[...]onal 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

...................................

childhood Elias chap2

philosophical notions of selfhood in late antiquity (= islam + europe) ==> study of emotions & feelings

Platonic + Aristotelian : “emotion = ambivalent urges need to be disciplined and harnessed through some process of education” ==> islamic ideas of body & mind

favorite emotion (~ religious expression + motivator) in islam [+ sufism]: love & virtue [--✕--> my interest in hate & monster]

it was only one and half a century ago that William James argued that human mental states were incapable inseparable from our bodily forms (=/= “mind =/= body”)


modern theories of emotion:
•universalism <-- sentimental desire to believe in the essential community of all human beings + appeal of neuroscientific inquiries into the biological bases of emotions + certain linguistics theories [--> for example (the fable of universal emotion) *fear in the face of the enemy* transcends time and space]
•social constructivism <-- 80s sociology and cultural studies

using clinical data for humanistic arguments <-- problematic and unpersuasive


*******generation of new knowledge --approached-->
humanistic method (also applies to art?) --> authoritative: establishing control over the previous scholarship in the field + incremental advancement to collective knowledge
(*written as eureka moments of the revelation of knowledge* --> book: definitive work that closes discussion)
=/=
scientific method --> testing hypothesis, expecting one's own hypothesis to be proven wrong or incomplete in a very short time
(*written as progress reports on findings in ongoing research* --> article)

}--> this makes it dangerous for humanity scholars to take advantage of scientific research

[*]emotion
cognitive psychology --> humanistic + social-scientific theories of emotions --promoting--> (fables of)
•universal basic emotions: happiness, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise [--> regardless what these terms might be in other languages other than english, or even if there are equivalent concepts]
•emotions do not occur in language but are physically manifested in the face [--> micro-expression in business negotiations]
•(the fable of) artworks can convey emotions accurately and reliably across time and culture [---> go to the fable of *unmediated response* + emotional appeal of “great art"]
•distinguish the essential from the optional, to capture the invariant, to break complex concepts into maximally simple ones [conceptual primes + lexicogrammatical universals] (<-- Wierzbicka's NSM)

=/=

•emotion --> Joseph leDoux 1996
•emotion --> Klaus Scherer 1979
•affects --> Deleuze and Guattari 1980
•perasaan hati --> indonasia 1980
•affect --> Massumi 2002
•emozioni --> Cesare Lombroso 1976

social constructivism approach:
•emotional experience is not precultural but preeminently cultural --> Lutz

anthropological approach l:
•metaphors/words for different emotions --Kovecses--> individuals choose to conceptualize their emotions differently within the constraints impressed on them by in universal physiology {*force: the primary emotional metaphor*}
•body-based constructivism

(William Reddy >) emotive: (for example saying “i am happy.”) performative (effects change) + constative (describes the world)
•emotive utterance --> getting through of something nonverbal into verbal --> failure of representation --> a person
}--Elias-->
•logocentric concept of emotive <-- comes from speech act theory (there is no evidence that thinking and saying out loud “i am happy” have the same effects, or forcing one self to smile)
•there is no reason to consider one action more or less descriptive than performative than the other [--Sina--> my whole work has been about arguing the performativity of descriptive acts, there are no descriptions that do not generate emotions]
•lack of methodological distinction between (anthropological) fieldwork [: subject is changed by the presence of researcher] =/= historical research
•problem of synchrony in “emotive” <-- ignoring memory, aspiration (on the list of the emotional actor)

emotional states can be evoked or avoided(?)
conditions can be manipulated with the goal of shaping emotions in the future


emotion and its affects
•emotion --> medicated and sustained
•affect (a very recent idea) --> ephemeral instantaneously rises and dissipates (leaving residual effects)
}<-- a heuristic device (difference) to highlight different kinds of experiences, their perception and impact

affect is under inquiry in understand:
•customer culture
•entertainment industry
•
•(individual located in larger communities)

[*]affect: embodied thought : culturally and corporealy informed cognition = thoughts + apprehension “i am involved”
[emotion = i am involved]

(Elias) arguments in favor of affect (affect-culture):
1. (help us to understand) relationship between *(human) bodies, nature, action*
2. explains cooperative living, sacrifice, generosity, attachment, affection (better than theories that focus on economics, politics, power)
3. critical apparatus for gaining knowledge from human interaction and social movements --understand--> future
(concept of) affect --> productive way of understanding human attitude and behavior

_____________
affect theory
•(Spinoza ==>) Deleuze's ethnology of bodily capacities ==> Massumi
•(Darwin --?-->) Tomkins's psychobiology and differential affect ==> Sedgwick

Tomkins
basic affect transcend culture
durable and socially meaningful

Deleuze
[*]affect = innateness + external stimuli, “entire, vital modulating field of myriad becomings across human and nonhuman”

Spinoza
“no one has yet determined what the body can do”
1. the body's capacity is not determined by the body alone but that it is amplified and assisted by its external context
2. even though we might not understand the videos nature, we can comprehend how a specific body functions in a particular social context
•affectus --> the force of an affecting body =/=
•affectio --> impact of an affecting body on the one affected (==generate==> bodily capacities)
[*]affect: a relational phenomena that draws that draws together: a body + sentient aspects of the human being inhabiting it + social context within which that person is embedded

