Ellen Esrock | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (original) (raw)
Papers by Ellen Esrock
Cognitive Processing
Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feeling-into, translated as empathy, serves as th... more Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feeling-into, translated as empathy, serves as the departure point for a proposal about viewing art using the body for a non-imitative form of empathy termed a transomatization and for other embodied operations. A transomatization occurs when viewers reinterpret a component or process of their own bodies to serve as a non-imitative stand-in, or correlate, for something outside of the self, specifically, some quality of an art work or its production. This creates an overlap of the self and other that might be experienced subjectively as a feeling of projection, an operation characteristic of empathy. Transomatizations and other embodied experiences are grounded in empathic, intersubjective modes of engaging others that begin in early life. As applications of the proposed concepts, six different embodiments of the viewer's breathing are explored in regard to Friedrich E. Church's 1848 oil painting Morning, Looking East over the Hudson Valley from the Catskill Mountains. Support for elements of the proposed concepts and applications is drawn from research in the biological and social sciences and from first person, embodied accounts of viewing.
Cognitive processing, 2018
Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feeling-into, translated as empathy, serves as the de... more Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feeling-into, translated as empathy, serves as the departure point for a proposal about viewing art using the body for a non-imitative form of empathy termed a transomatization and for other embodied operations. A transomatization occurs when viewers reinterpret a component or process of their own bodies to serve as a non-imitative stand-in, or correlate, for something outside of the self, specifically, some quality of an art work or its production. This creates an overlap of the self and other that might be experienced subjectively as a feeling of projection, an operation characteristic of empathy. Transomatizations and other embodied experiences are grounded in empathic, intersubjective modes of engaging others that begin in early life. As applications of the proposed concepts, six different embodiments of the viewer's breathing are explored in regard to Friedrich E. Church's 1848 oil painting Morning, Looking East over the Hudso...
Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feelinginto, translated as empathy, serves as the departu... more Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feelinginto, translated as empathy, serves as the departure point for a proposal about viewing art using the body for a nonimitative form of empathy termed a transomatization and for other embodied operations. A transomatization occurs when viewers reinterpret a component or process of their own bodies to serve as a non-imitative stand-in, or correlate, for something outside of the self, specifically, some quality of an art work or its production. This creates an overlap of the self and other that might be experienced subjectively as a feeling of projection, an operation characteristic of empathy. Transomatizations and other embodied experiences are grounded in empathic, intersubjective modes of engaging others that begin in early life. As applications of the proposed concepts, six different embodiments of the viewer's breathing are explored in regard to Friedrich E. Church's 1848 oil painting Morning, Looking East over the Hudson Valley from the Catskill Mountains. Support for elements of the proposed concepts and applications is drawn from research in the biological and social sciences and from first person, embodied accounts of viewing.
This article presents the views of four sets of authors, each taking concepts of embodied cogniti... more This article presents the views of four sets of authors, each taking concepts of embodied cognition into problem spaces where the new paradigm can be applied. The first considers consequences of embodied cognition on the legal system. The second explores how embodied cognition can change how we interpret and interact with art and literature. The third examines how we move through architectural spaces from an embodied cognition perspective. And the fourth addresses how music cognition is influenced by the approach. Each contribution is brief. They are meant to suggest the potential reach of embodied cognition, increase the visibility of applications, and inspire potential avenues for research.
Poetics Today, 2007
... Christo-pher Braider explores Annibale Carracci's Hercules at the Crossroads as a complex... more ... Christo-pher Braider explores Annibale Carracci's Hercules at the Crossroads as a complex emblem of the modern subject that foregrounds a bodily solilo-quy, and Albert Boime, in HolmanHunt's The Scapegoat, explores Hunt's work in terms of the complex processes of ...
Kelly, M. (ed.) Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics: Second Edition, 2014
Poetics Today, Jan 1, 2010
Embodied approaches to art history concerned with empathic projection can be reinforced by introd... more Embodied approaches to art history concerned with empathic projection can be reinforced by introducing empirical research that corroborates experiential observations about a spectator's bodily responses and by a more nuanced repertoire of bodily focused viewing. To reinforce existing scholarship, I examine a study exemplary in its analysis of embodied experience, Michael Fried's Menzel's Realism: Art and Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century Berlin (2002), proposing that the author's reported empathic experiences of Adolph Menzel's painting Rear Courtyard and House can be understood through concepts of sensorimotor imaging, hypnosis, and interoception. To expand the range and nuance of embodied responses, I rst counterpoint Fried's two interpretations of the painting Balcony Window, o ering a gendered reading and a taxonomy of three sensory modes of looking at art. Second, I shift to a micro level to explore how the spectator's breathing interacts with this painting and how these respiratory interactions create a mnemonic overlay that operates over time. Although these analyses focus on a nineteenth-century realist painting, the concepts and practices can be applied to diverse genres and media.
