札哈哈蒂:我一開始是以非傳統的方式,用圖畫來呈現一個一項案子。我以不同方式來思考建筑。一般用來呈現建筑的工具,對我而言沒有用,沒辦法展現我想做的事情有何意義。所以我開始着手,嘗試找出一種對我而言真正有用的建筑呈現圖。我最初是嘗試找出角度,後來繪圖演變成為一種分鏡表,能告訴你這項案子的完整生命故事。(Photo Appreciation: Black Blue by Carlos Pataca)
①Niklas Luhmann, 「Sign as form,」Cybernetics and Human Knowing,vol.6, no.3,1999, p.27.
②Tim Ingold,「The temporality of the landscape,」World Archaeology, vol.25, no.2, 1993, pp.152-175;「Building, dwelling, living: How animals and people make themselves at home in the world,」in M. Strathern eds., Shifting Contexts,London: Routledge, 1995, pp.57-80.
③Alf Hornborg,「Vital signs: An ecosemiotic perspective on the human ecology of Amazonia,」Sign Systems Studies, vol.29, no.1, 2001,p.128.
較之於全球規模的文化,地方文化的唯一優勢往往就在於它和周圍環境的聯系。全球文化是自足的,通過抽象的、向外投射的觀念和價值,如經濟價值、抽象象征和理想來獲得自己的身份。 而地方文化的關注點則更多地導向它周圍的環境以及它的模式和特性。約瑟夫·米克(Joseph W. Meeker)描述了這兩種研究世界的方法的對立,他將自足性歸因於西方哲學傳統,歸因於悲劇這種體裁和生物群落中的更新物種,而將環境和地方文化的中心性歸因於喜劇體裁和本地物種。 ②
符號主體的地方性和語境性概念和強調自然與文化的二元主義截然對立。 在概念上,宣稱自然是文化的產物, 不可能學習處於文化之外的自然,這對於地方文化甚至是危險的。 ③
①Alf Hornborg,「Vital signs: An ecosemiotic perspective on the human ecology of Amazonia,」Sign Systems Studies, vol.29, no.1, 2001,p.128.
②Joseph W. Meeker,「The comic mode,」in Cheryll Glotfelty, Harold Fromm, eds., The Ecocritisism Reader,Landmarks in Literary Ecology,Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1996, pp.155-169.
如果我對你說「下雨了」,這就將冗餘引入了宇宙、信息和雨點之中;由此,單單從這到某物一條信息你就可以猜到,如果你看向窗外,就會看,而這種推想可不是隨機遇上的。 ⑥ 任何已經有效的符號過程都會部分地決定這一過程未來的發展可能——在時間的軸線上,語境的作用本身得到了擴展。 在讀小說或看電影時,我們可以發現,經歷過的事會影響到將來的結果。 同樣,每一篇科學論文或藝術作品都部分地決定了正在被觀察著的話語的發展可能。符號與文本之間關系的這種特征讓我們想到了符號過程中的因果關系——皮爾斯已經對此進行了描述:一個符號過程是如何引導未來符號過程的可能的。這種傾向似乎成為符號過程的概括性特點, 尼古拉斯·盧曼(Niklas Luhmann)如是說:比如說,如果為了交流和思想而將符號和符號相結合,那麼,就必須對期待(expectation)進行引導,並且對將來聯接的可能性作出限制。 隨之而來的符號不能被預先決定,不能太出人意料。 因此,每一個符號不僅必須將自己作為一個實體來發生作用,它還會提供多餘的信息。 ①
①Eugene Nida,「A problem in the statement of meanings,」Lingua, no.3, 1952, pp.126. 轉引自 Winfred NO ǖth, Handbook of Semiotics, Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990.
②Eugene Nida, Contexts in Translating, Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2001, pp.31-32.
③I. A. Richards, 「Functions of and factors in language,」Journal of Literary Semantics, vol.1, 1972, p.34.
④Thomas A. Sebeok,「Semiotics and ethology,」in T. A. Sebeok, Perspectives in Zoosemiotics, Janua Linguarum. Series Minor, The Hague: Mouton, 1972, pp.122-161.
⑤Thomas A. Sebeok,「Communication,」in Thomas A. Sebeok, eds., A Sign is Just a Sign, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991,pp.29-30.
⑥Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Granada: Paladin, 1973, pp.383-384
②Jesper Hoffmeyer,「The unfolding semiosphere,」Gertrudis Van de Vijever et al., eds., Evolutionary Systems, Biological and Epistemological Perspectives on Selection and Self-Organization,Dordrecht:Kluwer Academic Publishers,1998,pp.290-291.
瑞恰慈 (I. A.Richards) 則補充了源自過去的時間軸對意義和環境間關係的意義:像任何其他符號一樣, 一個詞語是通過屬於一組再現的事件而獲得意義的, 這組事件可以成為語境。 由此,在這個意義上,一個詞的語境是過去的一組事件的某種再現模式,我們說它的意義取決於它的語境,也就是說它的意義取決於它在其中獲得意義的那個過程的某一點。 ③
在布拉格符號學派的著作中,語境的概念也起到了重要的作用。 雅柯布森發展了卡爾·比勒(Karl Burhler) 的語言模式, 在他的語言交流模式中,他將文本和語言的指涉功能聯系在一起。 在雅柯布森的學生、 美國著名的符號學家西比奧克(Thomas A. Sebeok) 對動物交流的符號學研究,也就是動物符號學中,這一思想得到了進一步的推進。④
在元層次上,作為描述人與自然環境之間的關係,描述人類在生物系統中的位置以及人類文化中的自然的學科,符號學的興起可算姍姍來遲。 盡管自20世紀90年代起,生態學的符號學研究就在不同的語境中以不同的形式被提出,但作為范式的生態符號學是直到諾特 (Winfred NO ǖth)1996 年的論文發表後才有跡可循的。①在該文中,諾特將生態符號學定義為:研究生命體及其環境之間的關係之符號學方面的科學。 ②
①Kalevi Kull,「Semiotic ecology: Different natures in the semiosphere,」Sign Systems Studies, vol.26, 1998, pp.347-348.
①Winfred NO ǖth,「Oǖkosemiotik,」Zeitschrift für Semiotik,1996,vol.18, no.1, pp.7-18. 轉引自 Winfred NO ǖth, 「Ecosemiotics,」 Sign Systems Studies, vol.26, 1998, p.333.
③Kalevi Kull,「Semiotic ecology: Different natures in the semiosphere.」
④Semiotica,127-1/4,1999;Tartu Semiotic Library,vol.3, 2002;Sign System Studies,vol.3, 2002;Zeitschrift für Semiotik,8-3,1986.
⑤Soeren Nors Nielsen,「Towards an ecosystem semiotics: Some basic aspects for a new research programme,」Ecological Complexity, vol.4, no.3, 2007: 93-101.
⑥Almo Farina, Andrea Belgrano,「The eco-field hypothesis: toward a cognitive landscape,」Landscape Ecology, vol.21, no.1,
2006, pp.5-17; Almo Farina, 「The landscape as a semiotic interface between organisms and resources,」Biosemiotics, vol.1, no.1, 2006, pp.75-83.
⑦Timo Maran,「Towards an integrated methodology of ecosemiotics: The concept of nature-text,」Sign Systems Studies, 35(1/ 2), 2007, 269-294; Alfred K. Siewers, Strange Beauty,Ecocritical Approaches to Early Medieval Landscape,New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
(原題:地方性:生態符號學的一個基礎概念① [愛沙尼亞]蒂莫·馬倫文 湯 黎譯,見:鄱陽湖學刊,2014年第三期,37頁—43頁;註①①Kalevi Kull,「Semiotic ecology: Different natures in the semiosphere,」Sign Systems Studies, vol.26, 1998, pp.347-348.)
(con't from above)Metaphors have a spatial logic, they connect a thing which is present in the poem to something which is absent outside of it. In doing this the absent thing becomes present. The inside is connected to the outside. Using metaphor means seeing one thing as another – a form of understanding that is “fundamentally spatial in organization” (Zwicky 2003, § 3). This spatiality is one which is not bounded and singular but, instead, one which makes a connection, or, as Jan Zwicky puts it. “a linguistic short-circuit.”
Non-metaphorical ways of speaking conduct meaning, in insulated carriers, to certain ends and purposes. Metaphors shave off the insulation and meaning arcs across the gap (Zwicky 2003, § 68). The place which is a poem has both the meanings which lie within the boundaries marked by the presence of type, and the meanings that this type connects to. The text of the poem is both a neat, closed entity and a set of links to what lies beyond.
It is in this sense that the metaphor formulas a=b and a≠b simultaneously recognizes the inherent qualities of what lies within the poem and the connections to what lies without.
A metaphor can appear to be a gesture of healing – it pulls a stitch through the rift that our capacity for language opens between us and the world. A metaphor is an explicit refusal of the idea that the distinctness of things is their fundamental ontological characteristic.
But their distinctness is one of their most fundamental ontological characteristics (the other being their interpenetration and connectedness). In this sense, a metaphor heals nothing – there is nothing to be healed (Zwicky 2003, § 59).
Metaphor works on the dual capacity to recognize the concrete unity of the assemblage of things that lies before us and to insist on their connectedness to a world beyond. Things (and the assemblages of things which are places) are both distinct (in that there is no other assemblage exactly like this one) and connected (things are always interconnected). Metaphor allows us to be near to things, in the way both a poet and a phenomenologist insist on, and to recognize a constitutive outside. This outside is also a world of things, practices and meanings that can be drawn upon to recognize the specificity of ‘here’.
5 Conclusion
In this essay I have developed a basis for topopoetics – a way of reading poetry that uses spatial thinking to interpret the work a poem does. This is distinct from an analysis of poems about place – or the poetics of sense of place. While it is clear than many poets evoke place in their poetry and that geography may be one of the few constants in the history of English language poetry, it is also the case that poems are kinds of places and they enact a form of dwelling. Indeed, it was poetry that inspired much of Heidegger’s thinking about place and dwelling. Topopoetics insists on the active nature of spatial thinking in the process of interpretation. Place and space are not just setting or subject but are, rather, woven into the fabric of poetic making itself. I have made a start to outlining topopoetics through reference to the role of blank space, stasis and flux and inside and outside in order to show how spatiality is implicated in the process of meaning making. This, in turn, becomes a tool in relating the poem to the places the poem is about.
(Con't) Stanza means ‘room’, ‘station’ or ‘stopping place’ and refers to blocks of black separated by white on the page. These are rooms we pass between surrounded by outside. Stanzas found their way into written poetry through the act of memoriz ing verse. Rooms, or stopping places, are memorized and filled with words that would be activated by an imagined walk through the rooms. While stanzas are clearly places to stop – they are also clearly linked by movement. Movement also occurs within the stanzas as we follow the lines of text.
The word ‘verse’ comes from the practice of tilling the soil – agriculture – the root of ‘culture’. It is rooted in the Latin versus, meaning a ‘furrow’ or a ‘turning of the plow’. As the farmer (or farm worker) tills the soil they come to an edge, turn around, then make their way back, pacing out the day. Verse can thus be found in ‘reverse’. These two ideas – stanza – as a block of bounded space and verse as an action – a form of practice that brings those blocks alive and reminds us that they are only there because of move ment – these two ideas describe something of the geography of the poem as the interplay of fixity and flux of being and becoming.
Poetry is often referred to as freezing time. In fact, many kinds of representation are said to freeze time (and thus, in some circles, representation has become deeply suspect) (Anderson and Harrison 2010). In poetry’s case, this could not be further from the truth. Poetry, to me, is a mobile form related to walking and, indeed, ploughing and reversing. This sense of mobile journeying in the poem is part of the topological understanding of the poem on the page.
Perec knew this: I write: I inhabit my sheet of paper, I invest it, I travel across it, I incite blanks, spaces (jumps in the meaning, discontinuities, transitions, changes of key) (Perec 1997, 3) with place starts from a recognition of an original encounter which is “singular and situated”. The more the poem can reflect this situated singularity the more faithful it will be to the place that lies beyond it. But it would be wrong to think of the ‘concrete unity’ of place as a pure, bounded entity with no relation to a world (even an abstract world) beyond it. Places always point to a world beyond them, and so do poems.
One way in which the place of the poem opens up to its outside is through metaphor. Metaphor is another component of poetics that has a spatial root in travel. Metaphor comes from the Greek metaphorá (μεταφορά ) for ‘transfer’ or ‘carryover’.
In modern Athens, the vehicles of mass transportation are called metaphorai. To go to work or come home, one takes a “metaphor” – a bus or a train. Stories could also take this noble name: every day, they traverse and organize places; they select and link them together; they make sentences and itineraries out of them. They are spatial trajectories (de Certeau 1984, 115).
Metaphors perform two operations simultaneously – they say a equals band, at the same time, a does not equal b. Just saying a is the same as b is not metaphorical.
For a metaphor to be a metaphor a has to also be different from b. The more different they are the more powerful the metaphor. This is true as long a and b are not so different that they are not, in fact, similar in any way.
Poems speak to things which lie outside the poem. Clearly the poem has a referential function – like all language. It is about something. But even if we include the things the poem directly names on the inside of the poem, there is yet another set of things that are not directly named but instead gestured towards. In this way the poem opens up to the world. We have seen how one of the features of place is the way in which it gathers things.
A place is a unique assemblage. The things that constitute a place often appear to us as specific to that place even if they have, in fact, travelled from else where. Things form a particular topography of place at the same time as their jour neys link the inside of a place to elsewhere. Poetry is one way in which we stop and wonder at the specificity of the way things appear to us in place.
Poetry involves being attentive to things and the way I which they are gathered. Poetry is an ‘encounter with the world’. No matter the changes in Heidegger’s philosophical vocabulary, a key point around which his thinking constantly turns is the idea that thinking arises, and can only arise, out of our original encounter with the world – an encounter that is always singular and situated, in which we encounter ourselves as well as the world, and in which what first appears is not something abstract or fragmented, but rather the things themselves, as things, in their con crete unity (Malpas 2012b, 14).
This insistence on the specificity of ‘things themselves’ is one way we can think about poetic attention. A poetic concern ground that appears relatively static. This movement, in a poem, is expressed with direction words such as “over” or “in” or “towards”. Topopoetics challenges some of the assumptions of the figure/ground equation. As place is most often equated with ground it tends to have a degree of deadness associated with it. It seems less important.
Topopoetics draws our attention to the opposite – the active presence of place in the poem. Another key term in cognitive poetics is “image schema” which refers to “loca tive expressions of place” (Stockwell 2002, 16). Stockwell gives the examples of “JOURNEY, CONTAINER, CONDUIT, UP/DOWN, FRONT/BACK, OVER/ UNDER, INTO/OUT OF”. Terms of mobility catch our attention and urge us to continue reading – static elements are frankly boring and we quickly forget them. The difference between the moving elements and static elements produces literary and cognitive effects. But even before any particular word is written or read we have the poem – the lines that form a shape in space. As we read left to right and top to bottom against the white space a figure forms over ground. A passage is enacted. Stuff happens.
Poems are made out of arrangements of type and blank space – figure and ground in a physical, pre-verbal sense. I am not sure what the cognitive content of this patterning is but it is surely important to poetry – even before the specifics of actual words and their meanings. This is the start of the geography of the poem. There are two spatial metaphors at work in the basic language of poetry that point towards the way a poem is an act of dwelling: these are the words ‘stanza’ and ‘verse’.
Something has to appear for space to emerge. Georges Perec makes this clear: This is how space begins, with words only, signs traced on the blank page. To describe space: to name it, to trace it, like those portolano-makers who saturated the coastlines with the names of harbours, the names of capes, the names of inlets, until in the end the land was only separated from the sea by a continuous ribbon of text (Perec 1997, 13).
Perec’s book, Species of Spaces is a catalogue of spaces and places with chapters devoted to “The Apartment”, “The Street” and “The Town” for instance. The first chapter, though, is “The Page”. The page is immediately equivalent to spaces we may more easily think of as the world beyond the page.
The page and its markings are not removed from, and about, the world – they are of the world. In this chapter Perec outlines the nature of a topopoetics in simple terms. Writing, particularly writing poems, is the production of space and place.
It is a cartographic act that combines senses of home and journey. The process of writing creates coordinates – a top and a bottom, left and right, beginning and end. In amongst the words are pauses and hesitations. There is a poetic topological correspondence between the poem and the place it is about. In Peter Stockwell’s account of ‘cognitive poetics’ a key idea is the notion of f igure/ground – the notion that some things appear to be more important, more fluid, more foregrounded while others remain as background and setting (and thus seem ingly less important) (Stockwell 2002).
The first is figure and the second is ground. The figure is prominent and the ground is not. This occurs most obviously in the way characters are more important than the places they are in in novels. Description is often about ground and action involves figures. Figures often move across a
We make our places by doing them –by beating the bounds rather than drawing a line in the sand. Beyond that place of movement is the white of silence. But even that space is being shaped, if only as the negative image of the poem. 4 Inside and Outside One way of thinking about place is to think of it as a singular thing – specific, par ticular, bounded and separate.
