Thorsten Botz-Bornstein

Welcome

Greetings from the GULF UNIVERSITY for SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY in Kuwait.

Bonjour. Vous pouvez accéder au site français en cliquant sur "To French site". Egalement: des articles en français sur ma vie dans une universit? noire aux Etats-Unis se trouvent sur mon ancien blog "Alobama" de

botzbornstein.blog.lemonde.fr.

"I am not a specialist but a spatialist, which means that I attempt to understand similar cultural phenomena within different spaces.

On the most abstract methodological level I adhere to the conviction that play, style, and dreams have something in common and that any cultural phenomenon should be examined within a triangle formed by these three notions.

Is the dream a playful phenomenon? Does its activity, especially in the domain of aesthetics, have affinities with play? Is style essentially playful? Does the dream (need to) have a style through which it obtains its particular way of being? Does the theoretical notion of style have qualities that are dependent on an ontology of the dream? Does play have a dreamlike quality or does it need a certain style in order to exist?"

Updates:

Call for Contributions: The Philosophy of Viagra published by Rodopi in the "Philosophy of Sex and Love" series. Editor: Thorsten Botz-Bornstein.

NEW: Thorsten Botz-Bornstein: Aesthetics and Politics of Space in Russia and Japan: A Comparative Philosophical Study (Lanham: Lexington Books). Available: Sept. 28, 2009.

"An intellectual tour-de-force, Aesthetics and Politics of Space in Russia and Japan succeeds admirably on several fronts, including its presentation of the first sustained comparison of philosophies from Japan and Russia and the introduction of Botz-Bornstein's original concept of 'convergence'..." — Michael F. Marra, University of California-Los Angeles. Go to Books

For "FILMS AND DREAMS" please click on "Books" in the menu. Paperback $27.

"Films and Dreams contains a great deal of vital argument which ... should provide a great deal of impetus for much needed discussion" -- Screening the Past

"[Botz-Bornstein's] cosmopolitanism is not just a matter of research agenda and academic affiliations, but it is what might be called a 'philosophical cosmopolitanism', a cultivated taste for foreign spaces, places, languages and flavors, a trained habit of engaging with and decoding other cultures, as well as an ability to articulate complex narratives in relation to this engagement." -- Parallax Read review

DARUMA (nr. spéciale architecture japonaise) ici

articles par Maurice Sauzet, Gunter Nitschke, Ryosuke Ohashi, Augustin Berque, Sey Takeyama et d'autres. Directeur: Thorsten Botz-Bornstein

NEW: In Dreamland. A philosophical story for children and adults with outrageous absurdities, illogical constellations, and surrealistic nonsense by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein (57 pages).

Published in German by Das dosierte Leben: Das Avant-Avantgarde Magazin 66, 2009 with illustrations by Michael Zander. Also suitable for "Philosophy for Children" classes. Simply grotesque! Preview and download: click here. Can also be ordered from koenig_jochen at web.de.

The research project "THE COOL-KAWAII: How Afro-Japanese Aesthetics Conquers the World" is here.

My new blog: What is Cool? Comments invited.

An appreciation of Ingmar Bergman by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein is here.

Photos of the conference on "Cognition and Language" in Hangzhou, China are here.

BOOKS by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein:

Aesthetics and Politics of Space in Russia and Japan: A Comparative Philosophical Study (Lanham: Lexington-Rowman + Littlefield, 2009), 174 p.

Place and Dream: Japan and the Virtual (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2003), 216 p.

Films and Dreams: Tarkovsky, Bergman, Sokurov, Kubrick, Wong Kar-Wai (Lanham: Lexington-Rowman + Littlefield, 2007), 176pp.

Vasily Sesemann: Experience, Formalism and the Question of Being (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, June 2006), 155 p.

Virtual Reality: The Last Human Narrative? (Forthcoming, Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi 2008) in the 'Critical Posthumanism Series' edited by S. Herbrechter and I. Callus, 190 p.

Co-Editor: Re-ethnicizing the Minds? Cultural Revival in Contemporary Philosophy (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, March 2006).

Editor: Culture, Nature, Memes: Dynamic Cognitive Theories (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008).