Comparative Literature Studies, Jan 1, 1980
Plato's reaction to Homer locates him quite solidly on the side of those fifth and sixth... more Plato's reaction to Homer locates him quite solidly on the side of those fifth and sixth century Greeks who found poetry wanting in reason and thus incapable of reflecting the clear, austere light of Truth. Thus while Plato emptied his cup to the soothing lyrics of the poets, he ...
Journal of Consciousness Studies, Jan 1, 2004
ABSTRACT Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, Graduate School of Arts and Science, 1... more ABSTRACT Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, Graduate School of Arts and Science, 1984. Bibliography: leaves 208-217.
Journal of Mental Imagery, Jan 1, 1986
APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser c... more APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser configuration. - alerts user that their session is about to expire - display, print, save, export, and email selected records - get My ...
Consciousness & emotion, Jan 1, 2002
Imagine you are standing in an art museum, mesmerized by an enormous canvas of turbulent paint. T... more Imagine you are standing in an art museum, mesmerized by an enormous canvas of turbulent paint. Though you find no recognizable images, you are fascinated by the swirling movements of rich azures and cobalt blues. Your eyes follow the artist's long, energetic brush strokes across the work, and you feel a sense of motion inside your body. Suddenly, your attention is caught by a small area of densely applied paint-a deep crimson. You linger. The thick color glows. As your awareness of the surroundings dim, the bright spot on the canvas expands, and the sensuous color seems to flow into you. You are immersed. Instants later, the bond breaks, as your attention shifts to a nearby conversation.
University of Tulsa MONOGRAPH SERIES Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104 Please send me_copy(ies) of Monograph ... more University of Tulsa MONOGRAPH SERIES Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104 Please send me_copy(ies) of Monograph No. 18, The Aesthetics of Chaosmos: The Mid dle Ages of james Joyce, @$5.00 ea. Please also send me the following Monographs at the special ...
An academic directory and search engine.
Second Thoughts: A Focus on Rereading, Jan 1, 1998
Page 154. Taking a Second Look: The Reader's Visual lmage Ellen J. Esrock To talk about the ... more Page 154. Taking a Second Look: The Reader's Visual lmage Ellen J. Esrock To talk about the image in rereading is to transgress twice. The first is in considering rereading itself as a critical topic, which is to defy the longstanding ...
Cognitive Processing
Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feeling-into, translated as empathy, serves as th... more Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feeling-into, translated as empathy, serves as the departure point for a proposal about viewing art using the body for a non-imitative form of empathy termed a transomatization and for other embodied operations. A transomatization occurs when viewers reinterpret a component or process of their own bodies to serve as a non-imitative stand-in, or correlate, for something outside of the self, specifically, some quality of an art work or its production. This creates an overlap of the self and other that might be experienced subjectively as a feeling of projection, an operation characteristic of empathy. Transomatizations and other embodied experiences are grounded in empathic, intersubjective modes of engaging others that begin in early life. As applications of the proposed concepts, six different embodiments of the viewer's breathing are explored in regard to Friedrich E. Church's 1848 oil painting Morning, Looking East over the Hudson Valley from the Catskill Mountains. Support for elements of the proposed concepts and applications is drawn from research in the biological and social sciences and from first person, embodied accounts of viewing.
Cognitive processing, 2018
Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feeling-into, translated as empathy, serves as the de... more Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feeling-into, translated as empathy, serves as the departure point for a proposal about viewing art using the body for a non-imitative form of empathy termed a transomatization and for other embodied operations. A transomatization occurs when viewers reinterpret a component or process of their own bodies to serve as a non-imitative stand-in, or correlate, for something outside of the self, specifically, some quality of an art work or its production. This creates an overlap of the self and other that might be experienced subjectively as a feeling of projection, an operation characteristic of empathy. Transomatizations and other embodied experiences are grounded in empathic, intersubjective modes of engaging others that begin in early life. As applications of the proposed concepts, six different embodiments of the viewer's breathing are explored in regard to Friedrich E. Church's 1848 oil painting Morning, Looking East over the Hudso...
Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feelinginto, translated as empathy, serves as the departu... more Robert Vischer's concept of Einfühlung, feelinginto, translated as empathy, serves as the departure point for a proposal about viewing art using the body for a nonimitative form of empathy termed a transomatization and for other embodied operations. A transomatization occurs when viewers reinterpret a component or process of their own bodies to serve as a non-imitative stand-in, or correlate, for something outside of the self, specifically, some quality of an art work or its production. This creates an overlap of the self and other that might be experienced subjectively as a feeling of projection, an operation characteristic of empathy. Transomatizations and other embodied experiences are grounded in empathic, intersubjective modes of engaging others that begin in early life. As applications of the proposed concepts, six different embodiments of the viewer's breathing are explored in regard to Friedrich E. Church's 1848 oil painting Morning, Looking East over the Hudson Valley from the Catskill Mountains. Support for elements of the proposed concepts and applications is drawn from research in the biological and social sciences and from first person, embodied accounts of viewing.
