Philosophy: aesthetics Books

Book SynopsisThe distinctive concept of the symbol, articulated by such writers as Goethe, Schelling, and Coleridge, is of the utmost significance in the literary, philosophical, and even scientific thought of the Romantic period. This interdisciplinary historical study examines the development of the concept in a jargon-free style that will appeal to a broad range of readers.Trade ReviewThe Genealogy of the Romantic Symbol is a really fine book, and one that anyone interested in Romantic literary theory will find absorbing. Halmi draws on an impressively wide range of authorities; he gathers a complex argument into pages of pleasurable lucidity; and he pursues his quarry with grace. * Seamus Perry, The Wordsworth Circle *innovative... a brilliant and original study that is essential reading for scholars of the Romantic period. * Orianne Smith, Year's Work in English Studies *an important contribution to Romantic scholarship. * Carol Tully, The Modern Language Review *This book offers one of the most profound reflections on symbol since Paul de Man: subtle, original and provocative. It is a brief book, but extremely rich, and often brilliant. This is history of ideas as it ought to be written. * Michael John Kooy, THES *Halmi's book will take its place before long among the indespensable contributions to Romantic studies * Uttara Natarajan, Notes and Queries *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements ; Abbreviations ; 1. Defining the Romantic Symbol ; 2. Burdens of Enlightenment ; 3. Uses of Philosophy ; 4. Uses of Theology ; 5. Uses of Mythology ; Appendix: The So-called 'Oldest Programme for a System of German Idealism' ; Bibliography

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Book SynopsisDisagreement is common: even informed, intelligent, and generally reasonable people often come to different conclusions when confronted with what seems to be the same evidence. Can the competing conclusions be reasonable? If not, what can we reasonably think about the situation? This volume examines the epistemology of disagreement. Philosophical questions about disagreement arise in various areas, notably politics, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion: but this will be the first book focusing on the general epistemic issues arising from informed disagreement. Ten leading philosophers offer specially written essays which together will offer a starting-point for future work on this topic.Trade ReviewDisagreement is set to be a key reference for all those deeply interested in this gripping topic. * Amir Dastmalchian, Religious Studies *All of the essays in this volume repay careful study. It is essential reading for those interested in epistemology. And inasmuch as disagreement is part and parcel of philosophy itself, we expect the book to make an impact in other sub-disciplines as well. * Nathan Ballantyne, Mind *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. We're Right. They're Wrong. ; 2. Belief in the Face of Controversy ; 3. Persistent Disagreement ; 4. Rational Disagreement Defended ; 5. You Can't Trust a Philosopher ; 6. Peer Disagreement and Higher Order Evidence ; 7. How to Disagree About How to Disagree ; 8. Epistemic Relativism and Reasonable Disagreement ; 9. The Moral Evil Demons ; 10. Disputing about Taste

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Book SynopsisLooking at pictures, we see in them the scenes they depict, and any value they have springs from these experiences of seeing-in. Sight and Sensibility presents the first detailed and comprehensive theory of evaluating pictures. Dominic Lopes confronts the puzzle of how the value of seeing anything in a picture can exceed that of seeing it face to face - his solution pinpoints how seeing-in is like and unlike ordinary seeing. Moreover, since part of what we see in pictures is emotional expressions, his book also develops a theory of expression especially tailored to pictures. Not all evaluations of pictures as opportunities for seeing-in are aesthetic - others are cognitive or moral. Lopes argues that these evaluations interact, for some imply others. His argument entails novel conceptions of aesthetic and cognitive evaluation, such that aesthetic evaluation is distinguished from art evaluation as essentially tied to experience, and that cognitive evaluations assess cognitive capacities, including perceptual ones. Ultimately, Lopes defends images against the widespread criticism that they thwart serious thought, especially moral thought, because they merely replicate ordinary experience. He concludes by presenting detailed case studies of the contribution pictures can make to moral reflection. Sight and Sensibility will be essential reading for anyone working in aesthetics and art theory, and for all those intrigued by the power of images to affect our lives.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition ...a focused, lucid, and meticulous study of the nature of pictorial value ... The great merit of Sight and Sensibility is that it provides a subtle and convincing account of the manner in which different types of value interact, an account that is sensitive to, and thus brings forth, fine aspects of our encounter with pictorial works and the impact of such an encounter on our sensibilities ... of interest to readers concerned with matters of evaluation not just of pictorial art but of all kinds of art, due to the unified and comprehensive conception of value that it offers - a conception that places our humane concerns about works of art firmly in the (traditionally insulated) domain of aesthetic appreciation. * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Table of ContentsPreface ; Introduction ; 1. The puzzle of mimesis ; 2. The 'air' of pictures ; 3. Good looking ; 4. Drawing lessons ; 5. Moral vision ; Afterword ; References ; Index

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Book SynopsisWhy do gardens matter so much and mean so much to people? That is the intriguing question to which David Cooper seeks an answer in this book. Given the enthusiasm for gardens in human civilization ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, it is surprising that the question has been so long neglected by modern philosophy. Now at last there is a philosophy of gardens. Not only is this a fascinating subject in its own right, it also provides a reminder that the subject-matter of aesthetics is broader than the fine arts; that ethics is not just about moral issues but about ''the good life''; and that environmental philosophy should not focus only on ''wilderness'' to the exclusion of the humanly shaped environment. David Cooper identifies garden appreciation as a special human phenomenon distinct from both from the appreciation of art and the appreciation of nature. He explores the importance of various ''garden-practices'' and shows how not only gardening itself, but activities to which thTrade Reviewan intricately argued, beautifully nuanced and highly sensitive analysis of what gardens mean and what sort of enterprise they are . . . David E. Cooper has written a book that anyone who wants to understand gardening, our relationship with nature, and the arts will want to read. * Mara Miller, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism *Table of Contents1. Taking Gardens Seriously ; 2. Art or Nature? ; 3. Art-and-Nature ; 4. Gardens, People, and Practices ; 5. Gardens and the Good Life ; 6. The Meaning of Gardens ; 7. The Garden as Epiphany ; 8. Conclusion: The Garden's Distinction

