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Hello, and welcome to Humanities Matter brought to you by Brill. I'm Leachon Greco, and this week we'll be looking at key issues in the field of humanities. Today we're speaking with Keith Moser, Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Mississippi State University. He has edited Imagination and Art, Explorations in Contemporary Theory.
Keith, thank you so much for sitting down with us today. Thank you so much. It's truly a pleasure to be here. So tell us first, how does this series differ from previous investigations of Imagination?
First of all, it is truly a pleasure to be a part of the Humanities Matter initiative. Before answering your first question, I would like to acknowledge the tragic passing of an otosucula who co-edited this volume. It was such an honor to collaborate with a legendary figure in the field of comparative literature. I would also like to mention the passing of Wendy Wheeler, who contributed an excellent chapter dedicated to the Biosimiotic Imagination.
Returning to your first question, Imagination and Art is the most comprehensive study of Imagination to date. In addition to revisiting timeless issues, such as the distinction between imagining and conceiving and imagination and beliefs, I wanted to incorporate some novel frames of reference that are often overlooked in other studies. Some of these sections that stand out to me in terms of addressing these research gaps are the sections devoted to the gendered imagination, postmodern contributions to the understanding of Imagination, including the scourge of fake news and alternative facts, the section entitled Non-Western Perspectives and Ecological Reflections related to the Imagination, including Wheeler's aforementioned chapter examining the Biosimiotic Imagination. I should also say that this is the most ambitious project that I've ever conceived.
When it ought to ask me to collaborate with him, I wanted to expand the project even further, given that the book is roughly 800 pages. I'm apparently a glutton for punishment. This is what I've been told. All joking aside, it was a daunting but extremely rewarding experience co-editing this book.
First of all, Keith, I'm so sorry for your loss and loss of your collaborators. I just wanted to say that before we move on. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
And moving on this book gives a section to contemporary artists to explore Imagination. Can you tell us why you decided to include that in addition to the theoretical portions of the book? Sure. This is an excellent question.
I can see this final section of the book because I find it odd that artists themselves, who are known for possessing extraordinary powers of Imagination, are rarely given a voice in these kinds of discussions. This section, which I describe as Imagination and Action in my Introduction, provides a platform for artists themselves to write creative pieces about the Imagination in an imaginative way. I am very happy with how this section turned out. That includes contributions from a nailed artist from several different countries, including the United States, France, Canada, Mauritius, and the Netherlands.
They created pieces in question are also extremely diverse, which is in keeping with the spirit of the volume itself. Nonetheless, this idea is merely a point of the departure in this regard. I would encourage other researchers to build upon and expand this premise and to collaborate with more international artists, representing different artistic mediums. I'd also like to take a moment to thank Marie-en-Rénois, Tom Cruise, Jesse Grays, Umar-Té-Mour, Louise Dupre, and Lisa Fécoutley for making this portion of the book a reality.
And I think that's such an interesting concept to have artists contribute to an academic work. We've had so many professors, so many researchers on this program who talk about art, research art. We had a very interesting program looking at these tiny little mannequin dolls. We had another one that was looking at the way that sculptures are made, but I don't think we've ever had artists contributing to the work.
So I wonder what kind of challenges that poses for you as an editor and what great things that you found by working with artists as well. I think that working with artists, it really provides some insight into how the Imagination actually works. And it gives you a concrete example because unfortunately, sometimes what we do as academicians is a little too theoretical and it's not concrete enough. And sometimes artists themselves are really just left out of the conversation.
And that's really unfortunate. And this is something that I haven't seen in any other academic publications at all really. And we often speak for artists themselves instead of letting them speak through various artistic mediums. And so I think it's really important to give them a voice as opposed to us just interpreting their works.
Do you think there's something different about the way an artist's imagination works versus the way a philosopher's imagination works or a researcher's imagination works? Yes, I do think that some people appear to possess extraordinary powers of imagination, maybe much more than the average person. And I think that you see this in all walks of life. And even with some researchers themselves, for example, what separated Einstein from other scientists was really his ability to imagine various possibilities and then to test these hypotheses.
