Thorsten Botz–bornstein
Biographic Data
| ID | 4514975 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thorsten Botz–bornstein |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thorsten |
| FAMILY NAME | Botz–bornstein |
| SIGNATURE | BORNSTEIN T B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Gulf University for Science & Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3664-2219 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Morrissey and Daoism: Easy Wandering, Wuwei , and the Aesthetics of Awkwardness
In this article, the author draws attention to “Daoist” themes in Morrissey’s art and personality. The link between Morrissey and Daoism can be established via Oscar Wilde, whose relationship with Zhuangzi’s philosophy has been much commented upon. Morrissey’s worldview and art have been shaped by Wilde, whose Complete Works Morrissey received from his librarian mother at the age of eight. The self-estranging irony, the incorrect behavior, as wel…
Daoism, Dandyism, and Political Correctness
Argues that Daoism and dandyism, linked by likeminded philosophies of “carefree wandering,” deconstruct the puritanism and political correctness sought by Confucianism, Victorianism, and contemporary neoliberal culture.
Japanese/Korean popular culture in Kuwait and Singapore: Resistance and conservatism
In 2017, I launched a survey on the importance of Japanese and Korean popular cultures in Kuwait. I discovered a paradoxical pattern of resistance to the East through the adherence to another eastern culture. I wanted to examine how other non-western countries handle ‘Japanese culture’ in comparison and decided to adopt Singapore as a sample case. Both Kuwaiti and Singaporean students stress the differences between Japan/Korea and their own count…
Morrissey and Daoism: Easy Wandering, WuweiFlowers , and the Aesthetics of Awkwardness
In this article, the author draws attention to “Daoist” themes in Morrissey’s art and personality. The link between Morrissey and Daoism can be established via Oscar Wilde, whose relationship with Zhuangzi’s philosophy has been much commented upon. Morrissey’s worldview and art have been shaped by Wilde, whose Complete Works Morrissey received from his librarian mother at the age of eight. The self-estranging irony, the incorrect behavior, as wel…
Nishida Kitarō and Muhammad ‘Abduh on God and reason: Towards a theology of place
I compare the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro (1870–1945) with the Egyptian philosopher and reformer Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905). Both philosophies emerged within similar cultural contexts. Both thinkers attempt to think relationships between the individual and the universal through organic models. In parallel, both philosophies produce paradoxical positions regarding the integration of reason and religion. Like ‘Abduh, Nishida is interested …
From Expansion to Network: Some Reflections on a New Geography in Eastern Europe
In December 2019 the mayors of Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, and Warsaw, all of them at odds with their countries’ populist governments, signed a pro-European declaration called the “Pact of Free Cities.” Can cities officially go against the political commitments of their rulers? “Free cities” are reminiscent of Middle Ages’ “freie Städte.” While this development is mainly positive and necessary, I also formulate some criticism. City networks are…
Micro and Macro Philosophy: Organicism in Biology, Philosophy, and Politics
What role can philosophy play in a world dominated by neoliberalism and globalization? Must it join universalist ideologies as it did in past centuries? Or might it turn to ethnophilosophy and postmodern fragmentation? Micro and Macro Philosophy argues that universalist cosmopolitanism and egocentric culturalism are not the only alternatives. Western philosophy has created a false dichotomy. A better solution can be found in an organic philosophy…
Philosophy and Culture
Destruction and sorrow beneath the heavens: Reportage
The “futurist” aesthetics of Isis
ISIS propaganda differs from that of other (Islamic or non-Islamic) religions or cults as it is not so much concerned with imagination and exotic fantasies but accentuates the maximal exploitation and demonstration of available technology. The Islamic State does not only excel through the extensive use of high-tech weapons, social media, commercial bot, and automated text systems; by putting forward the presence of speeding cars and tanks, mobile…
