Marking the 50th anniversary of one among this philosopher’s most distinguished pieces, Blumenberg’s Rhetoric proffers a decidedly diversified interaction with the essai polyvalently entitled ‘Anthropological Approach to the Topicality (or Currency, Relevance, even actualitas) of Rhetoric’ ("Anthropologische Annäherung an die Aktualität der Rhetorik"), first published in 1971. Following Blumenberg’s lead, the contributors consider and tackle their topics rhetorically—treating (inter alia) the variegated discourses of Phenomenology and Truthcraft, of Intellectual History and Anthropology, as well as the interplay of methods, from a plurality of viewpoints. The diachronically extensive, disciplinarily diverse essays of this publication—notably in the current lingua franca—will facilitate, and are to conduce to, further scholarship with respect to Blumenberg and the art of rhetoric. With contributions by Sonja Feger, Simon Godart, Joachim Küpper, DS Mayfield, Heinrich Niehues-Pröbsting, Daniel Rudy Hiller, Katrin Trüstedt, Alexander Waszynski, Friedrich Weber-Steinhaus, Nicola Zambon.

Is virtual reality the latest grand narrative that humanity has produced? Our civilization is determined by a shift from an "original event" to a virtual "narrative". This concerns not only virtual reality but also psychoanalysis, gene-technology, and globalization. Psychoanalysis transforms the dream into a narrative and is able to spell out the dream's symbols. Gene-technology narrates dynamic, self-evolving evolution as a "gene code". Discourses on "globalization" let the globe appear as once more globalized because reproduced through narrative. Finally, reality itself has come to be narrated in the form of a second reality that is called "virtual". This book attempts to disentangle the characteristics of human reality and posthuman virtual reality and asks whether it is possible to reconcile both.

This collection aims to map a diversity of approaches to the artform by creating a 360° view on the circus. Three sections of the book, Aesthetics, Practice, Culture, approach aesthetic developments, issues of artistic practice, and the circus’ role within society. This book consists of a collection of articles from renowned circus researchers, junior researchers, and artists. It also provides the core statements and discussions of the conference UpSideDown—Circus and Space in a graphic recording format. Hence, it allows a clear entry into the field of circus research and emphasizes the diversity of approaches that are well balanced between theoretical and artistic point of views. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of circus studies, emerging disciples of circus and performance.

Richard Linklater's celebrated Before trilogy chronicles the love of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) who first meet up in Before Sunrise, later reconnect in Before Sunset and finally experience a fall-out in Before Midnight. Not only do these films present storylines and dilemmas that invite philosophical discussion, but philosophical discussion itself is at the very heart of the trilogy. This book, containing specially commissioned chapters by a roster of international contributors, explores the many philosophical themes that feature so vividly in the interactions between Celine and Jesse, including: the nature of love, romanticism and marriage the passage and experience of time the meaning of life the art of conversation the narrative self gender death Including an interview with Julie Delpy in which she discusses her involvement in the films and the importance of studying philosophy, Before Sunrise. Before Sunset. Before Midnight: A Philosophical Exploration is essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy, aesthetics, gender studies, and film studies.

'Incisive and provocative ... a sensitive and probing critique' The New York Times 'Essential reading ... gripping, inspirational, beautifully written and highly thought-provoking' Dr Helen Gorrill, author of Women Can't Paint A bold reconsideration of women in art - from the 'Old Masters' to the posts of Instagram influencers A perfect pin-up, a damsel in distress, a saintly mother, a femme fatale ... Women's identity has long been stifled by a limited set of archetypes, found everywhere in pictures from art history's classics to advertising, while women artists have been overlooked and held back from shaping more empowering roles. In this impassioned book, art historian Catherine McCormack asks us to look again at what these images have told us to value, opening up our most loved images - from those of Titian and Botticelli to Picasso and the Pre-Raphaelites. She also shows us how women artists - from Berthe Morisot to Beyonce, Judy Chicago to Kara Walker - have offered us new ways of thinking about women's identity, sexuality, race and power. Women in the Picture gives us new ways of seeing the art of the past and the familiar images of today so that we might free women from these restrictive roles and embrace the breadth of women's vision. 'A call to arms in a world where the misogyny that taints much of the western art canon is still largely ignored' Financial Times 'It felt like the scales were falling from my eyes as I read it.' The Herald

Using five case studies of contemporary art, this book uses ideas of systems and dispersion to understand identity and experience in late capitalism. This book considers five artists who exemplify contemporary art practice: Seth Price; Liam Gillick; Martin Creed; Hito Steyerl and Theaster Gates. Given the diversity of materials used in art today, once-traditional artistic mediums and practices have become obsolete in describing what artists do today. Francis Halsall argues that, in the face of this obsolescence, the ideas of system and dispersion become very useful in understanding contemporary art. That is, practitioners now can be seen to be using whatever systems of distribution and display are available to them as their creative mediums. The two central arguments are first that any understanding of what art is will always be underwritten by a related view of what a human being is; and second that these both have a particular character in late capitalism or, as is named here, the Age of Dispersion. The book will be of interest to scholars and students working in art history, contemporary art, studio art, and theories of systems and networks.