Editor: L'Architecture Japonaise et l'Occident: De la communication interculturelle en architecture. Special issue of Daruma: Revue d'études japonaises (Toulouse: Spring 2007).

(For detailed descriptions of the books click here)

Some popular philosophical articles by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein

The New Surrealism: Loft Stories, Reality Television, and Amateur Dream-Censors in Janus Head 9: 1, 2006.

Thoughts About Contemporary Chinese Architecture: When the Monumental Becomes Decorative.

Liquid Grammar, Liquid Style: On the East Asian Way of Speaking English or Reflections on the Linguistic Air-Guitar in CTheory April 2006.

Clony Virtual Dreamsphere [on the "Stay Young Forever" Diesel advertisement campaign]. In CTheory Mai 2003.

If you are interested in the philosophy of cars you will like this para-academic article on the new Mini: The New Mini and

Japanese Pottery: Of Pasts and Pastes. (Followed by an interview with the Japanese potter RAKU Kichizaemon).

If your children play with Lego and Bionicles and you would like to get a deeper insight into what your kids are doing - here is a para-philosophical article on Lego: Overcoming the Logos, Overcoming Lego: From Imagined Space to the Spatial Imagination of the Bionicle World in Kritikos February 2005.

Spotlights on Japan: 1. "Your Face is a Scape:" A Short Exercise in Facial Geomorphology. 2. In Praise of Blandness: Some Thoughts on Japanese Television

CONTACT

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein is Assistant Professor at the Gulf University of Science and Technology in Kuwait. Contact: Philosophy Department, PO Box 7207 Hawally, 32093 KUWAIT. Email: thorstenbotz at hotmail dot com, thorstenbotz at yahoo dot fr.

Thorsten is on Facebook.

search hits since June 2004.

ARTICLES (academic) by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein:

ON JAPANESE PHILOSOPHY

'Wabi and Kitsch: Two Japanese Paradigms' in AE: Canadian Aesthetics Journal 15, Fall 2008.

'Dreams in Buddhism and Western Aesthetics: Some Thoughts on Play, Style, and Space' in Asian Philosophy 17:1, 2007. French version

'Nishida and Wittgenstein: From "Pure Experience" to Lebensform or New Perspectives for a Philosophy of Intercultural Communication' in Asian Philosophy 13:1, 2003, pp. 53-70.

'Contingency and the "Time of the Dream:" Kuki Shuzo and French Prewar Philosophy' in Philosophy East and West 50:4, Oct. 2000. (link through JSTOR)

'Iki, Style, Trace: Shuzo Kuki and the Spirit of Hermeneutics' in Philosophy East and West Vol. 47, Nr. 4, October 1997, p. 554-580. (Link through JSTOR)

ON JAPANESE CULTURE

'Cool, Kawaii, and New World Modernism in Mangas and Anime' forthcoming in A. Barkman & J. Steiff (eds) Manga and Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court, 2010)

ON RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY

'Empathy vs. Abstraction: 20th Century Interactions of German and Russian Aesthetics or Attempts to Retrieve the World' in CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 9:2 (June 2007).

'Vassilij Sesemann: Formalism, Neo-Kantianism, and the Question of Being' in Slavic and East European Journal 46:4, 2003, p. 512-550. (link through JSTOR)

'A New Approach to the Psychic Subject: Vassilij Sesemann, Bakhtin, Lacan' in Essays in Poetics Oct. 2000, pp. 11-40. Finnish version in Synteesi 1998:2.

'A Mediator Between Russia and the West: V. Sesemann as a Philosopher and Semiotician' in E. Tarasti (ed.): The Finnish School of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999).

ON JAPANESE AND RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY

'Philosophical Conceptions of Cultural Space in Russia and Japan: Comparing Nishida Kitaro and Semyon Frank' in Society and Space 4, 2008.

'Russian and Japanese Philosophies: A Comparative Study' in Philosophical Frontiers 3:1, 2008, 65-85.

'Russia, Japan, China, and the Resistance to Modernity: Eurasianism and Pan-Asianism Revisited' in The International Journal of Asian Philosophical Association 1:1, 2008.

