JIS Symposium 2021: The Arts & Transcendence: In Search of Beauty, Truth & Goodness

In a postmodern era that questions all Absolutes except the subjective self, the arts may help rebuild the bridge to objectivity and transcendence.  Heinz Kohut’s psychology of the self notes the underlying malaise of postmodern man punctuated by fleeting images and disordered sound.  The arts probe the innermost recesses of the human soul and recall its quest for perfection, redemption, and immortality.  Indeed, the human capacities to appreciate beauty, truth and goodness constitute a roadmap to transcendence.  In The Sound of Beauty (2019), Michael Kurek, a classical composer, explores how classical music reveals both God’s immanence and transcendence, and that it speaks a universal language beyond preference and prejudice.  Empirical research confirms that classical music enhances human cognitive abilities, creativity, perception, and memory, which echoes Immanuel Kant’s philosophical proposition concerning the architectonic structure of the human mind.  Neuroscientific studies show also that children who undergo musical training have better verbal memory, language skills, reading ability, and executive functions.  Learning to play an instrument as a child may predict academic performance and IQ in young adulthood.  The question arises:  Can the arts that reflect the transcendentals of beauty, truth, and goodness be a gateway to mending the broken self and restoring human aspirations for social bonding and happiness?

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JIS Mss. Deadline: January 15, 2022.  Send 1 electronic file (MS Word or RTF) via e-mail attachment + 3 Both-Sided copies of:  15-25 page mss. (ca. 5,000-7,500 words), each with a ca. 150-175 word Abstract, typed, double-spaced, in-text citation format, author identification on a separate sheet (with postage for mss. return/SASE) to: Dr. O. Gruenwald, JIS Editor, Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, 1065 Pine Bluff Drive, Pasadena, CA 91107, USA.  Early mss. submissions recommended.  Web site: https://www.jis3.org.  E-mail: [email protected].