Welcome to Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art,

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art ›› 2016, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (2): 41-51.

• Studies in Western Literary Theory • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Iconic Consciousness: The Material Feeling of Meaning

Jeffrey C. Alexander, Gao Rui, Zhao Di   

  1. Yale University; Fudan University
  • Online:2016-03-25 Published:2017-09-28
  • About author:Jeffrey C. Alexander is Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology and a Director of the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University. He works in the areas of theory, culture and politics, developing a meaning-centered approach to the tensions and possibilities of modern social life. Gao Rui received her Ph.D. degree in Sociology from Yale University. She is currently teaching in Beijing Foreign Studies University (Beijing 100089, China). Her research areas include cultural sociology, cultural theories, China studies and feminist studies. Zhao Di is a PhD student at the department of sociology in Fudan University(Shanghai 200433, China ); her major is cultural sociology, and she is now focusing on social trust research.

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Abstract: This article suggests an iconic turn in cultural sociology. Icons can be seen, it is argued, as symbolic condensations that root social meanings in material form, allowing the abstractions of cognition and morality to be subsumed, to be made invisible, by aesthetic shape. Meaning is made iconically visible, in other words, by the beautiful, sublime, ugly, or simply by the mundane materiality of everyday life. But it is via the senses that iconic power is made. This new approach to meaning is compared with others — with materialism, semiotics, aestheticism,  moralism,  realism,  and spiritualism.

Key words: aesthetics, iconicity, materiality, meaning