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Book SynopsisThe Oxford Handbooks series is a major new initiative in academic publishing. Each volume offers an authoritative and up-to-date survey of original research in a particular subject area. Specially commissioned essays from leading figures in the discipline give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates. Oxford Handbooks provide scholars and graduate students with compelling new perspectives upon a wide range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences. The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics brings the authority, liveliness, and multi-disciplinary scope of the Handbook series to the area where philosophy meets the arts. Jerrold Levinson has assembled a hugely impressive range of talent to contribute 48 brand-new essays, making this the most comprehensive guide available to the theory, application, history, and future of the field. This Handbook will be invaluable to academics and students across philosophy and all branches of the arts, both as the reference work of Trade Reviewthe philosophy of emotion as a whole is considerably richer as a result of this comprehensive, skilfully edited collection of high-quality philosophical work ... essential reading for those with an interest in the emotions * Michael Brady, British Journal of Aesthetics *This Handbook is a timely response to a growing interest in aesthetics ... it covers a good deal of ground, provides much interesting information and abounds in interesting quotations. * Peter Rickman, Philosophy Now *Levinson has achieved his intention to provide a collection from which both the professional philosopher and the enthusiastic non-professional can derive instruction and pleasure. . . . he has brought together many of the key practitioners in the field of philosophical aesthetics and this is reflected in the depth of subjects and the lucid quality of the writing. * British Journal of Aesthetics *Table of ContentsPreface ; 1. Philosophical Aesthetics: an Overview ; 2. History of Modern Aesthetics ; 3. Aesthetic Realism 1 ; 4. Aesthetic Realism 2 ; 5. Aesthetic Experience ; 6. Beauty ; 7. Aesthetics of Nature ; 8. Definition of Art ; 9. Ontology of Art ; 10. Medium in Art ; 11. Representation in Art ; 12. Expression in Art ; 13. Style in Art ; 14. Creativity in Art ; 15. Authenticity in Art ; 16. Intention in Art ; 17. Interpretation in Art ; 18. Value in Art ; 19. Humour ; 20. Metaphor ; 21. Fiction ; 22. Narrative ; 23. Tragedy ; 24. Art and Emotion ; 25. Art and Knowledge ; 26. Art and Morality ; 27. Art and Politics ; 28. Music ; 29. Painting ; 30. Literature ; 31. Architecture ; 32. Sculpture ; 33. Dance ; 34. Theatre ; 35. Poetry ; 36. Photography ; 37. Film ; 38. Feminist Aesthetics ; 39. Environmental Aesthetics ; 40. Comparative Aesthetics ; 41. Aesthetics and Evolutionary Psychology ; 42. Aesthetics and Cognitive Science ; 43. Aesthetics and Ethics ; 44. Aesthetics of Popular Art ; 45. Aesthetics of the Avant-Garde ; 46. Aesthetics of the Everyday ; 47. Aesthetics and Postmodernism ; 48. Aesthetics and Cultural Studies

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Book SynopsisWhy does Mark''s Jesus speak in parables? Why does Plato''s Socrates make bad arguments? Why are Beckett''s novels so inscrutable? And why don''t stage magicians even pretend to summon spirits anymore? In a series of captivating chapters on Mark, Plato, Beckett, Mallarmé, and Chaucer, Joshua Landy not only answers these questions but explains why they are worth asking in the first place.Witty and approachable, How to Do Things with Fictions challenges the widespread assumption that literary texts must be informative or morally improving in order to be of any real benefit. It reveals that authors are sometimes best thought of not as entertainers or as educators but as personal trainers of the brain, putting their willing readers through exercises designed to fortify specific mental capacities, from form-giving to equanimity, from reason to faith.Delivering plenty of surprises along the way--that moral readings of literature can be positively dangerous; that the parables were deliberatelTrade ReviewThis book may be most valuable for its call to pedagogical reform. It would be helpful for revising the aims of broad world-lit surveys or humanities courses, or, indeed, for reframing almost any literature class. ...Landy's book also offers persuasive talking points for any defense of the liberal arts mission... His book is a good manual for training Landy's own readers in how to become formative teachers. * Ashley Barnes, Comparative Literature *Joshua Landy has no patience for the simple-minded moral didacticism that permeates recent literary theory and philosophy. Sure-footed and light-handed, he emphasizes the 'formative' rather than the 'informative' function of literary fiction. Eloquent, erudite, witty, and just as passionate, Landy has given us a new way of looking at the importance of fiction for life * a new and marvelous 'defence of poesy.'Alexander Nehamas, author of Only a Promise of Happiness *What do we gain from reading fiction? Joshua Landy's brilliant new book advances a provocative answer with impressive verve, erudition, and insight. His discussion ranges from the New Testament to Plato, Mallarme, and Beckett, among many others. No reader will put down the book unaffected, or think of fiction in quite the same way again. * Charles L. Griswold, author of Self-Knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus *In this wonderfully engaging book, Joshua Landy writes against all of those (rather depressing) theories that argue for literary texts as guides for moral improvement, or as 'messages' for the reader. Instead, Landy identifies what he calls 'formative fiction' - literature that trains the reader in the act of reading itself - a compelling and refreshing study. * Francoise Meltzer, author of Seeing Double: Baudelaire's Modernity *This terrific book pulls no punches in engaging with scholarly debates, critiquing an array of knowledge-seeking approaches to fiction. Landy's constructive work, exemplified in the verve and affection with which he treats his 'formative fictions,' is persistently humane and practical, pressing us for openness to the vital exercise fictions offer. * Eileen John, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Warwick *If we persist in reading complicated books for something more than their plot, Landy has at least given us a series of thoughtful and persuasive reasons for doing so. * The Guardian *It is rare to read a work in which the sense comes through so fully of what it must be like to sit in the author's classroom; in this case, it is clear that Stanford students enjoy an intellectual treat, one now available to many others...Essential. * Choice *Table of ContentsTable of Contents ; Acknowledgments ; INTRODUCTION ; Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Fiction ; Formative Fictions ; The Temporality of the Reading Experience ; In Spite of Everything, a Role for Meaning ; A Polite Aside to Historians ; The Value of Formative Fictions ; PART ONE-CLEARING THE GROUND ; Chapter One-Chaucer: Ambiguity and Ethics ; Prudence or Oneiromancy? ; A Parody of Didacticism ; Preaching to the Converted ; The Asymmetry of 'Imaginative Resistance' ; Virtue Ethics and Gossip ; Qualifications ; Positive Views ; PART TWO- ENCHANTMENT AND RE-ENCHANTMENT ; Chapter Two-Mark: Metaphor and Faith ; Rhetorical Theories ; Five Variables, Six Readings ; Deliberate Opacity ; The Vision of Mark ; From Him Who Has Not ; To Him Who Has ; The Syrophenician Woman ; The Formative Circle ; Metaphor and Faith ; Theological Ramifications ; A Parable about Parables ; Getting It Wrong By Getting It Right ; Coda: The Secular Kingdom ; Appendix: "Le Cygne" ; Chapter Three-Mallarme: Irony and Enchantment ; Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin ; Exorcisms and Experiments ; Science and Wonder ; Lucid Illusions ; Stephane Mallarme ; The Spell of Poetry ; Setting the Scene ; A Replacement Faith ; How to Do Things with Verses ; A Corner of Order ; The Magic of Rhyme ; A Training in Enchantment ; A Sequence of States ; The Birth of Modernism from the Spirit of Re-Enchantment ; PART THREE-LOGIC AND ANTI-LOGIC ; Chapter Four-Plato: Fallacy and Logic ; A Platonic Coccyx ; Ascent and Dissent ; The Developmental Hypothesis ; Dubious Dialectic ; Pericles, Socrates and Plato ; The Gorgias Unravels ; The Uses of Oratory ; Was Gorgias Refuted? ; Spiritual Exercises: Seven Points in Conclusion ; Appendix: Just How Bad is the Pericles Argument? ; Chapter Five-Beckett: Antithesis and Tranquillity ; Bringing Philosophy to an End ; Ataraxia ; Antilogoi ; One Step Forward ; Finding the Self to Lose the Self ; An Irreducible Singleness ; Res Cogitans ; Solutions and Dissolutions ; Two Failures ; "I confess, I give in, there is I" ; Negative Anthropology ; The Beckettian Spiral ; An End to Everything? ; Fail Better ; Glimpses of the Ideal ; Two Caveats ; Coda ; Works Cited