The very idea of place is bound up with uniqueness and a sense of division from what lies beyond it. But places are actually connected into networks and flows – they have an extrovert side (Massey 1997). This paradoxi cal sense of separation and connectedness is noted by Malpas.
One of the features of place is the way in which it establishes relations of inside and out side – relations that are directly tied to the essential connection between place and boundary or limit. To be located is to be within, to be somehow enclosed, but in a way that at the same time opens up, that makes possible.
Already this indicates some of the directions in which any thinking of place must move – toward ideas of opening and closing, of concealing and revealing, or focus and horizon, of finitude and “transcendence,” of limit and possibility, of mutual relationality and coconstitution (Malpas 2012b, 2). This feature of place is one that translates into the topos of the poem. Poems too open and close, conceal and reveal. (Con't below)
The painter may paint blankness, applying white paint perhaps but rarely leaves the canvas untouched. But there are also similarities between the blank space of the painter and the poet. One similarity is suggested by Gilles Deleuze in his meditation on Francis Bacon. Here he suggests that the blank canvas that con fronts the painter is not blank at all but invested with every painting ever done before. In fact, it would be a mistake to think that the painter works on a white and virgin surface. The entire surface is already invested virtually with all kinds of clichés, which the painter will have to break with (Deleuze 2005, 11). The image Deleuze gives us is of a painter confronted with the whole tradition of painting right there on the blank space which is no longer blank. This is the same for a poet who has to face the page/screen with the knowledge of all the poems that have gone before. There are all the ballads and sonnets, the free verse and the sesti nas, Caedmon’s Hymn, the long lines of Whitman, the dashes of Dickenson, iambic pentameter, half rhyme, sprung rhythm, spondees, syllabic experiments, language poetry and limericks – all of these pre-figure the first letter written or typed. The space is not blank but dizzyingly full. Returning to Deleuze: It is a mistake to think that the painter works on a white surface. The figurative belief fol lows from this mistake. If the painter were before a white surface, he – or she – could reproduce on it an external object functioning as a model. The painter has many things in his head, or around him, or in his studio. Now everything he has in his head or around him is already in the canvas, more or less virtually, more or less actually, before he begins his work. They are all present in the canvas as so many images, actual or virtual, so that the painter does not have to cover a blank surface, but rather would have to empty it out, clear it, clean it. (Deleuze 2005, 87).
The space of the poet, like that of the artist’s is a space to fill with what gets defined by the words or a seething endless presence of everything that has been written before. Once there is a poem on the page then an act of dwelling has occurred that brings space and place into being. If we move beyond the blankness of the empty page/ screen then we begin to see all the other ways in which space works for the poem. Take any poem, copy it, and apply a thick black marker to the lines of text. You end up with a black shape and a white shape. Space works as margins, as gaps, as signi f iers of intent when the poet does anything other than left align the lines. Naturally this use of space is most pronounced in forms of experimental poetry in the modern ist tradition: concrete poetry, Mallarme’s radical departures from the left margin, the projective verse of the Black Mountain School or the contemporary experimen tation with ‘erasure’. But space and place do their work too in traditional forms. The popularity of the sonnet is partly attributable to the perfect way it sits on the page, announcing itself as a poem. 3 Stasis and Flux The topos of the poem results from its play of ink and the absence of ink.
Culture brings nature into perspective and makes it make sense in much the way the marks of the poem make the blank space make sense. Stevens’ jar performs similar functions to Heidegger’s bridge. The poem does the same thing – bringing space into being.
Silence is the acoustic space in which the poem makes its large echoes. If you want to test this write a single word on a blank sheet of paper and stare at it: note the superior attendance to the word the silence insists upon, and how it soon starts to draw out the word’s ramifying sense-
potential, its etymological story, its strange acoustic signature, its calligraphic mark; you are reading a word as poetry (Paterson 2007, 63). Here, British poet Don Paterson suggests that the self-aware special-ness of the poem is created by its being surrounded by blankness, which he equates with silence. There is a merging of sight and sound – pure blankness and silence. The sense of sound is the only sense which has a unique word for absence.
While silence is the absence of sound there is no word for the absence of smell or taste for instance (we have to resort to terms like ‘tasteless’). Perhaps it is for this reason that blank space is compared to silence. It also reminds us of the origins of poetry in spoken forms. The blankness is not just something to be filled but an active component in
the creation of the poem. The blank page is the friend of the poet allowing an infinite variety of form in the simple sense of shape. When the single word appears on the blank sheet the word-as-poem and the space around it are simultaneously brought into being. In this sense, one does not precede the other.
Paterson describes the act of poetry as an emergence out of silence and space. This is not quite right. This assumes the pre-existence of a blankness and silence within which the words emerge.
Perhaps, instead, the blankness is produced by the creative act. The blankness emerges with the noise. There are similarities between the poet’s relationship to blank space and the painter’s relationship to the canvas. They are clearly not the same thing.
In most painting the canvas is covered. The first thing many traditional painters do is cover a canvas with paint and then start to work on the detail. The canvas is obliterated. The poet, on the other hand, cannot fill up the space he or she is confronted with. The poem needs to play with the space and allow the blankness to be part of the process. Don Paterson puts it this way: Our formal patterning most often supplies a powerful typographical advertisement.
What it advertises most conspicuously is that the poem has not taken up the whole page, and con siders itself somewhat important. The white space around the poem then becomes a potent symbol of the poem’s significant intent (Paterson 2007, 62). The space around the poem once written advertises the poem’s importance as special words. (Con't Below)
Poems of place are not simply poems about places, rather they are a species of place with a special relationship to what it is to be in (external) place. Included in this is a recognition that poems (as places) have a material existence as a gathering of words (literally ink) on the page which takes a particular spatial form.
Topopoetics means closing the gap between the material form of the poem (topos in the sense of rhetorics) and the earthly world of place (topos as place). It means attending to the presence of place within the poem. To do this the rest of the essay considers the role of blank space, the tension between shape/form and movement and the relationship between the inside and outside of the poem. 2
Blank Space/Full Space Before, there was nothing, or almost nothing; afterwards, there isn’t much, a few signs, but which are enough for there to be a top and a bottom, a beginning and an end, a right and a left, a recto and a verso (Perec 1997, 10). My interest here is in the combined impact of two meanings of topos – as correct form and as place – on understanding poetic approaches to and renditions of place. The act of building and dwelling that is a poem starts with a blank white space. By writing poems we gather that space and give it form.
True – it already has edges and texture (it is, in Perec’s terms “almost nothing”) but words (as place) bring space into existence. The space becomes margins and gaps between words – even holes within letters. This relationship between poem and place and the space that takes shape around it is one of the defining elements of poetry. Glyn Maxwell, in On Poetry, ruminates on blank space and silence in poetry. Regard the space, the ice plain, the dizzying light. That past, that future.
Already it isn’t nothing. At the very least it’s your enemy, and that’s an awful lot. Poets work with two materials, one’s black and one’s white. Call them sound and silence, life and death, hot and cold, love and loss…. … Call it this and that, whatever it is this time, just don’t make the mistake of thinking the white sheet is nothing. It’s nothing for your novelist, your journalist, your blogger. For those folk it’s a tabular rasa, a giving surface. For the poet it is half of everything. If you don’t know how to use it you are writing prose. If you write poems that you might call free and I might call unpatterned then skillful, intelligent use of the whiteness is all that you’ve got (Maxwell 2012, 11). Poems are patterns made from space and which make space. Even before a word is read you can see a poem’s shape – the black against the white in Maxwell’s terms.
This is one of the most pleasing things about poetry and it serves no function at all in a novel or most other forms of writing. Writing a poem is a little form of place creation that configures blankness. This resonates with Wallace Stevens’ ‘Anecdote of the Jar’: I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion every where. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.
Here the roundness of the jar (roundness is repeated throughout the poem in ‘round’, ‘around’ and ‘surround’) orders the “slovenly wilderness” around it – it orders and regulates a kind of blankness (the ‘almost-nothing’ of wilderness) in a contrived and designed way.
In Aristotle’s rhetoric it is important to choose the right kind of topos for the argument at hand, just as it is important to select the right form for a particular poet. It draws our attention to the importance of (among other things) the shape on the page. The richer meaning of topos emerged more fully formed in the writing of Martin Heidegger and has recently been elaborated by the philosopher, Jeff Malpas (Heidegger 1971; Malpas 1999, 2012a).
Here topos is mobilized through the idea of the topological to indicate the primary nature of place for being. To put it bluntly, to be is to be in place – to be here/there. The connection between poetry and the idea of place as the site of being is right there at the outset as Heidegger’s insistence on being as being-in-place originated from an encounter with the poetry of Hölderlin (Malpas 2006; Elden 1999).
Heidegger’s topological thought includes two key concepts – Dasein and dwelling. Dasein means (approximately) ‘being there’. It combines Heidegger’s career- long enquiry into the nature of being with a recognition that being is always placed – that existence is thoroughly intertwined with place.
The way that we make a home in the world is referred to as dwelling. The way in which you are and I am, the manner in which we humans are on the earth, is Buan, dwelling.
To be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal. It means to dwell (Heidegger 1971, 145). How, exactly, people enact this dwelling (or fail to enact it) becomes a central object for philosophy in Heidegger’s later texts.3 In an important series of late essays Heidegger invokes poetry as a form of dwell ing. He goes so far as to suggest that it is an ideal form of building and dwelling. Poetic creation, which lets us dwell, is a kind of building.
Thus we confront a double demand: for one thing, we are to think of what is called man’s existence by way of the nature of dwelling; for another, we are to think of the nature of poetry as a letting-dwell, as a – perhaps even the – distinctive kind of building. If we search out the nature of poetry according to this viewpoint, then we arrive at the nature of dwelling (Heidegger 1971, 213).
This observation (linking poetry to its root meaning of ‘making’) gets right to the heart of the constitution of topopoetics. Poetry, as Heidegger observes, is a kind of building and thus a particularly important kind of dwelling. This building-as- dwelling, however, is more than the practical stuff of constructing in the correct way – it is, in Heidegger’s view, about the essential character of being-in-the world – being in, and with, place.
1 For a discussion of topos, see Rapp 2010: 7.1.
2 Aristotle Topics 163b28.32.
3 Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party, a membership he later denounced. There is no doubt that these ideas of dwelling were easily incorporated into a Nazi ideology of proper authentic (Aryan) dwelling counterposed to an inauthentic (Jewish, gay, Romany) form of (non) dwelling. Following Malpas I do not believe that this necessarily means that his ideas are irrecoverably infected.
An engagement with the philosophical basis of topos adds to our original definition of place (above) as a gathering of things, practices and meanings in a particular location. While place is all of these things this definition fails to underline the basic significance of being placed to being-in-the-world. A topopoetic account is one which recognizes the specificity of the nearness of things in place and at the same time focuses our attention on the way in which the poem is itself a form of building and dwelling.
With the banks, the bridge brings to the stream the one and the other expanse of the landscape lying behind them. It brings stream and bank and land into each other’s neighborhood. The bridge gathers the earth as landscape around the stream (Heidegger 1971, 150).
Heidegger’s bridge brings a place and a surrounding landscape into being. In so doing, it also produces space. The bridge as a place does not just connect pre- existing spaces or operate within a pre-existing space – it brings space into being.
In this sense, place comes before space. This is a reversal of the more frequent suggestion that places exist in space and that space comes before place. Heidegger is clearly making a different argument from Merleau-Ponty.
Nevertheless, what unites the two passages is an insistence on the way spaces are brought into being in relation to platial bodies and structures as active agents. Place comes first. One final preliminary point about place before moving on to a discussion of topopoetics. One of the defining qualities of place, across disciplines, has been the way in which places bring things together.
They are seen as syncretic mixtures of elements of multiple domains. Different scholars use different terms to describe this fact. Philosophers following Heidegger write of places as sites of gathering (Casey 1996). The geographer Robert Sack uses the metaphor of a loom to describe places as products of the process of weaving (Sack 2003).
Writers informed by the philoso phy of Gilles Deleuze and Manual Delanda refer to this process as assemblage (DeLanda 2006; Dovey 2010). Things mingle in places and places are constantly being made through gathering/weaving/ assembling and constantly being pulled apart. Among the things that are gathered in place are objects (materialities), mean ings (narratives, stories, memories etc.) and practices.
Philosopher Edward Casey puts this as well as anyone. Minimally, places gather things in their midst– where ‘things’ connote various animate and inanimate entities. Places also gather experiences and histories, even languages and thoughts. Think only of what it means to go back to a place you know, finding it full of memories and expectations, old things and new things, the familiar and the strange, and much more besides. What else is capable of this massively diversified holding action? (Casey 1996, 24)
1 Towards topopoetics
In the remainder of this essay I mobilize some of what has preceded in relation to thinking about poetry. I argue for poems as places (as well as about places) that can be interpreted spatially. The term topopoetics originates from the term topos as developed by Malpas and Casey in their readings of Heidegger and others (Casey 1998; Malpas 2012b).
Topo comes from topos (τόπος), the Greek for ‘place’. This is combined with poetics, which comes from poiesis (ποίησις), the Ancient Greek term for ‘making’. Topopoetics is thus ‘place-making’. The particular lineage I am invoking for topos derives from the philosophy of Aristotle. Importantly, for our purposes, topos appears in both accounts of how the world comes into being and as a figure in rhetoric. In rhetoric a topos is a “particular argumentative form or pattern” from which particular arguments can be derived.1
It is very much like a form in poetry – a sonnet or a villanelle. It has a particular shape. This rhetorical view of topos is linked to the world through the art of memorizing long lists by locating things on a list in particular places. “For just as in the art of remembering, the mere mention of the places instantly makes us recall the things, so these will make us more apt at deductions through looking to these defined premises in order of enumeration.” 2
It has become commonplace to see place as arising from space. In this sense space comes ‘first’. If space is an undifferentiated field – an abstract categorical axis of existence in the Kantian sense, then place has to occur in space. Places here are spatial moments, or points in space on which experience and meaning are layered.
Place comes after space. Space is a fundamental fact of the reality of the universe while place is what humans make out of it. The philosopher Jeff Malpas sees this as a relegation of place to the increasing importance of space in thought following the Renaissance: “The ‘rise’ of space is thus accompanied, one might say, by the ‘decline’ of place.
Indeed, in much contemporary thought, place often appears either as subjective overlay on the reality of materialized spatiality (place is space plus human value of ‘meaning’ …) or else as merely an arbitrary designated posi tion in a spatial field” (Malpas n.d.).
This way of thinking is turned on its head by philosophers of the phenomeno logical tradition following Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty who see spaces being formed out of the reality of place.
Place, here, becomes fundamental and primary while space is what follows once places come into existence as a kind of relation between places. In The Phenomenology of Perception Maurice Merleau-Ponty locates consciousness and intentionality not in the head but in the body.
How does the body relate to space? The most obvious way of articulating this is to think of the body as located (like place) in space where space is an external and continuous field in which the body exists and which the body has to navigate.
This is a body in Cartesian space that exists as an object. Merleau-Ponty rejects this view and argues instead for a ‘body-subject’ that exists in lived space – space which unfolds through the existence of the body rather than providing a precondition for the body. The human body produces certain kinds of orientation such as inside and outside, up and down, front and back and left and right that continually produce space rather than simply inhabit it.
As Merleau-Ponty put it: We must therefore avoid saying that our body is in space, or in time. It inhabits space and time … In so far as I have a body through which I act in the world, space and time are not, for me, a collection of adjacent points nor are they a limitless number of relations synthesized by my consciousness, and into which it draws my body.
I am not in space and time, nor do I conceive space and time; I belong to them, my body combines with them and includes them (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 161). Merleau-Ponty, then, insists that the bodily space is primary to external Cartesian space. Bodies are not simply in an already existing space – rather space is produced by the body.
A similar logic is at work in Heidegger’s account of the work done by building a bridge over a river. The bridge swings over the stream “with ease and power.” It does not just connect banks that are already there. The banks emerge as banks only as the bridge crosses the stream. The bridge designedly causes them to lie across from each other. One side is set off against the other by the bridge. Nor do the banks stretch along the stream as indifferent border strips of the dry land.
Towards Topopoetics: Space, Place and the Poem by Tim Cresswell
Abstract: This essay focuses on the theme of poetry and place – a project I have called Topopoetics. It introduces the idea of topopoetics drawing on the work of Aristotle, Heidegger and more recent philosophies of place, dwelling and poetics.
The point is not to cover the familiar ground of ‘sense-of-place’ in poetry but rather to explore how the poem is a kind of place and the way in which poems create space and place through their very presence on the page, through the interactions of full space and blank space, stasis and flux, and inside and outside.
