Philosophy: aesthetics Books

Book SynopsisWhat does mathematics have to do with poetry? Seemingly, nothing. Mathematics deals with abstractions while poetry with emotions. And yet, the two share something essential: Beauty. “Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare,” says the title of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay.A winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2015, “Mathematics, Poetry and Beauty” tries to solve the secret of the similarity between the two domains. It tries to explain how a mathematical argument and a poem can move us in the same way. Mathematical and poetic techniques are compared, with the aim of showing how they evoke the same sense of beauty.The reader may find that, as Bertrand Russell said, “Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty hold and austere, like that of sculpture … sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.”Table of ContentsThe Magic of Poetry and of Mathematics; Condensation; Order; How Mathematicians and Poets Think; Poetic Image; Mathematical Image; Paradoxes and Oxymorons; Self Reference and Godel's Theorem;

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Book SynopsisNatural Beauty was selected for the Choice Outstanding Academic Title list for 2008!Natural Beauty presents a bold new philosophical account of the principles involved in making aesthetic judgments about natural objects. It surveys historical and modern accounts of natural beauty and weaves elements derived from those accounts into a “syncretic theory” that centers on key features of aesthetic experience—specifically, features that sustain and reward attention. In this way, Moore’s theory sets itself apart from both the purely cognitive and the purely emotive approaches that have dominated natural aesthetics until now. Natural Beauty shows why aesthetic appreciation of works of art and aesthetic appreciation of nature can be mutually reinforcing; that is, how they are cooperative rather than rival enterprises. Moore also makes a compelling case for how and why the experience of natural beauty can contribute to the larger project of living a good life.Trade Review“In 1992 Mothersill believed that philosophers had not yet done their best work on beauty. … Ronald Moore has answered Mothersill’s challenge with a book that draws its central ideas from the history of philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle through Hume and Kant, to John Dewey and Monroe Beardsley. Moore has engaged in conversation nearly every major Western philosopher on beauty in the writing of his book. The result is a tour de force on beauty that captures the best of the canon and thrusts research on the subject in a new direction. Natural Beauty: A Theory of Aesthetics Beyond the Arts may be the most important book on beauty since Kant, The Critique of Judgment.” — Dan Vaillancourt, Loyola University Chicago in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 66, Number 3, Summer 2008, pages 303-305“Written in clear and elegant prose, this book is a welcome contribution to debates about beauty wherever we find it. Moore provides a refreshing reminder of what aesthetics can accomplish when it takes seriously both its history and the uniqueness of aesthetic experience.” — Jonathan Maskit, Denison University“Natural Beauty is a well-balanced, wonderfully written, systematic and thoroughly researched book. Moore’s positive theory is so well developed and original that this book should immediately become one of the most important books in nature aesthetics. And because it takes aim at the basic concepts of aesthetic judgment, aesthetic experience and aesthetic value, it will also have an impact on the wider field of aesthetics. A genuinely impressive performance.” — John Andrew Fisher, University of Colorado, Boulder“In this wonderfully written book Ronald Moore provides a rigorous and historically informed syncretic account of environmental aesthetics that may free us from having to choose between scientific and emotive accounts of natural beauty. I cannot wait for the debates which will follow this engaging contribution.” — Andrew Light, Editor, Ethics, Place, and Environment “Ron Moore’s rich and subtle defense of a syncretic aesthetics of nature advances the philosophical conversation about natural beauty while empowering ordinary appreciators to more confidently delight in nature and art.” — Stephanie Ross, University of Missouri St. Louis“Moore has written a truly impressive book on the very compelling subject of natural beauty. He surveys the most prominent views on the subject and draws a line that both sythesizes and advances their competing claims. In Moore’s view, one’s appreciation of the beauty in artifacts informs an appreciation of the beauty in nature and vice versa. It is all good, as is this clearly written, cogently argued, well informed, informative book.” — J.M. Carvalho, Villanova University — in ChoiceTable of ContentsPrefaceIntroductionChapter 1: Appreciating Nature as NaturalThe Problem of AppreciationGlass FlowersWarhol and BlaschkaChapter 2: Conceptualism and Non-conceptualismConceptualism and Its ProblemsNon-conceptualism and Its ProblemsSyncretic AestheticsChapter 3: The Historical Roots of Syncretism: Early DevelopmentsAncient ViewsMedieval and Renaissance ViewsEarly Modern DevelopmentsChapter 4: The Historical Roots of Syncretism: Modern DevelopmentsKant and the Subjective TurnSchopenhauer and the Aesthetic AttitudeRecent Aesthetic Experience TheoryCritical Responses to This TheoryWhere This Leaves UsChapter 5: Aesthetic Experience RevisitedCold PlumsHunkered-down Aesthetic ExperienceGrains of SandChapter 6: The Framing ParadoxNature UnframedNature FramedThe Paradox and Its ResolutionChapter 7: Syncretic Regard—Part I Judges and “True Judges”The NatureworldFundamental Elements in Judgments of Natural Beauty Selective Sensory FocusCompleteness Within LimitsSavoringLetting Nature Be Nature Typal and General Judgment Chapter 8: Syncretic Regard—Part II General Factors Intensive BeautyFormal BeautyFormal Beauty and FormalismConnective BeautyElaborative Imagination Art and Nature Reciprocity: Learning from Each OtherInhibition: Getting in Each Other’s Way Chapter 9: Patterns of Appreciation and Aesthetic DevelopmentCarlson’s InventoryThe Place of Syncretic TheoryGrowing Up AestheticallyChapter 10: Theoretical Implications and ConclusionLayers of ResponseHard QuestionsConclusionReferencesIndex