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Book SynopsisStudies in the History of the Renaissance is a highly influential defence of aestheticism. Pater redefined the practice of criticism through his readings of some of the paintings, sculptures, and poems of the Renaissance, and shocked contemporaries for sponsoring a hedonistic ethic with his infamous 'Conclusion'.Table of ContentsPreface; Aucassin and Nicolette; Pico della Mirandola; Sandro Botticelli; Luca della Robbia; The Poetry of Michelangelo; Leonardo da Vinci; Joachim du Bellay; Winckelmann; Conclusion; Appendix A: The School of Giorgione; Appendix B: Diaphaneite

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Book Synopsis''Yes, what is Dionysian? - This book provides an answer - a man who knows speaks in it, the initiate and disciple of his god.''The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a book about the origins of Greek tragedy and its relevance to the German culture of its time. For Nietzsche, Greek tragedy is the expression of a culture which has achieved a delicate but powerful balance between Dionysian insight into the chaos and suffering which underlies all existence and the discipline and clarity of rational Apollonian form. In order to promote a return to these values, Nietzsche undertakes a critique of the complacent rationalism of late nineteenth-century German culture and makes an impassioned plea for the regenerative potential of the music of Wagner. In its wide-ranging discussion of the nature of art, science and religion, Nietzsche''s argument raises important questions about the problematic nature of cultural origins which are still of concern today. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford Worl

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Book SynopsisThis volume gathers together some of the most brilliant and influential essays ever written in English.The Spirit of Controversy uses versions of the essays as they first appeared in the magazines of his day.Trade ReviewThe ambitious attention to contextual situations, and the generous help afforded through introduction and annotations, make this the best selection yet for undergraduates, and the most affordable genuinely good edition for any Hazlitt reader. * Koenraad Claes, Hazlitt Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of William Hazlitt 1: Reply to Malthus 2: Fragments on Art 3: Mr Kean's Shylock 4: On Imitation 5: On Gusto 6: On the Elgin Marbles 7: Mrs Siddons 8: Mr Kemble's King John 9: Coriolanus 10: Macbeth 11: Hamlet 12: Character of Mr Burke 13: On Court Influence 14: On Fashion 15: Minor Theatres 16: On the Pleasure of Painting 17: Character of Cobbett 18: The Indian Jugglers 19: On a Landscape by Nicholas Poussin 20: The Fight 21: On Familiar Style 22: On the Spirit of Monarchy 23: My First Acquaintance with Poets 24: On Londoners and Country People 25: Jeremy Bentham 26: Lord Byron 27: William Godwin 28: Mr Wordsworth 29: On the Pleasure of Hating 30: Our National Theatres 31: The Spirit of Controversy 32: The Free Admission 33: The Letter-Bell Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisThe book brings together a selection of Malcolm Budd''s essays in aesthetics. A number of the essays are aimed at the abstract heart of aesthetics, attempting to solve a cluster of the most important issues in aesthetics which are not specific to particular art forms. These include the nature and proper scope of the aesthetic, the intersubjective validity of aesthetic judgements, the correct understanding of aesthetic judgements expressed through metaphors, aesthetic realism versus anti-realism, the character of aesthetic pleasure and aesthetic value, the aim of art and the artistic expression of emotion. Other essays are focussed on central issues in the aesthetics of particular art forms: two engage with the most fundamental issue in the aesthetics of music, the question of the correct conception of the phenomenology of the experience of listening to music with understanding; and two consider the nature of pictorial representation, one examining certain well-known views, the other arTrade ReviewAll topics addressed in the collection are dealt with with unmitigated rigour, and every scholar writing on them should take good note of what Budd has to say. * Paloma Atencia-Linares, Mind *This important collection by the prominent aesthetician Malcolm Budd brings together fourteen papers on the nature of aesthetics judgement and value, expression and movement in music, and depiction. In addition, there is a masterly analysis of and exposition of Kant's account of the pure judgement of taste and another of Wittgenstein's view of aesthetics ... Related chapters complement each other nicely without excessive overlap ... Philosophers of art will admire the unfussy care and insight with which Budd probes these intriguing topics, many of which lie at the 'abstract heart of aesthetics', as he rightly observes. I strongly recommend his book. * Stephen Davies, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. Aesthetic Judgements, Aesthetic Principles and Aesthetic Properties ; 2. Aesthetic Essence ; 3. The Acquaintance Principle ; 4. The Intersubjective Validity of Aesthetic Judgements ; 5. The Pure Judgement of Taste as an Aesthetic Reflective Judgement ; 6. Understanding Music ; 7. The Characterization of Aesthetic Qualities by Essential Metaphors and Quasi-Metaphors ; 8. Musical Movement and Aesthetic Metaphors ; 9. Aesthetic Realism and Emotional Qualities of Music ; 10. On Looking at a Picture ; 11. The Look of a Picture ; 12. Wollheim on Correspondence, Projective Properties and Expressive Perception ; 13. Wittgenstein on Aesthetics ; Index