What can poetry tell us about space and place? Conversely, what can thinking about space and place tell us about poetry? These are the questions that motivate this essay. My aim is to both answer them and to reveal how spatial and platial thinking can inform forms of interpretation beyond the interpretation of space and place in the geographical world.
I develop a topopoetics – a project that sees poems as places and spaces. The distinction between space and place that is most often made is one in which space is seen as limitless, empty, divisible and subject to mathematical forms of understanding while place is seen as bounded, full, unique and subject to forms of interpretive understanding.
Place has been most frequently described as a meaning ful segment of space – as mere ‘location’ in space overlaid with things such as meaning, subjectivity, emotion and affect (Tuan 1977; Buttimer and Seamon 1980; Relph 1976; Cresswell 2014).
The definitions of space have become more sophisti cated thanks to interventions from critical theory and philosophy which have taken space out of the realm of the abstract and absolute in an attempt to reveal the work ings of space in the production of society (Soja 1989; Lefebvre 1991; Massey 2005).
At the same time work on place has added layers of power on the one hand (Cresswell 1996; Massey 1997) and a deeper philosophical role in human existence on the other (Casey 1998; Malpas 1999). There is not space here to rehearse all of the twists and turns in these debates. One aspect that is worth lingering on is the ques tion of which comes first, space or place? (Related)
在更具解構性的意義上,米歇爾·傅柯(Michel Foucault)在1970年代的《規訓與懲罰》(Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison)中已指出,時間如何在現代社會(如監獄、軍隊、學校)中被規範、刻印與結構化。傅柯的門生吉爾·德勒茲(Gilles Deleuze)在《控制社會的後記》(Postscript on the Societies of Control)一文中進一步發展這一概念,認為在後規訓社會(即日益社會技術化的現代城市中),時間作為控制因素已經變得可調節、可操縱,使個體從啟蒙哲學中的「完整主體」,變為可操控的「分割個體」(dividual)(Deleuze,1992)。
從宗教研究的角度來看,「共時性」也可借鑒查爾斯·泰勒(Charles Taylor,2007)的觀點,即世俗性本身就是一種時間形態。然而,現代化並非均質或同質的,甚至並非必然非宗教化。因此,正如埃森斯塔特(Shmuel N. Eisenstadt,2003)所言,「多重現代性」可以同時存在,並在全球城市化空間與多元城市中上演,有時和諧共存,有時則發生衝突。
換言之,「共時性」作為「共空間性」的補充概念,將時間維度納入對重疊空間的分析之中。畢竟,正如愛因斯坦所教導的,時間與空間可以被擴展、壓縮、扭曲與變形,受物質、建築、城市、身體、污染以及生命運動的影響。(Source: Erfurt-ness by Sara Keller · Published August 19, 2019 · Updated April 10, 2024)
克納貝爾(Knaebel)強調,艾克哈特在這一過程中運用了「德語語言天賦」(génie propre de la langue allemande)(Knaebel 2002, 20)。因此,艾克哈特的工作不僅僅是翻譯,而是一場真正的哲學創造,塑造了適合中古高地德語語言與認知特性的術語。
法國地理學家雅克·萊維(Jacques Lévy,2013,2021)所創造的「共空間性」(co-spatiality)概念,定義了一種特定類型的「空間間性」(interspatiality),即不同空間之間的關係。「共空間性」基於這樣的想法:空間作為一種多層次的現實,可以根據不同的度量標準(即距離管理策略)來運作。此外,由行動者透過現實或想像的空間行動所創造的每一層空間,可能——也可能不會——與其他佔據相同物理範圍的空間層次「垂直地」互動(Lévy,2003,第213頁)。「共空間性」指的正是這種在同一物理範圍內兩個不同但重疊的空間之間的「垂直」聯繫。然而,兩種現實同時存在於同一個「此在」並不足以構成「共空間性」的互動。正如萊維所強調的,「共空間性」並不是兩個空間共存的機械性或顯然的結果(Lévy,2003,第213頁)。事實上,即便在不同空間現實間存在接觸區域,人們仍可能學會「看不見」其中一個或多個空間,從而忽視某些社會世界的元素,因為他們認為(或被教導認為)這些元素與自己無關。這一現象在中國·米耶維(China Miéville)所著的科幻小說《雙城》(The City and the City)中被藝術性地描繪,也曾在全球多個實施種族隔離政策的政權中被強制施行(Lévy,2021)。事實上,「共空間性」的地理學概念在芝加哥學派的「一座城市中的多座城市」研究中得到了具體體現。根據這一研究,即便社會行動者共享同一物理範圍(即城市空間),他們也未必居住在「同一座城市」。
生命與死亡的鬥爭 (Struggle to the death)與主/奴關係的生成: 在該節中,黑格爾描寫兩個自我意識為了「被承認為獨立的存在」而必須進入生命與死亡的鬥爭。最終,一方(主人 lord)暫時勝出,使另一方(奴隸 bondsman)成為其奴役。這段關係標誌著「主—奴」的結構:主人主導、奴隸服從。
向「相互承認」(Mutual Recognition)邁進:主奴關係並非終極形態。黑格爾認為真正的自由的自我意識需要「彼此為他者/他者為自己」的相互承認(each for the other what the other is for it)。也就是說,真正的主體形成不是單方面的支配或服從,而是平等承認的關係。這一環節是辯證的「否定的否定」階段,也是精神(Geist)進展的基礎。 (iep.utm.edu)
愛墾APP:黑格爾「主-奴辯證法」~~以下是關於 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel(黑格爾)「主-奴辯證法」(lord-bondsman dialectic,又譯「主人與奴隸辯證」)的具體引文與其核心邏輯說明,並附上中文說明以便理解。
一、關鍵引文
在 Phenomenology of Spirit(《精神現象學》)中,黑格爾於「獨立與依賴的自我意識:主人與奴隸」(“Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage”)一節開篇即提出:
“Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged.” (aquestionofexistence.com)
“Self-consciousness is thus only assured of itself through sublating this other, which is presented to self-consciousness as an independent life; self-consciousness is Desire.” (Superphysics)
“The detailed exposition of the Notion of this spiritual unity in its duplication will present us with the movement of recognizing.” (scribd.com)
(譯:這種精神統一在其複製/二重性中的概念的詳細展開,將為我們呈現「承認運動」(movement of recognizing)。)
在進一步描述主人與奴隸關係中,黑格爾指出:
“Self-consciousness is faced by another self-consciousness; self-consciousness has come out of itself.” §179 (Sacramento State)(譯:自我意識面對另一自我意識;自我意識已從自身中出來。)
Place Link
(續上)由於外部文化因素而造成環境的突然變化,或者對另一個環境的進入也會帶來身份上不可避免的變化。作為符號結構的個體和文化為了自我維持總會要求某種語境,因此,當之前的環境消失時,對和新環境相關的新的符號關係的創造就開始了。
換句話說,如果語境缺失了,那麼文化和個體就會創造出他們自己的語境。 當一個人將他/她的自然環境替換成人工環境,在自己周圍創造出存儲他身份的新媒介,並以這樣的方式來試圖彌補記憶傳統的遺失時,我們就可以看到這樣的符號過程。 霍恩伯格將這一過程描述為用感覺和語言符號來取代更多的、沒有鮮明特點的、表示價值交換的經濟符號。①
但是, 對新語境的創造往往會帶來標准化和簡單化的問題,因為,如果沒有環境可以通過多種模式和隨機的過程來提供創造性和新穎性,文化就可能(pg 43)對現有的模式產生最大的依賴。
①Niklas Luhmann, 「Sign as form,」Cybernetics and Human Knowing,vol.6, no.3,1999, p.27.
②Tim Ingold,「The temporality of the landscape,」World Archaeology, vol.25, no.2, 1993, pp.152-175;「Building, dwelling, living: How animals and people make themselves at home in the world,」in M. Strathern eds., Shifting Contexts,London: Routledge, 1995, pp.57-80.
③Alf Hornborg,「Vital signs: An ecosemiotic perspective on the human ecology of Amazonia,」Sign Systems Studies, vol.29, no.1, 2001,p.128.
較之於全球規模的文化,地方文化的唯一優勢往往就在於它和周圍環境的聯系。全球文化是自足的,通過抽象的、向外投射的觀念和價值,如經濟價值、抽象象征和理想來獲得自己的身份。 而地方文化的關注點則更多地導向它周圍的環境以及它的模式和特性。約瑟夫·米克(Joseph W. Meeker)描述了這兩種研究世界的方法的對立,他將自足性歸因於西方哲學傳統,歸因於悲劇這種體裁和生物群落中的更新物種,而將環境和地方文化的中心性歸因於喜劇體裁和本地物種。 ②
符號主體的地方性和語境性概念和強調自然與文化的二元主義截然對立。 在概念上,宣稱自然是文化的產物, 不可能學習處於文化之外的自然,這對於地方文化甚至是危險的。 ③
這種論述使未然文化的自然環境,以及文化與它特有的地方環境之間的關係變得不重要。 另一方面,對文化在語境安置上的理解也可能會和自然科學、自然保護的看法相沖突。 為了保護自然環境,我們也應該保護它的非物質成分,即文化傳統,因為它支撐著這個環境,並增加了它的價值,這種思考方式有別於建立在荒野概念上的、二元式的自然保護。
在《風景和記憶》(Landscape and Memory)一書中,西蒙·沙瑪(Simon Schama) 勾勒出了不同文化和自然環境中的各種關係,特別是討論了地方的自然環境被納入文化記憶、被文化采用並在文學、藝術和神話中得以反映的那些方面。④
我們可能時常會發現,如果不在解釋中考慮環境本身的模式和過程———或者說非人類動物的符號活動,或者說交流活動的結果,就無法對與自然相關的文化文本,如自然書寫、自然文獻、環境藝術作出解釋。 從符號學上來說,這樣的文化文本具有雙重的特點, 除了文本本身展現的意義,它們還包括了或者說指涉著環境中在場的信息。被納入文化記憶的那部分自然不可避免地屬於作為地方實體(local entity)的自然環境,通過對自然的描述,文化將自己和自然聯系在一起。
正如文化擁抱自然,使自然成為自己的一部分並賦予它意義一樣,文化本身也開始和自然、和自然中的具體地方變得類似;也正如文化賦予自然以意義一樣,它也和它的自然環境變得相像。
五、結論
現代社會最顯著的特征就是文化語境的同一化。 地方之間的自然環境無疑是有所差異的,而同一化的過程使得人對於地方性的自然符號的適應性降低了。與主體和環境相關的信息的一致性會受到阻礙,或者更直白地說,人們不再明白如何在自然中存在。 同時,大眾媒體一直試圖減弱地方文化和地方自然環境之間的聯系,因為只有這樣,文化同質化這一全球化的先決條件才能實現。
要研究這樣的過程需要有合適的理論概念。符號學對符號和語境之間的關係討論良多,而理論生物學全面地研究了生命體和環境之間的關係。生態符號學源於這兩門學科能夠積極地參與對文化和地方自然環境之間關係的討論。這裡提出了地方性的概念,而語境、語境性的概念和它們在文化理論上的歷史以及霍夫梅耶的符號適應性觀念,都可以是可能的、適合的起點。
①Alf Hornborg,「Vital signs: An ecosemiotic perspective on the human ecology of Amazonia,」Sign Systems Studies, vol.29, no.1, 2001,p.128.
②Joseph W. Meeker,「The comic mode,」in Cheryll Glotfelty, Harold Fromm, eds., The Ecocritisism Reader,Landmarks in Literary Ecology,Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1996, pp.155-169.
③這種危險意識適用於所有「現代主義」的世界觀,這些觀點認為人只能從已經受意識所影響的世界中進行學習。
④Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory,New York: Alfred A. Knop,1995.
(原題:地方性:生態符號學的一個基礎概念① ☉[愛沙尼亞]蒂莫·馬倫文 湯 黎譯,見:鄱陽湖學刊,2014年第三期,37頁—43頁)
遊學·把自我故事說好的快意
沙巴丹南~保佛鐵路遊
札哈哈蒂:房子能浮起來嗎?05
May 12, 2024
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(續上)作為圍繞文本或符號的一種結構,語境對符號的形式以及主體可能賦予符號的意義都有影響。語境存在於符號之外,同時通過符號關係規定著符號的局限和特征。 如此,新的詞語在形態上的形式和意義不僅取決於語言中已經存在的概念,還取決於語言中意義與形式之間罅隙的存在。
在不同的語境中,一個詞語的意義會有所不同,行為是否合宜也取決於它的語境。 一件藝術作品或文學作品,以及文藝評論家對它們的批評,也是在更為寬廣的文化語境中獲得部分意義的。 在對符號的解釋中,西比奧克強調了語境的作用,用以證明這一點的例子是信息與語境的沖突:作為信息接收者的人基於語境作出解釋,而完全忽略了信息。 ⑤ 「限制」(restraint)這一概念源自控制論,它被引入符號學中,在描述語境所起到的決定作用上具有核心意義。
這一概念認為,語境帶來了對符號冗餘(redundancy)的限制。 從冗餘開始,這種限制就有可能規定符號可能具有的意義,但是,符號本身也能夠負載語境的相關信息。我們可以引用格雷格里·貝特森(Gregory Bateson)的話來說明這種符號對彼此具有約束性的影響:
如果我對你說「下雨了」,這就將冗餘引入了宇宙、信息和雨點之中;由此,單單從這到某物一條信息你就可以猜到,如果你看向窗外,就會看,而這種推想可不是隨機遇上的。 ⑥
任何已經有效的符號過程都會部分地決定這一過程未來的發展可能——在時間的軸線上,語境的作用本身得到了擴展。 在讀小說或看電影時,我們可以發現,經歷過的事會影響到將來的結果。 同樣,每一篇科學論文或藝術作品都部分地決定了正在被觀察著的話語的發展可能。符號與文本之間關系的這種特征讓我們想到了符號過程中的因果關系——皮爾斯已經對此進行了描述:一個符號過程是如何引導未來符號過程的可能的。這種傾向似乎成為符號過程的概括性特點, 尼古拉斯·盧曼(Niklas Luhmann)如是說:比如說,如果為了交流和思想而將符號和符號相結合,那麼,就必須對期待(expectation)進行引導,並且對將來聯接的可能性作出限制。 隨之而來的符號不能被預先決定,不能太出人意料。 因此,每一個符號不僅必須將自己作為一個實體來發生作用,它還會提供多餘的信息。 ①
①Eugene Nida,「A problem in the statement of meanings,」Lingua, no.3, 1952, pp.126. 轉引自 Winfred NO ǖth, Handbook of Semiotics, Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990.
②Eugene Nida, Contexts in Translating, Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2001, pp.31-32.
③I. A. Richards, 「Functions of and factors in language,」Journal of Literary Semantics, vol.1, 1972, p.34.
④Thomas A. Sebeok,「Semiotics and ethology,」in T. A. Sebeok, Perspectives in Zoosemiotics, Janua Linguarum. Series Minor, The Hague: Mouton, 1972, pp.122-161.
⑤Thomas A. Sebeok,「Communication,」in Thomas A. Sebeok, eds., A Sign is Just a Sign, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991,pp.29-30.
