This research project investigates the concepts of absence across the disciplines of theatre, visual art, and performance. Absence in the centre of an ideology frees the reader from the dominant meaning. The book encourages active engagement with theatre theory and performances. Reconsideration of theories and experiences changes the way we engage with performances, as well as social relations and traditions outside of theatre. Sylwia Dobkowska examines and theorises absence and presence through theatre, performance, and visual arts practices. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre, visual art, and philosophy.

This book provides the first comprehensive examination of Karl Barth's view of beauty. For over fifty years, scholars have assumed Barth recovered traditional belief in God's beauty but refused to entertain any relationship between this and more familiar natural and artistic beauties. Hans Urs von Balthasar was the first to offer this interpretation, and his conclusion has been echoed ever since, rendering Barth's view of beauty irrelevant to work in theological aesthetics. This volume continues the late-twentieth-century revision of Balthasar's interpretation of Barth by arguing that this too is a significant misunderstanding of his theology. Andrew Dunstan demonstrates that, through an encounter with fatalistic forms of Reformed theology, Brunner's charges that his dogmatics were irrelevant and medieval thought, Barth gradually developed an analogy of divine, ecclesial and worldly beauty with all the theological, christocentric and actualistic hallmarks of his previous forms of analogy. This not only yields valuable new insight into Barth's view of analogy but also provides a much-needed foundation for a distinctively Protestant and post-Barthian approach to theological aesthetics.

This book presents essays that address fundamental issues in social and cultural theory by viewing them through the lens of aesthetic theory. Drawing on the aesthetic theories of Theodor W. Adorno, Gregory Bateson, Jean-Marie Guyau, Talcott Parsons and Georg Simmel, it suggests a new take on basic sociological concepts and methodologies. The chapters cover a wide range of topics, including the sensuality of social action, social construction of unreality, and The Rolling Stones' enduring success as a reflection of our society and culture. The book's title Sociology in a New Key refers to a classic work by Susanne K. Langer, whose Philosophy in a New Key argued for a reorientation of modern philosophical thought based on a thorough account of symbolism in general and of the arts in particular. In this way, the basic ideas and assumptions of the philosophical tradition are transposed to new understandings and perspectives. After all, it was Georg Simmel himself who claimed to have gained several of his general theoretical insights "via the detour of reflections on the essence of art." The book will appeal to scholars and students of the sociology of the arts and music, and to anyone interested in the intersection of social theory and aesthetics.

This comprehensive Handbook offers a leading-edge yet accessible guide to the most important facets of Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophical system, the last true system of German philosophy. Written by a diverse, international and interdisciplinary group of eminent and up-and-coming scholars, each of the 28 chapters in this Handbook includes an authoritative exposition of different viewpoints as well as arguing for a particular thesis. Authors also put Schopenhauer's ideas into historical context and connect them when possible to contemporary philosophy. Key features: Structured in six parts, addressing the development of Schopenhauer's system, his epistemology and metaphysics, aesthetics and philosophy of art, ethical and political thought, philosophy of religion and legacy in Britain, France, and the US. Special coverage of Schopenhauer's treatment of Judaism, Christianity, Vedic thought and Buddhism Attention to the relevance of Schopenhauer for contemporary metaphysics, metaethics and ethics in particular. The Palgrave Schopenhauer Handbook is an essential resource for scholars as well as advanced students of nineteenth-century philosophy. Researchers and graduate students in musicology, comparative literature, religious studies, English, French, history, and political science will find this guide to be a rigorous and refreshing Handbook to support their own explorations of Schopenhauer's thought.

Architecture, Aesthetics, and the Predicaments of Theory offers a critical analysis of the methodological constants and shared critical strategies in the history of theoretical discourse on Western architecture. Central to these constants is the persistent role of aesthetics as a critical tool for the delimitation of architecture. This book analyzes the unceasing critical role aesthetics is given to play in the discourse of architecture. The book offers a close and critical reading of three seminal texts from three different periods in the history of theoretical discourse on Western architecture-the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and 19th-century Romanticism. The first text is Leone Battista Alberti's Ten Books on Architecture of 1452, the next Marc-Antoine Laugier's An Essay on Architecture of 1753, and last, John Ruskin's The Seven Lamps of Architecture of 1849. Additional influential texts from, among others, the 20th and 21st centuries are engaged with along the way to locate and contextualize the arguments within the broader discursive tradition of Western architecture. The book will interest scholars and students of architecture, architectural history and theory, as well as scholars and students of cultural studies, aesthetic philosophy, art history, literary criticism, and related disciplines.

