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.
First Page
41
Last Page
51
Recommended Citation
Jeffrey, C. Alexander, Rui Gao, and Di Zhao. 2016. "Iconic Consciousness: The Material Feeling of Meaning." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 36, (2): pp.41-51. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol36/iss2/8