⑥Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Granada: Paladin, 1973, pp.383-384
符號學理論將語境作為某種類型的一般抽象物來進行檢視,由此可能會導致這樣的疑慮:將和語境有關的某種適應性作為較之於對其他語境而言的某種語境偏好來談論,這樣做是否切題。因為,從更大的意義上來說,語境總是圍繞著所有的符號結構,即使在語境意味著符號結構的缺失時也是如此。 而且,當我們想到符號結構的自我組織能力時就會明白,這樣的疑慮是無法駁斥的。 主體通過符號活動建立了與語境相關的、對冗餘的限制,從而使周圍的語境變得有價值。 因此,我們不能僅僅從客觀的角度來描述主體與語境的關係,還要考慮到個體的、現象學上的、質性的關係。符號學上的適應性和語境、或者說環境的價值性源於具體語境中主體的存在和主體在其間的符號活動。 對環境而言,存在於其間的時間是一個價值標准。
四、地方身份與環境
地方文化和環境相互作用,這種關係支撐著地方文化的身份。英國人類學家提姆·英戈爾德(Tim Ingold) 在他的著作中描述了一個雙重的過程——人類和動物在其間適應了他們的生活環境,同時也使這個環境個體化了。 ②地方創造這種身份的機制在人類文化的所有層面上進行運作:主體所在的本土之地以及種種因素支撐著它個體的自我定義,語言成為描述環境對象和現象的手段;而與主體的身份聯系在一起的記憶和環境也是地方所特有的。主體和環境的關係也可以是非語言的, 瑞典人類學家、符號學家阿爾夫·霍恩伯格(Alf Hornborg)在對生活於亞馬遜的印第安人的環境關係進行研究時,對感覺符號 (sensory sign)、 語言符號(linguistic sign)和經濟符號(economical sign)進行了區分。 包括「眼睛、耳朵、舌頭、皮膚的感覺——其中只有一小部分被我們思考並歸入語言學范圍」 ③ 在內的各種感覺符號允許人和環境進行最為深入的交流。如果我們回到以控制論為中心的方法上去,就可以斷言,通過對原有文化的積極參與,將主體和所在環境聯系在一起的所謂冗餘信息的量會得到增加。當信息逐漸累積,個體就能夠預知環境的過程,並由此依賴於他/她的環境。(下續)
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然而, 對這座花園的描述使它看起來好像是自我展現在人們眼前一樣, 導致了房子的居住者對這幅畫卷完全無視……每一所房子都有俯瞰這座花園的窗戶:光線之窗、聲音之窗、 氣味之窗和味覺之窗以及許多扇觸覺之窗。
從房子看出去, 花園的景象隨著窗戶的結構和設計而變化: 它不會是更大的世界的一部分; 它是這所房子擁有的唯一世界——它的環境界。 ①
(图)
① 參見Jakob von Uexküll,「The Theory of Meaning.」
如果我們從烏克斯庫爾的符號學范式出發,當我們對生命體及其環境的關係進行檢視時, 那麼,在某個特定環境中對生命體的安置就變得至關重要——而環境與生命體的特征則在主體的解釋行為,即符號過程中得以呈現。 環境規定了生命體的一些代表性特征,由此,作為主體的生命體可以對環境因素賦予自身物種特有的意義。在其他環境因素的情況下,整個意義系統就會有所不同———它們和符號載體相互關聯。主體及其環境之間的關係也為符號過程產生的次現象作出了很好的定義:經驗(從之前的符號過程中積累而來),記憶(使得之前的經驗可以被辨認出來), 物種層面上的累積以及在進化過程中得到部分發展的特征(後者可以被稱為符號選擇)。 主體及其環境之間的每一個以反應為基礎的交流模式都可以被作為結構方式進行檢驗,這種結構方式允許了主體及其環境之間一致性的發展,或者說允許了適應。或許最廣為人知、被引用最多的就是烏克斯庫爾的功能圈模式,主體在其間通過感覺和行為與對象發生關聯。(見上圖)在烏克斯庫爾的功能圈模式中,主體和對象經由感知世界(merkwelt)和行動世界(wirkwelt)相互關聯。 ①
生物符號學界的其他權威學者也發現了生命體和所在環境之間關係的獨特性,以及這種獨特性導致的符號決定。 霍夫梅耶(Jesper Hoffmeyer)寫道:考慮進化時,重要的不是物種的適應性,而是符號學上的適應性。 畢竟,適應性取決於關係——
—只有在給定的語境中,某物才能夠去適應。 但是,如果基因類型和環境類型相互
構成了度量適應性的語境,那麼,我們似乎就該在適應者的關係整體中去討論它,這種關系能力是一種符號能力。 ②
以霍夫梅耶的解釋為基礎,更寬泛意義上的符號學適應性可以被定義為:主體成功地適應了它所在的環境,它借助符號過程把來自自身和環境的信息聯接在一起。如果生命體能夠成功地與周遭環境的信息進行互譯,它就具有符號學上的適應性。 在對環境的適應中,主體將自己地方化了,因此,符號學上的適應性就暗示了地方化的成功。 另一方面,它也顯示出:如果主體脫離了環境,它的結構會受到什麼樣的影響。 鑑於這種雙重結構,地方化不應被理想化為一種合適的條件,因為關聯也就意味著依賴。 在生物學中,特化(specialization)與協同進化的適應 (co-evolutionary adaptations)被作為生命體獨特的生命策略來進行研究。對於獨特的環境條件的、顯著的特化和作為生存策略的稀有性是攜手而行的,而特化的種族往往在面對環境變化時更為脆弱。
三、符號過程的語境性(contextuality)在符號學和文化理論的討論中,作為符號結構特征的地方性也相當引人注目,它和語境及語境性的概念相關。 有好幾種符號學方法都認為,意義是由語境所調節的。 在這些方法中,諾特認為英國語境學派 (British contextual school) 和分指語言學(distributive linguistics)較為重要。 例如,尤金·尼達(Eugene Nida)在他發表於 1952 年的論文中提出:
「意義是由環境賦予的。」①在他以後的著作中,也可以注意到類似的觀點(如討論單詞 「run」的意義是如何取決於文字和環境語境的②)。
②Jesper Hoffmeyer,「The unfolding semiosphere,」Gertrudis Van de Vijever et al., eds., Evolutionary Systems, Biological and Epistemological Perspectives on Selection and Self-Organization,Dordrecht:Kluwer Academic Publishers,1998,pp.290-291.
瑞恰慈 (I. A.Richards) 則補充了源自過去的時間軸對意義和環境間關係的意義:像任何其他符號一樣, 一個詞語是通過屬於一組再現的事件而獲得意義的, 這組事件可以成為語境。 由此,在這個意義上,一個詞的語境是過去的一組事件的某種再現模式,我們說它的意義取決於它的語境,也就是說它的意義取決於它在其中獲得意義的那個過程的某一點。 ③
在布拉格符號學派的著作中,語境的概念也起到了重要的作用。 雅柯布森發展了卡爾·比勒(Karl Burhler) 的語言模式, 在他的語言交流模式中,他將文本和語言的指涉功能聯系在一起。 在雅柯布森的學生、 美國著名的符號學家西比奧克(Thomas A. Sebeok) 對動物交流的符號學研究,也就是動物符號學中,這一思想得到了進一步的推進。④
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因此,與尋求共性的「大」的文化相反,源於這樣一個文化的學術傳統的優勢在於,它是以差異為主題的。而且,就小型文化而言,在對象層面和元語言層面描述和驗證其不同與特性的科學概念都尤為寶貴。由於缺乏對地方之軸進行描述和評估的方法,在融合地方文化和全球科學的道路上,全球性就成為最顯而易見的、令人憂心的障礙。 而我們的理論語言對於表現地方的獨特性是否足夠靈敏,這也可能成為阻礙發展對文化與自然之研究的一個問題。 填補這一罅隙的一個方法可能就是,創造出綜合性的理論概念,它可以為描述地方文化指明一些方向, 同時又使這種描述的確切本質保持開放性。
在元層次上,作為描述人與自然環境之間的關係,描述人類在生物系統中的位置以及人類文化中的自然的學科,符號學的興起可算姍姍來遲。 盡管自20世紀90年代起,生態學的符號學研究就在不同的語境中以不同的形式被提出,但作為范式的生態符號學是直到諾特 (Winfred NO ǖth)1996 年的論文發表後才有跡可循的。①在該文中,諾特將生態符號學定義為:研究生命體及其環境之間的關係之符號學方面的科學。 ②
兩年後,庫爾縮小了這個詞的范疇,認為它包含了發生在人類及其所在的環境之間的符號過程, 即「生態符號學可以被定義為自然與文化之間關係的符號學」,③由此將生態符號學與生物符號學區別開來。2000年,在伊馬特拉國際暑期研究所進行的符號學與結構研究,以及幾家符號學期刊的專刊④也見證了這一新范式的產生。 生態符號學最近的發展則包括了在系統生態學⑤、 風景生態學⑥和生態批評⑦之間建立聯系的努力。
①Kalevi Kull,「Semiotic ecology: Different natures in the semiosphere,」Sign Systems Studies, vol.26, 1998, pp.347-348.
①Winfred NO ǖth,「Oǖkosemiotik,」Zeitschrift für Semiotik,1996,vol.18, no.1, pp.7-18. 轉引自 Winfred NO ǖth, 「Ecosemiotics,」 Sign Systems Studies, vol.26, 1998, p.333.
③Kalevi Kull,「Semiotic ecology: Different natures in the semiosphere.」
④Semiotica,127-1/4,1999;Tartu Semiotic Library,vol.3, 2002;Sign System Studies,vol.3, 2002;Zeitschrift für Semiotik,8-3,1986.
⑤Soeren Nors Nielsen,「Towards an ecosystem semiotics: Some basic aspects for a new research programme,」Ecological Complexity, vol.4, no.3, 2007: 93-101.
⑥Almo Farina, Andrea Belgrano,「The eco-field hypothesis: toward a cognitive landscape,」Landscape Ecology, vol.21, no.1,
2006, pp.5-17; Almo Farina, 「The landscape as a semiotic interface between organisms and resources,」Biosemiotics, vol.1, no.1, 2006, pp.75-83.
⑦Timo Maran,「Towards an integrated methodology of ecosemiotics: The concept of nature-text,」Sign Systems Studies, 35(1/ 2), 2007, 269-294; Alfred K. Siewers, Strange Beauty,Ecocritical Approaches to Early Medieval Landscape,New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
接下來,我們將要探問:生態符號學方法的何種知識可以運用於研究人與自然之關係的話語,運用於融合了生態批評、文化生態學、環境美學、科學生態學、環境哲學和其他學科的討論。 本文旨在嘗試一種謹慎的可能:將地方性視為主體及其環境之關係的、一以貫之的特性,並對這一以符號學為基礎的概念提出一個定義。 這裡,我把地方性作為符號結構的一個特征來進行分析,這些符號結構以如此的方式和環境一起出現,以致如果不大大改變結構或是結構所包含的信息, 它們就無法脫離環境。
這一概念源於如下理解:一個符號過程總是包含著特別的、獨有的現象。 在皮爾斯(和西比奧克)的符號學傳統中,文化和自然的絕大部分可以被視為符號過程的結果或者模式,這些符號過程不可避免地將重點放在文化與自然的地方性身份之上。另一方面,地方性的概念強調了環境關係的質性特點。
後文將會提到,主體及其所在的環境之間互為條件性是生命體與人類起源的符號系統的典型特征,並且,我們是從理論生物學和理論符號學——即產生生態符號學的兩門主要學科——的角度來討論這一問題。因此,在這裡提出的方法認為,對生態符號學而言,自然是特征性的,而且,這種方法能夠運用於更廣意義上的,對文化與自然之關係的研究。 在本文的最後部分,我們將會討論在文化認同的塑造中,作為安置的地方性在一個特定的自然環境中所起到的作用。
二、作為生命體特征的地方性
每個生命體都在或多或少的程度上適應於它所在的環境,這一理念是達爾文主義的進化論生物學的主要觀點,屬於生態學的核心部分。但是,在現代進化論生物學中,生命體及其環境仍然是相當抽象的,它是在某種間接的、抽象的指標,比如適應性、適應價值之上被定義的。 如果我們對某一物種的個體行為進行觀察,那麼,作為圍繞真實的生命體、具有特征的媒介,環境可以成為行為研究、自然史研究或是生物學領域其他形式研究的對象。
動物及其環境的適應關係, 可以分為兩個方面:生理上的相應性,如動物的身體構造、生理及其環境之間的一致性; 交流與符號學上的一致性,作為個體的動物在其間對特有的環境進行感知、作出反應。這兩個方面是必然相關的,比如說,像哺乳動物的眼睛構造這樣的生理適應,使得人類能夠以我們的方式來感知風景。 同時,這兩個方面內容也有著明顯的不同: 交流和符號學上的一致性是質性的,並且和個體的解釋與發展相關。 只要我們將生命體作為主體來進行檢視,允許它有某種解釋和選擇的自由,生命體及其環境之間的關係就會是特別的、獨一無二的。 生物符號學的主要締造者烏克斯庫爾(Jakob von UexKüll)對這一主體性的現象學觀點進行了很好的闡述:
動物的身體可以被比作一所房子, 以此來進行研究, 解剖學家一直詳細地研究它是如何被建造的; 生理學家則研究房子裡的機械應用;而生態學家描述和研究的,是這個房子所在的花園。
May 14, 2024
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地方性:生態符號學的一個基礎概念
[摘要]本文立足於小型文化體系,提出了微觀生態符號學的一個基本概念—— 地方性,將其作為考察地方文化和生態系統的一個基礎單位。由於符號活動的語境性和生命與環境之間密不可分的意義關係,地方性作為生態符號學研究的一個可能起點,具有足夠的理論支撐和高度的可操作性。 並且,這種強調符號主體的地方性、語境性的概念,為解構自然與文化的二元對立將起到重要作用。
[關鍵詞]地方性;語境性;生態符號學;環境;符號主體
[作者簡介] 蒂莫·馬倫(Timo Maran),愛沙尼亞塔爾圖大學符號學系高級研究員,主要從事生態符號學研究和自然文學研究。
[譯者簡介] 湯 黎(1982—),女,四川內江人,西南民族大學外國語學院講師,主要從事西方文論研究。(四川成都 610041)
一、引言
要研究自然與文化之間的關係,就需要在不同的科學領域內進行討論,因為,沒有一門所謂的純學科可以處理這樣一個豐富的主題。自上世紀60年代始,幾門不同的學科,如生態批評、文化生態學、環境美學、環境哲學等,就開始了對這一問題的探討。這些由文學批評的理論基礎以及藝術哲學理論產生的學科試圖解釋人與自然之間的關係。
此種研究情形可以概括為四個相互交織的方面:理論框架、研究對象、文化語境和自然語境。 我們可以認為,其中的第一項,即理論框架承載了學術認同和科學的歷史遺產,而後三項則有賴於特別的研究對象和地方性的條件。
上述邊界學科的理論背景大多(盡管並非絕對地、獨一地)源於英美學術傳統,由此產生了一個問題:源自一個科學傳統的理論和方法,如何對另一個傳統中的、地方性的材料進行分析呢?
①本文較早的一個版本發表於由弗維·薩拉皮克(Virve Sarapik)、卡迪裡·圖烏爾(Kadri Tuur)和馬里·拉恩裡梅茲(Mari Laanemets)主編的《地方與場所》(Place and Location)的第二卷,題名為《地方性的生態符號學舉出》(Ecosemiotic Basis of Locality),第 68-80 頁。
例如,在思考愛沙尼亞這個芬蘭-烏戈爾語系的小型文化體時,這就會成為一個問題——我正好來自那裡。 在研究愛沙尼亞的文化與自然關係時,我們很快會發現,許多生態批評的重要概念,如「荒野」、「環境書寫」、甚至「文化」與「自然」,它們本身的對立都不具有操作性。 較之於英國和美國,我們的文化環境、歷史遺產和自然經驗都有所不同。 或許在較大的文化體與較小的文化體之間,以及由這些文化產生的范式之間的最大不同在於它們的普遍程度有所差異。
大型的文化以及由其衍生的大的科學傳統可以自然而然地宣稱自己代表了普遍的經驗和知識,而對於小型文化,學術界總持有這樣的懷疑:它們所取得的知識是否只代表地方性的實踐,或者是否與普遍性相關。此外,對小型文化體而言,自我身份的問題也要重要得多。
(原題:地方性:生態符號學的一個基礎概念① [愛沙尼亞]蒂莫·馬倫文 湯 黎譯,見:鄱陽湖學刊,2014年第三期,37頁—43頁;註①①Kalevi Kull,「Semiotic ecology: Different natures in the semiosphere,」Sign Systems Studies, vol.26, 1998, pp.347-348.)