Who isn't seduced by the idea of an affinity between aging and aesthetics? Yet, when does aging truly begin? What attributes does the aesthetic embrace? Looking into startling photographic art of the past three decades, this book is prompted by such questions and turns them into a meditation on how aesthetics mediates our relation to time. The photographic approach of the corporeal is at the center of the book. Within a phenomenological framework, Cristofovici brings into focus the physical and the psychic body to read aging as a process of change and becoming over time. Her understanding of aging sees beyond difference into larger patterns of perceptions that we share. Offering valuable insights into aging as a process of subject construction, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of visual culture, photography, art history, age studies, and theories of knowledge. This cross-disciplinary study that puts theory to the test of life's and art's paradoxes in an evocative style will also appeal to a wider readership interested in how photography and aging illuminate each other.

In this book, Shay Welch expands on the contemporary cognitive thinking-in-movement framework, which has its roots in the work of Maxine Sheets-Johnstone but extends and develops within contemporary embodied cognition theory. Welch believes that dance can be used to ask questions, and this book offers a method of how critical inquiry can be embodied. First, she presents the theoretical underpinnings of what this process is and how it can work; second, she introduces the empirical method as a tool that can be used by movers for the purpose of doing embodied inquiry. Exploring the role of embodied cognition and embodied metaphors in mining the body for questions, Welch demonstrates how to utilize movement to explore embodied practices of knowing. She argues that our creative embodied movements facilitate our ability to bodily engage in critical analysis about the world.

This book develops a philosophy of the predominant yet obtrusive aspects of digital culture, arguing that what seems like insignificant distractions of digital technology - such as video games, mindless browsing, cute animal imagery, political memes, and trolling - are actually keyed into fundamental aspects of evolution. These elements are commonly framed as distractions in an economy of attention and this book approaches them with the prospect of understanding their attraction, from the starting point of diversions. Diversions designate not simply shifting states of attention but characterize the direction of any system on a different course, a theoretical perspective which makes it possible to investigate distractions as not only by-products of contemporary media and human attention. The perspective shifts from distractions as the unwanted and inconsequential to considering instead the function of diversions in the process of evolutionary development. Grounded in media theory but drawing from diverse interdisciplinary perspectives in biology, philosophy, and systems theory, this book provocatively theorizes the process of diversions - of the playful, stupid, cute, and funny - as significant for the evolution of a range of organisms.

Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of culture has been much discussed in recent years. However, it remains unclear how it evolved from his older theory of knowledge. This study deals with this question on the basis of Cassirer's 'disposition' of a 'philosophy of the symbolic', reconstructed here for the first time. This text shows that the 'symbolic' refers to culture as a whole and to its inherent diversity. Therefore, 'the symbolic' includes the relationship between the general transcendental conditions of culture and its empirical specificities in language and languages, art and the arts, myth and myths, science and disciplines. Cassirer does not comprehend this empirical and specific reality of symbolization depending on pre-existing transcendental conditions. Instead, he proceeds from the empirical diversity of the symbolisations and reflects on their simultaneously general and specific conditions. Thus, Cassirer embarks on a path that he finds paved in Kant's "Critique of Judgement": He consequently defines 'the symbolic' as the horizon for a reflective approach based on empirical findings - and not as the foundation of a systematic derivation of the diversity of culture in the style of the idealistic tradition.

This new collection of essays re-examines the relationship between the aesthetic and the human in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century manifestations of art for art's sake. It treats aestheticism as a subject of perennial interest in the field. Employing a unique methodology in approaching the study of aestheticism from a transnational, comparative standpoint - the volume as a whole presents readers with a variety of perspectives on the topic, in a coherent way.This book: includes contributions from a number of up-and-coming young scholars who are getting a good name (eg, Yvonne Ivory); addresses the question: 'does art for art's sake seek to de-humanize or re-humanize art, the artist or the artistic receptor?' and engages with art, literature, philosophy and literary and aesthetic theory.Art for art's sake addresses the relationship between art and life. Although it has long been argued that aestheticism aims to de-humanize art, this volume seeks to consider the counterclaim that such de-humanization can also lead to re-humanization and to a deepened relationship between the aesthetic sphere and the world at large.

