[...] to index concepts of morally, ethics, politics, aspirational acts,

(everything depends on the ways we remember our [emotional experience of] childhood)

(memory = salad of) fragments of memory + emotions from our experience + emotions experienced by others + what we have been told by others about our childhood


common theory --> age between two and eleven children are most sensitive to external factors ==> most vulnerable to advertising

*age seven*
children are increasingly controlled by symbolic relationships and images (+ make judgment about things)

*under five*
{human characters ~?/= animated characters}--> belief in imaginary characters and monsters, management of emotions

*age two*
(end of) two --> children begin pretending (until age of five)

*over four*
idiosyncratic system of thinking about causality (extraordinary plays larger role than adults)


create and identify emotions in visual images

fantasizing =/= fantastical thinking

(for children) wishing = mental + magical + it exists in relatio to skill [---> go to Cinderella, waiting]


Elias's study of children images (visual material featuring children) in Persianate cultures (turkey, pakistan, iran) --> (role of) ***childhood/children = location of enacted emotion***
childhood + religion + visual culture <-- implementation of ideology in society

turkey, pakistan, iran:
•strongly ideological (like other states)
•multiethnic
•shaped by encounter with colonial empire
•strategic (=/= cultural) engagement with (west) global powers
•belief in the existence of charismatic religious authority
•belief in barkat برکت

Iran special relation to *religious visual art*


(Elias's) aesthetic: social imagination, creating reaction without words (= showing)
=/= telling
=/= nonutilitarian form of contemplation of art
=/= cognitive


Western mid 18th century philosophy ==> “aesthetics”
lower cognitive faculties
experience of sensate body
how the world strikes the body
emotional and affective response

modern aesthetics --> contemplation of beauty (superior to idleness and boredom <-- some sort of failure of moral vigilance)
“art = description of beauty”
==> Kant: aesthetics = sublime beauty (=/= quotidien)
}--> (fable of) the idea that **beauty engenders virtue** --> the beauty must be formal


(social system --> people) interacting with visual objects
making consumer choices [--(is not always)-->] interacting with visual objects in ways that further ideological formations


*religious reaction to sensory inputs are aesthetic* <-- they anticipate knowledge to be revealed in the future =/= rest contemplatively in the present
*religious gaze = apocalyptic glance*
=/= Kantian aesthetics (noninstrumental form of enjoyment)

Plato + Aristoteles ==> premodern islamic thinkers --> “beauty = virtue” (harmony of physical and moral)


(problem with) philosophical aesthetics of disinterested contemplations --Elias-->
•ignores majority of human experience
•(favors) apophatic (transcendent + ineffable غیر قابل توصیف) =/= cataphatic (immanent + experiential)

unstable & somatic ways we respond to (and seek out) everyday images

evocative & powerful (<--Sina-- nonartisitic images)

(art or not art) ***aesthetic response***


[*]children's media: aesthetic social imagination

(moral components of:)
cruelty, hurt, disgust, disdain
kindness, happiness, admiration, love

physical, material, somatic relation to the ethereal, metaphysical, intellectual

(?how can we) confidently treat “images = sources of socioculturel information”

(from) Islamic culture --to--> cultures associated with isalm


strong opposition to representational religious art <-- modern Islamic societies --> unproblematic accepting of representational religious materials intended for children

didactic islamic visual media:
•(Kuwait) the 99 --> heroes for each name of the God
•(Pakistan, India, Afghanistan) burqa avenger --> burqa clad superhero against a corrupt view of traditional religion, using veil as costume
•(Pakistan) Ferozsons publisher
•Uysal press
•Timas press (Cem Kiziltug)
•

age-graded sequences of children's religious books --> progressively decreasing use of images


questions (> Elias:)
•are there culturally specific ways of seeing --answer--> yes
•does religion requires its own categories for understanding visuality and sensory systems? --> *religion is a problematic category* <== inherently unstable {religion referring simultaneously to systematic ideological systems, atomized and multivalent beliefs, range of individual and cultural practices}--> constant flux + relative to each other =/= religion: discrete phenomena


•scholars who argue for a transcendental quality to religion
•Durkheim + Weber --> religious = behavioral
•Otto --> location of religion: a fascinating incomprehensible force outside of the human person
•Eliade --> essential unity of the religious (~= commensurate human behavior)
•Elias --> manifestation of belief and ideology in visual written emotive forms --functionalist--> [*]religion = visual art

visual material --serve-->
•aesthetic
•generator of meaning
•generator of affirmation شعاری
•icon
•talisman
•objects imbued with religious function
•token of aspiration
•instrument of aspiration (or other emotions)
•explicit reminder (of good behavior)
•gesture towards a better future : wish images
•

seeing = embodied act (---> go to Gossip Girl)
•(individuals make complicated interpretive choices concerning) what to look at & what they have seen
•*we feel through, about, from the visual* ~= visuality is embodied ~= visuality is multisensory + emotional


•Merleau-Ponty --> prereflective bodily consciousness: ‘body = instrument of comprehension’ (all material and other objects are woven into the body's fabric) --example--> blind man's stick
•[Groz --> phantom limb]

(Asad > Elias) power of things is their ability to act within a network enabling conditions (physical + mental --> feeling, remembering, hoping) -->{capacity of objects ==> society and politics become vitally material}

(the idea of power:) objects have agency in the complex web of interactions that joins them to other [--> object having itinerary] =/= objects have abilities or sentience that they use autonomously [--> object having life]

}--Elias--> critique of the idea of scopic regime


Elias furnishing the minimum information necessary to create an informed context (to frame of discussion) =/= give comprehensive history (about iran, pakistan, or turkey)


objects --> *affecting presence* (objects elicit affects)
[*]object: location of emotion, happiness pointer (---> go to index finger)
visual object: signifier of individual and collective emotion and aspiration


index
we do not have access to reliable system of deductible reasoning that assures us of an accurate interpretation of one value to the index --> lack of precise causative relationship between *observed phenomena* and their *affective consequences* (manifested on individuals and human societies)
}<-- this plagues visial material cultural studies


(Gell's notion of) abduction: a form of reasoning to abduce a possible (=/= actual) agent or effect
abductive reasoning (=/= deduction, communication, translation)
--> ***to analyze and experiment in the lack of data or causal relationships*** (which happens most of the time)
(i have been using the term speculation as synonym for abduction)
abduction = informed abduction : you need as much contextually relevant information as possible


(learning from Elias)
•specificity of emotions and affects <-- much more interesting
•specificity of objects or people

[*]emotion: object of (unintentional) human manufacture ==> location of human meaning & motivation



<[...]