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.We think we know the trench coat, but where does it come from and where will it take us? From its origins in the trenches of WW1, this military outerwear came to project the inner-being of detectives, writers, reporters, rebels, artists and intellectuals. The coat outfitted imaginative leaps into the unknown. Trench Coat tells the story of seductive entanglements with technology, time, law, politics, trust and trespass. Readers follow the rise of a sartorial archetype through media, design, literature, cinema and fashion. Today, as a staple in stories of future life-worlds, the trench coat warns of disturbances to come.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewTrench Coat maps the extraordinary lives of this seemingly simple garment, which emerged from early industrialized warfare to become the screen for a multitude of projected dreams, fears and desires across the 20th century to the present. Jane Tynan’s material and cultural history charts the evolution of a coat that is practical yet cryptic, hyper-visible but concealing, possessed of vitality whilst also a form of camouflage. * Rachel Woodward, Professor of Human Geography, Newcastle University, UK *Jane Tynan’s Trench Coat is a delight – richly informative and written in prose as stylish as the object it describes. Uncovering the ‘dark and dangerous energy’ behind this icon of modernity, Tynan vividly captures the trench coat’s perennial appeal. * Catherine Spooner, Professor of Literature and Culture, Lancaster University, UK, and author of Fashioning Gothic Bodies *Really interesting. . . . There's so many iconic moments that this analysis helps us peer more closely into. * New Books Network *Another engaging, thought-provoking paperback in Bloomsbury's excellent 'Object Lessons' series. * The Irish Scene *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Substance 2. War 3. Mobility 4. Insurgency 5. Reportage 6. Heroes or Villains 7. Outsiders 8. Style Conclusion Postscript Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“As hard to pigeonhole as Taylor’s prolific and wide-ranging career, Seeing Silence is not exactly philosophy, or spiritual autobiography, or art theory. It is a textual antechamber leading into—or perhaps a frame surrounding—the sculpture in which the life-work of the philosopher-turned-artist lies exposed . . . Taylor leads us on a pilgrimage of revelatory encounters. . . Taylor combines the conceptual, perceptual, and affective with the concretely historical and factual, while offering something more than, and irreducible to, these aspects: a sense for the work as a moment, in each case unique, of silence becoming visible, and visible growing silent.” -- Anthony Curtis Adler * Los Angeles Review of Books *"A glowing melange of philosophy, theology, and art criticism." -- Daniel Schwartz * On the Seawall *“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 Vienna“When we see silence we see the world without us. Yet Seeing Silence is not simply a book about death; it is also an invitation to rethink visual art as ‘words of silence.’ Taylor conducts us through a noiseless landscape, at once frightening and beautiful, in which Kierkegaard, Jabès, and Bergman, among so many others, are companions for the journey. Artists will delight in this new book as much as scholars will benefit from it.” -- Kevin Hart, University of Virginia“Taylor turns the cacophony of our environment, actual and virtual, toward redemptive moments of silence, all the more rich in implication for how rare they have become. Alongside deep learning in literature, philosophy, and theology, fresh attention to nonverbal cognates in architecture, painting, and sculpture carry the reader to unanticipated recognitions. From each nested instance to the next, intimations of the infinite, not to say the divine, emerge in the undisclosed, the unsayable, and the unsounded.” -- Thomas Crow, New York University“Seeing Silence succeeds wonderfully. . . . Taylor’s case starts with the claim that seeing silence grants access to reality. This makes it something of a countercultural practice in noisy times like ours when reality is presented in unlimited streaming information, ongoing notifications, and always-available chatrooms. Taylor’s book stands apart for the originality of his vision, the particularity of his thesis, and, notably, the canon of authors and artists on which he draws.” -- Jeffrey L. Kosky, Washington and Lee University“Seeing Silence begins in medias res, in the way of an intellectual history, the narrative epic of a memoirist. What happens when there is no time outside of us, when we do not exist in time? Said another way, the book begins and finishes, but has no Origin and End, as both are swathed by an encompassing Silence that somehow manages to speak. Here Taylor is at his most admirable originality. . . . This book will be of great importance to academic specialists in philosophy of religion, theology, aesthetics, and other arts. But it is so charmingly written that it should appeal as well to the ‘public intellectual,’ and to all humanistically competent readers.” -- Ray L. Hart, Boston University“Seeing Silence is indeed a book on the presence of God in art, silence being only one of the keys to understanding this presence. But going further, Seeing Silence proposes a comprehensive theology of art that uses silence to speak the name of God. . . . The book is less concerned with investigating silence as art or silence as an element in a work of art, but rather the question of what art–and the image in particular–can do to approach the elusive concept of silence.” -- Vincent Debiais * Arts et Intelligences du Silence (Translated from French) *"Readers interested in philosophical aesthetics, life writing, Continental hermeneutics, and negative or apophatic theology will find much to enjoy and ponder in Seeing Silence. Simply put, Seeing Silence is an innovative, enlightening, personal work that rewards careful reading and deep appreciation." * Reading Religion *Table 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 SynopsisPresented in a new edition with expanded notes, this genre-defying meditation on the semiotics of late-1920s Weimar culture, composed of 60 short prose pieces that vary wildly in style and theme, offers a fresh opportunity to encounter Walter Benjamin at his most virtuosic and experimental, writing in a vein that anticipates later masterpieces.Trade ReviewThe prose in One-Way Street is positively electrified by the historical moment…Far more important than any residues of past literature, however prevalent, are the ways in which One-Way Street ushers in a wholly original literary aesthetics. Its formal daring is unmatched by any of Benjamin’s earlier work…One-Way Street is dead set on a new mode of materialism, one that shares with Surrealism an esteem for everyday objects, debris, junk, and dross—for whatever is marginal, marginalized, outmoded, or fleeting. This edition’s index testifies to the dizzying thematic diversity of Benjamin’s undertaking: children’s toys, capital punishment, money, mobs, utopia, fancy goods, misery, souvenirs, beggars, and red neon advertising signs reflected in pools of dirty rain. Form in One-Way Street is no mere envelope, but the very arena in which these objects and phenomena clash and generate their sparks. Benjamin’s aphorisms mimic the rhythms of the street, instantiating the experiences most proper to it: distraction, reverie, shock, haste, detour, etc. Scathing critique is mixed with imagistic commentary and surrealistic prose poetry—all broken into shards and scattered like a mosaic of fragments. But however atomized and heterogeneous, the little pieces of One-Way Street pursue a common goal: an idiosyncratic exposé on history (specifically, the disintegration of culture) as deciphered in the most concrete of its artifacts and rituals. -- Michael Blum * Los Angeles Review of Books *One-Way Street is Benjamin’s most daring and experimental book; though short, it contains a wide range of genres ranging from aphorisms and political satire to maxims and instructions. -- Carolin Duttlinger * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A Seminary Co-Op Notable Book of the Year""[Cohen] makes the case that talking to others—sharing our stories—is how we learn things and sharpen our belief systems, how we piece together what it means to be funny or empathetic. Conversation can change our minds while sustaining our souls."---Hua Hsu, New Yorker"[Cohen] explores what makes for a vivacious meeting of minds. . . . She prizes conversation as an end in itself, its value residing not in the achievement of any particular outcome but in the pleasure of fluent verbal interchange."---Charlie Tyson, The Atlantic"The chief value of this book is its abiding reminder of the pleasure of good talk. . . . It’s a lesson in how conversation can reveal our truest, fullest selves."---Danny Heitman, Wall Street Journal"Talking Cure is a thought-provoking read. Cohen skillfully leads the reader through a lively and adventurous exploration of conversation in a wide variety of settings and situations." * Choice Reviews *"Like an agile museum guide, Cohen ushers us through a series of literary and historical exhibitions, not as a lecturer but as a conversation partner in prose. That is, Cohen artfully gives us a book that is itself a conversation about conversation in which the learned and the conversible are reunited. . . . Talking Cure is a beautifully expressed reminder of the joys, perils, and aspirations of conversation and its civilizing power."---Todd Breyfogle, Law & Liberty

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"As Hyde eloquently demonstrates in a compelling trajectory that arcs from Stonehenge to modern London, ugliness is more than a physical trait or quality assigned to an object. It has acted as a site and catalyst for debate on broader social circumstances."---Catherine Slessor, The Guardian"This book is a welcome break from good taste. . . . If you have ever wondered why a certain building seems ugly, this book will help you understand why you feel that way."---Lucy Watson, Financial Times"Hyde’s book confronts ugliness head on, using it as a way to interrogate British architectural discourse. . . . [His] research on the individual case studies is impeccable."---Richard J. Williams, Times Higher Education"The great achievement of this book is to show that, even if the language and opinions about taste change, debates about architecture have always had some common features. They are never just about buildings."---William Whyte, Church Times"Discussions such as those effectively summarised in Ugliness and Judgement are so instructive when we evaluate how to apply concepts of beauty and ugliness in architectural debates."---Alexander Adams, Salisbury Review"A fascinating book. In taking as a point of departure the limitations of aesthetics, Hyde invites readers to understand the assessment of aesthetic failure as a wedge that pries open conversations about inadequate, unresolved, or unsatisfying social and legal arrangements. Ugliness, in his telling, points to gaps in social, regulatory, urban, and institutional fabrics. The author implies that the value of listening to complaints about buildings lies in discerning the issues that encounters with 'ugly' buildings bring to the fore."---Kathryn O’Rourke, Rice Design Alliance"To call out ugliness, then, is a call to arms. While beauty basks lazily and uselessly in its own perfection, ugliness spurs us into action."---Igor Toronyi-Lalic, The Spectator

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Book SynopsisJacques Rancière's work is increasingly central to several debates across the humanities. Distributions of the Sensible confronts a question at the heart of his thought: How should we conceive the relationship between the politics of aesthetics and the aesthetics of politics?

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE JUDY TSOU CRITICAL RACE STUDIES AWARD!In this profoundly innovative book, Ashon T. Crawley engages a wide range of critical paradigms from black studies, queer theory, and sound studies to theology, continental philosophy, and performance studies to theorize the ways in which alternative or otherwise modes of existence can serve as disruptions against the marginalization of and violence against minoritarian lifeworlds and possibilities for flourishing.Examining the whooping, shouting, noise-making, and speaking in tongues of Black Pentecostalisma multi-racial, multi-class, multi-national Christian sect with one strand of its modern genesis in 1906 Los AngelesBlackpentecostal Breath reveals how these aesthetic practices allow for the emergence of alternative modes of social organization. As Crawley deftly reveals, these choreographic, sonic, and visual practices and the sensual experiences they create are not only important for imagining what CTrade Review"Blackpentecostal Breath is a work of utter originality anchored by daring synthesis, acrobatic leaps of imagination, and laced throughout with passages of jolting beauty." -- -Ann Pellegrini coauthor of Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance "A one-of-a-kind intervention into performance, religious, black and cultural studies." -- -Roderick A. Ferguson Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique "Crawley's prose is attentive, loving. It's round and sweet. It's generous in associations. Anecdotes and personal emails populate the book...In Blackpentecostal Breath, tales and anecdotes equip us with tools to decode the book;s argument while also allowing us to pause and breathe...Blackpentecostal Breath is a book of its time, but it's decidedly future-oriented. Breathing, after all, is sequential: each breath, however strained, carries the hope of another one, and another one." -- Jean-Thomas Tremblay -Los Angeles Review of Books