Human beings engage works of the arts in many different ways: they sing songs while working, they kiss icons, they create and dedicate memorials. Yet almost all philosophers of art of the modern period have ignored this variety and focused entirely on just one mode of engagement, namely, disinterested attention. In the first part of the book Nicholas Wolterstorff asks why philosophers have concentrated on just this one mode of engagement. The answer he proposes is that almost all philosophers have accepted what the author calls the grand narrative concerning art in the modern world. It is generally agreed that in the early modern period, members of the middle class in Western Europe increasingly engaged works of the arts as objects of disinterested attention. The grand narrative claims that this change represented the arts coming into their own, and that works of art, so engaged, are socially other and transcendent. Wolterstorff argues that the grand narrative has to be rejected as not fitting the facts. Wolterstorff then offers an alternative framework for thinking about the arts. Central to the alternative framework that he proposes are the idea of the arts as social practices and the idea of works of the arts as having different meaning in different practices. He goes on to use this framework to analyse in some detail five distinct social practices of art and the meaning that works have within those practices: the practice of memorial art, of art for veneration, of social protest art, of works songs, and of recent art-reflexive art.

This work presents a rethinking of critical philosophy through the recovery of a larger sense of aesthetics in Kant. It provides a unitary reading of the "Critique of Judgement". This is situated in relation to Kant's attempt to think ends in general. The question of how to think ends is argued to guide Kant both in his treatment of aesthetics and teleology and to provide the rationale for critique itself.

The post humanist movement which currently traverses various disciplines in the arts and humanities, as well as the role that the thought of Deleuze and Guattari has had in the course of this movement, has given rise to new practices in architecture and urban theory. This interdisciplinary volume brings together architects, urban designers and planners, and asks them to reflect and report on the (built) place and the city to come in the wake of Deleuze and Guattari.

While many studies have chronicled the Romantic legacy of artistic genius, this book uncovers the roots of the concept of genius in Kant's third Critique, alongside the development of his understanding of nature. Paul Bruno addresses a genuine gap in the existing scholarship by exploring the origins of Kant's thought on aesthetic judgment and particularly the artist.
The development of the word 'genius' and its intimate association with the artist played itself out in a rich cultural context, a context that is inescapably significant in Western thought. Bruno shows how in many ways we are still interrogating the ways in which a nature governed by physical laws can be reconciled with a spirit of human creativity and freedom. This book leads us to a better understanding of the centrality of understanding the modern artistic enterprise, characterized as it is by creativity, for modern conceptions of the self.

This text probes the psychic and social roots of artistic scenarios of loss. Demonstrating that artistic activity is inextricably bonded to imaginary scripts of bereavement and these in turn to patterns of social dominance, the author argues in favor of an "aesthetics of lessness" that is, postmodern resistance to imaginary inscriptions of grief and their misogynist sequels. The book draws on psychoaesthetics, discourse theory and feminist social critiques to analyse literary visual figurations of loss. Included in its analysis of the romantic and post-romantic imaginary are readings of Merimee, Nerval, Hoffmann, H.D., Anne Hebert, Proust and Beckett, and essays, among others, on Kollwitz, Glacometti, Bellmer, Klee, Gidal and Oulton.

Art has always been central to moments of great social change. From the avant-garde to the ages of revolution, the act of rebellious creation has been crucial to bringing people and ideas together. However, in an increasingly fractured world characterised by upheaval and crisis, what role can art play in ushering in transformation? Malcolm Miles offers a guide to contemporary art and activism, setting it firmly within the context of the avant garde and its legacies in the postwar period. He explores the rise of direct action to replace representational politics in organizations like Occupy and Extinction Rebellion, and in the movements to destroy or remove statues of slavers, and finds parallels in anti-institutional art practices. By engaging with the significant theoretical innovations of the last 50 years - modernism, postmodernism and contemporary critical thinking - Miles provides both an overview of political aesthetics and an introduction to how art activism works in its most memorable moments in history. Art Rebellion argues that beauty is radically other to the dominant society; that power relations can be transformed; that protest cultures and contemporary art grow together; and that art has a crucial interruptive role in forming new, more equal and just, realities.