Most people are too busy to keep up with all the good movies they'd like to see, so why should anyone spend their precious time watching the bad ones? In Why It's OK to Love Bad Movies, philosopher and cinematic bottom feeder Matthew Strohl enthusiastically defends a fondness for disreputable films. Combining philosophy of art with film criticism, Strohl flips conventional notions of "good" and "bad" on their heads and makes the case that the ultimate value of a work of art lies in what it can add to our lives. By this measure, some of the worst movies ever made are also among the best. Through detailed discussions of films such as Troll 2, The Room, Batman & Robin, Twilight, Ninja III: The Domination, and a significant portion of Nicolas Cage's filmography, Strohl argues that so-called "bad movies" are the ones that break the rules of the art form without the aura of artistic seriousness that surrounds the avant-garde. These movies may not win any awards, but they offer rich opportunities for creative engagement and enable the formation of lively fan communities, and they can be a key ingredient in a fulfilling aesthetic life. Key Features: Written in a humorous, approachable style, appealing to readers with no background in philosophy. Elaborates the rewards of loving bad movies, such as forming unlikely social bonds and developing refinement without narrowness. Discusses a wide range of beloved bad movies, including Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Core, Battlefield Earth, and Freddy Got Fingered. Contains the most extensive discussion of Nicolas Cage ever included in a philosophy book.

Taking as its exemplum the use of images in judicial decisions, this article argues that the ratio decidendi of legal precedent should be supplemented with the imago decidendi, the figure or depiction that motivates judgment. Drawing upon the history of legal humanism, and particularly the tradition of juristic emblems, it is argued that an adequate understanding of case law rules and decisions requires attention to the imagery that conceives and propels the reasoned deliberation that follows. To adequately apprehend the transmission of law in a digital age requires acknowledging that images think differently, that the ambulation of the eye in the image is very different to the linear glance of the text.

Nonphilosophy poses a challenge to philosophical thought, inspired by the work of Francois Laruelle. It questions the idea that philosophy, or other disciplines, can tell us what it means to think. This edited collection brings together an internationally known and interdisciplinary group of scholars, including a major new essay by Laruelle himself. Together they use nonphilosophy to cross the boundaries between philosophy and performance. Philosophers have been busy for centuries looking for the foundations of truth, value, and reality. They try to say what it all means and how it all fits together. Areas of life like science and art have to wait for the philosopher to show up to tell them what they are really about. Theory dictates meaning: performance just puts it into effect. Nonphilosophy is different. It says that reality is not an object out there that we can think and understand. The Real is the place we stand: it is where we think from. Crucially, nonphilosophy understands philosophy itself to be performative. It enacts modes of thinking that do not dominate the material of thought and do not capture the Real in concepts. Philosophy is mutated by its performances; and performances themselves think, are modes of theory. What happens when we bring philosophy, art, and performance together, without hierarchy? How can they get inside and change one another? The thinkers in this collection answer these pressing questions.

Few concepts are as central to understanding the modern world as borders, and the now-thriving field of border studies has already produced a substantial literature analyzing their legal, ideological, geographical, and historical aspects. Such studies have hardly exhausted the subject's conceptual fertility, however, as this pioneering collection on the aesthetics of borders demonstrates. Organized around six key ideas-ecology, imaginary, in/visibility, palimpsest, sovereignty and waiting-the interlocking essays collected here provide theoretical starting points for an aesthetic understanding of borders, developed in detail through interdisciplinary analyses of literature, audio-visual borderscapes, historical and contemporary ecologies, political culture, and migration.

Interpretation has historically been understood as a method to shrink the distance between the interpreter and the interpreted. This view has dominated the comprehension of the interpretation of art: it always entails the interpretation of something, and this something must then govern our effort to understand it. If not, we are left with mere subjective whims. This book tries to modify this well-worn view by altering the dualist position to incorporate the very object within the sense-making activity. Interpretation rather becomes the creative making of something different, and this explains why it is deemed unfinished. The notion of "re-contextualization" covers this in between operation (between work and interpretation), and the very object of interpretation remains just an enabling condition of transference. Interpretation preserves the challenge, by re-making and re-locating meaning.

This book offers new ways of thinking about and assessing the impact of virtual reality on its users. It argues that we must go beyond traditional psychological concepts of VR "presence" to better understand the many varieties of virtual experiences. The author provides compelling evidence that VR simulations are capable of producing "virtually real" experiences in people. He also provides a framework for understanding when and how simulations induce virtually real experiences. From these insights, the book shows that virtually real experiences are responsible for several unaddressed ethical issues in VR research and design. Experimental philosophers, moral psychologists, and institutional review boards must become sensitive to the ethical issues involved between designing "realistic" virtual dilemmas, for good data collection, and avoiding virtually real trauma. Ethicists and game designers must do more to ensure that their simulations don't inculcate harmful character traits. Virtually real experiences, the author claims, can make virtual relationships meaningful, productive, and conducive to welfare but they can also be used to systematically mislead and manipulate users about the nature of their experiences. The Ethics of Virtual and Augmented Reality will appeal to philosophers working in applied ethics, philosophy of technology, and aesthetics, as well as researchers and students interested in game studies and game design.

