This article analyzes how women in residential real estate sales interweave their work and family activities. It is presented as a case study of the effects of flexible scheduling on the tasks of managing paid and domestic work. Women are attracted to real estate sales because they perceive that it will enable them to combine their paid and unpaid labor in a relatively comfortable way as a result of the flexibility of setting their own work schedules. They find that the (...) work requires long hours and significant adaptations in the division of household labor. The findings demonstrate that flexibility itself is not adequate for accomodating the demands of families and wage work. Additional changes in the organization of both types of work, as well as ideological changes in the ownership of family-related tasks are required to alleviate the difficulties women face in integrating family and work responsibilities. (shrink)

Alexis de Tocqueville asserted that America had no truly great literature, and that American writers merely mimicked the British and European traditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This new edited collection masterfully refutes Tocqueville's monocultural myopia and reveals the distinctive role American poetry and prose have played in reflecting and passing judgment upon the core values of American democracy. The essays, profiling the work of Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Updike, Edith Wharton, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Willa (...) Cather, Walker Percy, and Tom Wolfe, reveal how America's greatest writers have acted as society's most ardent cheerleaders and its most penetrating critics. Christine Dunn Henderson's exciting new work offers literature as a portal through which to view the philosophical principles that animate America's political order and the mores which either reinforce or undermine them. (shrink)

American literary realism burgeoned during a period of tremendous technological innovation. Because the realists evinced not only a fascination with this new technology but also an ethos that seems to align itself with science, many have paired the two fields rather unproblematically. But this book demonstrates that many realist writers, from Mark Twain to Stephen Crane, Charles W. Chesnutt to Edith Wharton, felt a great deal of anxiety about the advent of new technologies – precisely at the crucial intersection (...) of ethics and language. For these writers, the communication revolution was a troubling phenomenon, not only because of the ways in which the new machines had changed and increased the circulation of language but, more pointedly, because of the ways in which language itself had effectively become a machine: a vehicle perpetuating some of society’s most pernicious clichés and stereotypes – particularly stereotypes of race – in unthinking iteration. This work takes a close look at how the realists tried to forge an ethical position between the two poles of science and sentimentality, attempting to create an alternative mode of speech that, avoiding the trap of codifying iteration, could enable ethical action. (shrink)

These papers were presented at a panel, organized by us and chaired by Liz Wilson, on ‘Women’s Leadership and Monastic Organizations in Therav?da Buddhist Traditions’, at the 2008 American Academy of Religion meeting, Chicago. Here, we bring together articles that examine the roots of the teachings on nuns in P?li literature with others which investigate issues relating to contemporary Therav?da nuns, as well as an analysis of relevant debates in ancient China. The objective of these papers is to contribute to (...) discussion of the multiple ways in which professionally celibate women are represented, organized and empowered in the textual and contemporary traditions of P?li and Therav?da Buddhism, to study how representations of female monasticism are related to organizational structures of leadership and agency, and explore how debates over the need for ‘dual ordination’ have occurred in traditions other than the Therav?da. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.1 (2003) 107-119 [Access article in PDF] Museum as Process Carol S. Jeffers Introduction Today's art museums are committed to completing major expansion and renovation projects, and vigorously carrying out their stated missions. 1 These missions typically are concerned with processes of acquisition, preservation, exhibition, and education. The National Gallery of Art, for example, is dedicated to "preserving, collecting, exhibiting, and fostering the (...) understanding of works of art." 2 Similarly, the Getty Museum at the J. Paul Getty Center seeks to "delight, inspire, and educate the public by acquiring, conserving, studying, exhibiting, and interpreting works of art." 3 Such processes are strategic, of course, and give direction and purpose to the range of programs and services offered by these institutions. Ensuring that visitors are surrounded by works of art, "at the highest quality," these processes also give rise to a particular view of the museum as an "object of reflection, contemplation, and discussion." 4Although unstated, I shall argue that art museums typically have other missions that are actively, if insidiously implemented through processes of representation (re-presentation), socialization, institutionalization, and commodification.The museum functions as a "socializing institution," that both represents and presents cultural assumptions, as well as social and aesthetic values to young and old alike. 5 These processes succeed in establishing an "ideology of aesthetic autonomy — the compartmental conception of fine art that segregates it to the separate realm of the museum." 