/library/oar/handle/123456789/20293 2025-11-11T19:44:46Z 2025-11-11T19:44:46Z Schembri Bonaci, Giuseppe /library/oar/handle/123456789/20689 2025-08-26T10:14:12Z 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The intellect of art : post- Auschwitz MA (fine or ugly arts) or we should talk less and draw more (Goethe), should we? Wozu dichter, what for indeed (Holderin). Nur lallen und lallen, immer-, immer- zuzu (Celan). Can we, after all the kaleidoscopic refractions of thousands of holocausts? Authors: Schembri Bonaci, Giuseppe Abstract: This paper discusses a fundamental question concerning not only the relationship between artistic technique and academic research but what role this relationship plays, if at all, during a period of genocides and a radical evolution towards a complete dehumanisation of mankind’s existence. The essay’s corresponding sub-text deals with the iconic debate between Adorno and Benjamin around the character of the contemporary art scene during the fundamental and seemingly irreversible establishment of a consumerist-fetishistic society. The essay thus calls for a re-qualification of methods of artistic research and a re-definition of art academia taking into account a novel situation in which techne has become poiesis in a period of apocalyptic tragedy. One of the central theses of the essay concerns the inability of philosophy and its corresponding conceptual language to articulate and to dig into the very meaning of a work of art, let alone the meaning and analysis of art history through art praxis. This reflects a deep paradox if one understands that art itself has today transformed itself into philosophy. We are therefore encountering a philosophy of man which cannot articulate its own meaning.

2014-01-01T00:00:00Z Vella, Raphael /library/oar/handle/123456789/20688 2017-07-27T01:29:52Z 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Avoiding “a Kind of Physics” : arts-based educational research Authors: Vella, Raphael Abstract: This article studies the viability and significance of arts-based methods in the context of educational research at the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta. It contextualises the field in its cultural and institutional settings, describing some of the challenges that arts-based methods of research have faced. It compares these creative methodologies to more empirical research methods that are generally associated with the field of education, illustrating the innovative combination of the role of the artist with that of the educational researcher by referring to two arts-based dissertations submitted by Masters students at the Faculty of Education. Finally, it argues that the value of arts-based educational research is located in its attachment to the actual experience of making art and the transformative capacities and specificity of art itself.

2014-01-01T00:00:00Z Vella, Raphael /library/oar/handle/123456789/20685 2017-07-27T01:29:53Z 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Establishing art practice as research at the University of Malta [Editorial] Authors: Vella, Raphael Abstract: This special edition of the the Malta Review of Educational Research (MRER) focuses on an area of scholarship that is, by its very nature, very unstable. Locating the role of contemporary artistic practices within a variety of university-based research paradigms is not a straightforward process because the field of contemporary art is itself quite complex, heterogenous, context-specific and prone to change. While research in most other academic disciplines (such as medicine) is also prone to constant revisions on the basis of thorough experimentation, fieldwork and scientific scrutiny, contemporary art often deliberately defies or challenges expectations and preconceptions, making any assessment of creative or epistemological ‘results’ more difficult. Art today often questions its own criteria, hierarchies, conventions and, to some extent, its own relevance and existence in a society that is increasingly dominated by homogenising, consumer-driven notions of ‘value’. In a very real sense, art can only critique this homogeneity by maintaining a condition of instability.

2014-01-01T00:00:00Z Brown, Maria /library/oar/handle/123456789/20648 2017-07-26T01:36:52Z 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The politics of education reform in the Middle East : self and other in textbooks and curricula [Book review] Authors: Brown, Maria Abstract: Samira Alyan’s, Achim Rohde’s and Sarhan Dhouib’s (2012) edited volume The Politics of Education Reform in the Middle East: Self and Other in Textbooks and Curricula comprises an analytic discussion of major trends, scope and limitations of education reform in the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. This is attempted by discussing findings of case studies on select reforms and an analysis of textbook deployment in a number of MENA countries. In terms of genre, the book’s discussion critically engages with educational and policy reform as well as teaching methods and materials to build on and expand the existing body of research…contribute to the political and scholarly debates… (take) stock of major trends in the area of school education and textbook development…(and) (assess) the scope and the limits of educational reform initiatives undertaken in recent years…with an eye towards the dynamics of identity politics reflected through representations of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’… (Rohde & Alayan, 2012, p. 6).

2014-01-01T00:00:00Z