Kawaii, kenosis, Verwindung: A reading of kawaii through Vattimo’s philosophy of ‘weak thought’
Kawaii is different from the western cute because it may also include ‘cool’. The paradoxical coexistence of weakness and strength, of cute and cool, is interesting in philosophical terms. Kawaii is not simply weak but equipped with its own kind of strength. In this article, I explore kawaii by using philosophical ideas linked to the paradigm of ‘strength out of weakness’ that appears in the so-called ‘weak thought’ philosophy of Gianni Vattimo. …
Kenosis, Dynamic Śūnyatā and Weak Thought: Abe Masao and Gianni Vattimo
The verb κενόω (kenos) means ‘to empty’ and St. Paul uses the word ἐκένωσεν (ekenosen) writing that ‘Jesus made himself nothing’ and ‘emptied himself’. Śūnyatā is a Buddhist concept most commonly translated as emptiness, nothingness, or nonsubstantiality. An important kenosis–śūnyatā discussion was sparked by Abe Masao’s paper ‘Kenotic God and Dynamic Śūnyatā’ (in 1984). I confront the kenosis–śūnyatā theme with Vattimo’s kenosis-based philosophy…
The Veil in Kuwait: Gender, Fashion, Identity
The Veil in Kuwait explores the complex reasons behind why women veil and how they are perceived by those that do not veil. Religion, culture, family, tradition, and fashion are all explored to provid
Rivalry: A Geisha's Tale
Veils and sunglasses
Both the veil and sunglasses aim to disrupt gazes. Marshal McLuhan has analysed sunglasses and their relationship with his system of hot and cool media. The attractive eyes of the veiled woman invite the gaze to further scrutiny. A general but relatively profound attraction is effectuated first, which will then create the desire to discover the rest of the face. The perceptual mechanics of dark glasses works the other way. Here the official part …
Can the Veil Be Cool
When it comes to the veil, religious, political, aesthetic, and personal values are constantly mixed, and any attempt to disentangle them can too easily be foiled by the bias of the observer. In principle, the veil is (represents, signifies) nothing that can be spelled out in terms of fixed symbolisms, but it will only function in a certain way. In theory, any veil is cool because it plays with limits, status, and privileges. It does not simply a…
From the stigmatized tattoo to the graffitied body: Femininity in the tattoo renaissance
This article analyzes the spectacularly rising popularity of tattoos by showing that tattoos have become a spatial project in the largest sense: the way they participate in the creation of social space is different from that of tattoos before the Tattoo Renaissance. I explain this project as a shift from tattoos to body graffiti. In the past (predominantly male) tattoo-spheres could be located within the margins of society. Once an identity had b…
Japan Transformed: Political Change and Economic Restructuring
By Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Michael F. Thies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), xvi + 243 pp. $27.95/£19.95 paper. On August 30, 2009 the Democratic Party of Japan won 308 of t
The Conscious and the Unconscious in History: Lévi-Strauss, Collingwood, Bally, Barthes
Claude Lévi-Strauss holds that history and anthropology differ in their choice of complementary perspectives: history organizes its data in relation to conscious expressions of social life, while anthropology proceeds by examining its unconscious foundations. For R. G. Collingwood historical science discovers not only pure facts but considers a whole series of thoughts constituting historical life. Also Lévi-Strauss sees this: “To understand hist…
The Philosophy of Viagra: Bioethical Responses to the Viagrification of the Modern World
The impotency remedy Viagra is the fastest selling drug in history. It has grown beyond being simply a medical phenomenon, but has achieved the status of cultural icon, appearing on television as a pretext for jokes or even as a murder weapon. Viagra has socio-cultural implications that are not limited to sexuality. The Philosophy of Viagra offers a unique perspective as it examines the phenomenon of Viagra through ideas derived from more than tw…
Confucianism, Puritanism, and the Transcendental: China and America
Max Weber examined Chinese society and European Puritanism at the beginning of the Twentieth Century in order to find out why capitalism did not develop in China. He found that Confucianism and Puritanism are mutually exclusive, which enabled him to oppose both in the form of two different kinds of rationalism. I attempt neither to refute nor to confirm the Weberian thought model. Instead I show that a similar model applies to Jean Baudrillard’s …