6 Simultaneously, they present "ideology in material form." 7 The museum itself is a representation that tends to take on an independent and ultimately self-reflecting existence. In a Debordian view, "it is a spectacle, which, in its generality, is a concrete inversion of life, and as such, the autonomous movement of 8 [End Page 107] non-life." Through processes of representation and commodification, the spectacular museum is constructed as a frame that influences the public perception of art and society. Moreover, this ideological frame influences how the public experiences constructs of time and place, and how it comes to know about art in relation to the real world.Today's thriving art museums — and the various processes that deliver both their overt and covert missions — are likely to have a greater impact on society than ever before. With such potential, it seems especially important at this juncture to examine critically the art museum as process; to deconstruct that which has been "constructed as a symbol in Western society since the Renaissance." 9 In undertaking such an examination, then, the first task is to describe current museum impact on the public. Of special concern are questions about what the museum represents to its visitors, particularly to young students and teachers, and how these representations shape constructions of knowledge, conceptions of art, and roles for visitors and artists. Contemporary representations themselves raise questions about the historical context in which they originated, developed, and were carried forward. As a second task, then, this essay will present a historical-critical analysis that integrates several theoretical perspectives on the origins, development, and implications of the Western museum and its various processes. Next, I will consider the possibility and implications of visitor impact on museum processes. This last section includes examples of alternative museum approaches whose mission is implemented through active visitor participation in processes of conversation and community. Collecting and Exhibiting: The Museum as Sacred Grove The museum as a symbol in Western society is apparently recognized and understood as such, even by its youngest members. Children in the United States, Canada, and France, for example, can offer definitions of an art or other museum, and know how to "act and react" within one, even though they may have had extremely limited ornoprior museum experiences. 10 To these children, a museum is a venerable, quiet place, "like the library." 11 When asked, "what is a museum?" children typically respond with: "a place to collect things," or "a big place where lots of people go" to see "old stuff" and "lots of pictures." 12 In general, children seem to view museums as sites for exposition, and as repositories for... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Possibility of a Postcolonial Buddhist Ethic of WealthCarol S. AndersonOrientalist images of Buddhism portray all Buddhist traditions as world-renouncing, austere, and ascetic: think of the pictures of saffron-clothed monks with bowls walking down a tree-lined street in Thailand, Sri Lanka, or Burma, eyes slightly downcast, heads shaven, bare feet. The quintessential definition of this image is the tenth precept: jātarūpa-rajata-paṭiggahaṇā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi, “I undertake the precept to (...) refrain from accepting gold and silver.”1 This precept, familiar to almost anyone who knows a bit about Buddhism, symbolizes our attitudes toward Buddhism as a religious tradition that rejects the messiness of money, jobs, and certainly wealth. Rejecting the daily grind of grubbing for actual money in favor of a disembodied and spiritual enlightenment is one of the most appealing stereotypes of Buddhism for many of us; our responsibility, however, is to realize that this image captures only a part of a much larger, longer, and more complex series of stories and histories.In the following pages, I sketch out the parameters for an approach to a Buddhist ethics of wealth. I make no claim that there is a singular Buddhist ethic on wealth and poverty, only that there are some assumptions that we need to discard and new avenues we might wish to explore.2 The image that rests at the center of this paper is the orientalist model of the monk who rejects money. Much of the early scholarship in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that sought to describe and understand “Buddhism” constructed a religion that was dominated by “world renouncing” monks who embodied the true vision of Gautama Buddha—most often represented by the Dhammacakkapavatāna-sutta (Talk on Turning the Wheel of Dhamma). According to this model, how do we know what the Buddha taught? By reading the texts.3 In this portrait of Buddhism, the text reigns supreme. “True” Buddhism is the Buddhism of the Pāli canon, and monks are the evidence of the truth of the Buddha’s teaching. The dominant economic model that emerged from these constructions of Buddhism is rooted in exchange, the exchange between monks and the laity through the ritual mechanism of dāna. Dāna (Pāli: giving) consists of an order of monks who vow to live without handling money, and in so doing, are reliant upon lay Buddhists who receive merit for supporting monks. I trust that this model is familiar to all of [End Page 139] us, since it rests at the core of nearly every portrait of Buddhism constructed in the past one hundred years.I offer three contexts for the tenth precept and the world-renouncing monk who refuses to handle “gold and silver” in the following pages: Buddhist challenges to capitalism, the model of dāna or the exchange between laity and monks and nuns, and the relationship between nuns and money. In each section, I sketch out the