This book won the 2014 AESA (American Educational Studies Association) Critics Choice Award. The purpose of this book is restore the centrality of pedagogy in governing the ways literary texts are received, experienced, and interpreted by students in the classroom. Utilizing a method of pedagogical criticism, it provides an account of core approaches to teaching literature that have emerged across history and the conceptual values informing these approaches. More importantly, Reading the World discusses how these values have been shaped by broader global forces and key movements in the discipline of English Literature. To varying degrees, these approaches are aimed at cultivating a hospitable imagination so that students may more fully engage with multiple others in the world. Given the reality of an increasingly interconnected twenty-first century, literature pedagogy plays a vital role in schools by demonstrating how world, global, and cosmopolitan approaches to teaching literature can facilitate the prioritization of the other, challenge us to think about how we can be accountable to multiple others in the world, and push us to continually problematize the boundaries of our openness towards the other.

Kanta (TM)s Critique of Judgment is one of the most important texts in the history of modern aesthetics. This GuideBook discusses the Third Critique section by section, and introduces and assesses:

• Kant's life and the background of the Critique of Judgment
• the ideas and text of the Critique of Judgment, including a critical explanation of Kanta (TM)s theories of natural beauty
• the continuing relevance of Kanta (TM)s work to contemporary philosophy and aesthetics.

This GuideBook is an accessible introduction to a notoriously difficult work and will be essential reading for students of Kant and aesthetics.

This volume builds on two recent developments in philosophy on the relationship between art and science: the notion of representation and the role of values in theory choice and the development of scientific theories. Its aim is to address questions regarding scientific creativity and imagination, the status of scientific performances-such as thought experiments and visual aids-and the role of aesthetic considerations in the context of discovery and justification of scientific theories. Several contributions focus on the concept of beauty as employed by practising scientists, the aesthetic factors at play in science and their role in decision making. Other essays address the question of scientific creativity and how aesthetic judgment resolves the problem of theory choice by employing aesthetic criteria and incorporating insights from both objectivism and subjectivism. The volume also features original perspectives on the role of the sublime in science and sheds light on the empirical work studying the experience of the sublime in science and its relation to the experience of understanding. The Aesthetics of Science tackles these topics from a variety of novel and thought-provoking angles. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in philosophy of science and aesthetics, as well as other subdisciplines such as epistemology and philosophy of mathematics.

Re-examining English Romanticism through Hegel's philosophy, this book outlines and expands upon Hegel's theory of recognition. Deakin critiques four canonical writers of the English Romantic tradition, Coleridge, Wordsworth, P.B. Shelley and Mary Shelley, arguing that they, as Hegel, are engaged in a struggle towards philosophical recognition.

This title offers an introduction to aesthetics for the student encountering this key philosophical subdiscipline for the first time.Aesthetics is the branch of philosophical thought that arises from engagement with the arts. It is about larger issues, such as meaning, identity, and medium that arise in the exploration of art, music, film and literature."Aesthetics: Key Concepts in Philosophy" offers a thorough, lucid and stimulating account of the central theories and ideas encountered in aesthetics. The text is thematically structured, covering the discipline's principal concepts: taste, aesthetic judgment, aesthetic experience and the definition of art.Ideal for students across the arts and humanities, the book stresses distinctively modern and contemporary problems, including the divergence between theories of aesthetics and theories of art and the problem of new media. Daniel Herwitz introduces students to aesthetic traditions, while also demonstrating their forward movement into the present.The book guides the reader through the work of philosophers who have engaged with aesthetics, including Hume, Kant, Hegel, Derrida, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein. It also provides an invaluable aid for philosophy undergraduates, introducing them to the history of aesthetics and stressing the importance of understanding the subject within its historical context."Key Concepts in Philosophy" is a series of concise, accessible and engaging introductions to the core ideas and subjects encountered in the study of philosophy. Specially written to meet the needs of students and those with an interest in, but little prior knowledge of, philosophy, these books open up fascinating, yet sometimes difficult ideas. The series builds to give a solid grounding in philosophy and each book is also ideal as a companion to further study.