May 16, 2024
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周學榮·多維推動城鄉融合發展
新中國成立以來,中國城鄉關係經歷了早期以鄉村農業為主體支撐城市發展、中期以工業推動城市發展反哺鄉村發展和近期以城鄉一體化統籌城鄉融合發展三個主要階段。城鄉融合發展是發揮城鄉比較優勢,在經濟、社會、制度、空間和生態等多維度的融合。中國城鄉融合發展目前面臨要素雙向流動空間不足、制度保障不完善、公共服務水平不均衡、基礎設施差距較大、空間生態融合機制不健全等問題,要解決這些問題,需要采取高質量的城鄉融合發展措施。
經濟融合:城鄉融合發展的關鍵
農村經濟發展是城鄉融合發展的關鍵,而城市經濟發展是促進農村經濟發展的引擎。經濟融合關鍵在於城鄉要素的雙向流動。城鄉要素主要包括人口、土地、資金、技術、信息等。要提高要素流動效率:一是建立城鄉統一市場體系,利用網絡信息技術推動農業農村現代化、信息化建設以降低人口、土地、資金等要素精准匹配和流動的成本;充分利用大數據、區塊鏈、物聯網技術,為經濟發展打通城鄉乃至國際市場空間。二是產業是要素流動的載體,要大力推動城鄉產業協同發展。在信息技術革命、新工業革命、數字經濟革命背景下,可充分利用現代信息技術構建以新產業、新業態、新模式、新結構為內核並相互融合的新型經濟形態,促進制造業與服務業、文化與旅游業、健康業與養生業的協同發展,加速提質推動城鄉一二三產業的協同融合。因地制宜發展區域特色產業,根據產業類型,延伸產業鏈,加強農業生產、經營、貿易、服務、線上線下等全產業鏈建設,用品牌帶產業,鼓勵賣產品的同時賣服務,打造城鄉聯動的產業集群,實現城鄉產業鏈和供應鏈的協同發展。三是構建城鄉融合金融服務體系。為此,需要實現銀行網點全覆蓋,加強數字金融建設,建立現代數字金融體系,推進互聯網金融和移動金融服務,打通城鄉金融網絡通道;健全城鄉金融監管體系,防范和化解金融風險,保障金融市場穩健有效運行,為實現城鄉經濟融合提供資金服務支持。
社會融合:城鄉融合發展的基礎
社會融合主要體現在文化、教育、醫療、社保、優撫與救助等方面。其中,文化融合是城鄉文化互嵌的過程。城市文化是城市區域的人們在改造自然、社會和自我的活動中,共同創造的行為方式、道德規范、觀念形態、典章制度、知識體系、風俗習慣、技術和藝術成果等。其所形成的物質文化和精神文化認知可為鄉村文化建設提供經驗和借鑑。而鄉村文化同樣是先進文化有機組成部分。比如鄉賢文化、手工藝等非物質文化、田園文化、農耕文化等,這些是根的文化、是創作思想的來源、是放鬆身心的樂土。公共圖書館、文化站、農村書屋、智慧廣電、非遺和藝術工作室等基礎設施建設作為城鄉文化融合的載體,可推動城鄉文化資源的共享和交流。加快城鄉教育設施建設,通過信息技術賦能鄉村教育,推動城鄉教育資源的共享和優化配置,促進城鄉人口素質的共同提升;提高偏遠貧困地區教師的福利保障水平,吸引和穩定鄉村教師隊伍。建立城鄉醫療服務網絡體系。通過醫聯體、醫共體、互利互惠醫療等,推進城鄉醫療協同發展,實現醫療資源共享和優化;推進電子化醫療服務,實現醫療服務的遠程就診、遠程診斷、遠程咨詢、遠程醫療監護等服務,開展「互聯網+醫療」的新模式,提升醫療服務的效率和覆蓋率。建立以最低生活保障為核心的社會救助體系,實現城鄉社會救助的無縫對接,建立城鄉優撫及救助一體化體系。
制度融合:城鄉融合發展的保障
雖然中國已經取消了農業和非農業戶籍管理制度,但各種社會保障制度仍需繼續完善。為此,一是要加快完善城鄉社會保障制度,擴大城鄉居民基本醫療保險和養老保險等保障范圍,實現城鄉居民社會保障水平的均衡;統籌推進城鄉社會保障和福利保障,提高相關信息傳遞、接收、處理效率和服務質量。二是建立進城落戶服務機構,加強服務保障和後續管理,包括居住安置、就業創業、社區融入、子女教育等方面的服務制度,切實解決遷入人口的實際困難。三是健全城鄉融合發展體制機制,完善政府財政補貼和稅收優惠制度。總的來說,只有讓城鄉融合制度真正落到實處,才能打通城鄉融合發展的制度瓶頸。
空間融合:城鄉融合發展的橋梁
空間融合為城鄉各種資源自由流動提供了橋梁,因此要優化城鄉空間結構,建立城鄉統一規劃體系。一是根據城鄉空間格局和特點,注重農村空間產業發展和新型農村建設,加強農村區域景觀規劃、鄉村規劃、產業布局規劃等;扶持現代農業、農村旅游、特色小鎮等元素在農村空間中的培育和發展。二是推進城鄉交通、水利、電網、通信網絡、燃氣等基礎設施互聯互通;建立便捷的交通運輸系統、信息通信網絡和生態環境保護系統,是實現城鄉空間互動和協調發展的關鍵所在。三是加強城鄉土地利用規劃和管理,優化城鄉用地布局;推動人口空間融合,農民群體是農村空間發展的關鍵參與人,盡可能實現農民群體和農村區域空間發展的良性互動和相互促進;構建城鄉勞動力流動的產業空間和市場空間,實現城鄉人口的互動與融合。通過政策引導和市場機制的作用,重點是提高農村地區發展水平和生活質量,在城鄉區域間建立互聯互通的農村公共服務體系和產業鏈,在空間上打破距離感和建立融合的橋梁。
生態融合:城鄉融合發展的依托
從行政區劃上來看,城市和鄉村有區域上的差別。但從空間上來看,大氣、水、土地等是連成一體的。在城鄉融合發展中實現生態融合的關鍵在於尊重並發揮生態系統的自我調節、自我修復和自我再生能力。為此,一是注重生態環境的修復和保護。制定政策和法規,建立環境監測和管控體系,加強對污染源的管治,加大對環境保護的投入;推進山水林田湖草沙等生態系統的恢復和修復,提高生態系統的功能和可持續性,科學規劃城市綠地、公園和旅游景區等生態資源。二是建立農業生態保護區和生態農業園區。支持和鼓勵農業生態化和有機農業的發展,促進精准施肥、科技覆蓋和生物多樣性保護,推廣農業循環利用、綠色有機農業等新型農業模式。三是設立生態保護優先區、紅線區等特殊保護區。鼓勵建立低碳生態示范區,發展可持續的生態旅游和休閒業,利用生態產業促進城鄉融合發展。
綜上,高質量的城鄉融合發展需要多維推動,其中經濟融合是關鍵,健全城鄉要素平等交換、雙向流動政策體系是重要任務;制度設計是保障,打通城鄉融合發展的各項制度瓶頸是前提;以縣域為基本單元,推進城鎮基礎設施、公共服務、社會事業向鄉村延伸和覆蓋是重點;合理規劃空間和生態布局是城鄉融合生命共同體的橋梁和依托。總之,多維推動高質量城鄉融合發展以縮小城鄉差距,是實現共同富裕的重要任務。
(原題:多維推動城鄉融合發展;2024-06-18;來源:光明日報;作者: 周學榮;單位:湖北大學公共管理學院教授;本文系中國社科基金重大項目「十八大以來推進社會主義基層民主政治建設的實踐和經驗研究」(22ZDA064)階段性成果。)
Jun 25, 2024
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(con't from above)Metaphors have a spatial logic, they connect a thing which is present in the poem to something which is absent outside of it. In doing this the absent thing becomes present. The inside is connected to the outside. Using metaphor means seeing one thing as another – a form of understanding that is “fundamentally spatial in organization” (Zwicky 2003, § 3). This spatiality is one which is not bounded and singular but, instead, one which makes a connection, or, as Jan Zwicky puts it. “a linguistic
short-circuit.”
Non-metaphorical ways of speaking conduct meaning, in insulated carriers, to certain ends and purposes. Metaphors shave off the insulation and meaning arcs across the gap (Zwicky 2003, § 68).
The place which is a poem has both the meanings which lie within the boundaries marked by the presence of type, and the meanings that this type connects to. The text of the poem is both a neat, closed entity and a set of links to what lies beyond.
It is in this sense that the metaphor formulas a=b and a≠b simultaneously recognizes the inherent qualities of what lies within the poem and the connections to what lies without.
A metaphor can appear to be a gesture of healing – it pulls a stitch through the rift that our capacity for language opens between us and the world. A metaphor is an explicit refusal of the idea that the distinctness of things is their fundamental ontological characteristic.
But their distinctness is one of their most fundamental ontological characteristics (the other being their interpenetration and connectedness). In this sense, a metaphor heals nothing – there is nothing to be healed (Zwicky 2003, § 59).
Metaphor works on the dual capacity to recognize the concrete unity of the assemblage of things that lies before us and to insist on their connectedness to a world beyond. Things (and the assemblages of things which are places) are both distinct (in that there is no other assemblage exactly like this one) and connected (things are always interconnected). Metaphor allows us to be near to things, in the way both a poet and a phenomenologist insist on, and to recognize a constitutive outside. This outside is also a world of things, practices and meanings that can be drawn upon to recognize the specificity of ‘here’.
5 Conclusion
In this essay I have developed a basis for topopoetics – a way of reading poetry that uses spatial thinking to interpret the work a poem does. This is distinct from an analysis of poems about place – or the poetics of sense of place. While it is clear than many poets evoke place in their poetry and that geography may be one of the few constants in the history of English language poetry, it is also the case that poems are kinds of places and they enact a form of dwelling. Indeed, it was poetry that
inspired much of Heidegger’s thinking about place and dwelling. Topopoetics insists on the active nature of spatial thinking in the process of interpretation. Place and space are not just setting or subject but are, rather, woven into the fabric of poetic making itself. I have made a start to outlining topopoetics through reference to the role of blank space, stasis and flux and inside and outside in order to show how spatiality is implicated in the process of meaning making. This, in turn, becomes a tool in relating the poem to the places the poem is about.
(Towards Topopoetics: Space, Place and the Poem,Tim Cresswell,© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 B.B. Janz (ed.), Place, Space and Hermeneutics, Contributions to Hermeneutics 5, Pg.319-331,See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net)
Jul 8, 2024
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(Con't) Stanza means ‘room’, ‘station’ or ‘stopping place’ and refers to blocks of black separated by white on the page. These are rooms we pass between surrounded by outside. Stanzas found their way into written poetry through the act of memoriz ing verse. Rooms, or stopping places, are memorized and filled with words that would be activated by an imagined walk through the rooms. While stanzas are clearly places to stop – they are also clearly linked by movement. Movement also occurs within the stanzas as we follow the lines of text.
The word ‘verse’ comes from the practice of tilling the soil – agriculture – the root of ‘culture’. It is rooted in the Latin versus, meaning a ‘furrow’ or a ‘turning of the plow’. As the farmer (or farm worker) tills the soil they come to an edge, turn around, then make their way back, pacing out the day. Verse can thus be found in ‘reverse’. These two ideas – stanza – as a block of bounded space and verse as an action – a form of practice that brings those blocks alive and reminds us that they are only there because of move ment – these two ideas describe something of the geography of the poem as the interplay of fixity and flux of being and becoming.
Poetry is often referred to as freezing time. In fact, many kinds of representation are said to freeze time (and thus, in some circles, representation has become deeply suspect) (Anderson and Harrison 2010). In poetry’s case, this could not be further from the truth. Poetry, to me, is a mobile form related to walking and, indeed, ploughing and reversing. This sense of mobile journeying in the poem is part of the topological understanding of the poem on the page.
Perec knew this: I write: I inhabit my sheet of paper, I invest it, I travel across it, I incite blanks, spaces (jumps in the meaning, discontinuities, transitions, changes of key) (Perec 1997, 3) with place starts from a recognition of an original encounter which is “singular and situated”. The more the poem can reflect this situated singularity the more faithful it will be to the place that lies beyond it. But it would be wrong to think of the ‘concrete unity’ of place as a pure, bounded entity with no relation to a world (even an abstract world) beyond it. Places always point to a world beyond them, and so do poems.
One way in which the place of the poem opens up to its outside is through metaphor. Metaphor is another component of poetics that has a spatial root in travel. Metaphor comes from the Greek metaphorá (μεταφορά ) for ‘transfer’ or ‘carryover’.
In modern Athens, the vehicles of mass transportation are called metaphorai. To go to work or come home, one takes a “metaphor” – a bus or a train. Stories could also take this noble name: every day, they traverse and organize places; they select and link them together; they make sentences and itineraries out of them. They are spatial trajectories (de Certeau 1984, 115).
Metaphors perform two operations simultaneously – they say a equals band, at the same time, a does not equal b. Just saying a is the same as b is not metaphorical.
For a metaphor to be a metaphor a has to also be different from b. The more different they are the more powerful the metaphor. This is true as long a and b are not so different that they are not, in fact, similar in any way.
Jul 9, 2024
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Poems speak to things which lie outside the poem. Clearly the poem has a referential function – like all language. It is about something. But even if we include the things the poem directly names on the inside of the poem, there is yet another set of things that are not directly named but instead gestured towards. In this way the poem opens up to the world. We have seen how one of the features of place is the way in which it gathers things.
A place is a unique assemblage. The things that constitute a place often appear to us as specific to that place even if they have, in fact, travelled from else where. Things form a particular topography of place at the same time as their jour neys link the inside of a place to elsewhere. Poetry is one way in which we stop and wonder at the specificity of the way things appear to us in place.
Poetry involves being attentive to things and the way I which they are gathered. Poetry is an ‘encounter with the world’. No matter the changes in Heidegger’s philosophical vocabulary, a key point around which his thinking constantly turns is the idea that thinking arises, and can only arise, out of our original encounter with the world – an encounter that is always singular and situated, in which we encounter ourselves as well as the world, and in which what first appears is not something abstract or fragmented, but rather the things themselves, as things, in their con crete unity (Malpas 2012b, 14).
This insistence on the specificity of ‘things themselves’ is one way we can think about poetic attention. A poetic concern ground that appears relatively static. This movement, in a poem, is expressed with direction words such as “over” or “in” or “towards”. Topopoetics challenges some of the assumptions of the figure/ground equation. As place is most often equated with ground it tends to have a degree of deadness associated with it. It seems less important.
Topopoetics draws our attention to the opposite – the active presence of place in the poem. Another key term in cognitive poetics is “image schema” which refers to “loca tive expressions of place” (Stockwell 2002, 16). Stockwell gives the examples of “JOURNEY, CONTAINER, CONDUIT, UP/DOWN, FRONT/BACK, OVER/ UNDER, INTO/OUT OF”. Terms of mobility catch our attention and urge us to continue reading – static elements are frankly boring and we quickly forget them. The difference between the moving elements and static elements produces literary and cognitive effects. But even before any particular word is written or read we have the poem – the lines that form a shape in space. As we read left to right and top to bottom against the white space a figure forms over ground. A passage is enacted. Stuff happens.
Poems are made out of arrangements of type and blank space – figure and ground in a physical, pre-verbal sense. I am not sure what the cognitive content of this patterning is but it is surely important to poetry – even before the specifics of actual words and their meanings. This is the start of the geography of the poem. There are two spatial metaphors at work in the basic language of poetry that point towards the way a poem is an act of dwelling: these are the words ‘stanza’ and ‘verse’.
Jul 11, 2024
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Something has to appear for space to emerge. Georges Perec makes this clear: This is how space begins, with words only, signs traced on the blank page. To describe space: to name it, to trace it, like those portolano-makers who saturated the coastlines with the names of harbours, the names of capes, the names of inlets, until in the end the land was only separated from the sea by a continuous ribbon of text (Perec 1997, 13).
Perec’s book, Species of Spaces is a catalogue of spaces and places with chapters devoted to “The Apartment”, “The Street” and “The Town” for instance. The first chapter, though, is “The Page”. The page is immediately equivalent to spaces we may more easily think of as the world beyond the page.
The page and its markings are not removed from, and about, the world – they are of the world. In this chapter Perec outlines the nature of a topopoetics in simple terms. Writing, particularly writing poems, is the production of space and place.
It is a cartographic act that combines senses of home and journey. The process of writing creates coordinates – a top and a bottom, left and right, beginning and end. In amongst the words are pauses and hesitations. There is a poetic topological correspondence between the poem and the place it is about. In Peter Stockwell’s account of ‘cognitive poetics’ a key idea is the notion of f igure/ground – the notion that some things appear to be more important, more fluid, more foregrounded while others remain as background and setting (and thus seem ingly less important) (Stockwell 2002).
The first is figure and the second is ground. The figure is prominent and the ground is not. This occurs most obviously in the way characters are more important than the places they are in in novels. Description is often about ground and action involves figures. Figures often move across a
We make our places by doing them –by beating the bounds rather than drawing a line in the sand. Beyond that place of movement is the white of silence. But even that space is being shaped, if only as the negative image of the poem. 4 Inside and Outside One way of thinking about place is to think of it as a singular thing – specific, par ticular, bounded and separate.
The very idea of place is bound up with uniqueness and a sense of division from what lies beyond it. But places are actually connected into networks and flows – they have an extrovert side (Massey 1997). This paradoxi cal sense of separation and connectedness is noted by Malpas.
One of the features of place is the way in which it establishes relations of inside and out side – relations that are directly tied to the essential connection between place and boundary or limit. To be located is to be within, to be somehow enclosed, but in a way that at the same time opens up, that makes possible.