location of the tenth precept and draw attention to scholarship that offers us a reassessment of the orientalist notion that monks reject money. What makes this argument “postcolonial” is that I suggest that we rigorously reassess the usefulness of the legacy of that colonial image in our thinking about Buddhism and wealth, and wrestle with the ironies that accompany the tenth precept in Buddhism today.Monks, Marx, and MoneySome of the most compelling calls for economic justice of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are rooted in the image of a monk who refuses to handle money and who gives up owning more than he needs. Put briefly, the tenth precept ripples throughout the movements for economic reform that emerged in post-independent India, Sri Lanka, Burma, and modern Thailand. The symbolism of the world-renouncing monk who follows the tenth precept is refracted throughout Buddhist Marxist analyses of economic disparities and offers us our first vantage point from which to examine the parameters of a Buddhist ethic of wealth.The orientalist reading of monks as a representation of an ideology that rejects money and private ownership has given rise to a number of syntheses of Marxism, socialism, and... (shrink)

Today’s unstable economy puts added stress on today’s leaders. When these leaders are stressed, maintaining their values becomes more difficult. While ethics are stressed during one’s education, organizations are less likely to continue ethics training. Given the many scandals, it is essential that there are ethical leaders to guide organizations. A leader cannot be prepared for all situations, but an ethical leader will have the tools to guide himself through complex situations. The purpose of this article is to present how (...) ethics training is often lacking once students move to the business world. However, continuous training is needed to reinforce their skills throughout their careers. This article will use a review of literature to present findings in academia and business. (shrink)

This article examines how Buddhist literatures construct the agency of Buddhist nuns. The first section explores the Vinaya collections of different schools, and examines the differences between the Bhikkhun?-vibha?ga and the Bhikkhu-vibha?ga on how nuns are expected to act. The second section explores material on the faculties in the P?li Abhidhamma-pi?aka and its commentaries so as to better understand how the abhidhamma analyses of ‘women’s nature’ and ‘men’s nature’ informed conceptions of agency. This article suggests that even though the abhidhamma (...) literature uses such terms as ‘women’s nature’, there is little basis for concluding, as some scholars have done, that Buddhist literature reflects an essentialist view of gender. The fact that the abhidhamma analyses of gender distinguish between ‘male faculties’ and ‘female faculties’ does not appear to make a difference in the agency accorded to nuns: nuns, like monks, are expected to behave in certain ways independent of the fact that they have ‘female faculties’ and thus are inclined toward certain kinds of stereotypically female behaviour. (shrink)

In this commentary, I question the idea that positive illusions are evolved misbeliefs on the grounds that positive illusions are often maladaptive, are not universal, and may be by-products of existing mechanisms. Further, because different beliefs are adaptive in different situations and cultures, it makes sense to build in a readiness to form beliefs rather than the beliefs themselves.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.1 (2001) 166-169 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato's Early Dialogues Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato's Early Dialogues, by John Beversluis; xii & 416 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, $69.95. This book is more than a cross-examination of Socrates: it is a carefully wrought indictment. Beversluis, unlike Socrates' historical adversaries Anytus and (...) Meletus, brings philosophically serious charges against Socrates by offering a rigorous defense of the interlocutors in Plato's early dialogues, the so-called Socratic dialogues. In so doing, he charts new territory in the vast area of recent analytic scholarship on Plato.According to traditional readings, Socrates deploys his elenchus to defeat his interlocutors, leaving them "either to retreat in anger or to submit to his power." Allegedly, Plato, guided by his Socratic intellectualism, draws them as distinctive, complex characters, though intellectually and thus ethically flawed. Beversluis argues against this standard view, providing sympathetic reassessment of Socrates' interlocutors. Although some previous scholars have defended some of the interlocutors, Beversluis widens the scope of the argument, leveling a scathing attack on Socratic intellectualism and its correlative method of moral education.He deals not only with Socrates' interlocutors and their logical defeats, but also with the idea of an interlocutor, and in so doing casts light on the philosophical dialogue as a genre. This emerges in the first and perhaps most original chapter, entitled "The Socratic Interlocutor," which may be of value to readers interested in philosophical writing or the philosophy of literature more generally. Here he illuminates Plato's use of the interlocutor, in part, by contrasting it with that of other philosophers who wrote in dialogue form, such as Augustine, Anselm, Hume, and Berkeley. The Socratic interlocutors are not, he says, "embodiments of error." Socrates, unlike the protagonists drawn by these other authors, does not subject them to his scrutiny in order to make them accept his beliefs, but rather to reject theirs. Beversluis claims that