be most compatible with their lives. I guess that the leading thought underlying the latter scheme is that we cannot trust architectu…Read more
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16Speech, Writing, and Play in Gadamer and DerridaCosmos and History : The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 9 (1): 243-264. 2013.I revisit the Derrida-Gadamer debate in order to analyze more closely the problem of the foundation of reason and of interpretation. I explore the theme of play as a metaphor of non-foundation in both philosophers and analyze how both extract this quality from their readings of Plato’s Phaedrus. Does Derrida not essentialize the game by declaring that the playful experience of a Gadamerian dialogue must produce a metaphysical presence in the form of a hermeneutic intention? I find that the circu…Read more
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25How Would You Dress in Utopia? Raëlism and the Aesthetics of GenesAlternative Spirituality and Religion Review 8 (1): 37-61. 2017.According to Claude Vorilhon, the Elohim do not effectuate miracles but are “designers” who have advanced knowledge in genetics. I approach the politics of the genetic body as it is conceived in Raëlism via a discussion on aesthetics. A genetically constructed body collides with a category that has been central to the Western aesthetic tradition: style. The Raëlian Movement has created the concept of an “artificial world beyond nature” where human existence is limited to the aistetikos. Certain …Read more
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Sh-zo Kuki et la'philosophie de la contingence'fran aise. Une communication entre l'Oreitne et l'OccidentRevue Philosophique De Louvain 97 (1): 113-126. 1999.
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61Mapping Film Studies: Symposium on Dominique Château's Cinéma et philosophieFilm-Philosophy 10 (2): 82-86. 2006.
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35John Orr (2014) The Demons of Modernity: Ingmar Bergman and European CinemaFilm-Philosophy 19 (1). 2015.
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12Films and Dreams: Tarkovsky, Bergman, Sokurov, Kubrick, and Wong Kar-WaiLexington Books. 2007.Films and Dreams considers the essential link between films and the world of dreams. Thorsten Botz-Bornstein reveals a common structure of "dreamtense" in the works of major filmmakers like Tarkovsky, Sokurov, Bergman, and Wong Kar-wai
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23The New Surrealism: Lost Stories, Reality Television and Amateur Dream-CensorsJanus Head 9 (1): 181-186. 2006.“Reality television” is inspired by a particular fascination with “reality.” The detached way of “narrating” events with its occasional emergence of all-too-human constellations comes closer to that of dreaming than to that of analysis, consumption, or first-degree simulation. In the end, however, reality television adopts the form of an anti-narrative in which conventional narrative and receptive devices have not been overcome in order to create a real aesthetic of dreams, but have been overtur…Read more
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34Cardboard houses with wings: The architecture of alabama's rural studioJournal of Aesthetic Education 44 (3): 16-22. 2010.The Rural Studio, which was founded by Samuel Mockbee in 1992 and lead by him until his death in 2001, continues its activities. Its specialty is, now as before, the design of innovative houses for poor people living in Alabama's second-poorest county, Hale County, by relying largely on donated and salvaged materials. The houses are made of car windshields, surplus carpet tiles, baled cardboard, old street signs, license plates, etc. Alexis de Tocqueville has said that democracy lowers the stand…Read more
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23Shûzô Kuki et la 'philosophie de la contingence' françaiseRevue Philosophique De Louvain 97 (1): 113-126. 1999.
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16Place and Dream: Japan and the Virtual (edited book)Rodopi. 2004.This is a book about space. On a first level, it reflects traditional Japanese ideas of space against various "items" of Western culture. Among these items are Bakhtin's "dialogicity", Wittgenstein's Lebensform, and "virtual space" or "globalized" space as representatives of the latest development of an "alienated", modern spatial experience. Some of the Western concepts of space appear as negative counter examples to "basho-like", Japanese places; others turn out to be compatible with the Japan…Read more
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63Kitsch and BullshitPhilosophy and Literature 39 (2): 305-321. 2015.Harry Frankfurt’s twenty-two page long essay “On Bullshit” was published in 1986 in an academic journal and appeared as a stand-alone book in 2005. The small book was successful and has sparked many discussions by both academics and public intellectuals. In this article I want to examine if, in the realm of art, kitsch overlaps with bullshit as a sort of “aesthetic bullshit” or if there are differences between bullshit as a predominantly ethical phenomenon and kitsch, which works much more with …Read more
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54Is Critical Regionalist Philosophy Possible?Comparative and Continental Philosophy 2 (1): 11-25. 2010.In architecture, the concept of Critical Regionalism gained popularity as a synthesis of universal, “modern” elements and individualistic elements derived from local cultures. Critical Regionalist alternatives are more than a postmodern mix of ethno styles but integrate conceptual qualities like local light, perspective, and tectonic quality into a modern architectural framework. In order to “critically” root architectural works in their corresponding traditions, Critical Regionalists base their…Read more
Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Gulf University For Science And Technology
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Gulf University For Science And TechnologyProfessor
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy, Misc |
Other Academic Areas |
Areas of Interest
Aesthetics |
Continental Philosophy |
Philosophy, Misc |
Other Academic Areas |