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Book SynopsisA wide-ranging and challenging exploration of design and how it engages with the self The field of design has radically expanded. As a practice, design is no longer limited to the world of material objects but rather extends from carefully crafted individual styles and online identities to the surrounding galaxies of personal devices, new materials, interfaces, networks, systems, infrastructures, data, chemicals, organisms, and genetic codes. Superhumanity seeks to explore and challenge our understanding of “design” by engaging with and departing from the concept of the “self.” This volume brings together more than fifty essays by leading scientists, artists, architects, designers, philosophers, historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists, originally disseminated online via e-flux Architecture between September 2016 and February 2017 on the invitation of the Third Istanbul Design Biennial. Probing the idea that we are and always have been continuously reshaped by the artifacts we shape, this book asks: Who designed the lives we live today? What are the forms of life we inhabit, and what new forms are currently being designed? Where are the sites, and what are the techniques, to design others? This vital and far-reaching collection of essays and images seeks to explore and reflect on the ways in which both the concept and practice of design are operative well beyond tangible objects, expanding into the depths of self and forms of life. Contributors: Zeynep Çelik Alexander, Lucia Allais, Shumon Basar, Ruha Benjamin, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Daniel Birnbaum, Ina Blom, Benjamin H. Bratton, Giuliana Bruno, Tony Chakar, Mark Cousins, Simon Denny, Keller Easterling, Hu Fang, Rubén Gallo, Liam Gillick, Boris Groys, Rupali Gupte, Andrew Herscher, Tom Holert, Brooke Holmes, Francesca Hughes, Andrés Jaque, Lydia Kallipoliti, Thomas Keenan, Sylvia Lavin, Yongwoo Lee, Lesley Lokko, MAP Office, Chus Martínez, Ingo Niermann, Ahmet Ögüt, Trevor Paglen, Spyros Papapetros, Raqs Media Collective, Juliane Rebentisch, Sophia Roosth, Felicity D. Scott, Jack Self, Prasad Shetty, Hito Steyerl, Kali Stull, Pelin Tan, Alexander Tarakhovsky, Paulo Tavares, Stephan Trüby, Etienne Turpin, Sven-Olov Wallenstein, Eyal Weizman, Mabel O. Wilson, Brian Kuan Wood, Liam Young, and Arseny Zhilyaev. Trade Review"The essays themselves offer valuable and engaging interdisciplinary perspectives on design and design theory, and could be successfully assigned in a design studio, exposing students to the too-often overlooked failures in design thinking and execution."—Design and Culture

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Book SynopsisA foundational book by one of the most distinguished German humanists of the last half century, Tempus joins cultural linguistics and literary interpretation at the hip. Developing two controversial theses—that sentences are not truly meaningful in isolation from their contexts and that verb tenses are primarily indicators not of time but of the attitude of the speaker or writer—Tempus surveys a dazzling array of ancient and modern texts from famous authors as well as casual speakers of German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, and English, with a final chapter extending the observations to Greek, Russian, and world languages. A classic in German and long available in many other languages, Tempus launched a new discipline, text linguistics, and established a unique career that was marked by precise observation, sensitive cultural outreach, and practical engagement with the situation of migrants. Weinrich’s robust and lucid close readings of famous and little-known authors from all the major languages of western Europe expand our literary horizons and challenge our linguistic understanding.Table of ContentsTranslators’ Note | ix Introduction | 1 Jane K. Brown and Marshall Brown 1 Tense in Texts | 9 Tense and Time, 9 • Text Linguistics, 11 • A Preliminary Reflection: Obstinate Signs, 14 • Tense Distribution, 17 • Two Tense Groups: Discussing and Narrating, 22 • On the Freedom of the Narrator, 25 2 Discussing–Narrating | 32 Syntax and Communication, 32 • Register, 36 • Tense in Different Genres, 42 • The World of Discussion, 45 • The World of Narrating, 50 • Tense in the Language of Children, 55 3 Perspective | 60 Time in Texts, 60 • The Future (using French as an example), 64 • The Perfekt in German, 69 • The Perfect in English, 75 • Thornton Wilder: The Ides of March, 78 • The Passé composé in French, 83 • The Passato prossimo in Italian, 87 • The Perfecto compuesto in Spanish, 91 • Narration, Past, Truth, 96 4 Highlighting | 101 Narrative Highlighting, 101 • Narrative Tempo in the Novel, 106 • Baudelaire: “Le vieux saltimbanque” (The Old Mountebank), 111 • Of the Tense of Death, 117 5 Tense in Novellas and Short Stories: Highlighting vs. Aspect | 121 Maupassant, 121 • Pirandello, 126 • Unamuno, Darío, Echegaray, 129 • Hemingway, 135 • Frame Narrative (Boccaccio), 142 • Narration in the Middle Ages, 147 • Frame and Highlighting in Modern Stories, 150 6 Tense Transitions 153 Tense in Dialogue, 153 • Descartes, Rousseau, and the Sequence of Tenses, 164 7 Tense Metaphors | 171 Tense Metaphors in Texts, 171 • Condition and Consequence, Reality and Unreality, 180 8 Tense Combinations | 186 Tense and Person, 186 • Tense and Adverbs, 190 • Combined Transitions, 197 • Semi-finite Verbs, 205 9 A Crisis in Narration? | 211 Tense in Old French, 211 • Evidence of Language Consciousness in French Classicism, 217 • The Time of Newspapers, 224 • Albert Camus: L’étranger, 227 • Oral Narration in French, 236 • A Parallel: Tense in South-German Dialects, 244 10 Other Languages—Other Tenses? | 252 Tense in Ancient Greek, 252 • Tense in Latin, 256 • Whorf, Spengler, and the Hopi Indians, 264 • Toward a New Method of Description, 270 Index | 275

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Book SynopsisThrough an exploration of both practice and theory, this book investigates the relationship between listening and the theatrical encounter in the context of Western theatre and performance. Rather than looking to the stage for a politics or ethics of performance, Rajni Shah asks what work needs to happen in order for the stage itself to appear, exploring some of the factors that might allow or prevent a group of individuals to gather together as an ‘audience’. Shah proposes that the theatrical encounter is a structure that prioritises the attentive over the declarative; each of the five chapters is an exploration of this proposition. The first two chapters propose readings for the terms ‘listening’ and ‘audience’, drawing primarily on Gemma Corradi Fiumara’s writing about the philosophy of listening and Stanley Cavell’s writing about being-in-audience. The third chapter reflects on the work of Lying Fallow, the first of two practice elements which were part of this research, asking whether and how this project aligns with the modes of listening that I have proposed thus far, and introducing Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s writing about the preposition ‘beside’ in relation to being-in-audience. In the fourth chapter, I examine the role of invitation in setting up the parameters for being-in-audience, in relation to Sara Ahmed’s writing about arrival and encounter. And in the final chapter the second practice element, Experiments in Listening, operates to expand our thinking about where and how the work of being-in-audience takes place.Blending the boundaries of theoretical, creative and practice-based artistic work, this book is accompanied by a series of five zines. These describe an embodied experience of knowledge from a personal perspective, both playfully and seriously following a line of enquiry developed in each of the chapters.Trade ReviewExperiments in Listening is a critical, caring, poetic and generous gift to scholars invested in epistemic undoings of Euro-colonial conceptualisations of ‘theatre’ and ‘performance’. In this beautifully written book, Shah offers a philosophical recalibration of our fields by enabling readers to enter a mode of listening – an attentiveness to words, worlds and actions – through a ‘commitment to not-knowing’. By compellingly centring hitherto marginalised voices, perspectives and practices, the book demands a recognition of performance-making as a process through which iterative, non-linear and embodied knowledge-systems live and breathe. -- Royona Mitra, reader in dance and performance cultures, Brunel University LondonTable of ContentsAn Introduction0.1. Influences0.2. Contexts and key terms0.3. How to read this bookChapter One: ListeningPrelude1.1. Root structures1.2. Constructing listening1.3. Accommodating othernessChapter Two: AudiencePrelude2.1. Doing nothing2.2. Performing silence2.3. The choreography of attentionChapter Three: GatheringPrelude3.1. Theatre without a show3.2. Resisting visibility3.3. Failing to declare oneselfChapter Four: InvitationPrelude4.1. How we arrive4.2. The invitational frame4.3. An appropriate responseChapter Five: EncounterPrelude5.1. Experiments in Listening5.2. Listening to form5.3. Being in audience to listening5.4. Passing as friendsConclusionAppendix 1: Lying FallowAppendix 2: Experiments in ListeningBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisOffers insights into both the disciplines of music and philosophy.Trade ReviewLike Hanslick, Professor Payzant is both musician and philosopher; and he has brought the knowledge and insights of both disciplines to this large undertaking. --Gordon Epperson, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

