Crazy about 'Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics'

I love this Editorial Statement for Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics:

"MORE THAN humane philology is essential for keeping the classics as a living force. Arion therefore exists to publish work that needs to be done and that otherwise might not get done. We want to stimulate, provoke, even 'plant' work that now finds no encouragement or congenial home elsewhere. This means swimming against the mainstream, resisting the extremes of conventional philology and critical fashion into which the profession is now polarized. But occupying this vital center should in no way preclude the crucial centrifugal movement that may lead us across disciplinary lines and beyond the academy. Our commitment is to a genuine and generous pluralism that opens up rather than polarizes classical studies. We will not be coerced into conforming either to the traditional paradigms or to the 'new' metaphysic and ideological absolutism of contemporary theory. If we are to move beyond the cant of 'isms' now dominating the academy, intellectual daring is needed, not disciplinary diffidence.

"We are in quest of freshness of vision, distinction of thought (as opposed to professional group-think), rigor of imagination, and an energetic sense of the spaciousness of the classical tradition."

The above excerpt appeared here.

Visit the Arion homepage here.

Paglia on religion and the arts

In an article in the Spring/Summer 2007 edition of Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, Camille Paglia wrote about the relationship between religion and the arts, and how respect for religion can revive the arts. What follows in an excerpt from Paglia’s article; thanks to the folks at Mars Hill Audio Journal for posting it on their Web site.

Paglia wrote:

For the fine arts to revive, they must recover their spiritual center. Profaning the iconography of other people’s faiths is boring and adolescent. The New Age movement, to which I belong, was a distillation of the 1960s’ multicultural attraction to world religions, but it has failed thus far to produce important work in the visual arts. The search for spiritual meaning has been registering in popular culture instead through science fiction, as in George Lucas’ six-film Star Wars saga, with its evocative master myth of the “Force.” But technology for its own sake is never enough. It will always require supplementation through cultivation in the arts.

To fully appreciate world art, one must learn how to respond to religious expression in all its forms. Art began as religion in prehistory. It does not require belief to be moved by a sacred shrine, icon, or scripture. Hence art lovers, even when as citizens they stoutly defend democratic institutions against religious intrusion, should always speak with respect of religion. Conservatives, on the other hand, need to expand their parched and narrow view of culture. Every vibrant civilization welcomes and nurtures the arts.

Progressives must start recognizing the spiritual povery of contemporary secular humanism and reexamine the way that liberalism too often now automatically defines human aspiration and human happiness in reductively economic terms. If conservatives are serious about educational standards, they must support the teaching of art history in primary school — which means conservatives have to get over their phobia about the nude, which has been a symbol of Western art and Western individualism and freedom since the Greeks invented democracy. Without compromise, we are heading for a soulless future. But when set against the vast historical panorama, religion and art — whether in marriage or divorce — can reinvigorate American culture.

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For something that looks a little like the marriage of religion and the arts, check out this interview with Nicora Gangi, along with images of two of her paintings, at http://www.liturgicalcredo.com/NicoraGangiJuneJuly2007.html .