Already this indicates some of the directions in which any thinking of place must move – toward ideas of opening and closing, of concealing and revealing, or focus and horizon, of finitude and “transcendence,” of limit and possibility, of mutual relationality and coconstitution (Malpas 2012b, 2). This feature of place is one that translates into the topos of the poem. Poems too open and close, conceal and reveal. (Con't below)
Jul 12, 2024
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The painter may paint blankness, applying white paint perhaps but rarely leaves the canvas untouched. But there are also similarities between the blank space of the painter and the poet. One similarity is suggested by Gilles Deleuze in his meditation on Francis Bacon. Here he suggests that the blank canvas that con fronts the painter is not blank at all but invested with every painting ever done before. In fact, it would be a mistake to think that the painter works on a white and virgin surface. The entire surface is already invested virtually with all kinds of clichés, which the painter will have to break with (Deleuze 2005, 11). The image Deleuze gives us is of a painter confronted with the whole tradition of painting right there on the blank space which is no longer blank. This is the same for a poet who has to face the page/screen with the knowledge of all the poems that have gone before. There are all the ballads and sonnets, the free verse and the sesti nas, Caedmon’s Hymn, the long lines of Whitman, the dashes of Dickenson, iambic pentameter, half rhyme, sprung rhythm, spondees, syllabic experiments, language poetry and limericks – all of these pre-figure the first letter written or typed. The space is not blank but dizzyingly full. Returning to Deleuze: It is a mistake to think that the painter works on a white surface. The figurative belief fol lows from this mistake. If the painter were before a white surface, he – or she – could reproduce on it an external object functioning as a model. The painter has many things in his head, or around him, or in his studio. Now everything he has in his head or around him is already in the canvas, more or less virtually, more or less actually, before he begins his work. They are all present in the canvas as so many images, actual or virtual, so that the painter does not have to cover a blank surface, but rather would have to empty it out, clear it, clean it. (Deleuze 2005, 87).
The space of the poet, like that of the artist’s is a space to fill with what gets defined by the words or a seething endless presence of everything that has been written before. Once there is a poem on the page then an act of dwelling has occurred that brings space and place into being. If we move beyond the blankness of the empty page/ screen then we begin to see all the other ways in which space works for the poem. Take any poem, copy it, and apply a thick black marker to the lines of text. You end up with a black shape and a white shape. Space works as margins, as gaps, as signi f iers of intent when the poet does anything other than left align the lines. Naturally this use of space is most pronounced in forms of experimental poetry in the modern ist tradition: concrete poetry, Mallarme’s radical departures from the left margin, the projective verse of the Black Mountain School or the contemporary experimen tation with ‘erasure’. But space and place do their work too in traditional forms. The popularity of the sonnet is partly attributable to the perfect way it sits on the page, announcing itself as a poem. 3 Stasis and Flux The topos of the poem results from its play of ink and the absence of ink.
Jul 14, 2024
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Culture brings nature into perspective and makes it make sense in much the way the marks of the poem make the blank space make sense. Stevens’ jar performs similar functions to Heidegger’s bridge. The poem does the same thing – bringing space into being.
Silence is the acoustic space in which the poem makes its large echoes. If you want to test this write a single word on a blank sheet of paper and stare at it: note the superior attendance to the word the silence insists upon, and how it soon starts to draw out the word’s ramifying sense-
potential, its etymological story, its strange acoustic signature, its calligraphic mark; you are reading a word as poetry (Paterson 2007, 63). Here, British poet Don Paterson suggests that the self-aware special-ness of the poem is created by its being surrounded by blankness, which he equates with silence. There is a merging of sight and sound – pure blankness and silence. The sense of sound is the only sense which has a unique word for absence.
While silence is the absence of sound there is no word for the absence of smell or taste for instance (we have to resort to terms like ‘tasteless’). Perhaps it is for this reason that blank space is compared to silence. It also reminds us of the origins of poetry in spoken forms. The blankness is not just something to be filled but an active component in
the creation of the poem. The blank page is the friend of the poet allowing an infinite variety of form in the simple sense of shape. When the single word appears on the blank sheet the word-as-poem and the space around it are simultaneously brought into being. In this sense, one does not precede the other.
Paterson describes the act of poetry as an emergence out of silence and space. This is not quite right. This assumes the pre-existence of a blankness and silence within which the words emerge.
Perhaps, instead, the blankness is produced by the creative act. The blankness emerges with the noise. There are similarities between the poet’s relationship to blank space and the painter’s relationship to the canvas. They are clearly not the same thing.
In most painting the canvas is covered. The first thing many traditional painters do is cover a canvas with paint and then start to work on the detail. The canvas is obliterated. The poet, on the other hand, cannot fill up the space he or she is confronted with. The poem needs to play with the space and allow the blankness to be part of the process. Don Paterson puts it this way: Our formal patterning most often supplies a powerful typographical advertisement.
What it advertises most conspicuously is that the poem has not taken up the whole page, and con siders itself somewhat important. The white space around the poem then becomes a potent symbol of the poem’s significant intent (Paterson 2007, 62). The space around the poem once written advertises the poem’s importance as special words. (Con't Below)
Jul 16, 2024
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Poems of place are not simply poems about places, rather they are a species of place with a special relationship to what it is to be in (external) place. Included in this is a recognition that poems (as places) have a material existence as a gathering of words (literally ink) on the page which takes a particular spatial form.
Topopoetics means closing the gap between the material form of the poem (topos in the sense of rhetorics) and the earthly world of place (topos as place). It means attending to the presence of place within the poem. To do this the rest of the essay considers the role of blank space, the tension between shape/form and movement and the relationship between the inside and outside of the poem. 2
Blank Space/Full Space Before, there was nothing, or almost nothing; afterwards, there isn’t much, a few signs, but which are enough for there to be a top and a bottom, a beginning and an end, a right and a left, a recto and a verso (Perec 1997, 10). My interest here is in the combined impact of two meanings of topos – as correct form and as place – on understanding poetic approaches to and renditions of place. The act of building and dwelling that is a poem starts with a blank white space. By writing poems we gather that space and give it form.
True – it already has edges and texture (it is, in Perec’s terms “almost nothing”) but words (as place) bring space into existence. The space becomes margins and gaps between words – even holes within letters. This relationship between poem and place and the space that takes shape around it is one of the defining elements of poetry. Glyn Maxwell, in On Poetry, ruminates on blank space and silence in poetry. Regard the space, the ice plain, the dizzying light. That past, that future.
Already it isn’t nothing. At the very least it’s your enemy, and that’s an awful lot. Poets work with two materials, one’s black and one’s white. Call them sound and silence, life and death, hot and cold, love and loss…. … Call it this and that, whatever it is this time, just don’t make the mistake of thinking the white sheet is nothing. It’s nothing for your novelist, your journalist, your blogger. For those folk it’s a tabular rasa, a giving surface. For the poet it is half of everything. If you don’t know how to use it you are writing prose. If you write poems that you might call free and I might call unpatterned then skillful, intelligent use of the whiteness is all that you’ve got (Maxwell 2012, 11). Poems are patterns made from space and which make space. Even before a word is read you can see a poem’s shape – the black against the white in Maxwell’s terms.
This is one of the most pleasing things about poetry and it serves no function at all in a novel or most other forms of writing. Writing a poem is a little form of place creation that configures blankness. This resonates with Wallace Stevens’ ‘Anecdote of the Jar’: I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion every where. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.
Here the roundness of the jar (roundness is repeated throughout the poem in ‘round’, ‘around’ and ‘surround’) orders the “slovenly wilderness” around it – it orders and regulates a kind of blankness (the ‘almost-nothing’ of wilderness) in a contrived and designed way.
Jul 18, 2024
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In Aristotle’s rhetoric it is important to choose the right kind of topos for the argument at hand, just as it is important to select the right form for a particular poet. It draws our attention to the importance of (among other things) the shape on the page. The richer meaning of topos emerged more fully formed in the writing of Martin Heidegger and has recently been elaborated by the philosopher, Jeff Malpas (Heidegger 1971; Malpas 1999, 2012a).
Here topos is mobilized through the idea of the topological to indicate the primary nature of place for being. To put it bluntly, to be is to be in place – to be here/there. The connection between poetry and the idea of place as the site of being is right there at the outset as Heidegger’s insistence on being as being-in-place originated from an encounter with the poetry of Hölderlin (Malpas 2006; Elden 1999).
Heidegger’s topological thought includes two key concepts – Dasein and dwelling. Dasein means (approximately) ‘being there’. It combines Heidegger’s career- long enquiry into the nature of being with a recognition that being is always placed – that existence is thoroughly intertwined with place.
The way that we make a home in the world is referred to as dwelling. The way in which you are and I am, the manner in which we humans are on the earth, is Buan, dwelling.
To be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal. It means to dwell (Heidegger 1971, 145). How, exactly, people enact this dwelling (or fail to enact it) becomes a central object for philosophy in Heidegger’s later texts.3 In an important series of late essays Heidegger invokes poetry as a form of dwell ing. He goes so far as to suggest that it is an ideal form of building and dwelling. Poetic creation, which lets us dwell, is a kind of building.
Thus we confront a double demand: for one thing, we are to think of what is called man’s existence by way of the nature of dwelling; for another, we are to think of the nature of poetry as a letting-dwell, as a – perhaps even the – distinctive kind of building. If we search out the nature of poetry according to this viewpoint, then we arrive at the nature of dwelling (Heidegger 1971, 213).
This observation (linking poetry to its root meaning of ‘making’) gets right to the heart of the constitution of topopoetics. Poetry, as Heidegger observes, is a kind of building and thus a particularly important kind of dwelling. This building-as- dwelling, however, is more than the practical stuff of constructing in the correct way – it is, in Heidegger’s view, about the essential character of being-in-the world – being in, and with, place.
1 For a discussion of topos, see Rapp 2010: 7.1.
2 Aristotle Topics 163b28.32.
3 Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party, a membership he later denounced. There is no doubt that these ideas of dwelling were easily incorporated into a Nazi ideology of proper authentic (Aryan) dwelling counterposed to an inauthentic (Jewish, gay, Romany) form of (non) dwelling. Following Malpas I do not believe that this necessarily means that his ideas are irrecoverably infected.
An engagement with the philosophical basis of topos adds to our original definition of place (above) as a gathering of things, practices and meanings in a particular location. While place is all of these things this definition fails to underline the basic significance of being placed to being-in-the-world. A topopoetic account is one which recognizes the specificity of the nearness of things in place and at the same time focuses our attention on the way in which the poem is itself a form of building and dwelling.
Jul 20, 2024
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With the banks, the bridge brings to the stream the one and the other expanse of the landscape lying behind them. It brings stream and bank and land into each other’s neighborhood. The bridge gathers the earth as landscape around the stream (Heidegger 1971, 150).
Heidegger’s bridge brings a place and a surrounding landscape into being. In so doing, it also produces space. The bridge as a place does not just connect pre- existing spaces or operate within a pre-existing space – it brings space into being.
In this sense, place comes before space. This is a reversal of the more frequent suggestion that places exist in space and that space comes before place. Heidegger is clearly making a different argument from Merleau-Ponty.
Nevertheless, what unites the two passages is an insistence on the way spaces are brought into being in relation to platial bodies and structures as active agents. Place comes first. One final preliminary point about place before moving on to a discussion of topopoetics. One of the defining qualities of place, across disciplines, has been the way in which places bring things together.
They are seen as syncretic mixtures of elements of multiple domains. Different scholars use different terms to describe this fact. Philosophers following Heidegger write of places as sites of gathering (Casey 1996). The geographer Robert Sack uses the metaphor of a loom to describe places as products of the process of weaving (Sack 2003).
Writers informed by the philoso phy of Gilles Deleuze and Manual Delanda refer to this process as assemblage (DeLanda 2006; Dovey 2010). Things mingle in places and places are constantly being made through gathering/weaving/ assembling and constantly being pulled apart. Among the things that are gathered in place are objects (materialities), mean ings (narratives, stories, memories etc.) and practices.
Philosopher Edward Casey puts this as well as anyone. Minimally, places gather things in their midst– where ‘things’ connote various animate and inanimate entities. Places also gather experiences and histories, even languages and thoughts. Think only of what it means to go back to a place you know, finding it full of memories and expectations, old things and new things, the familiar and the strange, and much more besides. What else is capable of this massively diversified holding action? (Casey 1996, 24)
1 Towards topopoetics
In the remainder of this essay I mobilize some of what has preceded in relation to thinking about poetry. I argue for poems as places (as well as about places) that can be interpreted spatially. The term topopoetics originates from the term topos as developed by Malpas and Casey in their readings of Heidegger and others (Casey 1998; Malpas 2012b).
Topo comes from topos (τόπος), the Greek for ‘place’. This is combined with poetics, which comes from poiesis (ποίησις), the Ancient Greek term for ‘making’. Topopoetics is thus ‘place-making’. The particular lineage I am invoking for topos derives from the philosophy of Aristotle. Importantly, for our purposes, topos appears in both accounts of how the world comes into being and as a figure in rhetoric. In rhetoric a topos is a “particular argumentative form or pattern” from which particular arguments can be derived.1
It is very much like a form in poetry – a sonnet or a villanelle. It has a particular shape. This rhetorical view of topos is linked to the world through the art of memorizing long lists by locating things on a list in particular places. “For just as in the art of remembering, the mere mention of the places instantly makes us recall the things, so these will make us more apt at deductions through looking to these defined premises in order of enumeration.” 2
Jul 23, 2024
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It has become commonplace to see place as arising from space. In this sense space comes ‘first’. If space is an undifferentiated field – an abstract categorical axis of existence in the Kantian sense, then place has to occur in space. Places here are spatial moments, or points in space on which experience and meaning are layered.
Place comes after space. Space is a fundamental fact of the reality of the universe while place is what humans make out of it. The philosopher Jeff Malpas sees this as a relegation of place to the increasing importance of space in thought following the Renaissance: “The ‘rise’ of space is thus accompanied, one might say, by the ‘decline’ of place.
Indeed, in much contemporary thought, place often appears either as subjective overlay on the reality of materialized spatiality (place is space plus human value of ‘meaning’ …) or else as merely an arbitrary designated posi tion in a spatial field” (Malpas n.d.).
This way of thinking is turned on its head by philosophers of the phenomeno logical tradition following Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty who see spaces being formed out of the reality of place.
Place, here, becomes fundamental and primary while space is what follows once places come into existence as a kind of relation between places. In The Phenomenology of Perception Maurice Merleau-Ponty locates consciousness and intentionality not in the head but in the body.
How does the body relate to space? The most obvious way of articulating this is to think of the body as located (like place) in space where space is an external and continuous field in which the body exists and which the body has to navigate.
This is a body in Cartesian space that exists as an object. Merleau-Ponty rejects this view and argues instead for a ‘body-subject’ that exists in lived space – space which unfolds through the existence of the body rather than providing a precondition for the body. The human body produces certain kinds of orientation such as inside and outside, up and down, front and back and left and right that continually produce space rather than simply inhabit it.
As Merleau-Ponty put it: We must therefore avoid saying that our body is in space, or in time. It inhabits space and time … In so far as I have a body through which I act in the world, space and time are not, for me, a collection of adjacent points nor are they a limitless number of relations synthesized by my consciousness, and into which it draws my body.
I am not in space and time, nor do I conceive space and time; I belong to them, my body combines with them and includes them (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 161). Merleau-Ponty, then, insists that the bodily space is primary to external Cartesian space. Bodies are not simply in an already existing space – rather space is produced by the body.
A similar logic is at work in Heidegger’s account of the work done by building a bridge over a river. The bridge swings over the stream “with ease and power.” It does not just connect banks that are already there. The banks emerge as banks only as the bridge crosses the stream. The bridge designedly causes them to lie across from each other. One side is set off against the other by the bridge. Nor do the banks stretch along the stream as indifferent border strips of the dry land.
Jul 27, 2024
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Towards Topopoetics: Space, Place and the Poem by Tim Cresswell
Abstract: This essay focuses on the theme of poetry and place – a project I have called Topopoetics. It introduces the idea of topopoetics drawing on the work of Aristotle, Heidegger and more recent philosophies of place, dwelling and poetics.
The point is not to cover the familiar ground of ‘sense-of-place’ in poetry but rather to explore how the poem is a kind of place and the way in which poems create space and place through their very presence on the page, through the interactions of full space and blank space, stasis and flux, and inside and outside.
What can poetry tell us about space and place? Conversely, what can thinking about space and place tell us about poetry? These are the questions that motivate this essay. My aim is to both answer them and to reveal how spatial and platial thinking can inform forms of interpretation beyond the interpretation of space and place in the geographical world.
I develop a topopoetics – a project that sees poems as places and spaces. The distinction between space and place that is most often made is one in which space is seen as limitless, empty, divisible and subject to mathematical forms of understanding while place is seen as bounded, full, unique and subject to forms of interpretive understanding.
Place has been most frequently described as a meaning ful segment of space – as mere ‘location’ in space overlaid with things such as meaning, subjectivity, emotion and affect (Tuan 1977; Buttimer and Seamon 1980; Relph 1976; Cresswell 2014).
The definitions of space have become more sophisti cated thanks to interventions from critical theory and philosophy which have taken space out of the realm of the abstract and absolute in an attempt to reveal the work ings of space in the production of society (Soja 1989; Lefebvre 1991; Massey 2005).
