序言 约斯·德·穆尔. In: Zha Changping. World Relational Aesthetics. A History of Ideas in Pioneering Contemporary Chinese Art. Volume One. Shanghai: Sanlian, 2017, xiv-xvi, xvii-xx.

序言约斯·德·穆尔（鹿特丹伊拉斯谟大学）

    2006年，我来中国参加学术讲座，访问了不同的城市。这些城市各具千秋，例如乌鲁木齐和上海。我也参加了国际美学协会在成都举办的会议。会上，我第一次见到查常平先生。介绍我们认识的是一位共同的朋友：上海的历史学者陈新。在成都逗留期间，常平和我有几次对话。我还记得六月一个炎热的夜晚，我们和雕塑家朱成以及我妻子格里（Gerry）一起坐在府河边的露台上，讨论中国和欧洲的当代艺术、宗教和政治的状况，一面享受着四川美食和冰啤，一面看着露台上小孩快乐地玩耍。真是一个美好之夜，让我难以忘怀。

    一晃十多年过去了。此间，常平和我保持着联系。他的出版物我都拜读过（可惜只能读翻译成英文的那些作品，因为我不懂中文）。他产出之多、涉猎之广，令我钦佩，从艺术批评和艺术史——如丰富多彩的《向上成都，身体美学与场景凸现》（2013）——到历史逻辑、日本历史、新约研究和一系列翻译作品。更令我印象深刻的是：他深谙西方艺术理论并且能够灵活应用于汉语语境中。常平确实是一位全面的人文学者，善于运用启发性的跨文化研究方法。

Jos de Mul. Preface. In: Zha Changping. World Relational Aesthetics. A History of Ideas in Pioneering Contemporary Chinese Art. Volume One. Shanghai: Sanlian, 2017, xiv-xvi, xvii-xx.

In 2006, as part of a lecture tour through China, which brought me to cities as different as Urumqi and Shanghai, I also participated in a conference of the International Association of Aesthetics in Chengdu. It was on this occasion that I met Zha Changping for the first time. I was introduced to him by a common friend of us, the Shanghai-based historian Chen Xin. During my stay in Chengdu, Changping and I had several conversations, and I especially remember one hot evening in June, whenwe, together with museum sculptor Zhu Cheng and my wife Gerry, were sitting on a terrace near the Fu river, discussing the state of contemporary art, religion and politics in China and Europe, meanwhile enjoying the delicious Sichuan food and cool beers and watching the joyful play of the little children on the terrace. It was a wonderful evening, to which my memories often return.

Since that first meeting more than ten years have passed, in which Changping and I kept in touch. I followed his publications (unfortunately only being able to read the English ones, as I am not able to read Chinese) and was impressed by his productivity andthe broad scope of his publications, ranging from art criticism and art history – such as the very informative Up-On Chengdu, Somatic Aesthetics and Scene Connection (2013) - to studies in the logic of history, Japanese history, New Testament studies, and a series of translations. What moreover impressed me was his profound familiarity with Western art theories and the creative way he applied them within a Chinese context. Changping proved to be all-round humanities scholar with an inspiring intercultural approach.

Jos de Mul. From Yijing to Hypermedia: Some Notes on Computer-mediated Literary Theory and Criticism. In: Peng Feng (ed.), Aesthetics and Contemporary Art. International Yearbook of Aesthetics. Volume 16. Beijing University: 2016, 114-125.

The development and global dissemination of computers - from the mainframe computers in the middle of the 20^th century up to the smart phones that enable us to be online everywhere at any time - has an enormous impact on virtually every domain in human life, including art and literature. In the past decades, we have witnessed the emergence of different kinds of new media, that – among many other things – also have given birth to new art forms and genres, such as computer animations, hypertext, and interactive netart. All these new (that is: computer-mediated) media can be called “hypermedia”, because they share two fundamental characteristics: they are media that are both multimedial and non-linear.

