{"id":568,"date":"2016-04-03T00:05:02","date_gmt":"2016-04-03T00:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/?p=568"},"modified":"2016-04-14T14:09:19","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T14:09:19","slug":"masa-mrovlje-existential-aesthetic-judging-sensibility-worldly-recognition-and-the-political-significance-of-narrative-imagination-confronting-the-tragic-nature-of-political-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/2016\/04\/03\/masa-mrovlje-existential-aesthetic-judging-sensibility-worldly-recognition-and-the-political-significance-of-narrative-imagination-confronting-the-tragic-nature-of-political-affairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Masa Mrovlje \u2013 Existential Aesthetic Judging Sensibility, Worldly Recognition and the Political Significance of Narrative Imagination: Confronting the Tragic Nature of Political Affairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Political Theory Research Group<\/a> seminar series: 30 Mar 2016<\/p>\n

\"Hannah<\/a>

Hannah Arendt
Photo: Saibo<\/p><\/div>\n

In contemporary political philosophy, particularly in transitional justice debates, narrative has been taken to play a prominent practical role.\u00a0 Thinkers such as Martha Nussbaum, Richard Rorty and Paul Ricoeur have argued that narrative-inspired imagination is able to facilitate our capacity of critical and reflective political judgement and public deliberation.\u00a0 Critics, meanwhile, have questioned this ability of narrative.<\/p>\n

By carefully analysing the arguments of both camps, and by drawing particularly on Hannah Arendt\u2019s and Albert Camus\u2019s existentialist accounts of aesthetic judging sensibility, Masa\u2019s paper explains exactly how narrative (esp. literary works) can facilitate our capacity of political judgement when we judge and respond to instances of political violence.\u00a0 Her core claims are these.\u00a0 Narrative, if it cannot take too presumptuous a role, can take a modest practical role because of its ability, in her words, \u2018to confront the plurality and ambiguity of the political world by constantly striving to recognize, reflect upon, understand and evaluate the lived experience of others, make them part of the common world and thereby foster the sense of shared worldly reality\u2019.\u00a0 Also, narrative is able to affirm \u2018the human potentials of beginning anew\u2019, rather than representing the victims of injustices as passive objects of the reader\u2019s benevolent gaze.\u00a0 And the role played by narrative is politically significant especially in the context of transnational justice and reconciliation in societies divided by past wrongs.<\/p>\n

\"Albert<\/a>

Albert Camus
Photo: United Press International<\/p><\/div>\n

The rich text invited a wide range of constructive questions, comments, and arguments.\u00a0 Some questioned the fairness of Masa\u2019s reading of Arendt, Camus, and Nussbaum.\u00a0 Some asked whether her claim contains any ethical judgement concerning the goodness\/badness of narrative form.\u00a0 Masa focused on the formal structure of narrative, but one commentator pointed out that the content of narrative is also an important issue when investigating the ontology of narrative.\u00a0 Another commented that, when we think of the formal structure of narrative, we may need to consider various social factors, actors and relations that give narrative its particular social form.\u00a0 Also, some indicated the fact that narrative may also play other socially significant roles, both positive and negative, than those discussed in the paper. \u00a0Her successful response helped the participants better understand her argument.<\/p>\n

Written by Yuki Iwaki<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

****<\/p>\n

Ma\u0161a Mrovlje<\/a> is a\u00a0Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Political Theory\u00a0at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the Greyzone Research Team<\/a> directed by Dr\u00a0Mihaela Mihai<\/a>\u00a0of the Just World Institute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Political Theory Research Group seminar series: 30 Mar 2016 In contemporary political philosophy, particularly in transitional justice debates, narrative has been taken to play a prominent practical role.\u00a0 Thinkers such as Martha Nussbaum, Richard Rorty and Paul Ricoeur have argued that narrative-inspired imagination is able to facilitate our capacity of critical and reflective political judgement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25,22,8,1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions\/637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}