Awarded an Honorable Mention for the 2022 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award Imagining Dewey features productive (re)interpretations of 21st century experience using the lens of John Dewey's Art as Experience, through the doubled task of putting an array of international philosophers, educators, and artists-researchers in transactional dialogue and on equal footing in an academic text. This book is a pragmatic attempt to encourage application of aesthetic learning and living, ekphrasic interpretation, critical art, and agonist pluralism. There are two foci: (a) Deweyan philosophy and educational themes with (b) analysis and examples of how educators, artists, and researchers envision and enact artful meaning making. This structure meets the needs of university and high school audiences, who are accustomed to learning about challenging ideas through multimedia and aesthetic experience. Contributors are: James M. Albrecht, Adam I. Attwood, John Baldacchino, Carolyn L. Berenato, M. Cristina Di Gregori, Holly Fairbank, Jim Garrison, Amanda Gulla, Bethany Henning, Jessica Heybach, David L. Hildebrand, Ellyn Lyle, Livio Mattarollo, Christy McConnell Moroye, Maria-Isabel Moreno-Montoro, Maria Martinez Morales, Stephen M. Noonan, Louise G. Phillips, Scott L. Pratt, Joaquin Roldan, Leopoldo Rueda, Tadd Ruetenik, Leisa Sasso, Bruce Uhrmacher, David Vessey, Ricardo Marin Viadel, Sean Wiebe, Li Xu and Martha Patricia Espiritu Zavalza.

This book analyzes the role that the physical body plays in foundational Mormon doctrine, and claims that such an analysis reveals a model of empathy that has significant implications for the field of Mormon aesthetics. This volume achieves three main goals: It elucidates the Mormonism's relationship with the body, it illuminates Mormonism's traditional approaches to understanding and appreciating art, and it suggests that the body as Mormonism conceives of it allows for the employment of an aesthetic framework rooted in bodily empathy rather than traditional Christian or Mormon moral values per se. In support of this argument, several chapters of the book apply Mormonism's theology of the body to paintings and poems by contemporary Mormon artists and writers. An examination of those works reveals that the seeds of a new Mormon aesthetic are germinating, but have yet to significantly shift traditional Mormon thought regarding the role and function of art.

The Missed Encounter of Radical Philosophy with Architecture brings together a respected team of philosophers and architecture scholars to ask what impact architecture has over today's culture and society. For three decades critical philosophy has been in discourse with architecture. Yet following the recent radical turn in contemporary philosophy, architecture's role in contemporary culture is rarely addressed. In turn, the architecture discourse in academia has remained ignorant of recent developments in radical philosophy. Providing the first platform for a debate between critics, architects and radical philosophers, this unique collection unties these two schools of thought. Contributors reason for or against the claim of the "missed encounter" between architecture and radical philosophy. They discuss why our prominent critical philosophers devote stimulating writings to the ideological impact of arts on the contemporary culture - music, literature, cinema, opera, theatre - without attempting a similar comprehensive analysis of architecture. By critically evaluating recent philosophy in relation to contemporary architecture, The Missed Encounter of Radical Philosophy with Architecture presents a thorough understanding of the new relationship between architecture and radical philosophy.

Ethical musicality addresses the crossroads between music and ethics, combining philosophical knowledge, theoretical reflection, and practical understanding. When tied together, music and ethics link profoundly, offering real-life perspectives that would otherwise be inaccessible to us. The first part elucidates music and ethics through some influential and selected scholars ranging from antiquity via modern philosophy to contemporary voices. In the second part, different roles and arenas are illustrated and explored through various music practices in real-life encounters for the musician, the music educator, the music therapist, the musicologist, the 'lay' musician, and the music researcher. The third part unfolds an ethical musicality focusing on the body, relationship, time, and space. Following these fundamental existentials, ethical musicality expands our lifeworld, including context, involvement, power, responsibility, sustainability, and hope. Such an ethical musicality meets us with a calling to humanity-offering hope of a 'good life'.

Despite numerous publications on the philosophy of technology, little attention has been paid to the relationship between being and value in technology, two aspects which are usually treated separately. This volume addresses this issue by drawing connections between the ontology of technology on the one hand and technology's ethical and aesthetic significance on the other. The book first considers what technology is and what kind of entities it produces. Then it examines the moral implications of technology. Finally, it explores the connections between technology and the arts.

Artworld Metaphysics turns a critical eye upon aspects of the artworld, and articulates some of the problems, principles, and norms implicit in the actual practices of artistic creation, interpretation, evaluation, and commodification. Aesthetic theory is treated as descriptive and explanatory, rather than normative: a theory that relates to artworld realities as a semantic theory relates to the fragments of natural language it seeks to describe. Robert Kraut examines emotional expression, correct interpretation and objectivity in the context of artworld practice, the relevance of jazz to aesthetic theory, and the goals of ontology (artworld and otherwise). He also considers the relation between art and language, the confusions of postmodern relativism, and the relation between artistic/critical practice and aesthetic theory.