Massumi
(--> self-professed affect theorists)
[*]affect: essentially bodily, pre-social (=/= asocial), filled with motion, vibratory motion, resonation, a nonconscious (never-to-be-conscious) automatic remainder
visceral perception
precognitive visceral moment (=/= physical reaction)
--> think of affect in virtual terms {virtual: sphere of potential + emergent + indeterminate tendencies}
***conscious perception = narration of affect*** [to perceive = to narrate your affects ---> go to #feedback of artwork: actualization of the affective event (?can it include the excess of affect, the virtual?), feedback: narration of unconscious perception] --Massumi--> outside of this perception is the virtual domain (nonconscious automatic remainder, disconnected from meaning) []
--> “affect is the whole world” (<-- Massumi's attraction to indeterminacy)
--Sina--> affect: the deep historical remainder (fossil) of a pre-civilizational (pre-social) open-ended togetherness (I-am-involved-ness)

Flatley
affect --> (nonvirtual) they come out unpredictability in dreams and physical symptoms
(interaction of) affect + habit, belief, thought, ideas = emotion


neuropolitics: neurobiological universals can predictively manifest themselves


article =/= book (more rewarded in the humanities)

...technical, symbolic, formula-filled language of scientific research


antirationalism of turn to body in affect theory --Leys--> “the claim is that we human beings are corporeal creatures imbued with subliminal affective intensifies and resonances that so decisively influence it condition our political and other beliefs that that we ignore those affective intensities or resonances at our peril--not only because doing so leads us to underestimate the political harm that the deliberate manipulation of our affective lives can do but also because we will otherwise miss the*potential for ethical creativity* and transformation that ‘technologies of the self’ designed to work on our embodied being can help bring about.”



enterprise of theorizing affect --Elias-->

(1) ideologically driven by an attempt to reverse an imagined poststructuralist theoretical hegemony ==> conscious turn from rational methods --> *asignifying transcendence*
-Massumi's affect: asocial virtual potential (=/= actualizes) ==> affect: unformed & unstructured (potential: transmitable + socially powerful) ~= undefinable & unknowable  ~= unanalyzable & unpredictable <-- not usable as a theoretical concept
Massumi (moving away from linguistic towards t) --> affect becomes ethereal abstraction (=/= historical materiality) removed from the grasp of critical assessment
feeling --> personal & biographical
emotions --> social
affect --> prepersonal (non-conscious experience of intensity)

(2) florid and convoluted use of language --> fail to eschew obfuscation (without it there is not so much to say)
Massumi: “thought strikes like lightning, with sheering ontogenic force. It is felt.” <--Elias-- meaningless metaphor

the notion of precognitive affective event
•do nothing to help one understand the nature of conscious, felt, enacted emotion + its social ramifications
•provides no rubric through which one can engage in comparative analysis (or informed discussion)



(Brennan) affect: physiological in effect, social in origin

(Grossberg) affect: to locate human beings in their environment (why ideology is only effective some of the time? quotidien = pleasure + ideology) *it is in the affect (affective life) that people struggle to care about something, find the energy to survive, enact their projects and possibilities*
ideology -->
•affective intensities
•affective investments

(Hennessey) *affect-culture: transmission of sensation and cognitive emotion through cultural practices* (materially shaped by social networks, circulating of natives, they work with & against structured relationships, can operate intuitively or oblique)
[*]sense: obvious knowledge [--> awareness of right & wrong] (=/= cognitive or learned knowledge) --> ***meaning-making through sense ~= ideology***

(Reddy) emotion: range of loosely connected thought material --> when activated it exceeds attention's capacity to translate it to action/talk
(emotive:) emotional regime: how public emotional acts and *emotional standards* [go to --> soup opera integrating emotional ecosystem] help to shape the lives of individuals
affect: explain (historical) events that elude (political, economical) explanation

*emotion exists in its expression and description* (spoken, written, bodily enacted, visually represented, etc.)


...emotion of “i am scared” in an early modern persian miniature painting



in premodern texts
emotion is more prescriptive: how it should be enacted and experienced (=/= descriptive) emotion are evoked:
1. through teleologically constructed sensory regime
2. through reflective/contemplative practices

•kindi --> how colors and combinations could elicit specific emotions
•haytham --> visual factors that make up beauty
•farabi --> impact of musical notes on human mood
•button Christian texts --> specific ways in which a worshipper was expected to react upon seeing an icon of relic (crying, rolling on the ground, rubbing, caressing, etc.)
◦biruni --> if uneducated Muslims were presented with a picture of prophet or ka'ba, their not in looking at the thing would bring them to kiss the picture or rub their cheeks against it and to roll themselves in the first before it