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Book SynopsisBlack is Beautiful identifies and explores the most significant philosophical issues that emerge from the aesthetic dimensions of black life, providing a long-overdue synthesis and the first extended philosophical treatment of this crucial subject. The first extended philosophical treatment of an important subject that has been almost entirely neglected by philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of art Takes an important step in assembling black aesthetics as an object of philosophical study Unites two areas of scholarship for the first time philosophical aesthetics and black cultural theory, dissolving the dilemma of either studying philosophy, or studying black expressive culture Brings a wide range of fields into conversation with one another from visual culture studies and art history to analytic philosophy to musicology producing mutually illuminating approaches that challenge some of the basic suppositions of each Well-bTrade Review"The greatest contribution of the book to analytic aesthetics is that by examining the black aesthetic tradition, Taylor invites us to rethink how aestheticians and philosophers of art have approached the aesthetic tradition in general." - Adriana Clavel-Vazquez, University of Hull - The British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 59, Issue 2, April 2019 Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments vii 1 Assembly, Not Birth 1 1 Introduction 1 2 Inquiry and Assembly 3 3 On Blackness 6 4 On the Black Aesthetic Tradition 12 5 Black Aesthetics as/and Philosophy 19 6 Conclusion 26 2 No Negroes in Connecticut: Seers, Seen 32 1 Introduction 33 2 Setting the Stage: Blacking Up Zoe 35 3 Theorizing the (In)visible 36 4 Theorizing Visuality 43 5 Two Varieties of Black Invisibility: Presence and Personhood 48 6 From Persons to Characters: A Detour 51 7 Two More Varieties of Black Invisibility: Perspectives and Plurality 58 8 Unseeing Nina Simone 63 9 Conclusion: Phronesis and Power 69 3 Beauty to Set the World Right: The Politics of Black Aesthetics 77 1 Introduction 77 2 Blackness and the Political 80 3 Politics and Aesthetics 83 4 The Politics–Aesthetics Nexus in Black; or, “The Black Nation: A Garvey Production” 85 5 Autonomy and Separatism 87 6 Propaganda, Truth, and Art 88 7 What is Life but Life? Reading Du Bois 91 8 Apostles of Truth and Right 94 9 On “Propaganda” 98 10 Conclusion 99 4 Dark Lovely Yet And; Or, How To Love Black Bodies While Hating Black People 104 1 Introduction 105 2 Circumscribing the Topic: Definitions and Distinctions 107 3 Circumscribing the Topic, cont’d: Context and Scope 109 4 The Cases 110 5 Reading the Cases 115 6 Conclusion 129 5 Roots and Routes: Disarming Authenticity 132 1 Introduction 132 2 An Easy Case: The Germans in Yorubaland 134 3 A Harder Case: Kente Capers 136 4 Varieties of Authenticity 138 5 From Exegesis to Ethics 144 6 The Kente Case, Revisited 151 6 Make It Funky; Or, Music’s Cognitive Travels and the Despotism of Rhythm 155 1 Introduction 156 2 Beyond the How‐Possible: Kivy’s Questions 157 3 Stimulus, Culture, Race 159 4 Preliminaries: Rhythm, Brains, and Race Music 162 5 The Flaw in the Funk 168 6 (Soul) Power to the People 172 7 Funky White Boys and Honorary Soul Sisters 174 8 Conclusion 177 7 Conclusion: “It Sucks That I Robbed You”; Or, Ambivalence, Appropriation, Joy, Pain 182 Index 186

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Book SynopsisIn Anteaesthetics, Rizvana Bradley begins from the proposition that blackness cannot be represented in modernity's aesthetic regime, but is nevertheless foundational to every representation. Troubling the idea that the aesthetic is sheltered from the antiblack terror that lies just beyond its sanctuary, Bradley insists that blackness cannot make a home within the aesthetic, yet is held as its threshold and aporia. The book problematizes the phenomenological and ontological conceits that underwrite the visual, sensual, and abstract logics of modernity. Moving across multiple histories and geographies, artistic mediums and forms, from nineteenth-century painting and early cinema, to the contemporary text-based works, video installations, and digital art of Glenn Ligon, Mickalene Thomas, and Sondra Perry, Bradley inaugurates a new method for interpretation—an ante-formalism which demonstrates how black art engages in the recursive deconstruction of the aesthetic forms that remain foundational to modernity. Foregrounding the negativity of black art, Bradley shows how each of these artists disclose the racialized contours of the body, form, and medium, even interrogating the form that is the world itself. Drawing from black critical theory, Continental philosophy, film and media studies, art history, and black feminist thought, Bradley explores artistic practices that inhabit the negative underside of form. Ultimately, Anteaesthetics asks us to think philosophically with black art, and with the philosophical invention black art necessarily undertakes.Trade Review"Anteaesthetics is the study of black aesthetics I didn't know I sorely needed. Bradley offers a razor-sharp and sumptuous meditation on black aesthetics in, through, and vestibular to an anti-black world."—Alexander Ghedi Weheliye, Brown University"Rizvana Bradley's searching theory of black aesthesis traces black art's recursions through the violent origins of the aesthetic. Anteaesthetics opens a mode of reading for black art's non-instrumental exploration of abyssal descent. An incisive and energizing book through and through."—Rei Terada, University of California, Irvine"In this brilliantly conceived and exquisitely rendered study, Bradley offers a path-breaking analysis that will revolutionize how we approach, contest, and undo the Western visual field. Anteaesthetics offers an indispensable and undisciplined new frame for black feminist theorizing."—Huey Copeland, University of Pennsylvania"Incisive and compelling, Bradley's Anteaesthetics restores to thought and feeling a capacious sense of the aesthetic, revealing its tremendous and violent power as nothing less than foundational to a racially typified modern world."—Shane Denson, Stanford University"Anteaesthetics limns the depths of aesthetic and semiotic violence, refocusing our theoretical vision. This is an indispensable text—a tour de force."—Calvin Warren, Emory UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Toward a Theory of Anteaesthetics 2. The Corporeal Division of the World, or Aesthetic Ruination 3. Before the Nude, or Exorbitant Figuration 4. The Black Residuum, or That Which Remains 5. Unworlding, or the Involution of Value

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Book SynopsisAidan explores the ways in which Nietzsche's warning that 'the desert grows' has been taken up by Heidegger, Derrida and Deleuze in their critiques of modernity, and the desert in literature ranging from T.S Eliot to Don DeLillo; from imperial travel writing to postmodernism; and from the Old Testament to salvagepunk.

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Who ponders the sock? This common object is something people tug on and take off daily with hardly a thought. Unraveling the garment's history, construction, and use, Kim Adrian's Sock reintroduces us to our own bodies vulnerable, bipedal, and flawed. Sock reminds us that extraordinary secrets live in mundane material realities, and shows how this floppy, often smelly, sometimes holey piece of clothing, whether machine-made or hand-knit, can also serve as an anatomy lesson, a physics primer, a love letter, a weapon, a fetish, and a fashion statement.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewKim Adrian's Sock is the darndest thing. Witty and sly, written with the highest tactile precision, it is at the same time stacked with erudite asides and unexpected perspectives. Adrian reminds us where the ground lies and how we move upon it—and what miraculous things we have encasing our feet as we do so. * Sven Birkerts, author of Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age *Fun, focused, and footloose! * Nicholson Baker, author of The Way the World Works: Essays *[This book] serves to entertain in its erudite approach to yet another unexpected subject. * The Bookbag *Through a discussion of the footwear's material, social and cultural evolution, Sock reflects on the brilliance present in the minutiae of our lives. With piercing wit, idiosyncratic humor and sharply insightful moments of personal examination, Adrian uses the most domestic of items as a lens through which to view the inelegance and wondrousness of humanity. Encompassing the utility of protecting an essentially vulnerable, uncomfortable body and the bonds mothers form with the objects that cover the delicate toes of their babies, Adrian's warm, insightful investigation will give this common object new prominence in any reader's mind. Sock delivers a detailed exploration of human nature through whimsically astute commentary on a common, closely held object. * Shelf Awareness *An utterly engaging investigation — not so much of [the sock], per se, as of human evolution, anatomy, physics, sexuality, fashion, painting, consumerism, manufacturing, and motherhood … illuminating, erudite, deeply intelligent. * Los Angeles Review of Books *If a book called Sock makes you think, 'Twenty-five-thousand words on socks? Uh, no,' then you’re unclear on the concept. You’re also missing out on a thoroughly delightful discussion. * Washington Independent Review of Books *A remarkable read, a perfectly satisfying balance of fact and quirk and charm. * Knitty *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Socks & Evolution 2. Socks & Desire 3. Socks & Industry Coda: Instructions for Darning a Sock Notes Index

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Book SynopsisFeatures a dialogue between two of the most interesting thinkers working in philosophy and architecture. This work covers fundamental problems of politics, identity, and aesthetics as their exchange becomes an imaginative exploration of the possibilities of modern architecture and the future of modern life.Trade Review"A remarkable installment in Baudrillard's longstanding polemic about the modern object." - Semiotic Review of Books "Enormously suggestive... [The interviews] will leave those willing to wrestle with what is said here with a deeper understanding of the world we live in." - modernism/modernity"

