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Sound Research WIKINDX |
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Gumbrecht, H. U. (2004). Production of presence: What meaning cannot convey. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard (17/09/2018, 15:30) Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard (08/11/2023, 07:46) |
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| Resource type: Book Peer reviewed ID no. (ISBN etc.): 0-8047-4916-7 BibTeX citation key: Gumbrecht2004 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: Other-presence, Presence Creators: Gumbrecht Publisher: Stanford University Press (Stanford) Resources citing this (Bibliography: WIKINDX Master Bibliography) |
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| Abstract |
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Back cover blurb: "Production of Presence is a comprehensive version of the thinking of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, one of the most consistently original literary scholars writing today. It offers a personalized account of some of the central theoretical movements in literary studies and in the humanities over the past thirty years, together with an equally personal view of a possible future. Based on this assessment of the past and the future of literary studies and the humanities, the book develops the provocative thesis that, through their exclusive dedication to interpretation, i.e. to the reconstruction and attribution of meaning, the humanities have become incapable of addressing a dimension in all cultural phenomena that is as important as the dimension of meaning. Interpretation alone cannot do justice to the dimension of "presence," a dimension in which cultural phenomena and cultural events become tangible and have an impact on our senses and our bodies. Production of Presence is a passionate plea for a rethinking and a reshaping of the intellectual practice within the humanities."
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard |
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This is a form of presence that is different to that described in VR etc. It deals with things in the world as they become present to us.
This seems rather passive to me and, although there is still agency involved, perhaps giving too much credit to those things. Besides, what is present in an environment (a model of the external world – res cogitans of res extensae) is centered and is the centre of that environment. This is the self. Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard |
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p.xv
"What this book ultimately argues for is a relation to the things of the world that could oscillate between presence effects and meaning effects. Presence effects, however, exclusively appeal to the senses."
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
Keywords: Presence |
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p.17
Gumbrecht states: "What is "present" to us (very much in the sense of the Latin form prae-esse) is in front of us, in reach of and tangible for our bodies."
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
Keywords: Presence |
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p.17
"Cartesian cogito made the ontology of human existence depend exclusively on the movements of the human mind."
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
Keywords: Presence Environment |
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p.26
"For the assumption that the phenomena have their inherent meanings woud not yet change on the threshold between medieval and early modern culture (interpretation would not be understood, broadly, as an attribution rather than as an identification of meaning until the nineteenth century)."
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
Keywords: Hermeneutics Knowledge Presence |
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p.83
Argues that, because presence-cultures have the body as a self-referent, "space, that is, that dimension that constitutes itself around bodies, must be the primordial dimension in which the relationship between different humans and the things of the world are being negotiated. Time, in contrast, is the primordial dimension for any meaning culture, because there seems to be an unavoidable relationship between consciousness and temporality [...] Above all, however, time is the primordial dimension of any meaning culture, because it takes time to carry out those transformative actions through which meaning cultures define the relationship between humans and the world."
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
Keywords: Embodiment Environment Presence Space Time |
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pp.28–30
Gumbrecht gives an example of medieval (in this case Catholic) conception of presence in the Eucharist: Christ's body and blood are present in the bread and the wine, they "become tangible as substances in the "forms" of bread and wine" (p.28).
Such thinking derives from the Aristotelian concept of the sign. Whereas today's semiotics views a sign as comprised of signifier and signified (i.e. material surface and a depth that is meaning), this concept comprises a substance ("that which is present because it demands a space" (p.29)) and a form ("that through which the substance becomes perceptible" (p.29)). "There is no "immaterial" meaning detached from a "material signifier"" (p.29). Thus, bread and wine were easily conceived of as the forms making the substance (of Christ) present and perceptible. Protestant theology changed this into the concept of an "evocation of Christ's body and blood as "meanings"" (p.29). That is, the bread and wine were not actually body and blood but rather meant or signified the body and blood. Gumbrecht connects this change in the concept of signs to the emergence of historicity – "in modern understanding, signs at least potentially leave the substances that they evoke at a temporal and spatial distance" (p.30). Added by: Mark Grimshaw-AagaardKeywords: Presence |
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p.77
Equates his concept of presence with Heidegger's concept of Being.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard
Keywords: Presence |