Peter Nesteruk | Beijing Language and Culture University (original) (raw)
Papers by Peter Nesteruk
Rituality: ‘Return of Gift’ and other Essays on ‘Gift Exchange’ in the Modern World., 2024
A collection of essays on the role of rituality in modern culture and identity
The Double Economy: Essays on Diremption. Vol. III, 2024
Further essays on Diremeption
The role of temporality in the impact and interpretation of art has been long neglected. This boo... more The role of temporality in the impact and interpretation of art has been long neglected. This book will redress this balance by insisting that our sense of temporality and the rhetoric of eternity can not only can be used to decode the world of the visual image, of art and architecture, but also to explain our position relative to the art work, as to what we see before us. As such this book consists of a sequence of readings of images and buildings, of framed art and frame of our lived experience, the built environment.Beginning with representative works from the epoch of medieval and renaissance art, a key period in the history of Western art in terms of temporal rhetoric in narrative and priority, the analysis will progress to the seventeenth century onward, when such potentials were to become hidden, but still effective, and will a chapter on photography. The last two chapters will focus upon architecture and our experience of the city, from an analysis of the Pantheon in Rome to...
The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 2000
This article will examine the role of ritual in recent drama. The problems and limitations of pri... more This article will examine the role of ritual in recent drama. The problems and limitations of prior theoretical definition and dramatic use will be noted and an alternative reading proposed. The relationship between ritual and performativity will be discussed with a focus upon sacrificial forms. "Performativity" here will not refer to the difference of an actual performance to the written text, but rather the effect in both of the extra intensity of words which are also acts (it is in this general sense that rituals are treated as performative, as both real and not-real, as words and gestures and as the acts they symbolize). The special relationship ritual imposes upon an audience will be noted, as will the implications of this relationship to the issue of the sacred and to the construction of collective identity. The question of whether drama is ritual, implying a special genre relation to the audience, or whether drama contains ritual (or both), will be attempted. The di...
In a previous article on ritual and drama, I suggested that ritual in British political drama of ... more In a previous article on ritual and drama, I suggested that ritual in British political drama of the 1990s should be read as performance and confirmation of identity. The assertion of group membership and loyalty was found to be made from the sacrifice of Others (or from self-sacrifice); furthermore, this ritual destruction was read as confirming a current identity (and not the means to a more authentic nor liberated identity). A good test of this hypothesis, therefore, would be its application to dramas that focus on identity; the so-called “minority” drama of America in the late-twentieth century would appear to offer an ideal testing ground. In pursuit of this end, this article will offer a re-interpretation of a famous Albee drama, examine several key African-American and feminist-themed dramas from the sixties onward, and conclude with a discussion of the politics of ritual exchange.
This thesis will consider the incest theme in twentieth century American literature. Antecedents ... more This thesis will consider the incest theme in twentieth century American literature. Antecedents will be considered, especially the rich traditions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the main focus will be on three writers central to the American canon: F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and Vladimir Nabokov. All three of these writers have produced texts in which their claim to literary fame and their appropriation of the incest theme are inextricable: namely, Fitzgerald's Tender is the Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom! and Go Down, Moses, and Nabokov's Lolita. I will conclude with a chapter which examines how this debt to literary tradition, this canonical pride of place of the incest theme, has been transformed in its trajectory through the latter half of the twentieth century. In the thesis, I will examine the utilisation of these 'variations on a theme' as a form of rhetoric manifesting itself in a wide variety of use...
The Double Economy: Essays in Diremption. , 2021
The Double Economy: Essays in Diremption. , 2021
from Double economy, Essays on Diremption, 2021
Three forms of philosophical repetition - and diremption...
Tantalising Prefatory Sentence. Herein our mind's nervous system's selection and fusion of the ra... more Tantalising Prefatory Sentence. Herein our mind's nervous system's selection and fusion of the raw data of the senses into a synesthetic 'picture' of the world, our 'experience of the here and now', so of the (our) present (and its others) as the basis for difference; with this later as basis for a differentiation which both enables division into Subject: Predicate, Topic/Comment, Set and Element type binary structures; but also, at its foundation, including insufficiency and over-generalisation in the distinction made (say between topic and comment in the use of classifying 'and' or 'or'); so with this enabling difference also comes the basis for contradiction and aporia. A fall into sea of differentiation which is irreversible.