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Book SynopsisDidacticism, romanticism, and classicism are the possible schemata for the knotting of art and philosophy, the third term in this knot being the education of subjects, youth in particular. What characterizes the century that has just come to a close is that, while it underwent the saturation of these three schemata, it failed to introduce a new one. Today, this predicament tends to produce a kind of unknotting of terms, a desperate dis-relation between art and philosophy, together with the pure and simple collapse of what circulated between them: the theme of education.Whence the thesis of which this book is nothing but a series of variations: faced with such a situation of saturation and closure, we must attempt to propose a new schema, a fourth type of knot between philosophy and art.Among these inaesthetic variations, the reader will encounter a sustained debate with contemporary philosophical uses of the poem, bold articulations of the specificity and prospects of Table of Contents@fmct:Contents @toc4:Translator's Note iii @toc2:1 Art and Philosophy 0 2 What is a Poem?, or, Philosophy and Poetry at the Point of the Unnamable 00 3 A French Philosopher Responds to a Polish Poet 00 4 A Philosophical Task: To be Contemporaries of Pessoa 000 5 A Poetic Dialectics: Labid ben Rabi'a and Mallarme 000 6 Dance as a Metaphor for Thought 000 7 Theses on Theater 000 8 The False Movements of Cinema 000 9 Being, Existence, Thought: Prose and Concept 000 10 Philosophy of the Faun 000 @toc4:Source Materials 000 Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Aesthetics

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Book SynopsisIn premodern China, elite painters used imagery not to mirror the world around them, but to evoke unfathomable experience. Considering their art alongside the philosophical traditions that inform it, this book explores the "nonobject" - a notion exemplified by paintings that do not seek to represent observable surroundings.Trade Review"This is one of those rare, precious, and necessary books that, once you have completed a first reading, you realize you have only just begun." (Magazine Litteraire)"

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Book SynopsisStephen K. Levine's new book explores the nature of traumatic experience and the therapeutic role of the arts and arts therapies in responding to it. It suggests that by re-imagining painful and tragic experiences through art-making, we may release their fixity and negative hold on our lives and resist the temptation to assume the role of the victim. Among the many concerns that the book addresses is the damage done by the tendency to adopt stock methods of understanding and superficial explanations for the depths, complexities, wonders, and exasperations of human experience. The book explores the chaos and fragmentation inherent in both art and human existence and the ways in which memory and imagination can find meaning by acknowledging this chaos and embodying it in appropriate forms. The book builds on the important theories of Stephen K. Levine's previous book, Poiesis: The Language of Psychology and the Speech of the Soul, also published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. It challenges dominant psychological perspectives on trauma and provides a new framework for arts therapists, psychotherapists, psychologists and social scientists to understand the effectiveness of the arts therapies in responding to human suffering.Trade ReviewThis is a brilliant book...those who love to search for meaning in a meaningleess world will find much to ponder on in this book. -- The Independent PractitionerStephen K. Levine's TRAUMA, TRAGEDY, THERAPY: THE ARTS AND HUMAN SUFFERING provides a powerful exploration of the nature of trauma and how the arts and arts therapies can help...His challeneges popular psychological perspectives on trauma and provides a different framework for arts therapists and psychologists to understand its course and effectiveness. Health libraries strong in psychology will find this a fine pick. -- The Midwest Book ReviesDeeply prychological, Stephen Levine goes over being at the bottom of life, chaos, healing, and the human body. Trauma, Tragedy, Therapy is a top pick for addition to arts and psychology collections for community and college libraries. -- The Midwest Book ReviewsOn the whole, Levine makes an important contribution to the field of trauma study by identifying philosophical problems within the current field of trauma study. He then shows how a new discourse, a new imagination of the problem and of new possibilities, can be created through the expressive arts therapies...What Levine has done with Trauma, Tragedy, Therapy is an enormous gift to the literature on the psychology of trauma, and it lays the foundation for careful and productive new studies. -- PsycCRITIQUESThis is a stimulating and challenging book which deserves careful reading by all types of psychological therapist. It will augment the more familiar psychological literature and, perhaps, prompt re-evaluation of clinical practice. -- Clinical Psychology ForumTable of ContentsAcknowledgments. Foreword. Introduction. Part I. From Trauma to Tragedy. 1.. Going to the Ground: Reflections on the Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy. 2. Mimetic Wounds: From Trauma to Tragedy. 3. Trauma, Therapy and the Arts: Towards a Dionysian Poiesis. Part II. Chaos Into Form. 4. Order and Chaos in Therapy and the Arts: An Encounter. 5. Is Order Enough? Is Chaos too Much? Art, Therapy and the Search for Wholeness - A Dialogue. 6. The Expressive Body: A Fragmented Totality. 7. The Second Coming: Beauty, Chaos and the Arts. 8. The Art of Despair: Therapy After Godot. Chapter 9. Researching Information - Imagining Research. 10. A Fragmented Totality? An Interview. Part III. Poiesis After Post-Modernism. 11. Poiesis and Praxis: Between Art and Action. 12. Be Like Jacques: Mimesis with a Difference. 13. What Can I Say Dear After I've Said Sorry? Poiesis After Post-Modernism. References.

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Book SynopsisIn light of current discourses on AI and robotics, what do the various experiences of art contribute to the rethinking of technology today?Art and Cosmotechnics addresses the challenge of technology to the existence of art and traditional thought, especially in light of current discourses on artificial intelligence and robotics. It carries out an attempt on the cosmotechnics of Chinese landscape painting in order to address this question, and further asks: What is the significance of shanshui (mountain and water) in face of the new challenges brought about by the current technological transformation? Thinking art and cosmotechnics together is an attempt to look into the varieties of experiences of art and to ask what these experiences might contribute to the rethinking of technology today.Trade Review "This book opens the way to rethinking technology beyond Gestell, by exploring the obscure paths of the experience of art."—Augustin Berque, author of Thinking Through Landscape "Art and Cosmotechnics is a must-read, especially for Westerners, to unlock the transformative potential of art vis-à-vis technologies."—Neural "Yuk Hui has played a key role in creating a framework within which current art-historical discourse regarding this vital subject can thrive."—Leonardo Reviews

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Book SynopsisPresents the last major work of Gilles Deleuze, translated into English.

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Book SynopsisIf art and science have one thing in common, it's a hunger for the new - new ideas and innovations, new ways of seeing and depicting the world. The author takes us on a tour of more than two millennia of thinking about the problem of the new, from the puzzles of the pre-Socratics all the way up to the art world of the 1960s and '70s.Trade Review"Novelty is an indispensable account of the extraordinary persistence and power of ideas about novelty and the new in our culture. It is very well researched, clearly written, and above all sustains a compelling narrative. Michael North surveys a wide field of intellectual and cultural history, and provides pithy, often witty, summaries of complex ideas. The result is a book that is bold in its claims, and sure to stimulate discussion." -Peter Middleton, University of Southampton"

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAesthetics as Phenomenology is an important and potentially major contribution to the philosophy of art. * Phenomenological Reviews *Table of ContentsTranslator's ForewordIntroductionChapter One: Art, Philosophically1. Why Art?2. Which Art?3. Philosophy of Art and AestheticsChapter Two: Beauty4. Free Play5. Appearances and Things6. Showing and Self-ShowingChapter Three: Art Forms7. Arts8. Essential Determinations9. MixturesChapter Four: Nature10. Oppositions11. Limits and Inclusions12. Primordial AppearanceChapter Five: Space13. Places14. Emptiness15. HereBibliographyIndex of Names and SubjectsIndex of Terms

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Book SynopsisDeath-Devoted Heart explodes the established interpretation of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, proving the drama to be more than just a sublimation of the composer's love for Wesendonck or a wistful romantic dream. Scruton boldly attests that Tristan and Isolde has profound religious meaning and remains as relevant today as it was to Wagner's contemporaries.Trade Reviewsuperb book....can still teach much even to those who think they long ago grasped the secret of this masterpiece. * Simon Heffer, Literary Review *(Roger Scruton's book is a deep and daunting) 'study of the most important single composition in Western music ... Scruton's examination is highly original and delves into aspects which have seldom been explored so rigorously' * Peter Porter, The Independent Books, *a very, very, scholarly work... * Tony Hall, Royal Opera House CEO in FT Magazine *superb analysis... * Michael Portillo, New Statesman *Table of Contents1. Wagner and Religion ; 2. The Story of Tristan ; 3. Wagner's Treatment of the Story ; 4. The Music of Tristan ; 5. The Philosophy of Love ; 6. Tragedy and Sacrifice ; 7. Love, Death, and Redemption ; EPILOGUE From Romance to Ritual ; APPENDIX Table of Motives ; NOTES ; SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ; INDEX