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Book SynopsisMargaret Boden presents a series of essays in which she explores the nature of creativity in a wide range of art forms. Creativity in general is the generation of novel, surprising, and valuable ideas (conceptual, theoretical, musical, literary, or visual). Boden identifies three forms of creativity: combinational, exploratory, and transformational. These elicit differing forms of surprise, and are defined by the different kinds of psychological process that generate the new ideas. Boden examines creativity not only in traditional fine art, but also in craftworks, and some less orthodox approaches--namely, conceptual art and several types of computer art. Her Introduction draws out the conceptual links between the various case-studies, showing how they express a coherent view of creativity in art.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition brimming with interesting ideas and fascinating examples, presented in a clear, lively, and engaging fashion. Boden's book is essential reading for anyone interested in creativity in art or in computer art, and it deserves to be widely read and admired. * British Journal of Aesthetics *Table of ContentsPreface ; Acknowledgments ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Creativity in a Nutshell ; 3. Are Autodidacts Creative? ; 4. Crafts, Perception, and the Possibilities of the Body ; 5. Creativity and Conceptual Art ; 6. Personal Signatures in Art ; 7. What is Generative Art? ; 8. Agents and Creativity ; 9. Autonomy, Integrity, and Computer Art ; 10. Authenticity and Computer Art ; 11. Aesthetics and Interactive Art ; 12. Is Metabolism Necessary? ; Index

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Book SynopsisThe Kantian Aesthetic explains the kind of perceptual knowledge involved in aesthetic judgments. It does so by linking Kant''s aesthetics to a critically upgraded account of his theory of knowledge. This upgraded theory emphasizes those conceptual and imaginative structures which Kant terms, respectively, ''categories'' and ''schemata''. By describing examples of aesthetic judgment, it is shown that these judgments must involve categories and fundamental schemata (even though Kant himself, and most commentators after him, have not fully appreciated the fact). It is argued, in turn, that this shows the aesthetic to be not just one kind of pleasurable experience amongst others, but one based on factors necessary to objective knowledge and personal identity, and which, indeed, itself plays a role in how these capacities develop.In order to explain how individual aesthetic judgments are justified, and the aesthetic basis of art, however, the Kantian position just outlined has to be developTrade Reviewexciting and provocative * Philosophy in Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. The Transcendental Deduction; Objective Knowledge and the Unity of Self- Consciousness ; 2. Imagination and the Conditions of Knowledge ; 3. Pure Aesthetic Judgment: A Harmony of Imagination and Understanding ; 4. The Universality and Justification of Taste ; 5. Adherent Beauty and Concepts of Perfection ; 6. From Aesthetic Ideas to the Avant-Garde: The Scope of Fine Art ; 7. The Kantian Sublime Revisited

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Book SynopsisThe Aesthetic Brain takes the reader on a wide-ranging journey through the world of beauty, pleasure, and art. Chatterjee uses neuroscience to probe how an aesthetic sense is etched in our minds and evolutionary psychology to explain why aesthetic concerns feature centrally in our lives. Along the way, Chatterjee addresses fundamental questions: What is beauty? Is beauty universal? How is beauty related to pleasure? What is art? Should art be beautiful? Do we have an instinct for art? Chatterjee starts by probing the reasons that we find people, places, and even numbers beautiful. At the root of beauty, he finds, is pleasure. He then examines our pleasures by dissecting why we want and why we like food, sex, and money and how these rewards relate to aesthetic encounters. His ruminations on beauty and pleasure prepare him and the reader to face art. He wanders through the problems of defining art, understanding contemporary art, and interpreting ancient art. He explores why art, somethiTrade ReviewIn this book, Dr Anjan Chatterjee. . . introduces us to the emerging field of neuroasthetics. . . In his cogent review of the long history of human artifact-making art, he carefully considers the many definitions of aesthetics, art, and beauty. . . The author comes to his persuasive conclusion after having carefully examined prehistoric art objects, the history of art, evolutionary biology, brain anatomy, and functional studies. * Roy G. Fitzgerald, MD, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Vol. 76, October 2015 *Table of ContentsPREFACE ; INTRODUCTION ; BEAUTY ; 1. What is this thing called beauty? ; 2. Captivating faces ; 3. The measure of facial beauty ; 4. The body beautiful ; 5. How the brain works ; 6. Brains behind beauty ; 7. Evolving beauty ; 8. Landscapes ; 9. Numbering beauty ; 10. The illogic of beauty ; PLEASURE ; 1. What is this thing called pleasure? ; 2. Food ; 3. Sex ; 4. Money ; 5. Liking, wanting, learning ; 6. The logic of pleasure ; ART ; 1. What is this thing called art? ; 2. Art: Biology and culture ; 3. Descriptive science of the arts ; 4. Experimental science of the arts ; 5. Conceptual art ; 6. The inception of art ; 7. Messy minds ; 8. Evolving art ; 9. Art: A tail or a song? ; 10. The serendipity of art

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Book SynopsisLiterary scholars often avoid category of aesthetic in discussions of ethics, believing that aesthetic judgments can vitiate analyses of a literary work's sociopolitical heft. This title reveals that aesthetics formal aspects of literary language that make it senseperceptible are indeed inextricable from ethics in writing of medieval literature.Trade Review"Eleanor Johnson is a kind of literary-critical mechanic, revealing with brilliance and skill how particular formal and rhetorical elements work discretely and together to shape the readerly process - not for its own sake, but for the larger premodern project of personal ethical transformation. The research is first-rate and the arguments are original. The book will have an immediate and lasting effect on the study of medieval literature." (Bruce Holsinger, University of Virginia)"

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Book SynopsisExplores the intersection of beauty and violence by examining university lectures and course materials on aesthetics along with riots, acts of domestic terrorism, and magic lantern exhibitions. This work suggests that the distance separating academic thinking and popular wisdom about social transformation is narrower than we generally suppose.Trade Review"Beautiful Democracy is an important book, reestablishing aesthetics as a vital issue both within the immediate field of American literature and far beyond it. It engages a long and complexly developed conversation on the politics of form, using rich archival material, ranging from college curricula, black print culture, and the history of film." - Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University"

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Book SynopsisExplores the intersection of beauty and violence by examining university lectures and course materials on aesthetics along with riots, acts of domestic terrorism, and magic lantern exhibitions. This work suggests that the distance separating academic thinking and popular wisdom about social transformation is narrower than we generally suppose.Trade Review"Beautiful Democracy is an important book, reestablishing aesthetics as a vital issue both within the immediate field of American literature and far beyond it. It engages a long and complexly developed conversation on the politics of form, using rich archival material, ranging from college curricula, black print culture, and the history of film." - Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University"

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Book SynopsisThis work begins during a key transitional moment in aesthetic and economic theory, 1871, when both disciplines underwent a turn from production to consumption models. The author traces the shift in Western thought from models of production to consumption.