And of course, you see this in music with pioneering artists as well. And even in academia, you can tell that some researchers are much more innovative and they take risk compared to other researchers that employ more traditional methods. So I want to dig into some of these chapters, some of the text of it. One chapter that I found really fascinating was about the captive Amazon in myth.
So Adrian there writes about the captive Amazon in myth, art, and history. I'm wondering what does the Amazon narrative tell us about women or minorities in Greek history? I mean, that's so often written about and by men. Given that I am primarily a specialist of French and Francophone studies with wide-ranging interests, I am not an expert in Greek history.
However, Mary's excellent essay demonstrates how women have been a stirbly marginalized or effed entirely in traditional historiography. In simple terms, the historical imagination often tells the story of the great exploits of men relegating the plethora of contributions of women to the periphery. A good concrete example will be the cult of the founding fathers in the United States, which there's no female equivalent whatsoever. Additionally, the gender-domagination often reinforces stereotypical images related to how men and women are supposed to act.
For instance, according to the standard feminine archetype, the ideal woman is a portrait of eternal youth, who is eternally radiant. This is ridiculous. This image is very disconnected from reality. It doesn't exist.
The ideal man in my society has huge muscles, is a voracious meat eater, is very assertive and aggressive and loves tools. As I often tell my students, given that I have no muscles at all, and tools many want to throw up. I am not the faithful image of the ideal man. All joking aside once again, these reductionistic images play a major role in the perpetuation of myths linked to the gender-imagination.
There's something that you mentioned, and this comes directly from the text. You said that there's no equivalent to the founding fathers in America. I actually wanted to push back on that a little bit, because I wonder, don't we see sort of parallels throughout US history? You have the suffragettes, for example.
Santa Cofals, you might say that that could be a female equivalent to that. Is there really no female equivalent to the founding fathers, or is it that we just don't see those narratives pushed to the forefront as much as the founding fathers? That's a really good question, and I think that you make a valid point. I think the issue is that we devote much more attention to the exploits of men in traditional historiography.
Let's say for instance, we read a history book, and there are five or ten pages dedicated to the founding fathers. You know, maybe there's a couple of sentences about the contributions of women or a paragraph, and that's simply not enough. So I actually do not disagree with your assertion in this regard. And I know you touched on this briefly, but just break it down for us in, again, super simple terms as you mentioned.
The difference between historiography and history. Wow, that's a really good question. Historography is how history is written, and history tends to be written by the winners. This means that unfortunately, the perspectives of moral and ethnic minorities, including women, are marginalized, or sometimes even erased entirely.
And a good example would be Christopher Columbus, and is a legend discovery of the United States. Well, you can't discover something that exists already. This is absolutely asinine. The reality is that this is a colonial conquest, and there are millions of people already living in the United States.
But unfortunately, tell ourselves this story all the time, oh Columbus discovered the United States, and it's simply not an accurate assessment because it leaves out a vital perspective. That's really interesting. I feel like that's a really relevant discussion right now in the United States, especially. Just take, for example, the 1619 project.
I feel like that is an example of historiography, a reimagining of history. As you said, history is normally written by the winners, and the 1619 project is something that has taken that narrative and focused it on the African and African, American experience in the US, rather than the perspective of those who colonize the US. Yes, that is very true. And that is another quintessential example of, as you said, the reimagining of history, and actually trying to correct, or should I say, nuance, the historical master narrative, that unfortunately tends to be very reductionistic and simplistic.
I'm wondering, do you see other examples where I guess, do you see any successful examples of history being reimagined, whether it's something like the 1619 project, where it's actually based on true stories, or something that in a way is almost more mythical. I'm thinking of the musical Hamilton, for example, of course, that's based on a true story, but all the characters are played by mostly non-white actors. That's a very imaginative way of telling that story in the same way that the Greek myths were an imaginative way of telling stories about men. Maybe one positive example in recent American history would be the celebration of Juneteenth as a new holiday in the United States.
