Sarah F. Maclaren facts for kids
Sarah F. Maclaren (born June 4, 1964, in London, UK) is a smart thinker who studies culture, people, and societies. She is an expert in how ideas change over time, what makes things beautiful, and how people use language to persuade. She also helps organize cultural and academic events.
Sarah Maclaren has both British and Italian backgrounds.
Biography
Sarah Maclaren was born in London, United Kingdom. Later, she moved to Rome, Italy, where she lives and works today.
She went to a special high school in Rome called Liceo ginnasio statale Augusto. There, she studied subjects like history, literature, Latin, and ancient Greek. After high school, she went to the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” In 1988, she earned her degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology, which is the study of human societies and cultures.
Then, she continued her studies at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata.” She earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy, which means she studied deep questions about knowledge, values, and existence.
Since 1999, Sarah Maclaren has been teaching at the Loyola University of Chicago Rome Center. She teaches Sociology, which is the study of how societies work. Her classes focus on "Italy Today" and "Italian Fashion and Design."
She also helps edit Ágalma. Rivista di studi culturali e di estetica. This is a scholarly journal, which is like a magazine for experts, that focuses on Cultural Studies and Aesthetics. It was started in 2000 by an Italian philosopher named Mario Perniola.
Sarah Maclaren has written many books and articles. These writings often explore the history of ideas and cultural studies. In 2004, she traveled to Kyoto, Japan. There, she did research on the ideas about beauty and design of a famous architect named Arata Isozaki.
She has given talks and lectures in many countries around the world. These include the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Italy, and other parts of Europe. She is also a member of a group called the IAPL (The International Association for Philosophy and Literature). This group was started by Hugh J. Silverman.
What is Magnificence?
A big part of Sarah Maclaren’s work has been about the idea of "magnificence." This idea has a long history in Western culture, going all the way back to ancient times.
In ancient Greek, it was called “megaloprépeia.” In Latin, it was “magnificentia.” Both words mean doing something great or grand that fits the situation.
Sarah Maclaren explains that magnificence is about the greatness of actions. It's linked to courage, excellence, honor, generosity, and a splendid way of life for good reasons. She shows that thinkers from ancient Greece and Rome, like Plato and Aristotle, saw magnificence as an idea that connects many different fields. These include Philosophy, Economics, Sociology, Anthropology, Art, and Architecture.
However, great power or skill doesn't always lead to good actions. For example, Alcibiades, a famous figure from ancient Greece, was very talented. But his excellence sometimes led to bad deeds because he couldn't resist ambition or greed.
Sarah Maclaren also says that magnificence is different from "luxury." Luxury is about having expensive things, but magnificence is about grand actions and noble purposes.
In one of her books, La magnificenza e il suo doppio (Magnificence and its Double), she looks at the ideas of the famous Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi. She explains how Piranesi used the idea of magnificence in his art and writings. He believed that Roman architecture was very original and brilliant.
Piranesi even thought that the Roman sewage system, called the cloacae, and his famous drawings of imaginary prisons, called Carceri, showed a different kind of magnificence. It was a hidden, mysterious, and powerful kind of greatness. This means magnificence can have two sides: a grand, noble side and a more mysterious, even dark, side.
Piranesi's ideas about this "double" magnificence had a big impact. Many famous writers and artists were inspired by his work, especially his Prisons. These include people like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, and Aldous Huxley.
Japan and Architecture
Sarah Maclaren also studied the beauty and design of modern Japanese architecture. She did research in Kyoto, Japan. She especially focused on Arata Isozaki, a world-famous architect.
Maclaren shows how Piranesi's ideas often inspired Isozaki's designs. Isozaki used the more unusual and modern parts of Piranesi's thinking.
In her book Arata Isozaki e la fine dell’utopia (Arata Isozaki and the End of Utopia), Maclaren writes about Isozaki's revolutionary and challenging style. His buildings and ideas are very unique. This helped him become one of the few architects who could combine both Eastern and Western traditions in his designs.
Maclaren also suggests that modern Japanese architecture uses some ideas of magnificence, like those Piranesi talked about. For example, large public works like artificial islands and global cities show how Japan builds big projects for everyone. On the other hand, Japan's underground cities, called "chika," remind us of the mysterious side of magnificence. This is like Piranesi's Prisons and the Roman cloacae.
Studio Crafts
Sarah Maclaren has also explored "studio crafts." In her book Che cosa sono gli Studio Crafts? (What are Studio Crafts?), she looks at what makes this art form special. She explains how it's different from fine art or industrial design. She also discusses why craftspeople focus so much on their skills and training.
She also studied how these artworks are recognized, valued, collected, and used. She notes that in Italy, this type of art hasn't always received enough attention.
In one article, she looked at the history of Japanese Onta pottery. This pottery was made by a small community in Southern Japan for their own use until the 1930s. Maclaren shows how this traditional pottery could have disappeared. But it was saved and became famous, even displayed in museums.
Sarah Maclaren also highlights the important role of Yanagi Sōetsu. He was inspired by the British Arts and Crafts movement. He worked to protect traditional folk crafts that were disappearing because of Japan's fast industrialization. Yanagi started the Japanese Mingei movement. He shared his ideas through journals, books, museums, and exhibitions. He also gave awards to excellent crafts and craftspeople. He discovered Onta pottery during his travels and admired it because it fit his ideas of beauty.
Brazil
Sarah Maclaren also studies the culture and art of Brazil. She did research in a small, traditional community in the state of Pernambuco. She received support from the Instituto Arqueológico Histórico e Geográfico Pernambucano, a Brazilian cultural group she is a member of.
Selected works
- “Lusso, spreco, magnificenza”, in “Il lusso oscuro oggetto del desiderio”, Ágalma. Rivista di studi culturali e di estetica, 2, 2002: 43-62. ISBN: 978-88-8353-133-0.
- “Magnificenza e mondo classico”, Ágalma. Rivista di studi culturali e di estetica, 5, 2003. Monographic issue . ISBN: 978-88-8353-241-2.
- La magnificenza e il suo doppio. Il pensiero estetico di Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Milano, Mimesis, 2005. ISBN: 978-88-8483-248-1.
- “Piranesi y la magnificenza de las aguas de Roma”, “Los sentidos del agua”, Revista de Occidente, 306, 2006: 261-79. ISSN 0034-8635.
- “L’architettura magnifica di Achilles G. Rizzoli”, in “Outsider culture”, Ágalma. Rivista di studi culturali e di estetica, 14, 2007: 42-57. ISBN: 978-88-8353-599-4.
- “Studio Craft. Una produzione tra arte e artigianato”, in, Alberto Caoci, Franco Lai, eds., Gli “oggetti culturali”. L’artigianato tra estetica, antropologia e sviluppo locale, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2007: 93-106. ISBN: 978-88-464-8385-0.
- “Che cosa sono gli Studio Crafts?”, in “Mano, maniera, manierismo”, Ágalma. Rivista di studi culturali e di estetica, 13, 2007: 48-56. ISBN: 978-88-8353-560-4 ISSN 1723-0284.
- “Arata Isozaki e la fine dell’utopia”, in “Il senso della fine”, Ágalma. Rivista di studi culturali e di estetica, 19, 2009: 61-75. ISSN 1723-0284.