Leys's shame =/= guilt
guilt:
1. mimetic: victim identifies with the aggressor + accepts the situation by not distinguishing belief =/= behavior }--> *guilt*
2. antimimetic: victim identifies with fellow victims + might imitate the aggressor only as a survival mechanism ==> preserve a sense of self + keep the atrocities external to herself ==> ‘victim =/= perpetrator’ that can be held in memory without losing one's sense of self and victimhood }--> (awareness of being observed by others in one's abject state of victimhood ==>) *shame*

Leys --> (problem of shift from guilt to) shame: deprives one from agency and responsibility


=/= muslim-majority society (use of shame in critical ways)


**performative ~=/& constructed nature of emotions**

-in my youth in iran (middle class) the context of singing together آواز in small gatherings was a context of expressing emotions within groups (a form of *networked living*) that give voice to specific emotion (grief, sadness, love, heartache, etc.)
[i always felt outside of it]

public expression of feelings --associate--> weakness & sexuality
==> everyday life denial of emotions (of jealousy, desire, heartache)

(sociologically)
*something is performed = something cannot be addressed informally* }<-- for example emotions


sharm
sharmamdegi
haya
aberu
gheirat
nang
namus
--> emotion words for honor and shame (shared between pakistan and iran, used with meanings that overlap and inconsistent)

honor selfsubsistent male
honor related to women
notions of virtue
notions of shyness

gheirat غیرت : an emotional alarm system [for one's personal image (aberu آبرو), family, religion, country]
gheirat specifies one's appropriate reactions to the particular acts of the other --> in the form of emotions: anger, hatred, jealousy


(Elias’ problematic and useful definition of) [*]affect: perceivable measurable describable effect of emotional events and experiences, what is felt + what is emoted at an individual and collective level, (enacted + perceived) ‘happening’ of the human experience (=/= undefined protoevent)
affect: a way in which one knows an experience is occurring + a way in which one reacts to an experience ==shape==> future human experience

1. enactment (performativity) of emotion is inseparable from its experience
2. emotions, enjoying words, emotion events cannot be comprehended apart from the sociopolitical context in which they occur (emotion act ~/?= emotion evoked)

somatic activity (crying) ==make==> emotions (sadness)

(in islam) happiness <--> virtue
(robust genre of literature) marvels and bestiary --> wonder at natural & manufactured wonders of the world (pyramids ~= mortality) “==encourage==>” contemplation of God's creative powers

(in sufism) tension between good and bad feelings (ugly, outlaw emotions...) ==> progress (spiritual advancement)
--> (sufi) scandalous behavior: performative form of cultivating negative emotions in oneself and others

emotional regime
ecological phenomenology
emotional habitus

habitus = [*]mood: collective feeling --Bourdieu--> *making and using moods have to be integral part of (the goal of) any sociopolitical process* (@Foad, @Sina)
(**collective action if impossible if people are not in the mood**)


*educational material (~= ideological material) : integrated attitude toward the world*

regulatory forces of society construct (=/= control) behavior
[two feelings: you are *constructed* but still might find yourself with agency =/= you are original (essential, special) and might find yourself *controlled* by forces of society <-- bad idea for political engagement]

**politics --> a sphere that is deeply imbricated in the visual regimes of societies** (--> for me that is why visual arts are so important: politics is always visual)
**politics --> affect can explain the processes that are inexplicable through other functional explanations + affect exists as an object of power (political formations are reactive to and formed by affect)


(Naveeda Khan)

Jinns and children

a place for a child to build conviviality / continuity with a creature made of smokeless fire

(the girl) she charts through a modality of “hearing”

..that which defines the normative, the duties, and responsibilities that accompany observance of a religious tradition.

different intensities by which the normative is reiterated

Jinns are also known to eavesdrop (esteragh-e sam’) on the angels in the lower reaches of heaven to acquire limited knowledge of the future

the little mischievous spirits (nafs) that make up a self



**wonders of children

children are born free of sin and have the ability to communicate without reason (aghl) and therefore carry the threat of being easily led astray


8 year-old Maryam, channeling communication between the jinn and her family
a time that she would look into the palms of her hand (to see what the jinn would have her see)
she instructed the jinn that he could enter her father's body, with his permission, jinn wanted to taste human food

her father and brothers would listen carefully to her descriptions
(authoritative figure of the father becomes the pupil of his little daughter hearing her words of advice)--alterity



“in the middle east, the child is seen as the crucial generational link in the family unit, the key to its continuation, the living person that ties the present to the past and to the future” (Ferena 1005)

“in the indian case ...the child is seen as already being full person in domains to which the mother does not have access” (Veena Das 1989)


...healer or magician may utilize a child to bring into presence or communicate with the spiritual being
(***the presence of child in Ma'rekeh-Giri معرکه گیری?***)

...................................

ecstatic identifications with...


one could legitimately dream of the prophet, but one could never call him forth
both these paths escape jinn, having a dynamic if disruptive presence within human world, alongside the presence of angels and saints

there can be no other experience of the prophet other than through the record of his words and deeds??!!!



the daily struggle to presence the prophet


علما olama =/= بچه bache
face-to-face =/= via-jinn

face-to-face learning from the olama (the authoritative transmitters) versus a faceless and voiceless jinn with his child serving as its ventriloquist (arusak gardan)
[...]