In this contribution I will discuss the impact of hypermedia on literary theory and criticism. More particularly, the question I will focus on in my lecture is: how to write about hypermedia? In what ways do hypermedia affect literary theory and literary criticism. However, when writing about hypermedia, literature can only be a point of departure of our examination. After all, hypermedia are media that absorb and thereby re-mediate the other “old media”, literature included.[1] And this, as I will argue, also applies to literary theory and literary criticism, which at least partly is going to be transformed into hypermedial criticism.

Jos de Mul. Meeting Erica and OSCAR. On almost living bodies, new media aesthetics, and the East-West divide. Invited lecture at the 20th In ternational Congress of Aesthetics. Seoul, July 26, 2016.

It is often noticed that the attitude towards robots and artificial intelligences in Western culture differs strongly from the attitude in Asia. Whereas in the Western world android robots are under taboo, Asian scientists and artists seem to be fond of  robots that mimic human appearance and behavior. It has been claimed that the differences in attitude towards android robots are connected with differences in worldview and religion. Whereas Asian, interconnected  cultures do not sharply distinguish between human subjects and natural objects, in Western, separative cultures a sharp distinction is being made between active subjects and passive objects. Moreover, in the Christian tradition the creation of living things is traditionally considered to be a taboo (‘Thou shall not play God!’). Although the notion of the ‘uncanny valley’ (the unpleasant feeling evoked by robots or other entities that closely resemble living human beings, such as corpses and zombies was introduced by the Japanese robot specialist Masahiro Mori,  at first sight it seems more applicable to the Western attitude towards android robots than to the Asian attitude.  Taking some prominent European and Asian new media artworks in which artificial life and robots play a prominent role as a starting point, I will focus on the question whether these stereotypes are still valid in contemporary, globalized intercultures.

Jos de Mul. Premodern, modern, and postmodern art in the age of globalization. Invited lecture at the symposium From Modernisation to Globalisation. Hangzhou, November 4, 2015.

约•德•穆尔：《论（生物）技术崇高》，雷礼锡译, 载范明华、黄有柱主编：《美学与艺术研究》第5辑，武汉：武汉大学出版社，2014年，第175～185页。

Jos de Mul, "Lun (Sheng Wu) Ji Shu Chong Gao" (The (Bio)technological Sublime), trans. by Lei Li-xi, in Research of Aesthetics and Art (Mei Xue Yu Yi Shu Yan Jiu), Vol. 5, edited by Fan Ming-hua & Huang You-zhu, Wuhan: Wuhan University Press, 2014, 175-185. 

论（生物）技术崇高 [荷]约·德·穆尔 著 雷礼锡 译

如果说崇高概念以前习惯用于表明人类主体感到努力代表自然所体现的不足，那么后现代境遇——其中自然本身已被淡忘——业已产生一种崇高感，人类发现自身与自己的造物相对立 戴尔·查普曼 引言

自从18世纪中叶美学作为哲学的一门特殊学科出现[①]，其历史就体现了两个明显趋向，体现了（后）现代艺术与文化作为一个整体的独特发展。一种趋向是，美学的发展表现为审美范畴的显著分化和增加。早期的美学主要集中在美的范畴，19世纪初至今宽泛的新的审美概念已经出现，如崇高、讽刺、滑稽、荒诞、平庸。毫无疑问，这一发展反映了现代艺术自身的发展，它不停地扩大审美经验和表达的领域。美的艺术成了“永不再美的艺术”。

Jos de Mul. It takes three to tango! Invited lecture at the colloquium Europa's hoogste goed. Rotterdam: Erasmus University Rotterdam, November 22, 2013.