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Book SynopsisIn this bold interdisciplinary work, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that asceticism has played a major role in shaping Western ideas of the body, writing, ethics, and aesthetics. He suggests that we consider the ascetic as the 'cultural' element in culture, and presents a close analysis of works by Athanasius, Augustine, Matthias, Grünewald, Nietzsche, Foucault, and other thinkers as proof of the extent of asceticism's resources. Harpham demonstrates the usefulness of his findings by deriving from asceticism a discourse of resistance, a code of interpretation ultimately more generous and humane than those currently available to us.

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Book SynopsisWhy did the history of art come into being? Is it now in danger of slipping into obsolescence? And, if so, should we care? This book proposes that we might reframe the questions concerning art history by asking what kind of writing might help the discipline to better imagine its actual practices - and its potential futures.Trade Review"Filled with rich and probing accounts of many of art history's most noted writers, this book shows how, through the writing of art history, deep changes have been encouraged and effected in our modes of contemplation and judgment." - Lydia Goehr, Columbia University"

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Book SynopsisWhy did the history of art come into being? Is it now in danger of slipping into obsolescence? And, if so, should we care? This book proposes that we might reframe the questions concerning art history by asking what kind of writing might help the discipline to better imagine its actual practices - and its potential futures.Trade Review"Filled with rich and probing accounts of many of art history's most noted writers, this book shows how, through the writing of art history, deep changes have been encouraged and effected in our modes of contemplation and judgment." - Lydia Goehr, Columbia University"

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Book SynopsisThe years before World War I were a time of profound social and political ferment in Europe that deeply affected the art world. In this title, the author argues that anarchist aesthetics and a related politics of form played crucial roles in the development of modern art, only to be suppressed soon after the war and then forgotten.Trade Review"The Liberation of Painting is the real thing: a mature work by a paradigm-shifting scholar who has been publishing leading-edge scholarship on several of the artists discussed here over the course of her distinguished professional career. This book will make its mark in studies of the relationship between avant-garde art and radical politics, as the groundwork has already been put down by two decades of work by Patricia Leighten in her consistently strong and persuasive voice." (Elizabeth Childs, Washington University in St. Louis)"

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Book SynopsisLiterary scholars often avoid the category of the aesthetic in discussions of ethics, believing that purely aesthetic judgments can vitiate analyses of a literary work's sociopolitical heft and meaning. In Practicing Literary Theory in the Middle Ages, Eleanor Johnson reveals that aesthetics the formal aspects of literary language that make it sense-perceptible are indeed inextricable from ethics in the writing of medieval literature. Johnson brings a keen formalist eye to bear on the prosimetric form: the mixing of prose with lyrical poetry. This form descends from the writings of the sixth-century Christian philosopher Boethius specifically his famous prison text, Consolation of Philosophy to the late medieval English tradition. Johnson argues that Boethius's text had a broad influence not simply on the thematic and philosophical content of subsequent literary writing, but also on the specific aesthetic construction of several vernacular traditions. She demonstrates the underlying prosimetric structures in a variety of Middle English texts including Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and portions of the Canterbury Tales, Thomas Usk's Testament of Love, John Gower's Confessio amantis, and Thomas Hoccleve's autobiographical poetry and asks how particular formal choices work, how they resonate with medieval literary-theoretical ideas, and how particular poems and prose works mediate the tricky business of modeling ethical transformation for a readership.

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Book SynopsisFrom Edison's invention of the phonograph through contemporary field recording and sound installation, artists have become attracted to those domains against which music has always defined itself: noise, silence, and environmental sound. Christoph Cox argues that these developments in the sonic arts are not only aesthetically but also philosophically significant, revealing sound to be a continuous material flow to which human expressions contribute but which precedes and exceeds those expressions. Cox shows how, over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, philosophers and sonic artists have explored this sonic flux. Through the philosophical analysis of works by John Cage, Maryanne Amacher, Max Neuhaus, Christian Marclay, and many others, Sonic Flux contributes to the development of a materialist metaphysics and poses a challenge to the prevailing positions in cultural theory, proposing a realist and materialist aesthetics able to account not only for sonic art but for artistic production in general.

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Book SynopsisFrom Edison's invention of the phonograph through contemporary field recording and sound installation, artists have become attracted to those domains against which music has always defined itself: noise, silence, and environmental sound. Christoph Cox argues that these developments in the sonic arts are not only aesthetically but also philosophically significant, revealing sound to be a continuous material flow to which human expressions contribute but which precedes and exceeds those expressions. Cox shows how, over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, philosophers and sonic artists have explored this sonic flux. Through the philosophical analysis of works by John Cage, Maryanne Amacher, Max Neuhaus, Christian Marclay, and many others, Sonic Flux contributes to the development of a materialist metaphysics and poses a challenge to the prevailing positions in cultural theory, proposing a realist and materialist aesthetics able to account not only for sonic art but for

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Book SynopsisImmanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment, Thierry de Duve argues in the first volume of Aesthetics at Large, is as relevant to the appreciation of art today as it was to the enjoyment of beautiful nature in 1790. Going against the grain of all aesthetic theories situated in the Hegelian tradition, this provocative thesis, which already guided de Duve's groundbreaking book Kant After Duchamp (1996), is here pursued in order to demonstrate that far from confining aesthetics to a stifling formalism isolated from all worldly concerns, Kant's guidance urgently opens the understanding of art onto ethics and politics. Central to de Duve's re-reading of the Critique of Judgment is Kant's idea of sensus communis, ultimately interpreted as the mere yet necessary idea that human beings are capable of living in peace with one another. De Duve pushes Kant's skepticism to its limits by submitting the idea of sensus communis to various tests leading to questions such as: Do artists speak on behal

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Book SynopsisImmanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment, Thierry de Duve argues in the first volume of Aesthetics at Large, is as relevant to the appreciation of art today as it was to the enjoyment of beautiful nature in 1790. Going against the grain of all aesthetic theories situated in the Hegelian tradition, this provocative thesis, which already guided de Duve's groundbreaking book Kant After Duchamp (1996), is here pursued in order to demonstrate that far from confining aesthetics to a stifling formalism isolated from all worldly concerns, Kant's guidance urgently opens the understanding of art onto ethics and politics. Central to de Duve's re-reading of the Critique of Judgment is Kant's idea of sensus communis, ultimately interpreted as the mere yet necessary idea that human beings are capable of living in peace with one another. De Duve pushes Kant's skepticism to its limits by submitting the idea of sensus communis to various tests leading to questions such as: Do artists speak on behal

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Book SynopsisA discussion of the diverse relationships between law and the artistic image. Topics addressed in the book include the history of the relationship between art and law, the ways in which the visual is made subject to the force of the law, and the relations between law, the image and identity.