Plato's portrayal expresses his Socratic belief in the good life as one of bewilderment and uncertainty, a view, Beversluis rightly says, Plato will come to repudiate in his middle dialogues. Beversluis is clearly aware of the disparity between the [End Page 166] discomfort Socrates visits on his interlocutors and that which he is willing to endure himself.While many interpreters forgive Socrates' lapses of logic, Beversluis is unsparing. There is no reason, he thinks, to judge Socrates' arguments by any other criterion than their logical merits, and he therefore rejects the idea that Socrates' most fallacious arguments are valuable for psychological illumination. He also rejects Vlastos's view that only those of Socrates' arguments that are offered "seriously" should be criticized seriously. If they appear to be logical arguments, Beversluis contends, they must be assessed on their logical merits, not their rhetorical or therapeutic virtues. Some might find this approach rather arid until they see that Beversluis is warning the reader not to be dazzled by Socrates as the interlocutors are.It is widely believed that the aim of Socratic elenchus is to uncover the structure of a person's beliefs and to show that it is either internally inconsistent or at best unreflectively constructed. Beversluis's account, however, portrays Socrates as a Svengali who makes people assent to claims they would not otherwise accept. If this is right, Socrates is not actually elucidating the interlocutor's real beliefs. Beversluis challenges the notion of sincere assent, both as an interpretative guide to the early dialogues and as an epistemic concept. He points out that sincere belief is not simply an occurrent interior state accompanying, and indicated by, a verbal act of assent; rather, it emerges from the totality of a person's lived character, from the relation between word and act.Some readers will object to his axiom that a character in a literary work, and thus in a Platonic dialogue, has a life subject to scrutiny outside of the literary work. In his brief... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:White Collar Zen: Using Zen Principles to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Your Career GoalsCarol S. GouldWhite Collar Zen: Using Zen Principles to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Your Career Goals. By Steven Heine. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. ix + 198.In these days of corporate corruption, downsizing, and outsourcing, not to mention the continuous cutbacks in the Academy, it is no surprise that people are open to (...) unconventional ways of looking at life and work. Several years ago, Epicurus became a best-selling author in Italy, and more recently we have seen philosophical approaches from authors such as Alain de Botton (Consolations of Philosophy), Lou Marinoff (Plato, Not Prozac), and Tom Morris (If Aristotle Ran General Motors), to name a few. Steven Heine's White Collar Zen: Using Zen Principles to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Your Career Goals applies as well to the academic as to the corporate workplace.Heine has written White Collar Zen from the standpoint of a scholar of Buddhism and a professional academic administrator. That he has been extremely successful [End Page 123] at both should make one take a serious look at this book. Given the indifference of both institutions and the natural world to human suffering (think of Enron and Hurricane Katrina), we all need survival skills, and Heine shows us how we can acquire them in our professional lives by applying Zen philosophy. While his expressed purpose is not to illuminate the subtleties of Zen, the attentive nonspecialist reader can glean much about the tradition nonetheless and, like the Zen specialist, find new paths for navigating around the foxholes in organizations.Zen, as Heine points out, infiltrated American culture over one hundred years ago and has made its way into subcultures beyond the American-Japanese, for example the worlds of psychotherapy, the arts, medicine, and even some of the more liberal branches of Judaism and Christianity. In case a novice feels unprepared to use Zen for success, Heine points out that Zen has great flexibility, that it is not orthodoxy. "Discover your own way... of 'being Zen,"' he tells us (p. 10).While it might seem clear that Zen could foster creativity, introspection, and self-understanding, the philosophical reader might raise two questions about using Zen to achieve worldly power. First, how can Zen, with its well-known requirement for periods of solitude, be a guide in the workplace? Second, is this endeavor consistent with the Zen principles that the ego is a mirage and that desires are fruitless?Heine does not explicitly address these matters as problems, but the reader will find them resolved by the end of the book. Do not be deceived by his informal tone or his hip references to the likes of Bob Dylan. The logic of this book is carefully mapped out. As for the first issue, Heine demonstrates that the sort of isolation prescribed by Zen makes us more fit for organizational life. With regard to the second, human life, according to Zen, is a series of constantly vanishing moments. Success is simply survival and gaining the ability to be in each moment fully. The Zen philosophy, like the Heraclitean, does not shy away from the inconsistencies to which reflection leads us. Thus, Zen does not require that we resolve the tension between the twin needs for solitude and life with others. White Collar Zen is a guide to accepting this fact without anxiety.The self, according to Zen, is not an atomic individual, but something constantly in flux and part of a whole. Everything is Buddha nature, and meditation is the way to discover it. The Unmoving Mind is the state within each of us that can transcend the perspective of our own desires, peculiarities, interests, and ego. To look at events from the standpoint of the Unmoving Mind is to look at them from a higher perspective. It gives one tremendous freedom to choose wisely, because this cleanses the self of petty resentments. When a conflict can be resolved in a way that benefits everyone, each individual will benefit. When one is glued to one's own vantage point, it is difficult to want to act for the benefit... (shrink)