'From Community to Time-Space-Development: Trubetzkoy, Nishida, Watsuji' in Asian Philosophy 17:3, 2007.

''Virtual Reality and Virtual Irreality: On Noh-Plays and Icons' in Theandros: The Online Journal of Orthodox Christian Theology and Philosophy 2:2, 2004

'The I and the Thou: A Dialogue Between Nishida Kitaro and Mikhail Bakhtin' in Japan Review 16, 2004, 251-275.

ON CHINESE PHILOSOPHY

'Genes, Memes, and the Chinese Concept of Wen: Towards A Nature/Culture Model of Genetics' forthcoming in Philosophy East and West 60:2 April 2010.

ON ARCHITECTURE

'WANG Shu and the Possibilities of Architectural Regionalism in China' in The Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, 1, 2009.

'Cardboard Houses with Wings: The Architecture of Samuel Mockbee' (on Alabama architecture) in The Journal of Aesthetic Education (forthcoming 2009).

'Wittgenstein's Stonborough House and the Architecture of Tadao Ando: Two Unusual Approaches to Modernity' published on this site.

'"Magic Internationalism" or the Paradox of Globalization: Louis Kahn's National Assembly Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh' in PTAH: Journal of the Alvar Aalto Academy 1: 5, June 2005.

'Thoughts on Contemporary Chinese Architecture: When the Monumental Becomes Decorative' published on this site.

'From Aalto to Ando or the Search for the "Real" Form of Dwelling' in The Nordic Journal of Architectural Research 2, 2003: 1-5.

'Between "Verfremdung" and "Entfremdung": The Architecture of Alvar Aalto and Reima Pietilä' in DATUTOP Journal of Architectural Theory 21, 2001.

'Empathy, Alienation, Style, Non-Style: The Architecture of Reima Pietilä' in Le carré bleu 1998: 2.

ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPACE

'European Transfigurations: Eurafrica and Eurasia. Coudenhove-Kalergi and N.S. Trubetzkoy re-examined' in The European Legacy 12:5, 2007.

'Philosophy as Space: Goethe's Weltliteratur and a Potential Worldphilosophy' in Botz-B./Hengelbrock (eds): Re-ethnicizing the Minds? Tendencies of Cultural Revival in Contemporary Philosophy (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi in 2006).

'Europe: Space, Spirit, Style' in The European Legacy 8: 2, 2003, 179-187.

'Khora or Idyll: The Space of the Dream' in: The Philosophical Forum 33: 2 Summer 2002:

ON FILM

'Would You Accept a Politics of "Multi-Realism?" Comparing The Matrix with Tarkovsky's Stalker and Solaris' in Cinemascope 10 "Falsehood and Cinema" January-June 2008.

'Wong Kar-Wai and the Culture of the Kawaii' in SubStance in 116, 37:2, 2008.

'From "Ethno-Dream" to Hollywood: Schnitzler's Traumnovelle, Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and the Problem of "Deterritorialisation"' in Consciousness, Literature and the Arts Nr 8:2, August 2007.

'Ingmar Bergman and Dream After Freud' in Journal of Symbolism 7, 2007.

'Tarkovsky and Benjamin: Image, Allegory, and Einfuehlung' in Film and Philosophy 11, 2006.

'Semiotics of Strangeness: Andrei Tarkovsky's Dream' in Applied Semiotics Nr. 15, 2005.

'Realism, Dream and "Strangeness" in Andrei Tarkovsky' in Film-Philosophy 8: 38 Nov. 2004.

'Aesthetics and Mysticism: Plotinus, Tarkovsky, and the Question of "Grace"' in Transcendent Philosophy 5: 4, Dec. 2004.

'On the Blurring of Lines: Some Thoughts on Alexander Sokurov' in Cinetext Sept. 2002.

'The Overcoming of Paradigms: From Formalist Film Theory to Andrei Tarkovskij' in L. Moreva & I. Yevlampiev (eds.): Paradigms of Philosophizing (St. Petersburg: Eidos, 1995), p. 266-272.

'Heidegger's, Tarkovsky's, and C. D. Friedrich's Landscapes or: The Perception of Space in Dream' published on this site.