I think this provides a platform to African Americans in the United States, and hopefully this means that history books will actually start highlighting the African American experience in the United States in a more systematic manner, as opposed to maybe adding a footnote or a paragraph here and there. I want to move on to some of the non-Western focus that you have in this book, which again I think is very fascinating to include here. So, Ying Ping-guo writes about the respect that Chinese people have for stones and rocks. Could you talk about the roots of this respect in Taoist philosophy and how does that differ from beliefs in Confucianism about precious stones like Jade, for example?
You know, identify another essay from imagination and art that stands out to me as well. I'm not an expert in Taoist philosophy or Confucianism, but Gao's cogent explanation of the deep respect that many Chinese people have for stones and rocks, ever since another vital perspective that is often neglected in the study of imagination. To be more precise, Gao illustrates how this venerations for stones and rocks is connected to a coherent, biostentric worldview and rich philosophical and spiritual paradigms that have deep roots in Chinese culture. Spanning centuries, additionally Gao's chapter recalls the French philosopher Gaston Bachellars' theories about the imagination of matter itself and essays like water and dreams.
The notion of the material imagination, which encourages us to reflect upon our connection to the rest of the material universe, is also a reflection of a more biocentric worldview. Gao's highly original essay should resonate quite well with colleagues all throughout the so-called environmental humanities. As I suggested earlier, this chapter also highlights cultural perspectives that are sometimes ignored. On a final note, I would contend that these kinds of ecological reimagining are more important than ever in the context of the impending environmental crisis that threatens all life on this planet.
So again, I'd like to ask if you could break a few things down for me. So explain to us what does it mean to have a biocentric worldview that sounds like from what you're describing, it's not something that is exactly Eastern or Western, you mentioned the French philosopher that focuses on this as well. And the risk interest refers to the notion that homo sapiens are the center of existence or the great miracle of existence that the universe revolves around the needs and desires of our species, whereas biocentrism is a much more earth-centered way of looking at our small place in the greater scheme of life itself. Given that we're also randomly tossed into the chaos of existence, there is nothing exceptional or special about human beings as a species.
Is that different than anthropomorphizing something, believing that a rock or a bunny rabbit or something thinks like a human acts like a human? That's a really good question. Yes, anthropomorphism is different because that's when you attribute human characteristics to another species that is not human, as you just suggested. You see examples of anthropomorphism all the time in TV commercials with animals that talk just like us, or they speak in English, French, Spanish, etc.
And that's not really what egocentric worldviews are about at all. It's a much more realistic way of viewing the world and our place in it based on scientific discoveries, such as the laws of thermodynamics or the laws of ecology, for instance. Do you think this biocentric worldview is something that a lot of nations like the US have maybe struggled with that they can't come to terms with it, for example, because of the way that we have treated the environment around us? Yes, because the biocentric worldview entails a certain form of cosmic humility.
You have to accept the fact that you aren't the miracle of existence or the center of the universe. You have to accept your cosmic smallness in the cosmos. And that's not necessarily an easy thing to do. And as you said, you also have to acknowledge the violence that we've inflicted upon the remainder of the biosphere at the same time.
So you have to take responsibility for your actions that are depleting the years limited natural resources. And you have to take responsibility for how your culture, unfortunately, has mistreated the planet for many centuries, resulting in an impending ego apocalypse. And of course I single up the US as an American. I feel that I can comment on that.
But of course, as you mentioned, the entire world has inflicted this. But moving on, I wonder, has editing this book changed the way that you see the world? Has it changed your imagination and just the way your brain works maybe? That's a really interesting question.
As I mentioned, it was a really daunting task editing this volume in the first place because it includes contributions from so many different philosophical and literary traditions. And I think that by having to conduct research in so many different areas, it's helped me to become more innovative and more creative in my own academic, intellectual endeavors. And it's also exposing to other perspectives related to the imagination as well. So it actually probably has broadened my imaginative possibilities in that regard.
Well, Keith, I hope everyone else gets the chance to read this. I hope it broadens their imaginations. It certainly helped mine really enjoyed reading this. Thank you so much.
I appreciate your time today. And I'd like to thank all the collaborators who contributed excellent essays to this volume as well. We were talking with Keith Moser. He's edited along with Anantasuqua, Imagination and Art, Explorations and Contemporary Theory.
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