The first part of 'Chinese Gardens' is a poetics of space consisting of analysis of key features ... more The first part of 'Chinese Gardens' is a poetics of space consisting of analysis of key features and their meaning effects, the role of experience in spatial context is also discussed ; the second part is a temporal phenomenology with the experiential cycles of time read as key categories.
The Medieval Discourse, 2003
The role played by temporality in the affectivity and interpretation of art has been, in general,... more The role played by temporality in the affectivity and interpretation of art has been, in general, an area long and unjustly neglected. This is an omission that I wish to begin to redress in the course of this article. I want especially to comment upon medieval and renaissance art, treating them as key periods in the history of Western art in terms of their open and frequent use of temporal potentials for the furtherance of narrative and other rhetorical, that is, persuasive, ends. Such potentials were to become hidden, employed with terms of temporal presence and belief (and not simply as the external witness of a given narrative process or sacral event). (iii) The two previous stages should permit historians and cultural anthropologists to work upon reconstructions of devotion, meditation, the mentalité of a given artwork's implied audience, and their relations of collective self-recognition or construction of identity. The issue is one of achieving a viewpoint from within a community sharing a pattern of rhetoric, a code of communication.
This thesis will consider the incest theme in twentieth century American literature. Antecedents ... more This thesis will consider the incest theme in twentieth century American literature. Antecedents will be considered, especially the rich traditions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the main focus will be on three writers central to the American canon: F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and Vladimir Nabokov. All three of these writers have produced texts in which their claim to literary fame and their appropriation of the incest theme are inextricable: namely, Fitzgerald's Tender is the Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom! and Go Down, Moses, and Nabokov's Lolita. I will conclude with a chapter which examines how this debt to literary tradition, this canonical pride of place of the incest theme, has been transformed in its trajectory through the latter half of the twentieth century. In the thesis, I will examine the utilisation of these 'variations on a theme' as a form of rhetoric manifesting itself in a wide variety of use...
Rituality: ‘Return of Gift’ and other Essays on ‘Gift Exchange’ in the Modern World., 2024
A collection of essays on the role of rituality in modern culture and identity
The Double Economy: Essays on Diremption. Vol. III, 2024
Further essays on Diremeption
The role of temporality in the impact and interpretation of art has been long neglected. This boo... more The role of temporality in the impact and interpretation of art has been long neglected. This book will redress this balance by insisting that our sense of temporality and the rhetoric of eternity can not only can be used to decode the world of the visual image, of art and architecture, but also to explain our position relative to the art work, as to what we see before us. As such this book consists of a sequence of readings of images and buildings, of framed art and frame of our lived experience, the built environment.Beginning with representative works from the epoch of medieval and renaissance art, a key period in the history of Western art in terms of temporal rhetoric in narrative and priority, the analysis will progress to the seventeenth century onward, when such potentials were to become hidden, but still effective, and will a chapter on photography. The last two chapters will focus upon architecture and our experience of the city, from an analysis of the Pantheon in Rome to...
The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 2000
This article will examine the role of ritual in recent drama. The problems and limitations of pri... more This article will examine the role of ritual in recent drama. The problems and limitations of prior theoretical definition and dramatic use will be noted and an alternative reading proposed. The relationship between ritual and performativity will be discussed with a focus upon sacrificial forms. "Performativity" here will not refer to the difference of an actual performance to the written text, but rather the effect in both of the extra intensity of words which are also acts (it is in this general sense that rituals are treated as performative, as both real and not-real, as words and gestures and as the acts they symbolize). The special relationship ritual imposes upon an audience will be noted, as will the implications of this relationship to the issue of the sacred and to the construction of collective identity. The question of whether drama is ritual, implying a special genre relation to the audience, or whether drama contains ritual (or both), will be attempted. The di...
In a previous article on ritual and drama, I suggested that ritual in British political drama of ... more In a previous article on ritual and drama, I suggested that ritual in British political drama of the 1990s should be read as performance and confirmation of identity. The assertion of group membership and loyalty was found to be made from the sacrifice of Others (or from self-sacrifice); furthermore, this ritual destruction was read as confirming a current identity (and not the means to a more authentic nor liberated identity). A good test of this hypothesis, therefore, would be its application to dramas that focus on identity; the so-called “minority” drama of America in the late-twentieth century would appear to offer an ideal testing ground. In pursuit of this end, this article will offer a re-interpretation of a famous Albee drama, examine several key African-American and feminist-themed dramas from the sixties onward, and conclude with a discussion of the politics of ritual exchange.