ON VIRTUAL REALITY/GLOBALIZATION

'Is Critical Regionalist Philosophy Possible? Some Meta-Philosophical Considerations in Comparative and Continental Philosophy April 2010.

'Genes and Pixels: Bio-Genetics' Virtual Aesthetics' in Angelaki 11: 2 2006.

'Ethnophilosophy, Comparative Philosophy, Pragmatism: Towards a Philosophy of Ethnoscapes' in Philosophy East & West 56:1, Jan. 2006.

'From Civilization to Culture: About the Dreamlike Character of Global Civilization' in Sura P. Rath (ed.): Dialogics of Cultural Encounters: New Conversation Among Nations and Nationalities (Dheli: Pencraft International, 2005).

'From Perspective to "All-Unity" or the Narrative of Virtual Cosmology.' [on Berdaev, Gebser, Perspectivism, and Cyberspace] in Seeking Wisdom 2, 2005.

'Virtual Reality and Dream: Towards the Autistic Condition?' in Philosophy in the Contemporary World 11: 2, 2004.

ON AESTHETICS/STYLISTICS

'Baudrillard on Cuteness' in International Journal of Baudrillard Studies 7:1, 2010.

'If Barbey d’Aurevilly had known about Virtual Reality: Dandyism Revisited' in International Journal of Baudrillard Studies 6:1, 2009.

'The Problem of the Double Ego in Paul Delvaux and Husserl' in Phenomenological Inquiry 33, 2009.

'Dream, Style and Stylization: Reflections on Spinoza' in Copula 21, 2004.

'The Dream of Language: Wittgenstein's Concept of Dream in the Context of "Style" and "Lebensform"' in The Philosophical Forum 34:1, 2003, pp. 73-90.

'Style and Anti-Style: A Modern Adventure' in International Yearbook of Aesthetics Vol. 9 (International Association for Aesthetics, 2006).

'The Structuralist as a Doctor: Thoughts on Lotman, Bakhtin and Gadamer' in Essays in Poetics: Journal of the Neo-Formalist Circle 21, 1996, p. 103-134.

'"Ver-fremdung" against "Ent-fremdung": Stylistics against Post-Modernism?' in E. Oesch, T. Vadén & I. Koskinen (eds.) Methods of Reading (Tampere University Press, 1995) pp. 223-236.

'Rulefollowing in Dandyism: Style as an Overcoming of Rule and Structure' in The Modern Language Review, 90, April 1995, p. 285-295.

ON ART/PAINTING

'Frozen Dreams between East and West: Kitsch and Anti-Kitsch in Jeff Koons and Mariko Mori' forthcoming in Art in Society 9, 2010.

'The Transcendental Blandness of YAN Pei-Ming’s International Landscapes' in Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 8:4 July 2009.

'New Portraits of the Ugly Chinaman: The Art of LIU Xiaodong' in Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 7:2 March 2008.

'Paul Delvaux: Dreams, Landscapes and "Double Egos".' Catalogue Text for the exposition 'Paul Delvaux' at the Museum of Foreign Art, Helsinki Oct. 2000 (republished in French on this site).

PUBLICATIONS IN FRENCH

'Chôra: L'Espace du rêve et la question de l'authenticité' in A. Berque (ed.) Logique du lieu et dépassement de la modernité (Bruxelles: Ousia, 1999).

'Shuzo Kuki et la "philosophie de la contingence" française. Une Communication unique entre l'Orient et l'Occident' in Revue Philosophique de Louvain fév. 1999.

'Le "je" et le "tu": un dialogue entre Nishida Kitaro et Mikhail Bakhtine in Jacynthe Tremblay (ed.) Enjeux de la philosophie japonaise du XXe siècle (Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2007).

'De Aalto à Ando ou la recherche de la "vraie" forme d'habitation' in L'Architecture Japonaise et l'Occident: De la communication interculturelle en architecture. Special issue of Daruma (Toulouse: 2006).

'La Maison Stonborough de Wittgenstein et l'architecture de Tadao Ando: Deux approches exceptionelles vers la modernité' in L'Architecture Japonaise et l'Occident: De la communication interculturelle en architecture (Toulouse: Daruma, 2007).