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Book SynopsisPeter Kivy mounts a philosophical inquiry into the desirability of using or re-creating historical practices in musical performance.Trade ReviewAuthenticities is an important book, and anyone interested in philosophy of music should read it. Anyone can profit from it as a model of careful and informed conceptual analysis. -- James O. Young, University of Victoria * The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism *The consistent theme running through Kivy's book is the need for interpretation as the personal authenticity and authority of the performer against the ideology both of the composer as genius and of the puritanical devotion to the authority of the text of the early music devotees.... This is a most valuable book, one which constantly surprises and delights through its philosophical insights and informed musical understanding. * British Journal of Aesthetics *In his latest book on the aesthetics of music, Peter Kivy presents an argument not for authenticity but for authenticities of performance, including authenticities of intention, sound, practice, and the authenticity of personal interpretation in performance.... As usual, Kivy's work is beautifully written, well argued, and provocative. * Notes *Kivy has provided a sorely needed framework for all future discussion of the authenticity matter. This is his best book, a major contribution to performance studies and to musical aesthetics; likely it will be studied and cited for generations. * Choice *Kivy's book is written in its author's characteristic engaging manner and is full of valuable insights into the hermeneutics and aesthetics of performing music of the past. * Philosophical Review *Written in lively prose, with a keen sense of reality, this volume ought to be of interest not only to philosophers and musicologists, but to all serious lovers of music. -- Roger Scruton * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisRediscovering Aesthetics brings together prominent international voices from art history, philosophy and artistic practice who reflect on current notions, functions, and applications of aesthetics in their distinctive fields.Trade Review"Rediscovering Aesthetics is an impressive collection that lives up to the mission outlined in its subtitle...this book is to be highly recommended to both experts and merely curious readers."—Vladimir D. Thomas, Philosophy in Review"Rediscovering Aesthetics collects the essays of a number of the most distinguished and articulate intellectuals and artists of our day, all of whom have original and challenging things to say about important issues. This powerful book, which focuses mostly on the visual arts, has ramifications for the reconsideration of the aesthetic in many different areas of artistic practice."—Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley"Rediscovering Aesthetics is a valuable contribution that begins with the premise that recent developments in art history and practice have engendered a recovery of the place and role of aesthetics. It refreshingly dispenses with questions of aesthetics' origins and instead inserts itself in the midst of modern histories of art."—Tom Huhn, School of Visual ArtsTable of Contents@fmh1: Contents @toc4: List of Contributors @toc4: (Re)Discovering Aesthetics: An Introduction @toc1: I. Aesthetics in Art History and Art Theory @toc2: 1. Kunstwissenschaft versus Asthetik: The Historians' Revolt Against Aesthetics @tocca: Richard Woodfield @toc2: 2. Aesthetics and the Two Cultures: Why Art and Science Should Be Allowed to Go Their Separate Ways @tocca: James Elkins @toc2: 3. Stones of Solace @tocca: Michael Ann Holly @toc2: 4. The Dogma of Conviction @tocca: David Raskin @toc2: 5. Sensation in the Wild: On Not Naming Newman, Judd, Riley, and Serra @tocca: Richard Shiff @toc2: 6. Kant's "Free-Play" in the Light of Minimal Art @tocca: Thierry de Duve @toc1: II. Aesthetics in Philosophy @toc2: 7. The Future of Aesthetics @tocca: Arthur C. Danto @toc2: 8. Retrieving Kant's Aesthetics for Art Theory After Greenberg @tocca: Diarmuid Costello @toc2: 9. Artistic Creativity: Illusions, Realities, Futures @tocca: Paul Crowther @toc2: 10. Gadamer and the Ambiguity of Appearance @tocca: Nicholas Davey @toc2: 11. Modernisms and Mediations @tocca: Peter Osborne @toc2: 12. Aesthetics Beyond Aesthetics @tocca: Wolfgang Welsch @toc2: 13. Intuition and Concrete Particularity in Kant's Transcendental Aesthetic @tocca: Adrian Piper @toc1: III. Aesthetics in Artistic and Curatorial Practice @toc2: 14. Seasonal Fractional Political Idiosyncratic Aesthetics @tocca: Carolee Schneemann @toc2: 15. Toward an Ophthalmology of the Aesthetic and an Orthopedics of Seeing @tocca: Robert Morris @toc2: 16. The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents @tocca: Claire Bishop @toc2: 17. The Richter Effect on the Regeneration of Aesthetics @tocca: Michael Kelly @toc4: Notes @toc4: Index

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Book SynopsisJulian Young presents Richard Wagner as an important philosopher of art and life, first as a utopian anarchist-communist and later as a Schopenhauerian pessimist. Understanding Wagnerâs philosophy is crucial to understanding his operas, as it is to understanding Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Heidegger. Trade ReviewKeenly attuned to Wagner’s intimations of impersonal immortality, Julian Young explains Wagner’s evolving views on the redemptive power of musical drama, an artistic salvation that remains possible even after the death of God. By critically examining Wagner’s philosophical transformation from a Feuerbachian anarcho-revolutionary to a Schopenhauerian world-renunciate, Young uncovers the enduring spiritual quest at the heart of Wagner’s work: Our deep and enduring philosophical need to learn how to die well. -- Iain Thomson, University of New MexicoIn deft, elegant prose, Young convincingly reconstructs two distinct Wagnerian philosophical positions, especially as concerns the relationship between art and society: an early revolutionary and a later Schopenhauerian position. In doing so, Young casts considerable light on the meanings of Wagner's musical dramas, and presents an array of fascinating positions on the proper relations between art and society for contemporary reflection. This is an important book for anyone interested in late-nineteenth-century philosophy of music and art. -- Sandra Shapshay, Indiana University, BloomingtonYoung here presents the results of extensive research into Wagner's philosophical writings. Perhaps the most surprising thing one learns is that Wagner had a relatively clear and coherent philosophy. In fact, Wagner’s philosophy evolved over time, and he always saw himself as more than a composer of operas. Early on, Wagner, influenced by Hegel, maintained that art and music could play a key role in changing the world for the better. Later, his philosophical intuitions and artistic aims would be molded by Schopenhauer’s pessimistic but redemptive views of music. Today, Wagner would be saddened, though perhaps not surprised, to find that most of his operas are heard only by the affluent—a situation that is the antithesis of what he was trying to do. Young’s straightforward writing style is more than welcome in explaining 19th-century German philosophical concepts, which can get very complex very fast. This book is beautifully written, clear, and concise. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsPart I: Early Wagner Chapter 1: The Way We are Now Chapter 2: The Greek Ideal Chapter 3: The Death of Art Chapter 4: The Artwork of the Future: Exploratory Questions Part II Later Wagner Chapter 5: Schopenhauer Chapter 6: Wagner’s Appropriation of Schopenhauer Chapter 7: Wagner’s Final Thoughts Epilogue: Wagner and Nietzsche

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The Challenge of Surrealism is an important intellectual and personal document that not only illuminates some of Adorno’s major philosophical concerns from an unexpected perspective, but also presents the record of a deeply personal and complex relationship characterized by attraction and repulsion, desire and distance, immediacy and deferral."—Gerhard Richter, Brown UniversityTable of ContentsContentsEditor’s Note Introduction. Departures: Critical Theory and SurrealismRita BischofSurrealism: Last Snapshot of the European IntelligentsiaWalter BenjaminSurrealism ReconsideredTheodor W. AdornoCritical Theory and Surreal PracticeElisabeth LenkCorrespondence between Theodor W. Adorno and Elisabeth Lenk, 1962–1969Introduction to the CorrespondenceElisabeth LenkSense and Sensibility: Afterword to Louis Aragon’s Paris PeasantElisabeth LenkIntroduction to the German Edition of Charles Fourier’s The Theory of the Four Movements and the General DestiniesElisabeth LenkSurrealist ReadingsCastor Zwieback (Theodor W. Adorno and Carl Dreyfus)NotesPublication HistoryIndex

