Arts & International Affairs: Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2018 | Page 5
ARTS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
or under (hupo) the chorus (krinein). Taxidou notes that “classical Greek acting was
not about pretending to be something one was not, it was about performing that role,
enacting it, demonstrating it through very specific conventions like masks.” The most
democratic politician would be an hupocrites who does not conflate acting with being.
But she leaves us thinking of our current politics where populist actors may not respect
the distance between theatricality and democratic politics.
The second theme in our issue analyzes the values embodied in art and the way they
circulate through art and representations. The “Multimodal” essay in this issue reports
on an exercise in Participatory Action Research (PAR) that deliberated global cultural
values and interests through the vehicle of the Edinburgh festivals. Unlike the Enlightenment
belief that arts festivals will bind society together, the deliberations report on the
thoughtful discussions that arts can engender and the barriers broken to address taboo
topics. Guy Gotto’s brilliant films on the deliberations provide almost an ethnographic
look at these discussions covering the thirty-three fellows from around the world who
convened through the Institute for International Cultural Relations at the University of
Edinburgh during 2017–18.
Jooyoun Lee’s essay on the K-pop band “Twice” further develops the theme that, rather
than arts bringing people together in conversation, they can equally reflect current
cultural conflicts. The author examines the “Tzuyu Incident” that involved the band’s
Taiwanese member whose identification as Chinese irked nationalistic sentiments in
mainland China. Rather than the vision of an international society conjured up in Miia
Huttunen’s essay, the Tzuyu Incident reminds us how nationalistic borders are reinforced
through arts controversies.
Stuart MacDonald provides a philosophical reflection on the incompatibilities between
values and cultures. He evokes an essay from Thomas J. Moore on Wittgenstein to argue
that, despite cultural relativism and differences, there are many reasons to expect cultural
relations to increase through a “layered pluralism” based on moral obligations, institutional
constraints, and self-interest.
There are also ways that the two themes intersect with each other. Of the two empirical
“Longform” peer-reviewed essays�one on UNESCO provides the outlines of a possible
peace, and the other on a Korean pop band shows a contrasting view of how culture
reflects current forms of (nationalistic) conflict. The two political philosophy essays in
this volume provide deeper, abstract reflections. Olga Taxidou points out the limits of
theatricality and the dangers of confusing theatricality with democratic leadership. Stuart
MacDonald outlines the possibilities of cultural relations in a world full of conflicting
cultures. Finally, the films featured in our “Multimodal” essay report on a Participatory
Action Research (PAR) exercise at the University of Edinburgh that brought thirty-three
cultural leaders from around the world. PAR techniques produce knowledge through
participant deliberations and praxis. The deliberations reported here are important for
understanding the performative meanings of cultural representations. Contrary to the
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