At the same time work on place has added layers of power on the one hand (Cresswell 1996; Massey 1997) and a deeper philosophical role in human existence on the other (Casey 1998; Malpas 1999). There is not space here to rehearse all of the twists and turns in these debates. One aspect that is worth lingering on is the ques tion of which comes first, space or place? (Related)
Jul 29, 2024
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认知美学:理解与创造的机制
(续上)认知美学(Cognitive Aesthetics)通过研究人类的认知过程,揭示我们如何感知、理解和创造艺术与文化。这一领域借助认知科学,探索人类如何通过大脑的机制来处理文化符号、情感体验与创意内容。
在文创研究中,认知美学帮助理解文化产品如何通过设计、叙事或表现形式引发观众的感知与理解。例如,文化创意产品如何通过颜色、形式、符号等刺激大脑的认知反应,从而引发情感共鸣或文化认同。认知美学可以将复杂的情感体验转化为可理解的认知过程,帮助研究者分析文化产品的受众反应、市场接受度,以及文化符号在记忆和情感层面的深远影响。
感性、诗性与认知美学的关系
在文创研究中,感性、诗性与认知美学三者之间的互动关系,具有深刻的人文科学意义:
感性通过激发情感,使文化产品能够产生直观的情感共鸣;
诗性则通过象征、隐喻的方式,赋予这些情感深层的文化和哲学意义;
认知美学帮助我们理解这些体验是如何通过大脑和心智机制来加工与创造的。
这种关系可以在人文科学研究中得到深度的诠释。例如,研究一部电影或一个文创项目,可以同时分析它如何通过诗性符号与观众的情感产生共鸣,如何通过视觉、听觉等感性元素引发观众的体验,又如何通过认知美学的理论去解释观众对这些符号和情感的理解与反应。这种跨学科的探讨不仅揭示了文化创意的情感和审美价值,还能探索其在更广泛的社会和哲学层面的意义。
文创研究中的人文科学意义
通过整合感性、诗性与认知美学,文创研究可以在人文科学中产生以下几方面的重要意义:
情感共鸣与文化认同:研究如何通过感性体验和诗性象征,促进个人与集体对文化的认同,揭示文化产品的社会凝聚力。
符号与象征的创造力:诗性分析提供了理解文化产品如何通过象征和隐喻重新定义现实与世界的工具,揭示了文化创新的力量。
认知与情感的整合:认知美学使我们能够从科学的角度分析情感、想象与认知的相互作用,形成对文化产品影响力的全面理解。
这种结合不仅让文创研究具备了理论上的深度,还能为实际的文化创意实践提供指导,推动文化产业在情感与认知层面实现更加丰富的表达与创新。
总的来说,感性、诗性与认知美学在文创研究中的关系,揭示了文化产品在情感、象征与认知层面的复杂互动,这使得文创研究不仅具有实践指导意义,也为人文科学提供了多层次的理论反思。(爱垦網内部评析)
访陈明发博士谈感性文創与体验文创的区别
札哈哈蒂:房子能浮起來嗎?
追隨感官 1.6 詩性研究
地方感性
慢活
Sep 10, 2024
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爱垦網评注:感性、诗性与认知美学的人文科学角度
跨学科做文创研究,感性、诗性与认知美学三者可结合起来。通过探讨它们在文化创意中的互动关系,形成有人文科学意义的理论框架。这种研究不仅能揭示文化创意过程中的情感、象征与认知机制,还能探索文化产品在个人与社会层面的影响力。
感性:情感体验的核心
感性(Affectivity)在文创中扮演着重要角色,尤其是当文化产品或创意活动通过激发受众的情感体验达到与其产生共鸣时。感性关注的是个体如何通过情感、直觉来与文化内容建立联系。通过感性,文化创意产品得以传递情感价值,从而激发观众的情感参与与共鸣。
在人文科学研究中,感性可以通过现象学、情感转向(Affective Turn)等理论框架进行分析。例如,当文创产品(如一件艺术品或文旅体验)通过调动人们的感官、记忆、情感时,它的文化意义便不仅限于其物质形态,而是通过感性体验引发对人类存在、社会情感的深层反思。
诗性:象征与想象的力量
诗性(Poetics)在文化创意中关注象征、隐喻与想象力。维柯所提出的“诗性智慧”认为,人类最早的思想表达是通过诗意象征与想象力完成的,这赋予了文化创意深厚的历史和人类学背景。
在文创研究中,诗性表现为对符号、象征系统的创造性运用。文创产品往往通过诗性表达,重新塑造人们对现实的感知,开辟新的可能性。例如,一个设计项目、一部电影或一场文化展览,可能通过诗性形式将日常生活转化为充满象征意义的文化表达。
从人文科学的角度,诗性不仅限于文学和艺术,还可以是文化传播、符号学或叙事学的一部分。这使得文化创意不仅仅是市场产品,而是具有审美和哲学价值的象征行为。(下续)
Sep 10, 2024
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愛墾APP:Raumgeist~~德文Raumgeist由Raum(空間)和 Geist(精神、靈魂、思潮)組成,類似於Zeitgeist(時代精神),但強調的是空間維度的精神性或氛圍感。
可能的中文翻譯:
1. 空間精神(最直接的翻譯,強調空間所承載的文化與意識)
2. 場域之魂(結合「場域」概念,突出空間的氛圍感)
3. 空間意象(適用於偏向象征性與文化表達的語境)
4. 地域精神(強調地方性與文化歸屬)
5. 環境心靈(適用於生態哲學或環境感知的角度)
6. 場所之神(類似「土地神」或「場所精神」,富有詩意)
如果討論涉及地方文化意識、情動地理學或文化詩學,「場域之魂」或「空間精神」可能最合適。
如果強調哲學性與環境心理,「環境心靈」可能更具洞察力。
Mar 1, 2025
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共時性(Co-Temporalities)
「共時性」的概念建立在一個洞見之上:時間是一種文化建構,因此是相對的,依賴於具體的社會情境。從這一視角來看,時間性從單一性轉變為多樣性,受不同競爭或合作因素影響,從而決定「共時性」如何互動與共存。特別是在都市空間中,不同時間性往往會產生衝突與變遷,並伴隨著不同群體與國家機構所經歷的交錯節奏。「共時性」使研究者能夠掌握城市中這些複雜的時間動態,進而更好地理解城市性與時間的關係。
「共時性」的概念是以「共空間性」為模型,後者由萊維在2003年提出,以描述空間的多層次性。萊維通過「空間間性」的概念,闡述了不同現實間的重疊與互動。同樣地,「共時性」提供了一種分析方法,來探討時間維度中的「共空間性」,即城市中不同時間性與時間實踐的重疊。這一方法建立在「共時性」必須「發生於某地」的假設之上,因此,時間具有多重層次或結構,並且這些層次可以共存。在城市空間中,這一點尤為明顯,不同群體以不同的方式經歷著各種時間形態。
這一方法部分受到亨利·列斐伏爾(Henri Lefebvre)的城市節奏分析的影響(Lefebvre,1992,遺作出版)。列斐伏爾致力於分析城市空間的節奏,以及這些節奏如何影響居民的日常生活。他與妻子兼合作者凱薩琳·瑞居利耶(Catherine Régulier)共同研究了時間、空間、建築與街道運動的交錯(Lefebvre & Régulier,1986)。
在更具解構性的意義上,米歇爾·傅柯(Michel Foucault)在1970年代的《規訓與懲罰》(Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison)中已指出,時間如何在現代社會(如監獄、軍隊、學校)中被規範、刻印與結構化。傅柯的門生吉爾·德勒茲(Gilles Deleuze)在《控制社會的後記》(Postscript on the Societies of Control)一文中進一步發展這一概念,認為在後規訓社會(即日益社會技術化的現代城市中),時間作為控制因素已經變得可調節、可操縱,使個體從啟蒙哲學中的「完整主體」,變為可操控的「分割個體」(dividual)(Deleuze,1992)。
從宗教研究的角度來看,「共時性」也可借鑒查爾斯·泰勒(Charles Taylor,2007)的觀點,即世俗性本身就是一種時間形態。然而,現代化並非均質或同質的,甚至並非必然非宗教化。因此,正如埃森斯塔特(Shmuel N. Eisenstadt,2003)所言,「多重現代性」可以同時存在,並在全球城市化空間與多元城市中上演,有時和諧共存,有時則發生衝突。
換言之,「共時性」作為「共空間性」的補充概念,將時間維度納入對重疊空間的分析之中。畢竟,正如愛因斯坦所教導的,時間與空間可以被擴展、壓縮、扭曲與變形,受物質、建築、城市、身體、污染以及生命運動的影響。(Source: Erfurt-ness by Sara Keller · Published August 19, 2019 · Updated April 10, 2024)
Mar 5, 2025
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馬丁·路德對艾克哈特作品的了解一直是學術討論的焦點,毫無疑問,艾克哈特的神學對路德產生了影響[4]。但除了這種哲學上的承繼之外,艾爾福特的環境是否也影響了艾克哈特與路德的思想?我們是否可以識別出某些與艾爾福特環境獨特相關的聯繫,將艾克哈特與路德跨越時空地連結起來?
語言的影響?
語言對於艾克哈特與路德的工作至關重要,因為他們都致力於推動宗教與哲學知識的語言通俗化。艾克哈特將拉丁概念轉化為德語詞彙,並創造了許多新術語,影響了德語哲學,直至黑格爾與海德格爾。
“梅斯特·艾克哈特無疑是德語中全新哲學與神學術語的創造者。”(Knaebel 2002, 21)[5]
克納貝爾(Knaebel)強調,艾克哈特在這一過程中運用了「德語語言天賦」(génie propre de la langue allemande)(Knaebel 2002, 20)。因此,艾克哈特的工作不僅僅是翻譯,而是一場真正的哲學創造,塑造了適合中古高地德語語言與認知特性的術語。
法國地理學家雅克·萊維(Jacques Lévy,2013,2021)所創造的「共空間性」(co-spatiality)概念,定義了一種特定類型的「空間間性」(interspatiality),即不同空間之間的關係。「共空間性」基於這樣的想法:空間作為一種多層次的現實,可以根據不同的度量標準(即距離管理策略)來運作。此外,由行動者透過現實或想像的空間行動所創造的每一層空間,可能——也可能不會——與其他佔據相同物理範圍的空間層次「垂直地」互動(Lévy,2003,第213頁)。「共空間性」指的正是這種在同一物理範圍內兩個不同但重疊的空間之間的「垂直」聯繫。然而,兩種現實同時存在於同一個「此在」並不足以構成「共空間性」的互動。正如萊維所強調的,「共空間性」並不是兩個空間共存的機械性或顯然的結果(Lévy,2003,第213頁)。事實上,即便在不同空間現實間存在接觸區域,人們仍可能學會「看不見」其中一個或多個空間,從而忽視某些社會世界的元素,因為他們認為(或被教導認為)這些元素與自己無關。這一現象在中國·米耶維(China Miéville)所著的科幻小說《雙城》(The City and the City)中被藝術性地描繪,也曾在全球多個實施種族隔離政策的政權中被強制施行(Lévy,2021)。事實上,「共空間性」的地理學概念在芝加哥學派的「一座城市中的多座城市」研究中得到了具體體現。根據這一研究,即便社會行動者共享同一物理範圍(即城市空間),他們也未必居住在「同一座城市」。
那麼,兩個不同但重疊的空間如何發生接觸呢?根據萊維的觀點,「共空間性」的關係只有透過「開關」(switch)這一第三元素才能實現。「開關」是能夠連結兩個不同空間層次的場所。例如,萊維常舉的例子是一座火車站,它「讓旅人從受鐵路網約束的空間轉換到更為縝密的城市街道網絡」(Lévy,2021)。換言之,「開關」使人們得以從一種距離管理策略轉換到另一種策略,進而從一個空間切換到另一個空間。
UrbRel 應用
「共空間性」透過「開關」的概念,也可以追溯到前現代時期。以中世紀印度的紀念性階梯井(stepwells)為例,這些場所最初是城市社群的主要水源,但後來逐漸被賦予宗教意義,成為進行儀式與奉獻活動的空間。在實踐與敘事中,這些空間為不同宗教與社會群體——尤其是女性——所共享。其他城市「共空間性」的例子,還包括那些同步被不同種族、文化,甚至宗教背景的群體所使用的朝聖地。
城市空間由多重重疊的空間構成,這些空間源於不同群體對空間的想像與使用,並因不同行動者的移動而變得複雜。宗教為我們理解這一現象提供了一種有趣的視角,因為宗教既是一種透過儀式使用來標記空間的技術(無論是短暫的還是持久的空間神聖化),也是一種文化技術。
2020年,UrbRel 年度研討會的主題即為「共空間性」,探討那些被不同群體在同一時間或不同時期,以不同方式生產、使用與詮釋的場所與空間。這一概念促使我們反思:(i) 不同群體對同一空間的重疊使用或詮釋如何被機構、個人與團體調節,以促進或避免「共空間性」互動;(ii) 時間性在「共空間性」互動中的作用;(iii) 這種特定的空間交錯如何促使宗教與城市變遷。
Mar 6, 2025
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Sara Keller:艾爾福特城市精神(Erfurt-ness)
關於艾爾福特城市精神的一些思考——沿著梅斯特·艾克哈特(Meister Eckhart)與馬丁·路德(Martin Luther)的足跡
長期以來,生物學強調思想與大腦之間的關係——然而,這一觀點今日已受到認知神經科學與神經心理學研究的挑戰。[1]
嘗試將思想歸於人類身體內的某個物理位置,仍然是一個懸而未決的問題。但如果我們試圖在更宏觀的社會層面上定位思想呢?某些思想與哲學方法是否可以與特定的地方聯繫起來?這篇短文旨在邀請大家思考 logos(理性)與 topos(地點)之間的關係,也就是思想與地點的關聯。是否有些地方天生就具有「啟發性」?這種啟發性又是如何構建的?
令人矚目的是,德國城市艾爾福特曾見證了西方宗教歷史與哲學中兩位大膽人物的足跡:梅斯特·艾克哈特(1260-1328)與馬丁·路德(1483-1546)。儘管兩人相隔了一個半世紀,但這兩位教士都因致力於結合理性與信仰[2],以及關心《聖經》的可及性而被世人銘記。面對這種令人困惑的交匯,我希望延續魯迪·伊姆巴赫(Ruedi Imbach)關於哲學與其發源地之間關係的討論(Imbach 2018)。伊姆巴赫研究了艾克哈特、雷蒙·魯爾(Lulle)與但丁(Dante)於1310年齊聚巴黎的情形。在其論文《巴黎關係》("Relations parisiennes (...)")中,他指出哲學思想往往在特定地點與特定時刻興起(Imbach 2018):
“所引用的文本及其附帶的註釋清楚地表明,哲學問題往往在特定的地點與時間點湧現。”(Imbach 2018, 116)
伊姆巴赫不僅強調地點的重要性,也強調這些會合的時間性。我希望在此延續他的研究視角,並進一步擴展時間範圍,以關注地點對思想的影響,而不僅僅局限於特定的歷史時刻。我們是否可以識別出,某些地點無論時代如何變遷,都與某種特定的精神特質相關聯?作為對黑格爾「時代精神」(Zeitgeist)的回應——即特定時代的文化制約,我們可以探索是否存在一種「空間精神」(Raumgeist),源自特定地點的獨特性。
梅斯特·艾克哈特與馬丁·路德是艾爾福特這座圖林根州首府的兩位傳奇人物。時至今日,他們的名字依舊縈繞在城市的小巷之中,並受到當地機構與政府部門的推崇(這些機構積極推動艾爾福特的歷史與文化遺產)。二人的名字隨處可見,出現在海報、宣傳冊與旅遊指南中,因此,毫不誇張地說,艾克哈特與路德已成為艾爾福特文化遺產的現代守護者。
除了這種當代的文化關聯之外,艾克哈特與路德還有著更深層的共通點。他們皆為教士與神學家(艾克哈特曾任道明會院長,而路德則是奧古斯丁會修士),並且皆以推廣本地語言而聞名,從而使世俗民眾更容易接觸到《聖經》與宗教知識。艾克哈特的講道與部分著作皆以中古高地德語(Mittelhochdeutsch)書寫,而路德則在1522至1534年間,將《聖經》翻譯為一種與此相近的德語,這一舉措在印刷術發展的背景下,對社會與宗教產生了深遠影響。二人都曾遭到異端指控,並被召至羅馬教廷為自己的神學立場辯護。
馬丁·路德誕生於艾克哈特去世後155年,因此,與魯爾、艾克哈特和但丁在巴黎的交會不同,這兩人從未有可能相遇。然而,他們都曾在艾爾福特長時間居住,因此我們不得不考慮這座城市對其思想的影響。艾克哈特出生於艾爾福特附近,並數次在此停留,尤其是1275年左右加入艾爾福特道明會時,以及1294年擔任道明會修道院院長時。路德則於1501年入讀艾爾福特大學,並多次在奧古斯丁會修道院居住。(詳情可參見我們的城市漫步活動,探討這些歷史遺跡)。
相關:未来學 - 時間性 - 共時性
Mar 7, 2025
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賈平凹·「臥虎」說
我說的「臥虎」,其實是一塊石頭,被雕琢了,守在霍去病的墓側。自漢而今,鴻雁南北徙遷,日月東西過往,它竟完好無缺,倒是天光地氣,使它生出一層苔衣,駁駁點點的,如麗皮斑紋一般。黃昏裡,萬籟俱靜了,走近墓地,撥荒草悠悠然進去,驀地見了:風吹草低,夕陽腐蝕,分明那虎正騷動不安地衝動,在未躍欲躍的瞬間;立即要使人十二分地駭怕了! 怯生生繞著看了半天,卻如何不敢相信寓於這種強勁的動力感,竟不過是一個流動的線條和扭曲的團塊結合的石頭的虎,一個臥著的石虎,一個默默的穩定而厚重的臥虎的石頭!
