Professor Pauline von Bonsdorff

January - March 2012

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Pauline von Bonsdorff has been awarded a three-month Nominated Fellowship to work on the Existential aesthetics of childhood. Communication, imagination, memory

In her research Pauline approaches childhood and human development with an emphasis on the role of aesthetic (sensuous, emotional, expressive, imaginative) elements and aspects of communication and agency. As recent infancy research has indicated, the aesthetic dimension is pervasive in early childhood; yet in philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of mind there is virtually no work addressing this. Drawing mainly on phenomenology (notably Maurice Merleau-Ponty) and together with Colwyn Trevarthen (Emeritus Professor of Child Psychology and Psychobiology at the University of Edinburgh) Pauline will during her stay in Edinburgh focus on two themes: the ontogenesis of the sense of beauty, including the link between aesthetics and ethics; and the aesthetic (musical) dimension of language that is foundational for its capacity to carry meaning.

 

Contact Details:
Email: Pauline von Bonsdorff
Tel: 0131 651 1159
Address:
Sprigge Room
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
The University of Edinburgh
Hope Park Square
Edinburgh EH8 9NW