Literature

This is a paper for 'International Symposium 2017. Mechthild of Hackeborn’s Liber specialis gratiae: The Idea of its Middle English Translation and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 220 (2017 September 23.).' Comparing hagiographies of the sisters of Hackeborn (Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn and Mechthild of Hackeborn) with Vita sancta Hildegardis vigiris, I argue features of literacy activities of nuns of Helfta.

Intersubjective relations are plagued by an intractable combination of narcissism and aggression, in which the pleasure of recognition wars with the anxiety occasioned by difference. 1 This volume on ways of knowing charts the struggle in which academic disciplines engage to parse the commingling of knowledge, power and desire at the heart of all attempts to know both self and other. Two crucial questions are addressed by this chapter: first, if knowledge of the other is resisted, is there an alternative basis for equitable intersubjective relations? Second, without knowledge, what happens to the other two points of the triad, power and desire?

Kawaii and cute are increasingly prominent aesthetics in contemporary global culture. While Japan’s kawaii boom arguably began in the 1970s (Kinsella 1995: 220), it wasn’t until the late 20th/early 21st century that cuteness began to explode worldwide as the number of cute images, commodities, foods, fashions, and fandoms underwent rapid expansion (Dale 2017: 1). The new field of cuteness studies, formed to address this phenomenon, analyzes not only its history and development, but also the connection between cuteness and gender, race, ethnicity, age, nationality, politics, and interspecies affiliations. Its aim is to take seriously what is often dismissed as a facile commodity aesthetic because of its gendered association with femininity, childhood and the domestic sphere (Dale 2017: 2; Ngai 2012: 3).

Why are some things cute, and others not? What happens to our brains when we see something cute? And how did cuteness go global, from Hello Kitty to Disney characters? Cuteness is an area where culture and biology get tangled up. Seeing a cute animal triggers some of the most powerful psychological instincts we have - the ones that elicit our care and protection - but there is a deeper story behind the broad appeal of Japanese cats and saccharine greetings cards. Joshua Paul Dale, a pioneer in the burgeoning field of cuteness studies, explains how the cute aesthetic spread around the globe, from pop brands to Lolita fashion, kids' cartoons and the unstoppable rise of Hello Kitty. Irresistible delves into the surprisingly ancient origins of Japan's kawaii culture, and uncovers the cross-cultural pollination of the globalised world. If adorable things really do rewire our brains, it can help answer some of the biggest questions we have about our evolutionary history and the mysterious origins of animal domestication. This is the fascinating cultural history of cuteness, and a revealing look at how our most powerful psychological impulses have remade global style and culture.