Incursions into the imaginary 5. Imaginaire and illusion

 

Modern anthropology and research on l"imaginaire (introduced by the Centre de Recherche sur l"Imaginaire of Grenoble) have led to the reappraisal of the notion of myth which can no longer be defined as a simplified and illusory image of the real or as a lie or an error. On the contrary, myth appears as a cultural marker which facilitates, on the symbolic level, the comprehension of contradictions, tensions or utopias of societies. By the same token, l"imaginaire can no longer be defined as a pure flight of imagination but as a form of thought where the symbol replaces the concept. If l"imaginaire is not a pure illusion, then how can illusion be defined in relation to l"imaginaire?

It should be remembered that illusion is the creator of knowledge. Optical illusions facilitated the formulation of scientific laws of perspective. Can Illusion not become fruitful on the level of thought, artistic and intellectual creation in general? All forms of creative illusion should be enlisted to respond to this question: verbal or sensory illusions, confusion and various metamorphoses, play on identities, forms and words. 

 

(The word imaginaire as a noun has no English equivalent. In French, it is used to refer to a group of loose components: fantasy, memory, reverie (day-dreaming), dream, unverifiable beliefs, myths, cinema, fiction, novel etc. Cf. Jean-Jacques Wunenburger, L"imaginaire, Paris, PUF, "Que sais-je", 2003, p.5.)

 

ISBN:978-606-613-013-4

 

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   Incursionsins into the Imaginary 4. From the Imagined to the Represented Body   

 

This volume reunites the papers of the 2010 “Speculumˮ Scientific Session, having as general topic “From the Imagined to the Represented Body”. Human body representations differ from one epoch to the other, in arts, literature, religion or science, situating themselves under the sign of a certain type of knowledge and the specificity of time spans. The analysis of the body’s image as it appears in literature, arts religion leads us towards a definition of the human being, of the balance created between the interior and the exterior. More than that, depending on personal conditionings, the body representations in arts, literature, religion, science will be submitted to nuances in accordance with the peculiarities of the writer, painter, sculptor, builder, religious person, inventor. What are the goals followed by the human being through the modalities in which he/she imagines the body? A supplement, an instrument capable of helping him/her to pursue a confortable life, to have his/her more or less primary wishes fulfilled or an intermediary towards enlarging his/her personal or ontological sphere? These are questions to be answered with the help of the theory of the imaginary which is present  in the papers of this volume.

 

ISBN: 978-973-1890-78-4

 

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    Incursions into the Imaginary 3.   The Religious Imaginary in Literature

 

The volume includes the papers presented during the third “Speculumˮ Scientific Session from March 2009. Apparently limitative, it practically allowed a wide opening towards an interesting approach favoured by the theory of the imaginary, namely the interdisciplinarity.  Henceforth the necessity of a research based on disciplinary and methodological flexibility (going from the history of religions to the theory of mentalities or to a hermeneutic approach),  leading to the implication of “objecsˮ coming from larger spheres, sometimes hardly connected to literature (i.e. philosophy or religious texts), as well as from diverse cultural areas (from Japanese or Spannish to Jewish or Romanian ones),  without putting aside – when necessary – the sendings to the theological order in argumentative connections.

 

ISBN: 978-606-506-003-6

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   Incursions into the Imaginary 2. Under the Sign of the Chronotope 

 

The covers of this volume reunite the papers presented at the second scientific communication session from March 2008, developed under the aegis of the  “Speculumˮ Research Centre of the Imaginary, in Alba Iulia. The choice of the chronotope as a main theme was underlined by Professor Philippe Walter (guest of honour together with Professor Ştefan Borbely): the analytical de-construction – especially when operated in the field of the imaginary – cannot avoid the reality of the vector time/space, despite its degree of visibility. Even if Mikhail Bakhtin was mostly concerned with a specific part of literature (prose especially), even if (or maybe even more so...) poetry asks for a sensibly different type of approach, the usefulness of the instrument built through the idea of chronotope is clearly demonstrated all along time.

 

ISBN: 978-973-8262-95-9

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   Incursions into the Imaginary 1. Commments and interpretations

 

The vomule reunites the papers presented during the first scientific communication session organized by the “Speculumˮ Research Centre of the Imaginary (1 Decembrie 1918 University from Alba Iulia) in March 2007. The first study, dealing with the concept of anarchy type belongs to Professor Corin Braga, head of the “Phantasmaˮ Research Centre of the Imaginary in Cluj Napoca. A large research area of the literary imaginary was atteained by the contributors, for some of them the importance of this volume being doubled by the emotion of the first printed pages.

 

ISBN: 978-973-8262-82-9

 

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