Narrative, Memory and the Crisis of Mimesis: the Case of Adam Elsheimer and Giordano Bruno

The triangular space between memory, narrative and pictorial representation is the terrain on which this article is developed. Taking the art of memory developed by Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600) and the art of painting subtly revolutionised by Adam Elsheimer (1578 – 1610) as test-cases, it is shown how both subvert the norms of mimesis and narration prevalent throughout the Renaissance, how disrupted memory creates “incoherent” narratives, and how perspective and the notion of “place” are questioned in a corollary way. Two paintings by Elsheimer are analysed and shown to include, in spite of their supposed “realism”, numerous incoherencies, aporias and strange elements – often overlooked. Thus, they do not conform to two of the basic rules governing both the classical art of memory and the humanist art of painting: well-defined places and the exhaustive translatability of words into images (and vice-versa). In the work of Bruno, both his philosophical claims and the literary devices he uses are analysed as hints for a similar (and contemporaneous) undermining of conventions about the transparency and immediacy of representation.

A fúria do comentário: hipertrofia hermenêutica na era da mimesis

Esta tese pretende discutir a história da modernidade como a história do abandono do corpo. A era moderna é a era da mimesis e, como tal, faz da interpretação um componente necessário do horizonte histórico imposto por ela mesma. A interpretação veio para ficar: mas as sucessivas tentativas de apropriação do mundo pelos conceitos anestesiaram os sentidos do homem moderno. Os excessos hermenêuticos contribuíram para um empobrecimento da experiência da arte. A pós-modernidade se abre, para nós, como um novo horizonte histórico, e oferta-se como oportunidade para recuperarmos aquilo que perdemos: o nosso corpo, os nossos próprios sentidos.

Troublesome Amateurs: Theatre, ethics and the labour of mimesis

Kear, A. 'Troublesome Amateurs: Theatre, ethics and the labour of mimesis', Performance Research (2005) 10 (1), 26-46 RAE2008

Every Situation has its Rhythm: Acoustic Mimesis and Sonic Exoticism in Tambours Sur La Digue.

This article examines the soundscapes of Ariane Mnouchkine’s Tambours Sur La Digue and explores the concept of acoustic mimesis located in the performance as a dramaturgical strategy to create, aurally, an imagined Far East. In Tambours, mimesis is the performative principle exemplified by the presentation of the mise en scène, and most distinctly Mnouckine’s decision to adapt the Japanese performance tradition of Bunraku through a process of 'reversed' mimicry (in which human bodies simulate the wooden marionettes of the Japanese style). Mimesis pervades the acoustemologies of the performance as it is heard in the extracted sounds, styles, and rhythms of Asian musical modes and movements that consequently become dislocated from context; the sounds become imitated, iconicised and exoticised as sonic signatures as they reify the Orientalist spectacle. The 'oriental' soundscape, reverberating with exotic overtones, becomes the means by which the production creates an imaginary Orient – one in which the Orient Other is silenced, and is resounded only through the musical sensibilities of the Occidental Self.

The Invention of Hebrew Prose: Literary Language and the Dilemmas of Mimesis, pt. 3, sect. 1

DIscussion of how the Hebrew literary language developed and how it is used to create a reality.

The Invention of Hebrew Prose: Literary Language and the Dilemmas of Mimesis, pt. 3, sect. 2

DIscussion of how the Hebrew literary language developed and how it is used to create a reality

The Invention of Hebrew Prose: Literary Language and the Dilemmas of Mimesis, pt. 2

DIscussion of how the Hebrew literary language developed and how it is used to create a reality.

The Invention of Hebrew Prose: Literary Language and the Dilemmas of Mimesis, pt. 1

DIscussion of how the Hebrew literary language developed and how it is used to create a reality

O Aleph e seus duplos: mimesis e auto-reflexividade na obra de Jorge Luis Borges

This study approach the Jorge Luis Borges s prose of fiction under the perspective of mimesis and the self-reflexivity. The hypothesis is that the Aleph is a central symbol of the Borges s fictional universe. The rewriting and the retake of this symbol along of his work entail to a reflection about the possibilities and the limits of mimesis. This study is divided in three parts which contain two chapters. The first part Bibliographic revision and conceptual fundaments of inquiry discuss the critical fortune of author (Chapter 1) and the concepts that will give sustentation to the inquiry (Chapter 2). The second part About the Borges s aesthetic project sketch out the literary project defended by Borges that is his conception of the literature and his ideological matrix (Chapter 3) beside his anti-psychologism and his nostalgia of epos (Chapter 4). The third and last part is entitled The Aleph and his doubles. In the chapter 5 this study analyses the short story El Aleph and consider its centrality on the Borges s work. The argument that is on this short story Borges elaborates a reflection about mimesis. In the chapter 6, on the same hand, four short stories will be analysed: Funes el memorioso ; El Libro de Arena ; El evangelio según Marcos and Del rigor en la ciencia . The conclusion that is the Borges s literature is self-awake of its process as such demonstrate its parodic sense and its bookish origin. Hence, the Borges s literature overlapping the mimetic crisis of language and challenge the limits between fiction and reality. However, it doesn t surrender to the nihilist perspective that is closing of literature to the world