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Book SynopsisA discussion of the diverse relationships between law and the artistic image. Topics addressed in the book include the history of the relationship between art and law, the ways in which the visual is made subject to the force of the law, and the relations between law, the image and identity.

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Book SynopsisOver the past two centuries Western culture has largely valorized a particular kind of good musichighly serious, wondrously deep, stylistically authentic, heroically created, and strikingly originaland, at the same time, has marginalized music that does not live up to those ideals. In Good Music, John J. Sheinbaum explores these traditional models for valuing music. By engaging examples such as Handel oratorios, Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, jazz improvisations, Bruce Springsteen, and prog rock, he argues that metaphors of perfection do justice to neither the perceived strengths nor the assumed weaknesses of the music in question. Instead, he proposes an alternative model of appreciation where abstract notions of virtue need not dictate our understanding. Good music can, with pride, be playful rather than serious, diverse rather than unified, engaging to both body and mind, in dialogue with manifold styles and genres, and collaborative to the core. We can widen the scope of what

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Book SynopsisOver the past two centuries Western culture has largely valorized a particular kind of good musichighly serious, wondrously deep, stylistically authentic, heroically created, and strikingly originaland, at the same time, has marginalized music that does not live up to those ideals. In Good Music, John J. Sheinbaum explores these traditional models for valuing music. By engaging examples such as Handel oratorios, Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, jazz improvisations, Bruce Springsteen, and prog rock, he argues that metaphors of perfection do justice to neither the perceived strengths nor the assumed weaknesses of the music in question. Instead, he proposes an alternative model of appreciation where abstract notions of virtue need not dictate our understanding. Good music can, with pride, be playful rather than serious, diverse rather than unified, engaging to both body and mind, in dialogue with manifold styles and genres, and collaborative to the core. We can widen the scope of what