The Continuum Aesthetics Series looks at the aesthetic questions and issues raised by all major art forms. Stimulating, engaging and accessible, the series offers food for thought not only for students of aesthetics, but also for anyone with an interest in philosophy and the arts. Aesthetics and Music is a fresh and often provocative exploration of the key concepts and arguments in musical aesthetics. It draws on the rich heritage of the subject, while proposing distinctive new ways of thinking about music as an art form. The book looks at: The experience of listening Rhythm and musical movement What modernism has meant for musical aesthetics The relation of music to other 'sound arts' Improvisation and composition as well as more traditional issues in musical aesthetics such as absolute versus programme music and the question of musical formalism. Thinkers discussed range from Pythagoras and Plato to Kant, Nietzsche and Adorno. Areas of music covered include classical, popular and traditional music, and jazz. Aesthetics and Music makes an eloquent case for a humanistic, democratic and genuinely aesthetic conception of music and musical understanding. Anyone interested in what contemporary philosophy has to say about music as an art form will find this thought-provoking and highly enjoyable book required reading.

This volume is an introduction to those works of Gyoergy Lukacs that have established him as a classic authority in literary criticism: his pre-Marxist The History of the Evolution of Modern Drama (1911), still not available in English, which Eva Corredor analyzes in the original Hungarian text and from which she provides extensive quotations in English; his Kantian collection of essays, Soul and Form (1910); his Hegelian The Theory of the Novel (1920); and his first Marxist work, History and Class Consciousness (1923), which best characterizes the Hungarian philosopher's problematic position between East and West. Lukacs's Marxist theories are studied in the texts written during his exile in Stalinist Russia but published much later: Studies in European Realism (1950), The Historical Novel (1955) and Realism in Our Time (1957). The approach to Lukacs's work is both selective, in the sense that the author chooses to introduce Lukacs's literary theories with a focus on his views of French literature, but also global, in that she integrates these theories in the totality of his intellectual development. At each phase, the true motive of Lukacs's interest in literature is revealed as a pretext to study reality. The detailed biographical data, up-to-date critical bibliography and helpful index contribute to the overall value of this work as a challenging and rewarding source of information on Gyoergy Lukacs's theories of literature.

Gilles Deleuze was one of the most influential and revolutionary philosophers of the twentieth century. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation is his long-awaited work on Bacon, widely regarded as one of the most radical painters of the twentieth century.The book presents a deep engagement with Bacon's work and the nature of art. Deleuze analyzes the distinctive innovations that came to mark Bacon's style: the isolation of the figure, the violation deformations of the flesh, the complex use of color, the method of chance, and the use of the triptych form. Along the way, Deleuze introduces a number of his own famous concepts, such as the 'body without organs' and the 'diagram, ' and contrasts his own approach to painting with that of both the phenomenological and the art historical traditions.Deleuze links Bacon's work to CTzanne's notion of a 'logic' of sensation, which reaches its summit in color and the 'coloring sensation.' Investigating this logic, Deleuze explores Bacon's crucial relation to past painters such as Velasquez, CTzanne, and Soutine, as well as Bacon's rejection of expressionism and abstract painting.Long awaited in translation, Francis Bacon is destined to become a classic philosophical reflection on the nature of painting.

The present work addresses itself to the question of the nature of appraisive concepts such as were the subject of investigation in The Concepts of Value* and The Concepts of Criticism. ** Many problems of prime importance in the theory of value could not be adequately treated there without diminishing the basic purpose of those studies which was above all to identify, classify and provide a general theoretical framework for the host of concepts with which we characterize and commend subjects of appraisal in all of the principal areas of human interest. The author might have forestalled the disappointment of some of his critics had he then explicitly promised to consider those problems at a later time. But his reluctance to promise what he might not be in a position to produce outweighed a keen awareness of what the problems are and of their evident seriousness. Although my treatment of such problems has only now been undertaken, in point of time my concern with them antedates by far the em pirical explorations of the two texts mentioned. Anyone who undertakes such a study is likely to have come under the in fluence of Professor Frank Sibley's 'Aesthetic Concepts't and of later develop ments in his analysis of certain appraisive concepts. What do such concepts mean and how do they mean9 These are the questions he treated in such a stimulating fashion."