前年冬日,我看到這只臥虎時,喜愛極了,視有生以來所見的唯一藝術妙品,久久揣賞,感嘆不已,想生我育我的商州地面,山川水土,拙厚,古樸,曠遠,其味與臥虎同也。我知道,一個人的文風和性格統一了,才能寫得得心應手,一個地方的文風和風尚統一了,才能寫得入情入味,從而悟出要作我文,萬不可類那種聲色俱厲之道,亦不可淪那種輕靡浮豔之華。「臥虎」,重精神,重情感,重整體,重氣韻,具體而單一,抽象而豐富,正是我求之而苦不能得啊!
我在那墓場呆了三日,依依不肯離去。我總是想:一個混混沌沌的石頭,是出自哪個荒寂的山溝呢?被雕刻家那麼隨便一鑿,就活生生成了一隻虎了?! 而固定的獨獨一塊石頭,要鑿成虎,又受了多大的限制? 可正是有了這種限制,藝術才得到了最充分的自由嗎?! 貌似缺乏藝術,而真正的藝術則來得這麼的單純,樸素,自然,真切!
靜觀臥虎,便進入一種千鈞一髮的境界,臥虎是力的像徵。我們的民族,是有輝煌的歷史,但也有過一片黑暗和一片光明的年代,而一片光明和一片黑暗一樣都是看不清任何東西的。現在,正需要五味子一類的草藥,扶陽補氣,填精益髓。文學應該是與世界相通的吧,我們的文學也一樣是需要五味子了,如此而已。
但是,這竟不是一個仰天長嘯的虎,竟不是一個撲,剪,掀,翻的虎,偏偏要使它欲動,卻終未動的臥著? 臥著,內向而不呆滯,寂靜而有力量,平波水面,狂瀾深藏,它臥了個恰好,是東方的味,是我們民族的味。
我的「臥虎」啊……
(本文為賈平凹先生於1982年4月為《當代文藝思潮》「作家與創作」欄而作,王志傑綜合整理)
延續閱讀:趙毅衡丨當代文化的「雙軸共現」文本增生趨勢
Apr 4, 2025
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愛墾APP:台灣與香港本土情懷~~近台灣與香港近年在電影文創中重新回歸本土情懷,反映了全球化背景下的文化逆流與在地認同的再塑造。這一趨勢不僅與兩地的社會文化變化密切相關,也展現了影視創作對地方文化與觀眾情感共鳴的重視。針對台灣的《周處除三害》和香港的《破地獄》取得成功,我從幾個角度進行分析與評議:
1. 本土情懷的復興與在地敘事的回歸
(1)台灣:《周處除三害》與地方文化復興
故事選擇與文化認同:《周處除三害》取材自中國古代家喻戶曉的民間故事,通過台灣本地化的改編,賦予了該故事更多現代意義,強調個體成長與社會責任。這種傳統文化的重塑,喚起了觀眾對中華文化根源的認同,尤其是年輕觀眾在觀看時能感受到文化傳承與現代社會的對話。
地方元素的運用:影片通過台南、台中等地的獨特風景和民俗細節,呈現了台灣地方文化的豐富性。這種「地方化」處理,強化了影片的真實感與文化親和力,成功吸引了關注本土文化的觀眾群體。
(2)香港:《破地獄》與民間信仰的重塑
題材創新與信仰探索:《破地獄》以香港傳統的民間信仰和「盂蘭節」習俗為背景,講述了人與鬼神之間的故事。影片不僅滿足了觀眾對神秘、奇幻題材的興趣,還通過對信仰與道德的探討,引發觀眾對生命意義的思考。這種基於地方信仰的敘事,不僅貼近香港本土文化,還與粵語區的觀眾形成了情感共鳴。
城市空間與文化記憶:影片巧妙地運用了香港的城市空間,將舊建築、街巷與民俗祭典結合,喚起了觀眾對「本土香港」的懷舊情感。這種視覺與情感的結合,突顯了地方文化的獨特魅力。
2. 本土情懷復興背後的社會與文化動因
文化自覺與身份認同:台灣與香港近年來面臨的文化身份認同問題,促使文創產業回歸本土。這種回歸既是對自身文化根源的挖掘,也是對全球化語境下文化自我定位的探索。
觀眾需求的變化:隨著觀眾對多元化、地方化敘事的需求增長,市場對具有本土特色的影視作品的認可度提高。《周處除三害》和《破地獄》的成功,表明了觀眾對具有文化深度和情感共鳴作品的期待。
政策與資金支持:台灣與香港在文化政策上加強了對本土文創項目的支持,鼓勵具有地方特色的影視創作。例如台灣「文化部」的影視補助計劃和香港電影發展基金的支持,為本土情懷的作品提供了創作與傳播的平台。
3. 港台本土情懷電影的未來展望
文化多樣性的挖掘:未來,港台電影可以繼續深挖地方文化,探索不同族群、地方習俗和語言的多樣性,將地方文化與全球視野結合,打造更具國際影響力的本土作品。
跨區域合作與市場拓展:港台電影文創在強化本土敘事的同時,也可以通過與大陸或其他華語區的合作,拓展市場,創造更多文化共鳴與認同。
數字化與多媒體敘事的融合:借助數字化技術與新媒體平台,港台本土電影可以探索跨媒體敘事,將電影內容擴展為多元化的文創產品,增強受眾互動與文化傳播效果。
4.總結與評議
台灣與香港電影文創回歸本土情懷,反映了文化自覺與市場需求的雙重驅動。《周處除三害》和《破地獄》的成功,展示了本土文化與現代敘事結合的無限可能。未來,港台電影若能持續深挖地方文化,並與國際視野相結合,將在全球華語市場中佔據更為重要的位置。
Jun 11, 2025
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國際建築師協會(UIA)與聮合國教科文組織以及巴塞隆納市政府 共同舉辦一場MONDIACULT2025官方邊會
2025年9月30日|13:30–14:30|巴塞隆納
作為 MONDIACULT 2025 的一部分,國際建築師協會(UIA)將與 UNESCO 以及 巴塞隆納市政府 共同舉辦一場官方邊會,匯聚文化與城市規劃部長、市府官員、城市領袖以及國際專家。
此官方邊會將凸顯建築在塑造文化未來與打造包容性城市中的角色,同時加強遺產與創新的連結。會議將提供一個對話平台,促進跨領域交流,並展示由 UNESCO 及其合作夥伴主導的重要國際倡議。
重點主題包括:
議程將包括:
建築作為政治與文化轉型的工具
有形與無形文化遺產作為創新的驅動力
透過合作推動包容、永續與具韌性的城市未來
強化 UNESCO「世界建築之都」計畫(下圖)
UNESCO 開幕致詞
UIA 介紹「世界建築之都」計畫
巴塞隆納作為現任建築之都的經驗分享
UNESCO 全球框架的反思
開放式對話與對未來「世界建築之都」的集體行動呼籲
講者名單:
奧德蕾·阿祖萊女士(Audrey Azoulay),UNESCO 總幹事
瑞吉娜·岡蒂耶女士(Regina Gonthier),國際建築師協會(UIA)主席
多米尼克·佩羅先生(Dominique Perrault),建築師
馬丁·杜普朗捷先生(Martin Duplantier),建築師、2025年威尼斯雙年展法國館共同策展人
拉婭·博內特女士(Laia Bonet),巴塞隆納副市長
Sep 30, 2025
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二、辯證法核心邏輯說明
基於上述引文與相關次章節說明,黑格爾的「主人—奴隸辯證」可拆為以下幾個關鍵步驟/動力:
自我意識的本質為承認(Recognition): 黑格爾指出,自我意識(self-consciousness)並非孤立自足,而是「在另一個自我意識為它而存在(for another)時才為自身而存在」。這表明:要成為真正的「為自己而存在」的主體,自我意識必須被他者承認。引文如第一段所述。
因此,自我意識從根本來看不是單向的「我對世界」認識,而是「我為另一者而被認識/承認」的關係性構造。 (aquestionofexistence.com)
慾望 (Begierde/Desire) 與他者的否定: 自我意識欲求的不僅僅是對外世界對象的佔有,而是透過「他者」來得到自身的肯定。黑格爾說:「自我意識因此僅藉著對那被呈現為獨立生命的他者的否定而確信自身;自我意識即為慾望。」這揭示了:自我意識在他者面前產生「我-他」的關係,並傾向於否定或制服那個他者,以確立自己的主體性。 (Superphysics)
生命與死亡的鬥爭 (Struggle to the death) 與主/奴關係的生成: 在該節中,黑格爾描寫兩個自我意識為了「被承認為獨立的存在」而必須進入生命與死亡的鬥爭。最終,一方(主人 lord)暫時勝出,使另一方(奴隸 bondsman)成為其奴役。這段關係標誌著「主—奴」的結構:主人主導、奴隸服從。
依賴的逆轉與奴隸的轉化:雖然主人取得了對奴隸的支配,但他對奴隸的勞動、活動及其所生產的對象有依賴。奴隸透過勞動將自然轉化為產品,在那過程中形成對自身的意識。黑格爾指出,奴隸通過勞動與改造世界,不僅為主人服務,也逐漸主體化自己。因此,原本的「奴隸」在某種意義上成為知識與實踐的主體,而「主人」反而陷入對奴隸的依賴。這即是主奴辯證之內在張力。 (Encyclopedia.pub)
向「相互承認」(Mutual Recognition)邁進:主奴關係並非終極形態。黑格爾認為真正的自由的自我意識需要「彼此為他者/他者為自己」的相互承認(each for the other what the other is for it)。也就是說,真正的主體形成不是單方面的支配或服從,而是平等承認的關係。這一環節是辯證的「否定的否定」階段,也是精神(Geist)進展的基礎。 (iep.utm.edu)
三、與你提出的「承認/慾望」語境對應
你在前述許煜的論述中引用了「承認(recognition)」與「慾望(Begierde)」兩詞,這與黑格爾上述邏輯高度契合:
因此,我們引用的「為了獲得承認的‘奴隸’的慾望……推翻主-奴關係」這段話,正可視為黑格爾主奴辯證法中“奴隸透過勞動/技術自我轉化”這一環的映射。主人重新建立邊界、減少依賴,也對應黑格爾中主人對奴隸產生依賴、必須面對其內在矛盾的階段。
Nov 2, 2025
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愛墾APP:黑格爾「主-奴辯證法」~~以下是關於 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel(黑格爾)「主-奴辯證法」(lord-bondsman dialectic,又譯「主人與奴隸辯證」)的具體引文與其核心邏輯說明,並附上中文說明以便理解。
一、關鍵引文
在 Phenomenology of Spirit(《精神現象學》)中,黑格爾於「獨立與依賴的自我意識:主人與奴隸」(“Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage”)一節開篇即提出:
“Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged.” (aquestionofexistence.com)
(譯:自我意識當且因為它「為另一自我意識而存在」時,才在自身中並為自身而存在;換言之,它唯在被承認(being acknowledged)中才存在。)
同段落又寫道:
“Self-consciousness is thus only assured of itself through sublating this other, which is presented to self-consciousness as an independent life; self-consciousness is Desire.” (Superphysics)
(譯:自我意識因此僅藉著對那被呈現為獨立生命的「他者」的否定而確信自身;自我意識即為慾望(Desire))。
關於「雙重存在」(doubling)與承認(recognition)過程,黑格爾說:
“The detailed exposition of the Notion of this spiritual unity in its duplication will present us with the movement of recognizing.” (scribd.com)
(譯:這種精神統一在其複製/二重性中的概念的詳細展開,將為我們呈現「承認運動」(movement of recognizing)。)
在進一步描述主人與奴隸關係中,黑格爾指出:
“Self-consciousness is faced by another self-consciousness; self-consciousness has come out of itself.” §179 (Sacramento State)(譯:自我意識面對另一自我意識;自我意識已從自身中出來。)
這些引文為我們提供了黑格爾論述該辯證構造的直接語句基礎。
Nov 3, 2025
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(續上)導致的反動與逆轉可能:因為這樣的單邊模式,本來處於被動地位的地區漸漸技術提升、資本累積、意識覺醒,可能挑戰輸出方的地位,轉而要求「認可」、「自主」。許煜以黑格爾的主–奴辯證模式來形容:奴隸透過勞動與技術求得承認,主人為維持主導地位須重新劃定邊界、弱化依賴。這意味著單邊殖民主義的結構將可能鬆動、變形。 (philosophyandtechnology.network)
總結而言,「單邊殖民主義」在他這裡不是指傳統殖民者通過軍事佔領的模式,而是指:在「全球化/技術化/行星化」的大背景下,某一文明或國家透過技術、資本、市場、制度的輸出,對其他地區進行結構性、單方向的殖民式影響——包括物質/技術的侵入、認識論/文化的優勢、制度/市場整合的依賴。
三、批判意涵與啟示
許煜用這一概念來批判當下的全球化與技術化狀況,並指出其問題與反思方向:
全球化並非真正平等、互動的模式:他指出,所謂全球化實際上是「單邊的全球化」——並非多方平等,而是由某一方主導、輸出、統合。這使得全球化表面開放,實質仍然維持殖民式的不對稱。這也正是他為什麼說「全球思維」不是他所倡導的「行星思維」——因為全球思維仍在二元(全球/局部)、主/從的邊界內運作。 (philosophyandtechnology.network)
技術多樣性與本土能動性的缺乏:他認為,單邊殖民主義所導致的便是技術與知識的同質化、本土技術哲學的壓抑。被動地區可能只能接受技術輸出而無法建構自身的技術哲學或技術多樣性。許煜提出「技術多樣性」(technodiversity)、「心智多樣性」(noodiversity)、「生物多樣性」(biodiversity)作為對抗模式。 (philosophyandtechnology.network)
警惕主導者與被主導者之間的逆轉危機:當「奴隸」取得某種技術自主與市場地位後,「主人」會面臨其優勢的削弱。這可能導致全球化的整體結構出現裂隙。他指出,這種情況可以被解讀為全球化階段的終結或轉型:「全球化可能已經走到了盡頭,不是因為反全球化運動強大,而是因為作為歷史階段,它暴露的缺陷多於其所承諾的益處。」 (philosophyandtechnology.network)
倡議新的思維方式—行星思維:為了跳脫單邊殖民主義的漩渦,他提出「行星思維(planetary thinking)」:這不是一種新的全球化,而是一種基於多樣性、本地性與技術-心智-生態之間重新配置的思考方式。他希望能從技術哲學角度提出不同於單邊殖民主義的路徑。 (philosophyandtechnology.network)
總而言之,許煜所說的「單邊殖民主義」是他對當代全球化/技術化過程中一種隱蔽但深刻的殖民式結構的批判性概念:它指出,當全球化只是單方向的技術/制度輸出,而缺少平等互動、自主選擇與多樣性承認時,就容易演變成一種新型殖民主義。理解這一點,有助於我們反思:今天技術如何成為權力與文化輸出的工具?本地性、多樣性如何在全球脈絡中被壓抑?又如何可能建構不同於單邊主導的新共構模式?
補充對話:在許煜的框架裡,「技術哲學」不是單純討論技術工具或創新的哲學,而是要思考技術與文化、宇宙觀、倫理、存在方式之間的關係。他主張每一種文明都有其「宇宙技術學」(cosmotechnics),也就是技術與宇宙秩序、價值體系之間的具體連結。例如,中國古代的技術常與「天人合一」的觀念相連,而西方的技術則多建立在「征服自然」的理性模型上。
然而,現代全球化帶來的問題在於:西方的技術體系被普遍化、標準化,其他文明的技術哲學被邊緣化、甚至消失。這正是他所說的「單邊殖民主義」在技術層面的體現——技術不再是多樣的世界實踐,而成為單一現代性的一部分。
因此,許煜透過技術哲學,想要重新打開「多元技術世界」的可能性——讓不同文明的技術智慧有機會對話、共存,而非被全球標準化體系吞沒。
Nov 4, 2025