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“At long last a collection in English that does justice to the breadth, depth, and contemporary significance of Simmel’s writings on the arts! With many new translations and a wide-ranging introduction, Harrington’s volume portrays the influential modernist philosopher and pioneering cultural theorist in deep and critical engagement with a rapidly changing world. A powerful testament to Simmel’s conception of philosophical culture—and to the transdisciplinary significance of a thinker whose achievements continue to resist disciplinary categorization.” -- Elizabeth Goodstein, Emory University“Georg Simmel is known in sociology for many things: the structure of social groups, the philosophy of money, metaphysical essays on life, individuality and social forms, the metropolis, and social differentiation. However, apart from the publication of Rembrandt in 2005, Simmel’s fascinating studies of culture, literature, and art forms have been neglected. Therefore, we owe Austin Harrington a serious debt of gratitude for editing and translating Simmel’s diverse publications on the theatre, sculpture, style and representation, and aesthetics into a single volume. In addition, I strongly recommend Harrington’s modestly entitled ‘Introduction’ as a comprehensive and meticulous commentary on Simmel and contemporary evaluations of his oeuvre. This volume will deepen and expand our understanding of the Simmel legacy for years to come.” -- Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University and the Graduate Centre CUNY"The long and detailed introduction that Harrington provides is probably one of the best introductions to Simmel's works. . . Harrington's goal of providing the reader with a complete and well-structured collection of the most important Simmel essays on art and aesthetics in just one book is fully achieved." * Simmel Studies *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“At long last a collection in English that does justice to the breadth, depth, and contemporary significance of Simmel’s writings on the arts! With many new translations and a wide-ranging introduction, Harrington’s volume portrays the influential modernist philosopher and pioneering cultural theorist in deep and critical engagement with a rapidly changing world. A powerful testament to Simmel’s conception of philosophical culture—and to the transdisciplinary significance of a thinker whose achievements continue to resist disciplinary categorization.” -- Elizabeth Goodstein, Emory University“Georg Simmel is known in sociology for many things: the structure of social groups, the philosophy of money, metaphysical essays on life, individuality and social forms, the metropolis, and social differentiation. However, apart from the publication of Rembrandt in 2005, Simmel’s fascinating studies of culture, literature, and art forms have been neglected. Therefore, we owe Austin Harrington a serious debt of gratitude for editing and translating Simmel’s diverse publications on the theatre, sculpture, style and representation, and aesthetics into a single volume. In addition, I strongly recommend Harrington’s modestly entitled ‘Introduction’ as a comprehensive and meticulous commentary on Simmel and contemporary evaluations of his oeuvre. This volume will deepen and expand our understanding of the Simmel legacy for years to come.” -- Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University and the Graduate Centre CUNY"The long and detailed introduction that Harrington provides is probably one of the best introductions to Simmel's works. . . Harrington's goal of providing the reader with a complete and well-structured collection of the most important Simmel essays on art and aesthetics in just one book is fully achieved." * Simmel Studies *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Clune's A Defense of Judgment [attempts] to revivify a version of what Northrop Frye called 'literary experience' as the basis on which judgments of value can be made. His timing is propitious: the scholarly landscape is more favorable to the aesthetic than it has been in decades. . . . In a way that much academic criticism is not, [A Defense of Judgment] is refreshingly alive to the necessity of helping people learn how to appreciate works of art." -- V. Joshua Adams * Chicago Review *"We need to admit—embrace—that our role as literary critics, and educators, is to provide expert judgment; Clune argues that it’s what most of us are already doing anyway." -- Kasia Bartoszynska * Critical Inquiry * “What makes A Defense of Judgment surprising and sometimes even thrilling is how Clune relates his critique to a progressive, anti-capitalist politics.” -- Nate Klug * Commonweal *“This work should be taken seriously by anyone who thinks that criticism matters, whether it’s conducted in an online forum, a publication, or in a classroom.” -- Brice Ezell * PopMatters *"Clune’s A Defense of Judgment is a forceful polemic calling for English professors to defend themselves as experts. . . . Clune’s theory of literary appreciation does justice to the specificity of literary experience." -- Patrick Fessenbecker * Public Books *"An ambitious attempt to justify the work of judging 'value' in humanistic study. Clune’s frame of reference is specific—he writes as a scholar of literature—but his arguments have broad implications for the humanities." -- Matthew Mutter * Hedgehog Review *"Clune argues that everyone can learn how to make better artistic judgments—judgments typically based on one's own aesthetics, class, biases, education, and background. . . . Clune wants to convince the reader that making up one's mind about the worth of a play, a painting, or a book requires understanding the country in which one lives, for example, a country dived by race, class, and religion—not one nation under God, but many different peoples. Since people bring to art their own personal and collective histories, education is needed; people come from their own artistic country and thus need to learn how to see and hear well to make good judgments." * Choice *“A Defense of Judgment is a characteristically brilliant, strongly argued, intellectually accessible attempt to provide a template for rethinking the role of value judgments in teaching and writing (and thinking) about literature, and by implication the arts generally. Clune’s discussion is continually illuminating, as are the exemplary readings he offers of works by Dickinson, Brooks, and Thomas Bernhard.” * Michael Fried, Johns Hopkins University *“A Defense of Judgment mounts a lucid and compelling argument for the centrality of judgment, and a polemical critique of the disciplinary pieties that assume questions of value can be bracketed off from our core business of engaging critically with texts. Clune takes on the difficult theoretical and political consequences of defending a practice of judgment grounded in expertise, in particular by developing a rigorous critique of the principle of equality.” * John Frow, University of Sydney *“Clune’s scholarship is positively entertaining. He never fails to produce surprises, particularly as he discovers connections between the question of aesthetic judgment and a constellation of seemingly far-flung topics, including neoclassical economic theories, contemporary philosophy, poetry and death, and contemporary race relations. A Defense of Judgment is remarkable for its acuity and its clarity. It takes on a question central to the future of literary studies and offers a forceful and persuasive answer, one that is likely to spark a lot of debate and almost certainly some controversy.” * Timothy Aubry, Baruch College, City University of New York *"Why study literature? What do humanities professors teach? In taking on these and other topics, A Defense of Judgment presents the clearest and most forceful account of literary studies that has yet to emerge from our moment of constant disciplinary self-reflection, justification, and reinvention. It's exhilarating to be in Clune's intellectual company. Even if you disagree (and many readers will disagree), you will find your thinking sharpened by engaging with his argument." * Genre *Table of ContentsIntroduction Part 1. The Theory of Judgment 1. Judgment and Equality 2. Judgment and Commercial Culture 3. Judgment and Expertise I: Attention and Incorporation 4. Judgment and Expertise II: Concepts and Criteria Part 2. The Practice of Judgment 5. How Poems Know What It’s Like to Die 6. Bernhard’s Way 7. Race Makes Class Visible Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This unusual, potent contribution to affect studies ranges widely over philosophy and literature to explore the centrality of trope and rhetoric to the inescapable triad of mood (affect), understanding (thought), and speech (discourse). Reconnecting affect studies with major issues in literary studies, philosophy, and aesthetics, Brenkman makes a fundamental contribution to this emergent field."--Jonathan Culler, Cornell University "In an earlier dark time, Kenneth Burke famously called literature 'equipment for living.' In our own moment, John Brenkman's Mood and Trope serves as a closely-reasoned and useful guide to the history of philosophies of affect and the passions. Reading texts from the Renaissance to the present with his usual clarity and precision, Brenkman shows us how literature has extended and deepened the possibilities of feeling and knowledge of feeling alike. In the end he argues that practices of poiesis and learning have played, and can continue to play, a vital role not only in the preservation of democracy, but also, as we enter an era shadowed by the prospect of extinction, in human flourishing itself." --Susan Stewart "Brenkman's Mood and Trope is a major contribution to contemporary literary studies, bringing a renewed conception of affect to bear upon poetics. Combining philosophical inquiry with brilliant interpretive readings, Brenkman not only draws out the distinctive imbrications of mood and trope across a range of modern poetic projects but also revitalizes the concept of criticism itself through a stunning reframing of Kantian aesthetic judgment in pragmatic, communicative terms."--Amanda Anderson, Brown University

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This unusual, potent contribution to affect studies ranges widely over philosophy and literature to explore the centrality of trope and rhetoric to the inescapable triad of mood (affect), understanding (thought), and speech (discourse). Reconnecting affect studies with major issues in literary studies, philosophy, and aesthetics, Brenkman makes a fundamental contribution to this emergent field."--Jonathan Culler, Cornell University "In an earlier dark time, Kenneth Burke famously called literature 'equipment for living.' In our own moment, John Brenkman's Mood and Trope serves as a closely-reasoned and useful guide to the history of philosophies of affect and the passions. Reading texts from the Renaissance to the present with his usual clarity and precision, Brenkman shows us how literature has extended and deepened the possibilities of feeling and knowledge of feeling alike. In the end he argues that practices of poiesis and learning have played, and can continue to play, a vital role not only in the preservation of democracy, but also, as we enter an era shadowed by the prospect of extinction, in human flourishing itself." --Susan Stewart "Brenkman's Mood and Trope is a major contribution to contemporary literary studies, bringing a renewed conception of affect to bear upon poetics. Combining philosophical inquiry with brilliant interpretive readings, Brenkman not only draws out the distinctive imbrications of mood and trope across a range of modern poetic projects but also revitalizes the concept of criticism itself through a stunning reframing of Kantian aesthetic judgment in pragmatic, communicative terms."--Amanda Anderson, Brown University