Naar aanleiding van het emeritaat van bijzonder hoogleraar prof.dr. Donald Loose en het honderdjarig bestaan van de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam organiseert de Faculteit der Wijsbegeerte het colloquium "Europa's hoogste goed".Keynote spreker is prof. dr. Rémi Brague (Paris Sorbonne, München, Boston en lid van de Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques) met zijn lezing Why Europe is in need of a strong concept of the good. Met zijn werk Europe la voie romaine (E: Eccentric culture) verwierf hij bredere mondiale bekendheid. Brague is een eminent kenner van Europa's complexe culturele identiteit, zowel van haar antieke en middeleeuwse als moderne bronnen. Hoewel het boek in 14 talen vertaald werd, was het tot op heden niet in het Nederlands beschikbaar. Na zijn lezing op de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam wordt de Nederlandse vertaling Europa - de Romeinse weg aangeboden aan Brague.Naast de lezing van Brague is er in de ochtend een interdisciplinairpanel in het Nederlands betreffende "Europa's hoogste goed" waarin wijsgerige, economische, historische en sociale aspecten daarvan worden belicht. Sprekers zijn prof.dr. J. de Mul (FW), dr.  L. Noordergraaf (ESE, EUC), prof.dr. W. Schinkel (FSW) en drs. J. Hengstmengel (FW). Voorzitter is filosoof prof.dr. Ger Groot (FW).Het colloquium eindigt met het afscheid van prof.dr. Loose, die na negentien jaar werkzaam te zijn geweest aan de Faculteit der Wijsbegeerte met emeritaat gaat. Hij bezette aldaar de bijzondere leerstoel 'Wijsbegeerte en katholieke levensbeschouwing', ingericht door de Stichting Thomas More. Ter afsluiting van zijn tijd aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam zal prof.dr. Loose zijn afscheidscollege geven: "Europa's hoogste goed".

Jos de Mul. From open design to metadesign. Keynote lecture at the international conference 3D printing: destiny, doom or dream? eLaw@Leiden, Leiden University, 14 and 15 November, 2013.

In recent years 3D printing has become a hot topic in the media, in industry and in academia. Some claim that 3D printing will enable us to print, rather than buy, all of the products we normally obtain from stores – from clothing and automobile parts to different foods and jewelry. Moreover, with 3D printing we may in the future be able to print organs and tissues, and hence alleviate or solve the suffering of those in need of transplants. With solutions to pressing problems ranging from organ shortages to reducing our environmental footprint through less waste, less transport costs, to more innovation, creativity and personalization some argue that 3D printing is a heavenly destiny indeed.

At the same time, however, there are also critical voices to be heard. First and foremost, while 3D printing has been on the market for some decades now, the public at large has yet to get to know it in practice, let alone to adopt it for their personal production purposes. Techniques and technologies for 3D printing have developed drastically over time, but the mass deployment of this technology is only just picking up momentum. Moreover, research and development with respect to the applications mentioned above – printing your own food or a new organ – are still in their infancy and will probably take decades to come to maturity. These points have led critics to suggest that the big dreams behind 3D printing may turn out to be the hallucinations of a hyped-up new prospect, forever receding over the horizon. 

Finally, 3D printing raises serious social, ethical, regulatory and legal questions. If individuals can print anything they want, how are we going to solve issues of, for example, gun control or intellectual property infringement? What will be the effects of home-printed goods and foods on our economy, on the transport sector, on the worldwide hunt for scarce resources? Does this new technology need regulation, and if so, how will we regulate it, and with which purposes? What is the effect of a level playing field for producing goods on innovation and creativity?

These and many other question will be addressed during the two-day international, multidisciplinary conference ‘3D printing: destiny, doom or dream?, which will take place on 14 and 15 November 2013 at Leiden University’s Law School in the Netherlands. This conference is organised by eLaw, the Centre for Law in the Information Society, and is part of its biannual conference series.

Jos de Mul. The work of art in the age of digital recombination. Invited lecture at Osaka University. Osaka, October 24, 2013.

Jos de Mul. The biotechnological sublime. From nature to technology and back. Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. The Institute Letter. Spring 2013, 17.

Many things are awesome, but none more awesome than man.

Sophocles

Every once in a while we experience something extraordinary. Such ‘awesome’ experiences might happen in our research, when we unexpectedly discover something really amazing, or when we come across a magnificent landscape, hear a piece of music that really moves us, or when we fall deeply in love. Traditionally these kinds of extraordinary experiences are called “sublime”. In the following I will present some reflections on one particular kind of sublimity: the technological sublime.