This thesis will consider the incest theme in twentieth century American literature. Antecedents ... more This thesis will consider the incest theme in twentieth century American literature. Antecedents will be considered, especially the rich traditions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the main focus will be on three writers central to the American canon: F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and Vladimir Nabokov. All three of these writers have produced texts in which their claim to literary fame and their appropriation of the incest theme are inextricable: namely, Fitzgerald's Tender is the Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom! and Go Down, Moses, and Nabokov's Lolita. I will conclude with a chapter which examines how this debt to literary tradition, this canonical pride of place of the incest theme, has been transformed in its trajectory through the latter half of the twentieth century. In the thesis, I will examine the utilisation of these 'variations on a theme' as a form of rhetoric manifesting itself in a wide variety of use...
The Double Economy: Essays in Diremption. , 2021
The Double Economy: Essays in Diremption. , 2021
from Double economy, Essays on Diremption, 2021
Three forms of philosophical repetition - and diremption...
Tantalising Prefatory Sentence. Herein our mind's nervous system's selection and fusion of the ra... more Tantalising Prefatory Sentence. Herein our mind's nervous system's selection and fusion of the raw data of the senses into a synesthetic 'picture' of the world, our 'experience of the here and now', so of the (our) present (and its others) as the basis for difference; with this later as basis for a differentiation which both enables division into Subject: Predicate, Topic/Comment, Set and Element type binary structures; but also, at its foundation, including insufficiency and over-generalisation in the distinction made (say between topic and comment in the use of classifying 'and' or 'or'); so with this enabling difference also comes the basis for contradiction and aporia. A fall into sea of differentiation which is irreversible.
The first part of 'Chinese Gardens' is a poetics of space consisting of analysis of key features ... more The first part of 'Chinese Gardens' is a poetics of space consisting of analysis of key features and their meaning effects, the role of experience in spatial context is also discussed ; the second part is a temporal phenomenology with the experiential cycles of time read as key categories.
The Medieval Discourse, 2003
The role played by temporality in the affectivity and interpretation of art has been, in general,... more The role played by temporality in the affectivity and interpretation of art has been, in general, an area long and unjustly neglected. This is an omission that I wish to begin to redress in the course of this article. I want especially to comment upon medieval and renaissance art, treating them as key periods in the history of Western art in terms of their open and frequent use of temporal potentials for the furtherance of narrative and other rhetorical, that is, persuasive, ends. Such potentials were to become hidden, employed with terms of temporal presence and belief (and not simply as the external witness of a given narrative process or sacral event). (iii) The two previous stages should permit historians and cultural anthropologists to work upon reconstructions of devotion, meditation, the mentalité of a given artwork's implied audience, and their relations of collective self-recognition or construction of identity. The issue is one of achieving a viewpoint from within a community sharing a pattern of rhetoric, a code of communication.
This thesis will consider the incest theme in twentieth century American literature. Antecedents ... more This thesis will consider the incest theme in twentieth century American literature. Antecedents will be considered, especially the rich traditions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the main focus will be on three writers central to the American canon: F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and Vladimir Nabokov. All three of these writers have produced texts in which their claim to literary fame and their appropriation of the incest theme are inextricable: namely, Fitzgerald's Tender is the Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom! and Go Down, Moses, and Nabokov's Lolita. I will conclude with a chapter which examines how this debt to literary tradition, this canonical pride of place of the incest theme, has been transformed in its trajectory through the latter half of the twentieth century. In the thesis, I will examine the utilisation of these 'variations on a theme' as a form of rhetoric manifesting itself in a wide variety of use...
A comparison of a photographic portrait of a tearful female star of recent Chinese art history, '... more A comparison of a photographic portrait of a tearful female star of recent Chinese art history, 'Biaotai' by Jiang Zhi (in 'Biaotai') with an image from British art and cultural history, 'Myra', by Marcus Harvey (in 'Sensation') based upon a found image, a documentary photo-portrait, which is then contrasted to a similarly altered photoportrait by Gaobo ('Parle'), and to Xing Danwen's, photographic diptych of a woman (or two women), front and back… 你的痛就射我的痛 (readily available online).