Bernhard Lang: Critical Guides to Contemporary Composers offers a critical guide and introduction to the work of Austrian composer Bernhard Lang (b. 1957). It identifies the phenomenon of repetition as a central concern in Lang's thinking and making. The composer's artistic practice is identified as one of 'loop aesthetics': a creative poetics in which repetition serves not only as methodology, but also as material, language, and subject matter. The book is structured around the four central thematic nodes of philosophy, music, theatre, and politics. After introducing Lang as a composer whose work is thoroughly influenced by philosophical thought, the book develops a typology of musical repetition as it is explored and activated in Lang's oeuvre. Pointing towards the several repetitions within the performance of Lang's works, the book explores the heavily trans-medial nature of the repeat across domains such as literature, dance, and theatre. Finally, the book investigates Lang's use of textual quotation and musical borrowing. Christine Dysers is a musicologist specialising in contemporary music aesthetics. Her research centres around repetition, politics, absence, the liminal, and the uncanny. This is the first full-length study of the works of Bernhard Lang and is a new volume in the Critical Guides to Contemporary Composers series from Intellect.

Aesthetics is one of the most vital and wide-ranging fields of philosophical inquiry.

This four volume set brings together both classic and contemporary writings to provide a comprehensive collection of the most important essays on the subject. All of the various artistic genres are addressed, with sections on film, dance and architecture as well as music, literature and the visual arts.

With a new introduction by the editor to guide the reader through the volumes, this major new work will provide student and researcher alike with key writings on aesthetics in one convenient, unique resource.

This book looks at causative reasons behind creative acts and stylistic expressions. It explores how creativity is initiated by design cognition and explains relationships between style and creativity. The book establishes a new cognitive theory of style and creativity in design and provides designers with insights into their own cognitive processes and styles of thinking, supporting a better understanding of the qualities present in their own design. An explanation of the nature of design cognition begins this work, with a look at how design knowledge is formulated, developed, structured and utilized, and how this utilization triggers style and creativity. The author goes on to review historical studies of style, considering a series of psychological experiments relating to the operational definition, degree, measurement, and creation of style. The work conceptually summarizes the recognition of individual style in products, as well as the creation of such styles as a process before reviewing studies on creativity from various disciplines, presenting case studies and reviewing works by master architects. Readers will discover how creativity is initiated by design cognition. A summary of the correlations between creativity and style, expressed as a conceptual formula describing the cognitive phenomenon of style and creativity concludes the work. The ideas presented here are applicable to all design fields, allowing designers to comprehend and improve their design processes to produce creative, stylistically unique products.

In this original and compelling exploration of the meaning of the term 'fine' and the phenomenon of refinement, noted scholar Michael Gelven reflects on the relationship between refinement and existence. Beginning with a study of perceptual refinement, Gelven shows how in some cases this refinement discloses an existential essence-as an architect shows us what it means to dwell. Gelven then moves to a refinement of self, not equating it with virtue but showing how refinement illuminates our understanding of our ethical and aesthetic judgments, and of what it means to be.

A Critical Theory of Creativity argues that a Utopian drive is aesthetically encoded within the language of form. But coupled with this opportunity comes a very human obligation which cannot be delegated to God, to nature or to market forces. As Ernst Bloch declared: 'Life has been put into our hands.'

Forbidden Aesthetics, Ethical Justice, and Terror in Modern Western Culture explores the potential links between terror and aesthetics in modern Western society, specifically the affinity between terrorism and the possibility of an aesthetic appreciation of terrorist phenomena or events. But can we actually have an aesthetic appreciation of terror or terrorism? And if we can, is it ethical or legitimate? Emmanouil Aretoulakis proposes that Western spectators and subjects from the eighteenth century onwards have always felt, unconsciously or not, a certain kind of fascination or even exhilaration before scenes of tragedy and natural or manmade disaster. Owing to their immorality, such "forbidden" feelings go unacknowledged. It would definitely be callous as well as politically incorrect to acknowledge the existence of aesthetics in witnessing or representing human misery. Still, as Aretoulakis insists, our aesthetic faculties or even our appreciation of the beautiful are already inherent in how we view, appraise, and pass judgment upon phenomena of terrorism and disaster. Paradoxically, such a "forbidden aesthetics" is ethical despite its utter immorality.