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Zumhagen-Yekplé’s innovative study connects a great theme of modernist literary works, that of difficulty, with Wittgenstein’s understanding of philosophy and the kinds of difficulty that it presents. A Different Order of Difficulty is enormously illuminating in the connections it makes between philosophical and literary questions—questions that are central in literary modernism and in Wittgenstein’s thought.” -- Cora Diamond, University of Virginia“A Different Order of Difficulty takes the very best in Wittgenstein and applies it expertly, astutely, and with impressive clarity to Woolf, Joyce, Kafka, and Coetzee. The results are both illuminating and inspiring. Instead of being mere vehicles for the transmission of ideas, modernist fictions become events, experiences, instruments of personal transformation; their opacity sets us challenges which can only be met if we change our fundamental attitude to ourselves and to the world. This is an important book, one which will, I hope, shape thinking on modernist fiction—and on Wittgenstein—for years to come.” -- Joshua Landy, Stanford University“What struck me as particularly wonderful about Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé’s new book, A Different Order of Difficulty: Literature after Wittgenstein, was how seriously it takes those promises [of intellectual expansion and the aesthetic enrichment of a daily life] and how earnestly it analyzes the contributions of literature and philosophy to what I want, without irony, to call a practical education. There are not, in fact, many books I know of that put the question of humanistic study’s usefulness quite so boldly or quite so baldly. . . . What Zumhagen-Yekplé is after here is not just an interrogation of how literature can be relevant or 'useful' but, more radically, what the idea of relevance or usefulness can be in the first place. This is why I frame her book in terms of practical education: she is helping us see that what is concretely useful about studying literature is how it expands that very category and shows us ways of finding meaning, wonder, and even transformation in what otherwise looks like opacity, mundanity, and, most broadly, difficulty.” -- John Lurz * Los Angeles Review of Books *“A Different Order of Difficulty makes an important and original contribution to modernist studies by engaging with the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly his Tractatus Logico-Philosphicus. . . . Perhaps fittingly, given her title—drawn from the Ithaca chapter of Joyce's Ulysses (1922)—Zumhagen-Yekplé's interdisciplinary approach demands a lot from readers. Yet, as in many of the modernist touchstones she analyzes, the challenges presented by her book are more than justified by the insights at which it arrives: A Different Order of Difficulty is powerfully argued, thoroughly researched, and at times deeply moving. . . . Zumhagen-Yekplé writes that 'difficult texts . . . are designed to train us by cultivating our mental and affective capacities.' A Different Order of Difficulty is itself a valuable addition to this project.” -- Greg Chase * Modernism/modernity *“Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé’s thought-provoking A Different Order of Difficulty: Literature after Wittgenstein joins a burgeoning body of scholarship on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s relationship to modernism. A study at the boundary of literary studies and philosophy, it explores both the literary qualities of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and the philosophical implications of modernist literature. . . . A Different Order of Difficulty provides a compelling and superbly argued account of the synergies between Wittgenstein’s philosophy and modernist literature, showing that the difficulty of modernism requires an imaginative engagement with literature and philosophy deeply connected with ethical transformation.” -- Michael McGillen * German Studies Review *“One of the most valuable (and thrilling) aspects of Zumhagen-Yekplé’s work is the straightforward way she grants that literary texts have implications. Her analysis of fiction is not attentive to what the texts are about, but to what they may do.” -- Johanna Winant * Comparative Literature *“Zumhagen-Yekplé discusses Wittgenstein and the ways in which he can shed new light on literary criticism as well as affinities between Wittgenstein’s writing and the writing of modernist writers. The philosophical issues are not treated separately but are considered as being interrelated in that they are concerns shared by all of the authors discussed. . . . Zumhagen-Yekplé’s book helps to show us that difficult literature and difficult philosophy can provide us with understanding, bring about shifts in our perspective, and help us to live more fully.” -- Robert Vinten * Philosophical Investigations *“There are forms of difficulty that are also clarity. I learned a lot from Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé’s A Different Order of Difficulty on this topic. She says that certain things are difficult in the sense that they’re inviting you to work through something, or to be changed by something, or to go through a process. That kind of difficulty could actually be accompanied by clarity. Here she draws on Cora Diamond. For Diamond it’s reality, not prose, that’s difficult in the first place. You might need to subject yourself to a difficult reality—try to understand it or live with it, that is—and if the prose that results from your working-through is difficult, this isn’t an affectation; it’s a consequence of the subject matter.” -- Emily OgdenTable of ContentsIntroduction Difficulty, Ethical Teaching, and the Yearning for Transformation in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Modernist Literature 1 Wittgenstein’s Puzzle: The Transformative Ethics of the Tractatus 2 The Everyday’s Fabulous Beyond: Nonsense, Parable, and the Ethics of the Literary in Kafka and Wittgenstein 3 Woolf, Diamond, and the Difficulty of Reality 4 Wittgenstein, Joyce, and the Vanishing Problem of Life 5 A New Life Is a New Life: Teaching, Transformation, and Tautology in Coetzee’s Childhood of Jesus Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisMore than the persistent beat of a song or the structural frame of poetry, rhythm is a deeply imbedded force that drives our world and is also a central component of the condition of human existence. It's the pulse of the body, a power that orders matter, a strange and natural force that flows through us. Virginia Woolf describes it as a wave in the mind that carries us, something we can no more escape than we could stop our hearts from beating. Vincent Barletta explores rhythm through three historical moments, each addressing it as a phenomenon that transcends poetry, aesthetics, and even temporality. He reveals rhythm to be a power that holds us in place, dispossesses us, and shapes the foundations of our world. In these moments, Barletta encounters rhythm as a primordial and physical binding force that establishes order and form in the ancient world, as the anatomy of lived experience in early modern Europe, and as a subject of aesthetic and ethical questioning in the twentieth c

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Based on the synesthesia between seeing and hearing, Seeing Silence is an original and fascinating meditation on the origins of human experience, art, and language. Taylor argues eloquently for the significance of silence in the contemporary world, and he shows the value of reflecting on the work of artists and thinkers who have recognized this." --Graham Parkes, University of ViennaTable of Contents0. 1. Without 2. Before 3. From 4. 5. Beyond 6. Against 7. Within 8. 9. Between 10. Toward 11. Around 12. 13. With 14. In Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe attraction of a wink, a nod, a discarded snapshot - such feelings permeate our lives, yet we usually dismiss them as insubstantial. Jean Paul Ricco argues through the medium of modern art that it is precisely such fleeting experiences that will create a queer aesthetic, and notion of ethics.Trade Review"This original and frequently dazzling work explores sites that might be defined as queer spaces, and in which we might think of a queer architecture being located. What results is an extremely fascinating effort to redefine notions of architectural space and identity, and to reimagine the spatial dimensions of subjectivity itself." - Leo Bersani, author of Homos

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Book SynopsisBoldly contesting recent scholarship, Sallis argues that The Birth of Tragedy is a rethinking of art at the limit of metaphysics. His close reading focuses on the complexity of the Apollinian/Dionysian dyad and on the crossing of these basic art impulses in tragedy. Sallis effectively calls into question some commonly accepted and simplistic ideas about Nietzsche's early thinking and its debt to Schopenhauer, and proposes alternatives that are worth considering.--Richard Schacht, Times Literary Supplement

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