What would Nietzsche have said about virtual reality? Dionysus and cyberpunk
Within Nietzsche's mythological system, the Apolline dream world of the stage action is married to the Dionysian ‘real’ world of the satyr-chorus: what is born is the tragedy as a reflection of real life. However, neither Dionysus nor Apollo suggests a flight from reality into an abstract virtuality. Both are advocates of reality even though they attain the stage of reality only through a paradox: the Dionysian man manages to stay close to realit…
The Cool-Kawaii: Afro-Japanese Aesthetics and New World Modernity
Chapter 13 Bibliography Chapter 14 Index Chapter 15 About the Author
Wong Kar-wai's Films and the Culture of the Kawaii
Wong Kar-wai’s Films and the Culture of the Kawaii Thorsten Botz-Bornstein (bio) Introduction Since 1988, the year of the release of As Tears Go By, many academic texts have been written about Wong Kar-wai and his films. Among the themes dealt with are 1) Wong’s emergence from the Hong Kong cinema scene and the exceptional status he enjoys within that scene; and 2) the similarities between Wong and an extremely wide range of Western directors. Th…
Wong Kar-wai's Films and the Culture of theKawaii
From the stigmatized tattoo to the graffitied body: Femininity in the tattoo renaissance
This article analyzes the spectacularly rising popularity of tattoos by showing that tattoos have become a spatial project in the largest sense: the way they participate in the creation of social space is different from that of tattoos before the Tattoo Renaissance. I explain this project as a shift from tattoos to body graffiti. In the past (predominantly male) tattoo-spheres could be located within the margins of society. Once an identity had b…
Japanese/Korean popular culture in Kuwait and Singapore: Resistance and conservatism
In 2017, I launched a survey on the importance of Japanese and Korean popular cultures in Kuwait. I discovered a paradoxical pattern of resistance to the East through the adherence to another eastern culture. I wanted to examine how other non-western countries handle ‘Japanese culture’ in comparison and decided to adopt Singapore as a sample case. Both Kuwaiti and Singaporean students stress the differences between Japan/Korea and their own count…
Kawaii, kenosis, Verwindung: A reading of kawaii through Vattimo’s philosophy of ‘weak thought’
Kawaii is different from the western cute because it may also include ‘cool’. The paradoxical coexistence of weakness and strength, of cute and cool, is interesting in philosophical terms. Kawaii is not simply weak but equipped with its own kind of strength. In this article, I explore kawaii by using philosophical ideas linked to the paradigm of ‘strength out of weakness’ that appears in the so-called ‘weak thought’ philosophy of Gianni Vattimo. …
Veils and sunglasses
Both the veil and sunglasses aim to disrupt gazes. Marshal McLuhan has analysed sunglasses and their relationship with his system of hot and cool media. The attractive eyes of the veiled woman invite the gaze to further scrutiny. A general but relatively profound attraction is effectuated first, which will then create the desire to discover the rest of the face. The perceptual mechanics of dark glasses works the other way. Here the official part …
Philosophical Conceptions of Cultural Space in Russia and Japan: Comparing Nishida Kitarō and Semën Frank
Jean-Luc Nancy notes that the community, since it is no absolute subject (self, will, spirit), is by its nature not inscribed in any logic metaphysics. In spite of this, or indeed because of this, Western philosophy has persistently tried to interpret the community through precisely these metaphysical terms (Nancy, 1986, page 18, La Commonauté désoevrée, Christian Bourgeois, Paris). Some thoughts about Russian and Japanese notions of community an…
"Iki," Style, Trace: Shuzo Kuki and the Spirit of Hermeneutics
Shûzô Kuki et la 'philosophie de la contingence' française
Botz-Bornstein ThorstenBotz-Bornstein Thorsten. Shûzô Kuki et la «philosophie de la contingence» française. Une communication unique entre l'Orient et l'Occident. In: Revue Philosophique de Louvain. Quatrième série, tome 97, n°1, 1999. pp. 113-126
Vasily Sesemann: Neo-Kantianism, Formalism and the Question of Being
Nishida and Wittgenstein: From 'pure experience' to Lebensform or new perspectives for a philosophy of intercultural communication