In this highly ambitious, wide ranging, immensely impressive and ground-breaking work Fabian Dorsch surveys just about every account of the imagination that has ever been proposed. He identifies five central types of imagining that any unifying theory must accommodate and sets himself the task of determining whether any theory of what imagining consists in covers these five paradigms. Focussing on what he takes to be the three main theories, and giving them each equal consideration, he faults the first two and embraces the third. The scholarship is immaculate, the writing crystal clear and the argumentation always powerful. Malcolm Budd, FBA, Emeritus Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic, University College London Excerpt Open publication

This lively and lucid introduction to the philosophy of music concentrates on the issues that illuminate musical listening and practice. It examines the conceptual debates relevant to the understanding and performing of music and grounds the philosophy to practical matters throughout. Ideal for a beginning readership with little philosophical background, the author provides an overview of the central debates enlivened by a real sense of enthusiasm for the subject and why it matters. The book begins by filling in the historical background and offers readers a succinct summary of philosophical thinking on music from the Ancient Greeks to Eduard Hanslick and Edmund Gurney. Chapter 2 explores two central questions: what is it that makes music, or, to be precise, some pieces of music, works of art? And, what is the work of music per se? Is it just what we hear, the performance, or is it something over and above that, something we invent or discover? Chapter 3 discusses a problem pecullar to music and one at the heart of philosophical discussion of it, can music have a meaning? And if so, what can it be? Chapter 4 considers whether music can have value. Are there features about music that make it good, features which can be specified in criteria? Is a work good if and only if it meets with the approval of an ideally qualified listener? How do we explain differences of opinion? Indeed, why do we need to make judgements of the relative value of pieces of music at all? This engaging and stimulating book will be of interest to students of aesthetics, musical practitioners and the general reader looking for a non-technical treatment of the subject.

Philosophy of Music is for anyone who has ever wondered whether or not music means anything or why some music is thought to be more significant than other music. It is a lively and lucid introduction to the aesthetics of music and to the issues that illuminate musical listening, understanding and practice. The book assumes no philosophical training on the part of its readers, only an interest in music and our reactions to it. It provides an authoritative analysis of the central issues, enlivened with a real sense of enthusiasm for the subject and its importance. At the heart of the book lie three key questions: What is the work of music? Can it have meaning? Can music have value? R. A. Sharpe guides the reader through the philosophical arguments and conceptual debates surrounding these questions while anchoring the discussion throughout to instances and examples from Western classical music and jazz. Unlike some other accounts of the philosophy of music, which view music as a branch of metaphysics, raising questions about sounds, tones and musical movement, Sharpe's approach is problem-orientated and the questions he raises are predominantly questions about the value of music, about the individuality of our assessments and about the way in which we prize music for its power to move us. He argues persuasively, and controversially for a philosopher, that when it comes to music philosophical analysis has its limitations and that one should not be surprised that the aesthetics of music can harbour contradictions and that our judgement of the value of music may be impossible to make internally consistent. This engaging and stimulating book will be of wide interest to music-lovers, critics, practitioners alike as well as students of aesthetics looking for a non-technical treatment of the subject.

This innovative volume explores the idea that while photographs are images, they are also objects, and this materiality is integral to their meaning and use. The case studies presented focus on photographs active in different institutional, political, religious and domestic spheres, where physical properties, the nature of their use and the cultural formations in which they function make their 'objectness' central to how we should understand them. The book's contributions are drawn from disciplines including the history of photography, visual anthropology and art history, with case studies from a range of countries such as the Netherlands, North America, Australia, Japan, Romania and Tibet. Each shows the methodological strategies they have developed in order to fully exploit the idea of the materiality of photographic images.