This article presents the views of four sets of authors, each taking concepts of embodied cogniti... more This article presents the views of four sets of authors, each taking concepts of embodied cognition into problem spaces where the new paradigm can be applied. The first considers consequences of embodied cognition on the legal system. The second explores how embodied cognition can change how we interpret and interact with art and literature. The third examines how we move through architectural spaces from an embodied cognition perspective. And the fourth addresses how music cognition is influenced by the approach. Each contribution is brief. They are meant to suggest the potential reach of embodied cognition, increase the visibility of applications, and inspire potential avenues for research.
Poetics Today, 2007
... Christo-pher Braider explores Annibale Carracci's Hercules at the Crossroads as a complex... more ... Christo-pher Braider explores Annibale Carracci's Hercules at the Crossroads as a complex emblem of the modern subject that foregrounds a bodily solilo-quy, and Albert Boime, in HolmanHunt's The Scapegoat, explores Hunt's work in terms of the complex processes of ...
Kelly, M. (ed.) Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics: Second Edition, 2014
Poetics Today, Jan 1, 2010
Embodied approaches to art history concerned with empathic projection can be reinforced by introd... more Embodied approaches to art history concerned with empathic projection can be reinforced by introducing empirical research that corroborates experiential observations about a spectator's bodily responses and by a more nuanced repertoire of bodily focused viewing. To reinforce existing scholarship, I examine a study exemplary in its analysis of embodied experience, Michael Fried's Menzel's Realism: Art and Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century Berlin (2002), proposing that the author's reported empathic experiences of Adolph Menzel's painting Rear Courtyard and House can be understood through concepts of sensorimotor imaging, hypnosis, and interoception. To expand the range and nuance of embodied responses, I rst counterpoint Fried's two interpretations of the painting Balcony Window, o ering a gendered reading and a taxonomy of three sensory modes of looking at art. Second, I shift to a micro level to explore how the spectator's breathing interacts with this painting and how these respiratory interactions create a mnemonic overlay that operates over time. Although these analyses focus on a nineteenth-century realist painting, the concepts and practices can be applied to diverse genres and media.
Comparative Literature Studies, Jan 1, 1980
Plato's reaction to Homer locates him quite solidly on the side of those fifth and sixth... more Plato's reaction to Homer locates him quite solidly on the side of those fifth and sixth century Greeks who found poetry wanting in reason and thus incapable of reflecting the clear, austere light of Truth. Thus while Plato emptied his cup to the soothing lyrics of the poets, he ...
Journal of Consciousness Studies, Jan 1, 2004
ABSTRACT Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, Graduate School of Arts and Science, 1... more ABSTRACT Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, Graduate School of Arts and Science, 1984. Bibliography: leaves 208-217.
Journal of Mental Imagery, Jan 1, 1986
APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser c... more APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser configuration. - alerts user that their session is about to expire - display, print, save, export, and email selected records - get My ...
Consciousness & emotion, Jan 1, 2002
Imagine you are standing in an art museum, mesmerized by an enormous canvas of turbulent paint. T... more Imagine you are standing in an art museum, mesmerized by an enormous canvas of turbulent paint. Though you find no recognizable images, you are fascinated by the swirling movements of rich azures and cobalt blues. Your eyes follow the artist's long, energetic brush strokes across the work, and you feel a sense of motion inside your body. Suddenly, your attention is caught by a small area of densely applied paint-a deep crimson. You linger. The thick color glows. As your awareness of the surroundings dim, the bright spot on the canvas expands, and the sensuous color seems to flow into you. You are immersed. Instants later, the bond breaks, as your attention shifts to a nearby conversation.
University of Tulsa MONOGRAPH SERIES Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104 Please send me_copy(ies) of Monograph ... more University of Tulsa MONOGRAPH SERIES Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104 Please send me_copy(ies) of Monograph No. 18, The Aesthetics of Chaosmos: The Mid dle Ages of james Joyce, @$5.00 ea. Please also send me the following Monographs at the special ...
An academic directory and search engine.
Second Thoughts: A Focus on Rereading, Jan 1, 1998
Page 154. Taking a Second Look: The Reader's Visual lmage Ellen J. Esrock To talk about the ... more Page 154. Taking a Second Look: The Reader's Visual lmage Ellen J. Esrock To talk about the image in rereading is to transgress twice. The first is in considering rereading itself as a critical topic, which is to defy the longstanding ...