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Book SynopsisFor his 2007 critically acclaimed 33 1/3 series title, Let's Talk About Love, Carl Wilson went on a quest to find his inner Céline Dion fan and explore how we define ourselves by what we call good and bad, what we love and what we hate. At once among the most widely beloved and most reviled and lampooned pop stars of the past few decades, Céline Dion's critics call her mawkish and overblown while millions of fans around the world adore her huge pipes and even bigger feelings. How can anyone say which side is right? This new, expanded edition goes even further, calling on thirteen prominent writers and musicians to respond to themes ranging from sentiment and kitsch to cultural capital and musical snobbery. The original text is followed by lively arguments and stories from Nick Hornby, Krist Novoselic, Ann Powers, Mary Gaitskill, James Franco, Sheila Heti and others. In a new afterword, Carl Wilson examines recent cultural changes in love and hate, including the impact of technTrade ReviewLike the whole world, I'm a fan of Carl Wilson's Celine Dion book. * Jonathan Lethem *An evergreen classic of music criticism--a love letter from a cerebral pop aesthete to the music he sincerely, almost sentimentally hates. * Rob Sheffield *Carl Wilson is a profound listener and an extraordinary writer. Along with being a tremendously important piece of criticism, Let’s Talk About Love is an agile, moving, and generous exploration of the music that accompanies us, welcome or not, on the travels we all need to make on our own. It is a beautiful, funny, unerringly concise book that invites repeated readings, new conversations, and a thoughtful engagement with the culture of our time. * John K. Samson *The book is laugh-out-loud funny, whip-smart about contemporary thought, and fascinating in its many voices, but, readers, beware—you may wind up humming that song for days afterward. -- Eloise Kinney * Booklist *[I]t’s a conversation worth having: as a dialogue between Wilson and his 13 disciples, with peers in social circles, and ultimately with oneself. Why we like what we like is always a fun topic to discuss, but it’s often more challenging and more enlightening to discuss the converse: why we don’t like what we don’t like… Any investigation into cool is incomplete without due consideration of too-cool-for. Wilson has provided a primer for that discourse. -- Kurtt Gottshalk * Brooklyn Rail *…the recently updated Let's Talk About Love—cheekily re-subtitled Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste and bundled with a host of excellent accompanying essays from the book's admirers including Krist Novoselic, Nick Hornby, Ann Powers, and James Franco—is a welcome excuse to revisit the main text in light of our current state of hyperspeed discourse. It's also a good excuse to catch up with Wilson, who continues to be an essential voice in the rock writer community while serving as Slate's music critic. -- Ryan Dombal * Pitchfork *Let’s Talk About Love…is not just a critical study of one Céline Dion album, but an engaging discussion of pop criticism itself. -- Elias Leight * LA Review of Books *In this gnostic context, Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, first published in 2007, was a counter-intuitive masterstroke. Wilson’s gamble—that even people who hate Céline Dion would be curious to read an entire book about why they hate her, and what that hatred might mean—paid off handsomely: Let’s Talk About Love was widely and enthusiastically reviewed outside the usual music-geek circles, Wilson appeared on NPR and The Colbert Report, and last year he was hired as Slate’s chief music critic, as plum a gig as a pop critic can expect in today’s collapsing media economy. -- Ellis Avery * Public Books *Freaking brilliant. -- Will Hermes * Hippies and Hipsters *Voted a Best Music Book 2014 * The Guardian *Carl Wilson’s 2007 entry in the 33 1/3 library of pocket-sized books about classic albums is one of the most celebrated in the series. The author goes against the critical grain, not because he defends the music of this much-maligned international phenomenon. Wilson spends most of the book putting Dion into social and cultural context that in the end does not win him over to her kind of music. Wilson’s book, unlike most criticism, openly invites dialogue, even providing an email contact for readers to beat their own breasts for and against Céline Dion. -- Pat Padua * Spectrum Culture *The 33 1/3 series lets writers write (mini) book length tomes based on or inspired by an individual album. It's produced some intriguing experiments, like John Darnielle's novella inspired by Black Sabbath's Masters of Reality (a precursor to this year's debut novel, Wolf In White Van), but in 2007 Carl Wilson exploded the entire premise. He picked an album he hated - Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love - and used it to enter a discourse on what determines good and bad taste. Seven years later, "poptimism" is practically standard practice, and Wilson's tome is a massively influential text in pop criticism. This year, Bloomsbury separated it from 33 1/3 and let it stand on its own in an expanded editions with a whackload of new material. Wilson's original work seemed like it examined Celine from every possible angle, but the 13 new essays, from writers like Nick Hornby, Owen Pallett and Nirvana's Krist Novoselic, show that he may have left a few stones unturned. -- Richard Trapunski * Chart Attack *An expanded version of Wilson's 2007 book for the 33 1/3 series with additional thoughts from 13 writers including James Franco, Ann Powers, Nick Hornby and others. An incredible look at pop culture -- and Celine Dion. -- The Ten Best Books of 2014 * Papermag *Table of ContentsA NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER PART I Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste Carl Wilson 1. Let’s Talk About Hate 2. Let’s Talk About Pop (and Its Critics) 3. Let’s Talk in French 4. Let’s Talk About World Conquest 5. Let’s Talk About Schmaltz 6. Let’s Sing Really Loud 7. Let’s Talk About Taste 8. Let’s Talk About Who’s Got Bad Taste 9. Let’s Talk with Some Fans 10. Let’s Do a Punk Version of “My Heart Will Go On” (or, Let’s Talk About Our Feelings) 11. Let’s Talk About Let’s Talk About Love 12. Let’s Talk About Love PART II Essays: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Carl Wilson, “Introduction” Nick Hornby, “The Artists We Deserve” Krist Novoselic, “With the Lights On, It’s Less Useless” Ann Powers, “If the Girls Were All Transported” Mary Gaitskill, “The Most Obvious Thing” Jason King, “Compared to What?” Daphne Brooks, “Let’s Talk About Diana Ross (In Memory of Trayvon Martin)” Drew Daniel, “Deep in the Game” Sukhdev Sandhu, “Children of the Corn” James Franco, “Acting In and Out of Context” Marco Roth and the Editors of n+1, “Too Much Sociology” Jonathan Sterne, “Giving Up on Giving Up on Good Taste” Owen Pallett, “When I Come Home” Sheila Heti, “Playlist: Let’s Listen to Love” PART III Afterword Carl Wilson, “Let’s Talk Later” ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

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Book SynopsisThe volume The Many Faces of Beauty joins the rich debate on beauty and aesthetic theory by presenting an ambitious, interdisciplinary examination of various facets of beauty in nature and human society. The contributors ask such questions as, Is there beauty in mathematical theories? What is the function of arts in the economy of cultures? What are the main steps in the historical evolution of aesthetic theories from ancient civilizations to the present? What is the function of the ugly in enhancing the expressivity of art? and What constitutes beauty in film? The sixteen essays, by eminent scientists, critics, scholars, and artists, are divided into five parts. In the first, a mathematician, physicist, and two philosophers address beauty in mathematics and nature. In the second, an anthropologist, psychologist, historian of law, and economist address the place of beauty in the human mind and in society. Explicit philosophical reflections on notoriously vexing issues,Trade Review“In 2012, the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (NDIAS) sponsored “The Many Faces of Beauty” conference, which offered a deep dive into the debate on beauty and aesthetic theory. This collection of 16 essays from prominent artists, scientists, mathematicians and critics features three Notre Dame scholars: The Huisking Professor of Theology Cyril O’Regan, the Rev. Joyce Professor of German Language and Literature Mark Roche, and J. Dudley Andrew ’67.” —Notre Dame Magazine

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Book SynopsisWhen originally published in 1960, this was the first complete English translation since 1799 of Kant's early work on aesthetics. More literary than philosophical, "Observations" shows Kant as a man of feeling rather than the dry thinker he often seemed to readers of the three "Critiques".Table of ContentsTRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION OBSERVATIONS ON THE FEELING OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND SUBLIME SECTION ONE: Of the Distinct Objects of the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime SECTION Two: Of the Attributes of the Beautiful and Sublime in Man in General SECTION THREE : Of the Distinction of the Beautiful and Sublime in the Interrelations of the Two Sexes SECTION FOUR: Of National Characteristics, so far as They Depend upon the Distinct Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

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Book SynopsisCamera Lucida, Roland Barthes''s personal, wide-ranging, and contemplative volume--and the last book he published--finds the author applying his influential perceptiveness and associative insight to the subject of photography.Commenting on artists such as Avedon, Clifford, Mapplethorpe, and Nadar, Barthes presents photography as being outside the codes of language or culture, acting on the body as much as on the mind, and rendering death and loss more acutely than any other medium. This groundbreaking approach established Camera Lucida as one of the most important books of theory on the subject, along with Susan Sontag''s On Photography.