(2003). Nishida and Wittgenstein: From 'pure experience' to Lebensform or new perspectives for a philosophy of intercultural communication. Asian Philosophy: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 53-70
Europe: Space, Spirit, Style
Firstly, politicians tend to define Europe in terms of space. Scientific connotations of space, however, make such procedures less suitable for cultural expression. Since Europe is obviously constituted also by various concrete elements, it cannot be located in a purely abstract sphere. Secondly, Heidegger argues that mortals should first have to "put up" with the space they are living in before developing a "technological" relationship with this…
Place and Dream: Japan and the Virtual
This is a book about space. On a first level, it reflects traditional Japanese ideas of space against various “items” of Western culture. Among these items are Bakhtin's “dialogicity”, Wittgenstein’s Lebensform, and “virtual space” or “globalized” space as representatives of the latest development of an “alienated”, modern spatial experience. Some of the Western concepts of space appear as negative counter examples to “basho-like”, Japanese place…
Mapping Film Studies
The title of Chateau’s book sounds more essentialist than it is actually meant to be. Most readers might expect systematic research into at least one of two questions: 1. what is philosophical in film? and 2. what is cinematic in philosophy? The purpose of Chateau’s book is not really to seriously engage in these questions but rather to enumerate the numerous encounters that have taken place between cinema and philosophy. In the introduction Chat…
Genes and Pixels: Popular Bio-Genetics’ Virtual Aesthetics
The term “gene” was introduced by the biologist Wilhelm Johansen in 1906 and was supposed to be “completely free of any hypothesis”; to express “only the evident fact that, in any case, many charac
Dreams in Buddhism and Western Aesthetics: Some Thoughts on Play, Style and Space
Several Buddhist schools in India, China and Japan concentrate on the interrelationships between waking and dreaming consciousness. In Eastern philosophy, reality can be seen as a dream and an obscure 'reality beyond' can be considered as real. In spite of the overwhelming Platonic–Aristotelian–Freudian influence existent in Western culture, some Western thinkers and artists—Valéry, Baudelaire, and Schnitzler, for example—have been fascinated by …
From Community to Time–Space Development: Comparing N. S. Trubetzkoy, Nishida Kitarō, and Watsuji Tetsurō
I introduce and compare Russian and Japanese notions of community and space. Some characteristic strains of thought that exist in both countries had similar points of departure, overcame similar problems and arrived at similar results. In general, in Japan and Russia, the nostalgia for the community has been strong because one felt that in society through modernization something of the particularity of one's culture had been lost. As a consequenc…
European Transfigurations—Eurafrica and Eurasia: Coudenhove and Trubetzkoy Revisited
The Eurasianist movement launched a theory according to which Russia does not belong to Europe but forms, together with its Asian colonies, a separate continent named “Eurasia” whose Eastern border is the Pacific Ocean. Similarily, in the early 1920s, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of the Pan-European movement, developed, the idea of “Eurafrica.” I compare the writings of Coudenhove and those of Nicolas S. Trubetzkoy and show how the ide…
Wong Kar-wai's Films and the Culture of the Kawaii
Wong Kar-wai’s Films and the Culture of the Kawaii Thorsten Botz-Bornstein (bio) Introduction Since 1988, the year of the release of As Tears Go By, many academic texts have been written about Wong Kar-wai and his films. Among the themes dealt with are 1) Wong’s emergence from the Hong Kong cinema scene and the exceptional status he enjoys within that scene; and 2) the similarities between Wong and an extremely wide range of Western directors. Th…
Wong Kar-wai's Films and the Culture of theKawaii
Philosophical Conceptions of Cultural Space in Russia and Japan: Comparing Nishida Kitarō and Semën Frank
Jean-Luc Nancy notes that the community, since it is no absolute subject (self, will, spirit), is by its nature not inscribed in any logic metaphysics. In spite of this, or indeed because of this, Western philosophy has persistently tried to interpret the community through precisely these metaphysical terms (Nancy, 1986, page 18, La Commonauté désoevrée, Christian Bourgeois, Paris). Some thoughts about Russian and Japanese notions of community an…