Matthew Kramer’s The Ethics of Capital Punishment: A Philosophical Investigation of Evil and its Consequences explores the morality of capital punishment and develops his own “purgative rationale” in support of the practice. I present my objections to Kramer’s purgative rationale and trace our disagreement to differences over the nature of evil, the autonomy of human character formation, and the concept of defilement.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Japan, France, and East-West Aesthetics: French Literature, 1867-2000Carol S. GouldJapan, France, and East-West Aesthetics: French Literature, 1867-2000. By Jan Walsh Hokenson. Madison and Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004. Pp. 520. $80.00.Jan Walsh Hokenson's masterful work, Japan, France, and East-West Aesthetics: French Literature, 1867-2000, traces the migration of the Japanese aesthetic into French art, through French literature, and ultimately into Western modernism and postmodernism. Despite the title, this (...) book goes beyond French poetics, for it deals with some philosophical views about knowledge and art, and it offers an extended argument for the value of comparative studies, including comparative philosophy. The author moves easily among the areas of literature, art, and philosophy, all of which she discusses with authority.Her story begins with the birth of 'japonisme,' the term coined by critic Philippe Burty in 1876 to refer to the passion-artistic and commercial-for things Japanese. She identifies three waves of japonisme in French literature: pre-World War I, between the wars, and post-World War II. She leads the reader through each of these waves, detailing the cultural and artistic milieu in each and closely analyzing key figures.For the origins of japonisme, Hokenson takes us to the studio of Parisian engraver, printmaker, and designer Felix Bracquemond in 1856, which was just after the end of Sakoku. Bracquemond, according to the "most persistent legend," [End Page 699] opened a box of Asian ceramics and discovered that they were wrapped in extraordinary materials-layers of Hokusai woodcut prints the likes of which he had never seen. He summoned members of his circle, which included Manet, Degas, and Whistler (pp. 13-15). It is thus through an intriguing historical contingency that this relatively inexpensive, mass-produced art form would become the inspiration for some of the most personal and expensive art works today. More relevant to Hokenson's interest, however, is the fact that these woodcuts would be a seminal force in the direction of French letters.Had Bracquemond not had the vision to see the artistry of these prints or had the shipper used a different packing material, would Western painting and literature have taken a different turn? Would the West have seen impressionism, symbolism, or art nouveau? Would Proust, Claudel, Mallarmé, and others have written different works? From Hokenson's account one gleans that the French avant-garde eye was ready to see Hokusai and others, for artists felt that the mimetic view of art had led them to an impasse. Visual and literary artists were ready to abandon the Renaissance ideals of verisimilitude, perspective, the integrity of space, and the linearity of time. They were ready to accept the fragmentation of picture space, perspectivism, and suggestiveness that were all characteristic of the Japanese aesthetic.She explains how Henri Bergson, with his theories of intuition and subjective time, provided a philosophical foundation for the artistic commitments of the early japonistes. She documents the access many of the japonistes had to Bergson. Bergson, like the japoniste poets and painters themselves, emerged from a French tradition of using subjectivity as a starting point. The reader sees this respect for the subjective interact with various Japanese influences over the course of the twentieth century. The receptiveness to the haiku exemplifies this phenomenon, as it begins from a fleeting, intuitive, personal experience. She points out that "by 2000, the haiku was almost a commonplace in French poetry" (p. 407).Although she says little about what Bergson may have absorbed from the japonistes, she does tell of the little-known influence exerted by the Japanese phenomenologist Kuki Shūzō in 1928 on Jean-Paul Sartre. Both Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir either forgot this relationship or forgot to mention it in their respective narratives about the development of existentialism. Indeed, this was not discovered, Hokenson reports, until the 1980s. She rightly points out that that this changes the usual story about French philosophy in the early twentieth century, for it means that Sartre became acquainted with German phenomenology before 1932 and from someone other than Raymond Aron (pp. 333-334, 343, 474 n. 10). In a fascinating discussion of Kuki's... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Still Life Is Really a Moving LifeThe Role of Mirror Neurons and Empathy in Animating Aesthetic ResponseCarol S. Jeffers (bio)IntroductionIn the Western aesthetic canon, the still life enjoys a certain prestige; its place in the museum and on the pages of the art history text is secure. Art aficionados who appreciate the character of Cezanne's apples help to ensure the lofty standing of the still life, as do (...) students who admire the dewdrops still glistening on flowers picked and painted in the nineteenth century. For some students, however, it is difficult to understand such veneration. Despite the coaxing of dedicated art or museum educators, these students find apples nestled among drapery folds or translucent petals in a spring bouquet to be "boring." No matter how compelling the apples, how exquisitely rendered the blossoms, the still life is much too static, offering little more than the lifelessness of inanimate objects.In my experience, even the most unappreciative of students can be persuaded to take a closer look at the inanimate—not by me or any strategies I may have devised but rather by classmates who have chosen still life paintings to serve as their personal metaphors. When shared during the courses I teach, these still lifes and their depicted objects acquire special meanings that are uniquely associated with the individual students who chose them. Reflecting on these class presentations, converted students offered these thoughts: "I related myself with the metaphors and the way my classmates felt"; and "What really stayed with me were the stories and the way my classmates connected with their paintings—how they connected to the art emotionally." Still another wrote: "I really liked the way their presentations went because I got to know [my classmates] a little bit more." Through these connections to still life and other genres, students explored [End Page 31] their concepts of self within a community of others and began to experience the power of empathy.Empathy, typically defined as "the intellectual or emotional identification with another,"1 is a human capacity that, according to the noted neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese, allows us to understand the world of objects as well as the world of others.2 With the recent discovery of the mirror neuron system in the human brain, Gallese and other investigators around the world have identified the neurological basis of empathy.3 Subsequent studies of the remarkable properties of mirror neurons have yielded potent new understandings of the connections between empathy, objects of art and material culture, and intrapersonal relationships among human beings. Interestingly, these twenty-first-century findings tend to confirm a nineteenth-century connection between aesthetics and empathy, or more precisely, Einfuhlung ("in-feeling," or "feeling into"), a term coined by the philosopher Robert Vischer in 1873 to describe the projection of human feeling onto art objects.4 As Vischer himself described this phenomenon, "I transport myself into the inner being of an object and explore its formal character from within, as it were."5These insights, whether gained through the use of state-of-the-art brain imaging technologies or dusty volumes in a German library, have led Gallese to consider some interesting implications, such as, for example, those involving the still life—its bottles, apples, even its brushstrokes—and to claim that "a still life is really a moving life" when understood from the perspective of neuroscience.6 To explore this claim and its relevance to classroom and museum practices, this article examines the relationship between mirror neurons, empathy, and aesthetic response as it developed among preservice teachers who presented metaphorical works of art in two teacher education courses. A brief synopsis of research results highlighting the workings of the mirroring mechanism is presented and then applied to two student presentations: one given by Molly about Cezanne's Still Life with Apples (1893-94) and the other by Deborah about Fantin-Latour's White and Pink Mallows in a Vase (1895). The stories told by Molly, Deborah, and their classmates allow additional insights with implications for art and museum education.Mirror Neurons: Some Research ResultsSome fifteen years ago, what Gallese characterizes as a "strange class" of neurons was discovered, first... (shrink)

Seminal work by Knobe, Prasada, and Newman (2013) distinguished a set of concepts, which they named “dual‐character concepts.” Unlike traditional concepts, they require two distinct criteria for determining category membership. For example, the prototypical dual‐character concept “artist” has both a concrete dimension of artistic skills, and an abstract dimension of aesthetic sensibility and values. Therefore, someone can be a good artist on the concrete dimension but not truly an artist on the abstract dimension. Does this analysis capture people's understanding of (...) cornerstone social categories, such as gender, around which society and everyday life have traditionally been organized? Gender, too, may be conceived as having not only a concrete dimension but also a distinct dimension of abstract norms and values. As with dual‐character concepts, violations of abstract norms and values may result in someone being judged as not truly a man/woman. Here, we provide the first empirical assessment of applying the dual‐character framework to people's conception of gender. We found that, on some measures that primarily relied on metalinguistic cues, gender concepts did indeed resemble dual‐character concepts. However, on other measures that depicted transgressions of traditional gender norms, neither “man” nor “woman” appeared dual‐character‐like, in that participants did not disqualify people from being truly a man or truly a woman. In a series of follow‐up studies, we examined whether moral norms have come to replace gender role norms for the abstract dimension. Implications for the evolution of concepts and categories are explored. (shrink)