https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/56577 2026-04-09T22:41:57Z 2026-04-09T22:41:57Z Baldacchino, John https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/56828 2020-05-31T05:22:23Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Thalassic lessons : pedagogical aesthetics and the Mediterranean Authors: Baldacchino, John Abstract: With some trepidation the poets plead to their sea. Their only hope is that the sea— the thalassa—offers a lesson. This expectation exudes a sense of liturgy and sacrifice. Not unlike a presbyter, the poet’s ritual seeks to mediate the world with the myriad singular experiences that make it. Heinrich Heine demands an answer from the North Sea by recalling the gods of Hellas in an effort to resurrect its ability to conjoin death with life. He is the presbyter who demands most. In contrast, in the presence of his sea, Montale sees himself as a mere mortal. He could only engage in a strange rhythm as he carefully traces back his upbringing along the Mediterranean coast. In the cycle of poems Mediterraneo Montale-the-poet encounters the limits of Montale-the-man. His liturgy happens every day, as it struggles with his poetic craft, looking for appropriate words that would somehow represent his bewildered sense of loss, fear and desolation as an individual. Overwhelmed by a presence that far exceeds what the brain thinks or his voice could utter, Montale-the-man is reconciled with Montale-the-poet by surrendering in a “struggling rhythm” to the limits of what the rest of his senses could feel, taste and hear in a sea that portends the weight of universality.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Vella, Raphael https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/56822 2020-05-31T05:22:29Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Translating the ‘Mediterraneans’ : art, education and understanding ‘between the lands’ Authors: Vella, Raphael Abstract: Known in English and the romance languages as the sea ‘between the lands’, the Mediterranean goes and has gone by many names: ‘Our Sea’ for the Romans, the White Sea (Akdeniz) for the Turks, the ‘Great Sea’ (Yam gadol) for the Jews, the ‘Middle Sea’ (Mittelmeer) for the Germans, and more doubtfully the ‘Great Green’ of the ancient Egyptians. Modern writers have added to the vocabulary, coining epithets such as the ‘Inner Sea’, the ‘Encircled Sea’, the ‘Friendly Sea’, the ‘Faithful Sea’ of several religions, the ‘Bitter Sea’ of the Second World War, the ‘Corrupting Sea’ of dozens of micro-ecologies transformed by their relationship with neighbours who supply what they lack, and to which they can offer their own surpluses; the ‘Liquid Continent’ that, like a real continent, embraces many peoples, cultures and economies within a space with precise edges. (Abulafia 2011, p. xxiii)

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Savva, Andri https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/56778 2020-05-31T05:21:30Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Khora, topos and praxis : diverse concepts and meanings of contemporary art education Authors: Savva, Andri Abstract: Khôra (meaning space) and topos (meaning place)xviii could be described as concepts with multiple and diverse meanings in which personal, social-cultural, historical, and aesthetic dimensions coexist. It seems that no single theory or conceptualisation could exhaust the diversely rich implication of these concepts, especially in what might inform art education theory and research. This seems to remain the case even when most scholars who have done extensive studies of the concept of place (as being khôra and/or topos) would possibly agree that understanding the multiple meanings of such concepts is key to understanding wider concepts about the world, including: our relationships with ourselves, with each other (across generations, distances, cultures) and with our surroundings.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Marques Da Silva, Sofia https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/56777 2020-05-31T05:21:14Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Disinheriting the heritage and the case of Pauliteiras : young girls as newcomers in a traditional dance from the northeast of Portugal Authors: Marques Da Silva, Sofia Abstract: In an article entitled “La Méditerranée oubliée”, Jean-François Devret (2003) holds that there is a southern feeling of dissymmety and even deception arising from growing contrasts in society and economy. Within Southern and Mediterranean regions there are, however, other dissymmetries reinforcing the major ones. Those dissymmetries are being experienced and are happening in everyday lives, namely in young people’s lives, and they bear witness to deep inequalities at social, cultural, economical and regional levels. Portugal has been considered as a semi-peripheral context “which is a reference to the existence of socio-cultural and economic features that are typical of an intermediate level of development” (Rodrigues & Stoer 2001, p. 134).

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