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. For as long as people have traveled to distant lands, they have brought home objects to certify the journey. More than mere merchandise, these travel souvenirs take on a personal and cultural meaning that goes beyond the object itself. Drawing on several millennia of examplesfrom the relic-driven quests of early Christians, to the mass-produced tchotchkes that line the shelves of a Disney gift shoptravel writer Rolf Potts delves into a complicated history that explores issues of authenticity, cultural obligation, market forces, human suffering, and self-presentation. Souvenirs are shown for what they really are: not just objects, but personalized forms of folk storytelling that enable people to make sense of the world and their place in it.''Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Souvenir features illustTrade ReviewSouvenir, a sweet new book by Rolf Potts, is a little gem (easily tucked into a jacket pocket) filled with big insights … Souvenir explores our passions for such possessions and why we are compelled to transport items from one spot to another … Souvenir's introduction, titled "An Embarrassment of Eiffel Towers," is a delight to ponder. * Forbes *Potts guides readers through a philosophical, anthropological, and historical study of the objects we collect. Why do we buy souvenirs? What historical roots ground this ritual? Is one way of collecting souvenirs better than others? Potts shares stories behind his personal souvenirs, showing that uniquely personal emotions imbue our collected objects with meaning. Collecting souvenirs has been a way to mythologize his life, to externalize memories in a narrative form and maintain recollection of distant worlds. * The Rumpus *Few of us would call ourselves collectors, but most travelers have, at some point or other, bought a keychain, pocketed a seashell, or saved a ticket stub from a vacation. Turns out, as Mr. Potts notes in a new little book called Souvenir, there’s more to this seemingly simple (perhaps frivolous to some) practice than meets the eye … Souvenir offers ideas about what may be in play when we seek mementos … In the end, Souvenir suggests that the meaning of a keepsake is not fixed (its importance to the owner can change over time) and that its significance is bound up in the traveler’s identity. * The New York Times *This book takes a deep, thorough interest in the kitschy keychains you casually picked up at the airport, or the seashell you tucked in your pocket during a walk on the beach, or the carefully chosen scarf you found for your mother-in-law while shopping in Paris … It is a fascinating journey that covers a lot of ground, and the author muses upon it with an engaging and charming curiosity. Readers of this little treatise will never look at souvenirs the same way again. Five stars. * San Francisco Book Review *Rolf Potts writes with the soul of an explorer and a scholar’s love of research. Much like the objects that we bestow with meaning, this book carries a rich, lingering resonance. A gem. * Andrew McCarthy, actor, director and author of The Longest Way Home (2013) *In this slender but engrossing study of the phenomenology of souvenirs, Rolf Potts pinpoints the strange duality of travel, for where you 'go' is rarely identical to where you go. After reading it, I'll never be able to look at a Statue of Liberty key chain, Grand Canyon postcard, or Eiffel Tower ashtray in quite the same way again. If you love to travel, this book is essential. * Tom Bissell, journalist and author of Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve (2016) *This book is a journey through time, a history lesson and a look into the human psyche all in one. An educational book from a series, for anyone looking to learn a little about everyday objects in our lives and their significances to us. * This Girl Reads Blog *Potts takes us on a meditative sojourn across several millennia as he describes the evolution of travel from the early nomadic migrations to religious pilgrimages to modern tourism … With a natural fluency, Potts also weaves in personal stories and epiphanic moments related to his own souvenir hunting and gathering during his many, varied quests around the globe. Through it all, he shows us how, far from the superficial and mindless consumerism it may seem, the souvenir ritual is closely connected to our core sense of self even as the souvenir itself is no longer as fully rooted in its actual place. 8 stars. * PopMatters *A treasure trove of … fascinating deep dives into the history of travel keepsakes … Potts walks us through the origins of some of the most popular vacation memorabilia, including postcards and the still confoundedly ubiquitous souvenir spoons. He also examines the history of the more somber side of mementos, those depicting crimes and tragedies. Overall, the book, as do souvenirs themselves, speaks to the broader issues of time, memory, adventure, and nostalgia. * The Boston Globe *Table of ContentsPreface 1: Introduction: An Embarrassment of Eiffel Towers 2: Souvenirs in the Age of Pilgrimage 3: Souvenirs in the Age of Enlightenment Interlude: Museums of the Personal 4: Souvenirs in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 5: Souvenirs and Human Suffering 6: Souvenirs and (the Complicated Notion of) Authenticity 7: Souvenirs, Memory, and the Shortness of Life Notes Index

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.It's happening all the time, all around us. We cover it up. We ignore it. Rust takes on the many meanings of this oxidized substance, showing how technology bleeds into biology and ecology. Jean-Michel Rabate combines art, science, and autobiography to share his fascination with peeling paints and rusty metal sheets. Rust, he concludes, is a place where things living, built, and remembered commingle.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewRabate counters our instinctively negative view of rust with a surprisingly wide variety of examples drawn from philosophy as well as the arts and sciences for a strikingly and broadly convincing argument as to the merits of rust … Rabate presents rust as an imperfection with unlimited possibilities. He clarifies its role in our lives and complicates how we value its role. He brings readers his family rouille recipe and the news that someday soon, science may give us a green rust capable of cleaning our water and soil … He provides plenty of food for thought as we run into these references across daily life. * PopMatters *This is a witty, delightfully eclectic fantasy and fugue on the theme of rust, which, it turns out, is a perfect metaphor for an aesthetics of metamorphosis in and after modernism. Rust has the ruddy glow of active thinking in the process of self-transformation. Rust not only doesn’t sleep, it never stops giving off sparks. * Charles Bernstein, Donald T. Regan Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania, USA *Through his elegant alchemical associations, Rabaté spins Rust to gold. * Vanessa Place, artist and criminal defense attorney *Rust has its fascinating moments, those deeply poetic instants where metaphor becomes real and you get a tiny glimpse of the wonder that can reside inside seemingly ordinary items. * San Francisco Book Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. How to Live with Global Rust 2. Hegel and Ruskin, from the Inorganic to the Organic 3. Interlude: Blood-work 4. Rats and Jackals, Kafka after von Hofmannsthal 5. Aesthetics of Rust Conclusion: Fougères to Marseilles: Green Rust or Edible Rouille? Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisSince its publication in 1936, Walter Benjamin's Artwork essay has become a canonical text about the status and place of the fine arts in modern mass culture. Benjamin was especially concerned with the ability of new technologiesnotably film, sound recording, and photographyto reproduce works of art in great number. Benjamin could not have foreseen the explosion of imagery and media that has occurred during the past fifty years. Does Benjamin's famous essay still speak to this new situation? That is the question posed by the editors of this book to a wide range of leading scholars and thinkers across a spectrum of disciplines in the humanities. The essays gathered here do not hazard a univocal reply to that question; rather they offer a rich, wide-ranging critique of Benjamin's position that refracts and reflects contemporary thinking about the ethical, political, and aesthetic implications of life in the digital age.Trade Review"Mapping Benjamin not only distinguishes itself in format, scope, and tone from the mass of Benjamin books published each year, it provides an up-to-date snapshot of the humanities. This lucidly written book uses Benjamin to chart the parameters of a force field of contemporary intellectual efforts, across disciplines and other divides." -Eva Geulen,New York UniversityTable of ContentsContents BAECKER DIRK BOLZ NORBERT SIEGERT BERNHARD BARCK KARLHEINZ GILGEN PETER SHIFF RICHARD MOSER WALTER SCHMIDT SIEGFRIED J. HENNION ANTOINE LATOUR BRUNO LINK JURGEN CHARTIER ROGER LINK-HEER URSULA WATERS LINDSAY ZUMTHOR PAUL ASSMANN ALEIDA ASSMANN JAN HULLOT-KENTOR ROBERT BEHNKE KERSTIN WEIMAR KLAUS RITTER HENNING WENZEL HORST LEWIS PERICLES WERBER NIELS DE CASTRO ROCHA JOAO CEZAR NICHOLS STEPHEN G. NEVILLE BRIAN READINGS BILL FEINSTEIN JOSHUA MENOCAL MARIA ROSA SARLO BEATRIZ HARRISON ROBERT P. BANN STEPHEN

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Book SynopsisThis book weaves together Reiner Schürmann’s work on art and politics, drawing on a range of the most important thinkers and poets of the twentieth century and beyond.The Place of the Symbolic gathers Reiner Schürmann’s essays on the nexus of art and politics. In keeping with his translation of the destruction of metaphysics into an an-archic philosophy of practice, Schürmann develops a radical theory of the place of symbols, irreducible either to idealist theories of symbols or structuralist accounts of the symbolic. Symbols, Schürmann argues, may provide a bridge between ontological difference and politics. They resist being grasped metaphysically, in terms of representation. Instead, their understanding requires a specific way of existence: attending to the coming-to-presence of phenomena. As such, the understanding of symbols discloses a form of praxis that abandons ultimate grounds and opens onto the manifold. Alongside Schürmann’s theory of symbols, the collection includes essays on the relation between metaphysics, tragedy, and technology; on the “there is” in poetry; as well as on judgment. Throughout these characteristically lucid interventions, Schürmann’s most urgent concern remains a consideration of singular and finite practices that enact a release from universal principles. Art and politics appear here as the unworking of ultimate grounds; that is, as practices attuned to a truly groundless form of life.

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