The Cool-Kawaii: Afro-Japanese Aesthetics and New World Modernity
Chapter 13 Bibliography Chapter 14 Index Chapter 15 About the Author
The Philosophy of Viagra: Bioethical Responses to the Viagrification of the Modern World
The impotency remedy Viagra is the fastest selling drug in history. It has grown beyond being simply a medical phenomenon, but has achieved the status of cultural icon, appearing on television as a pretext for jokes or even as a murder weapon. Viagra has socio-cultural implications that are not limited to sexuality. The Philosophy of Viagra offers a unique perspective as it examines the phenomenon of Viagra through ideas derived from more than tw…
Confucianism, Puritanism, and the Transcendental: China and America
Max Weber examined Chinese society and European Puritanism at the beginning of the Twentieth Century in order to find out why capitalism did not develop in China. He found that Confucianism and Puritanism are mutually exclusive, which enabled him to oppose both in the form of two different kinds of rationalism. I attempt neither to refute nor to confirm the Weberian thought model. Instead I show that a similar model applies to Jean Baudrillard’s …
What would Nietzsche have said about virtual reality? Dionysus and cyberpunk
Within Nietzsche's mythological system, the Apolline dream world of the stage action is married to the Dionysian ‘real’ world of the satyr-chorus: what is born is the tragedy as a reflection of real life. However, neither Dionysus nor Apollo suggests a flight from reality into an abstract virtuality. Both are advocates of reality even though they attain the stage of reality only through a paradox: the Dionysian man manages to stay close to realit…
The Conscious and the Unconscious in History: Lévi-Strauss, Collingwood, Bally, Barthes
Claude Lévi-Strauss holds that history and anthropology differ in their choice of complementary perspectives: history organizes its data in relation to conscious expressions of social life, while anthropology proceeds by examining its unconscious foundations. For R. G. Collingwood historical science discovers not only pure facts but considers a whole series of thoughts constituting historical life. Also Lévi-Strauss sees this: “To understand hist…
Veils and sunglasses
Both the veil and sunglasses aim to disrupt gazes. Marshal McLuhan has analysed sunglasses and their relationship with his system of hot and cool media. The attractive eyes of the veiled woman invite the gaze to further scrutiny. A general but relatively profound attraction is effectuated first, which will then create the desire to discover the rest of the face. The perceptual mechanics of dark glasses works the other way. Here the official part …
Can the Veil Be Cool
When it comes to the veil, religious, political, aesthetic, and personal values are constantly mixed, and any attempt to disentangle them can too easily be foiled by the bias of the observer. In principle, the veil is (represents, signifies) nothing that can be spelled out in terms of fixed symbolisms, but it will only function in a certain way. In theory, any veil is cool because it plays with limits, status, and privileges. It does not simply a…
From the stigmatized tattoo to the graffitied body: Femininity in the tattoo renaissance
This article analyzes the spectacularly rising popularity of tattoos by showing that tattoos have become a spatial project in the largest sense: the way they participate in the creation of social space is different from that of tattoos before the Tattoo Renaissance. I explain this project as a shift from tattoos to body graffiti. In the past (predominantly male) tattoo-spheres could be located within the margins of society. Once an identity had b…
Japan Transformed: Political Change and Economic Restructuring
By Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Michael F. Thies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), xvi + 243 pp. $27.95/£19.95 paper. On August 30, 2009 the Democratic Party of Japan won 308 of t
The Veil in Kuwait: Gender, Fashion, Identity
The Veil in Kuwait explores the complex reasons behind why women veil and how they are perceived by those that do not veil. Religion, culture, family, tradition, and fashion are all explored to provid
Rivalry: A Geisha's Tale
Philosophy (24 works) · Art (18 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Aesthetics (17 works) · Epistemology (17 works) · Law (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Politics (9 works) · Psychology (9 works)