Paper Published in Technoetic Arts 20.3!

My paper entitled “Towards a new aesthetic: Noumenism and Noumenist poetics” has recently been published in issue 20.3 of Intellect’s well-established, peer-reviewed academic journal Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research: https://doi.org/10.1386/tear_00094_1

It is essentially the first published declaration of the intentions, motives, and views of Noumenism (a new art movement and its concomitant philosophy) in the form of an analysis of Hymns from Purgatory: “No. 6” by Noumenist poet Jason W. Johnson. You can find this poem, along with Hymns from Purgatory: “Nos. 5, 7, and 9,” here: https://www.newmystics.com/docum.../JasonWJohnson-Poems1.pdf

Dr. Johnson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Guilford Technical Community College | GTCC in Jamestown, NC, USA. Since 2019, he has served as President of the Board of Directors of The Friendship Table, a nonprofit organization committed to alleviating food insecurity. His published work includes "Historical and Political Poems" in Reading William Gilmore Simms: Essays of Introduction to the Author's Canon (Columbia, SC: The University of South Carolina Press, 2017) and much original poetry, including the collections The Anvil's Children (Oxford, MS: VOX Press, Inc, 2015) and The Night Watches (Searcy, AR: Brewer Publishing, 2023). At present, he is primarily concentrating on writing poetry.

The imaginational shifts, intersubjective identity, and lurking weirdness in Johnson’s poetry recall the peak works of Edvard Munch, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, and Jackson Pollock. But to describe it in painterly terms would risk slighting the succinctness, the tight structure and high concentration of content that can finally, only be the work of a masterful poet.

It has given me great pleasure to work with Claudia Westermann throughout the publication process. In addition to being an editor of Technoetic Arts, Dr. Westermann is an artist and architect. Her works are concerned with the ecologies, poetics, and philosophies of art and architectural design. They have been widely published and exhibited. She sits on the executive committee of the American Society for Cybernetics and is a member of the Crosscultural Research on Architecture Collective (CRAC). Check out her very cool work at http://www.litra-design.com

As you can read in the excerpt from their editorial for issue 20.3, Dr. Westermann, along with fellow CRAC member Dr. Amir Djalali, did a great job highlighting my paper and distilling its themes. The entire editorial is available to the public for free via Intellect Discover at https://doi.org/10.1386/tear_00088_2

Thank you, Claudia, for your tireless championship of art, architecture, cybernetics, the Technoetic Arts journal, and my small contribution to TA 20.3!

ZANE GILLESPIE

After six years as Minister of Music at Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church (UMC) in Holly Springs, MS, I was recently called to continue to work to address public engagement in music participation as Director of Music Ministries at First UMC in Water Valley, MS. I am a Composer, Theorist, and member of both The College Music Society as well as The Poe Studies Association (PSA). I am also an active pianist and vocalist, specializing primarily in church music. My paper entitled ““Mesmeric Revelation”: Art as Hypnosis” has been published by the international, peer-reviewed journal Humanities. In addition, another paper of mine entitled “A Model of Triadic Post-Tonality for a Neoconservative Postmodern String Quartet by Sky Macklay” has been submitted to the peer-reviewed Music Theory journal Perspectives of New Music. At the end of February 2015, I served as Chair for the session entitled “Aesthetics and Philosophy” at The Fourth International PSA Conference in New York City. On June 21, 2014, my Quartet for Alto Saxophone and Strings, a commission from concert saxophonist Walter Hoehn, was performed as part of Concert V of the Eighth Annual Belvedere Chamber Music Festival held at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Memphis, TN. Characteristically neo-romantic (in the original sense of the word), my music earned me the Nancy Van de Vate Award for Composition three times from the University of Mississippi Department of Music. A native of Pontotoc, MS, I hold degrees from the University of Mississippi (BM; MM), and the University of Memphis (DMA) where I was the 2011 recipient of the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music's Smit Composition Award. I live in Memphis, TN.