This innovative volume explores the idea that while photographs are images, they are also objects, and this materiality is integral to their meaning and use. The case studies presented focus on photographs active in different institutional, political, religious and domestic spheres, where physical properties, the nature of their use and the cultural formations in which they function make their 'objectness' central to how we should understand them. The international contributors are drawn from disciplines including the history of photogarphy, visual anthropology and art history, and their pieces focus on areas ranging from the Netherlands, North America and Australia to Japan, Romania and Tibet. Each shows the methodological strategies they have developed in order to fully exploit the idea of the materiality of photographic images. Inspiring and instructive, the book can be used either as an overview of this exciting new area of investigation, or as a practical guide to the student or academic on how to understand photographs as objects in diverse contexts.

Wittgenstein has written a great number of remarks relevant to aesthetical issues: he has questioned the relation between aesthetics and psychology as well as the status of our norms of judgment; he has drawn philosophers' attention to such topics as aspect-seeing and aspect-dawning, and has brought insights into the nature of our aesthetic reactions. The examination of this wide range of topics is far from being completed, and the purpose of this book is to contribute to such completion. It gathers both papers discussing some of Wittgenstein's most provocative and intriguing statements on aesthetics, and papers bringing out their implications for art critic and art history, as well as their significance to epistemology and to the study of human mind.

This book covers the field of and points to the intersections between politics, art and philosophy. Its hero, the late Sir Roger Scruton had a longstanding interest in all fields, acquiring professional knowledge in both the practice and theory of politics, art and philosophy. The claim of the book is, therefore, that contrary to a superficial prejudice, it is possible to address the philosophical issues of art and politics in the same oeuvre, as the example of this Cambridge-educated analytical philosopher proves. Accordingly, the book has a bold thesis on the general, theoretical level, mapping the connections between politics, art and philosophy. However, it also has a pioneering commitment on the level of the particular, offering the first full-length study into the philosophical legacy of Roger Scruton, probably the most important British conservative philosopher of the late 20th and the first decades of the 21st century. It also allows reader to look into the philosopher's fascination with Central European art and culture. Finally, it also provides a daring analysis of the late Scruton's metaphysical inspirations, connecting the arts, and especially music, with religion and the bonds of love.

This is a scholarly study of cinematic emotions, highlighting the relationship between spectator and film, and thematically divided into chapters including Love, Hate, Shame and Fear. There is an upsurge of interest in contemporary film theory towards cinematic emotions. Tarja Laine's innovative study proposes a methodology for interpreting affective encounters with films, not as objectively readable texts, but as emotionally salient events. Laine argues convincingly that film is not an immutable system of representation that is meant for (one-way) communication, but an active, dynamic participant in the becoming of the cinematic experience. Through a range of chapters that include Horror, Hope, Shame and Love - and through close readings of films such as "The Shining", "American Beauty" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", Laine demonstrates that cinematic emotions are more than mere indicators of the properties of their objects. They are processes that are intentional in a phenomenological sense, supporting the continuous, shifting, and reciprocal exchange between the film's world and the spectator's world. Grounded in continental philosophy, this provocative book explores the affective dynamics of cinema as an interchange between the film and the spectator in a manner that transcends traditional generic patterns.

This book provides a critical assessment of Benjamin's writings on Franz Kafka and of Benjamin's related writings. Eliciting from Benjamin's writings a conception of philosophy that is political in its dissociation from - its becoming renegade in relation to, its philosophic shame about - established laws, norms, and forms, the book compares Benjamin's writings with relevant works by Agamben, Heidegger, Levinas, and others. In relating Benjamin's writings on Kafka to Benjamin's writings on politics, the study delineates a philosophic impetus in literature and argues that this impetus has potential political consequences. Finally, the book is critical of Benjamin's messianism insofar as it is oriented by the anticipated elimination of exceptions and distractions. Exceptions and distractions are, the book argues, precisely what literature, like other arts, brings to the fore. Hence the philosophic, and the political, importance of literature.

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.