'Réalité virtuelle et rêve. Vers la condition autiste?' in L'Aleph 12, déc. 2003. Download pdf here: http://www.freewebs.com/botzbornsteinethno/virtuel.autisme

'De la pâte des rêves et du cinéma de la cruauté: Quelques pensées sur Andrei Tarkovski' dans Stalker.

'Interprétation nishidien d'une remarque de Sartre sur le style' in M. Sicard + L. Guillain (eds): Sartre et le Zen (Paris: M-Editer, 2005).

'L'expérience pure et la conscience du jeu: Nishida Kitaro et William James' in L'Art du Comprendre (Paris) 16, 2007.

'Résistants et esclaves: Le Japon, la Chine et le Pan-Asiatisme' (texte pour l'Atelier Asie, Paris 2007). Télécharger pdf ici.

'Les rêves dans le Bouddhisme et dans l’esthétique occidentale: Questions de style, de jeu et d’espace' in Editions Léo Scheer m@nuscrits

BOOK REVIEWS

'A Dandy in Alabama: Allen Shelton, Dreamworlds of Alabama' in Consciousness, Literature and the Arts 9:3, 2008.

'Costica Bradatan: The Other Bishop Berkeley' in The European Legacy 4:3 June 2009.

'Dwight N. Hopkins (ed.): Black Faith and Public Talk' in International Journal of Public Theology 2009 (forthcoming).

'Mazhar Hussain & Robert Wilkinson: The Pursuit of Comparative Aesthetics: An Interface between East and West' in Philosophy in Review February 2008.

'Stacy Gillis (ed.): The Matrix Trilogy: Cyberpunk Reloaded' in Film-Philosophy 12:1, 2008.

'Rana Mitter: A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World' in The European Legacy 12:1, Jan. 2007.

'Takeuchi Yoshimi: What is Modernity? ' in The European Legacy 11: 1, 2006.

'Richard F. Calichman: Contemporary Japanese Thought' in The European Legacy 11:5, 2006.

'Sylvère Lotringer & Paul Virilio: The Accident of Art' in Consciousness, Literature and the Arts 2006.

‘Dominique Château: Cinéma et philosophie’ in Film-Philosophy 10:2, 2006 (online).

'Sayo Matsuda: Autobiography of a Geisha' in The European Legacy 10: 7, 2005.

'Dorothée Halcour: Wie wirkt Kunst: Zur Psychologie des ästhetischen Erlebens' in Consciousness, Literature and the Arts 4:3, Dec. 2003.

'Ananta Ch. Sukla (ed.): Art and Experience' in Philosophy in Review February 2004.

'Leslie Pincus: Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki Shuzo and the Rise of National Aesthetics' in Annales (Paris: EHESS, March 1999)

FILM REVIEWS

'"My" Against "Architect."' On My Architect: A Son's Journey by Nathaniel Kahn (USA 2003) in Kritikos 3, Feb. 2006.

'Doors and Dreams.' On My Blueberry Dreams by Wong Kar-wai (USA 2007) Published on the Rowman and Littlefield website.

INTERVIEWS AND TRANSLATIONS

V. Sesemann: 'Сократ и проблема самопознания' ['Socates and the Problem of Self-Knowledge' from Evraziiskii Vremennik 4:2, 1925, extracts] in: Vassilij Sesemann: Experience, Formalism and the Question of Being.

'О прыроде поэтического образа' ['The Nature of the Poetic Image,' 1925] in: Vassilij Sesemann: Experience, Formalism and the Question of Being

L.P. Karsavin: 'Основы политики' ['The Foundations of Politics' from Evraziiskii Vremennik 5 1927] in: Vassilij Sesemann: Experience, Formalism and the Question of Being.

Bin Kimura: 'ŽžŠÔ‚ÌŠÔŽåŠÏ '[Intersubjectivity of Time] (in progress)

'Conversation philosophique avec Tadao Ando' in Daruma Autumn 2004.

'Interview with Kichizaemon Raku' (potter and heir of the Raku pottery dynasty).

'Interview with WANG Shu (Chinese architect): Hooligan Culture and the Importance of Place' in May 2007.