In this volume the philosophy of perception and observation is discussed by leading philosophers with implications in the philosophy of mind, in epistemology, and in philosophy of science. In the last years the philosophy of perception underwent substantial changes and new views appeared: the intentionality of perception has been contested by relational theories of perception (direct realism), a richer view of perceptual content has emerged, new theories of intentionality have been defended against naturalistic theories of representation (e. g. phenomenal intentionality). These theoretical changes reflect also new insights coming from psychological theories of perception. These changes have substantial consequences for the epistemic role of perception and for its role in scientific observation. In the present volume, leading philosophers of perception discuss these new views and show their implications in the philosophy of mind, in epistemology and in philosophy of science. A special focus is laid on Franz Brentano and Ludwig Wittgenstein. A reference volume for all scholars and students of the history, psychology and philosophy of perception, and cognitive science.

Explores the philosophy of walking by following the author on the walks made by Sartre, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Rousseau and other philosophers. Walking is fundamental to the work of some famous philosophers but until this book has been a neglected topic. Also includes chapters on Coleridge, Andre Breton and surrealism and Virginia Wolff to consider the wider intellectual context of walking. Bruce Baugh travelled extensively to retrace the walks by these figures, so the book is able to relate the walks themselves to the ideas of the philosophers discussed.

performance, communication studies, literature, narratives strategies

Explores the philosophy of walking by following the author on the walks made by Sartre, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Rousseau and other philosophers. Walking is fundamental to the work of some famous philosophers but until this book has been a neglected topic. Also includes chapters on Coleridge, Andre Breton and surrealism and Virginia Wolff to consider the wider intellectual context of walking. Bruce Baugh travelled extensively to retrace the walks by these figures, so the book is able to relate the walks themselves to the ideas of the philosophers discussed.

This book introduces the reader to the ways in which happiness has been explored in philosophy and literature for thousands of years, in order to understand the newest theoretical approaches to happiness. Jeffrey R. Di Leo draws on its long and rich history as a window into our present obsession with happiness. Each of the four chapters of this book provides a substantially different literary-theoretical account of how and why literature matters with respect to considerations of happiness. From the neoliberal happiness industry and the psychoanalytic rejection of happiness to aesthetic hedonism and revolutionary happiness, literature viewed from the perspective of happiness becomes a story about what is and is not the goal of life. The multidisciplinary approach of this book will appeal to a variety of readers from literary studies, critical theory, philosophy and psychology and anyone with an interest in happiness and theories of emotion.

The only book introducing Plato and Aristotle for literature students; it assumes no prior knowledge of philosophy so is pitched at the ideal level Uses literary examples all students will be familiar with from across the world and time periods so will be of relevance at every stage of study Ideal text book for those studying literary theory as its foundations are in Plato and Aristotle The book's usefulness will last throughout students' degrees and courses as the influence of Plato and Aristotle is evident in all periods/locations

performance environments, emerging and multisensational atmospheres hypersensorial scenographies

This book explores the role atmospheres play in shared emotion. With insights from leading scholars in the field, Atmospheres and Shared Emotions investigates key issues such as the relation between atmospheres and moods, how atmospheres define psychopathological conditions such as anxiety and schizophrenia, what role atmospheres play in producing shared aesthetic experiences, and the significance of atmospheres in political events. Calling upon disciplinary methodologies as broad as phenomenology, film studies, and law, each of the chapters is thematically connected by a rigorous attention on the multifaceted ways atmosphere play an important role in the development of shared emotion. While the concept of atmosphere has become a critical notion across several disciplines, the relationship between atmospheres and shared emotion remains neglected. The idea of sharing emotion over a particular event is rife within contemporary society. From Brexit to Trump to Covid-19, emotions are not only experienced individually, they are also grasped together. Proceeding from the view that atmospheres can play an explanatory role in accounting for shared emotion, the book promises to make an enduring contribution to both the understanding of atmospheres and to issues in the philosophy of emotion more broadly. Offering both a nuanced analysis of key terms in contemporary debates as well as a series of original studies, the book will be a vital resource for scholars in contemporary philosophy, aesthetics, human geography, and political science.

The only book introducing Plato and Aristotle for literature students; it assumes no prior knowledge of philosophy so is pitched at the ideal level Uses literary examples all students will be familiar with from across the world and time periods so will be of relevance at every stage of study Ideal text book for those studying literary theory as its foundations are in Plato and Aristotle The book's usefulness will last throughout students' degrees and courses as the influence of Plato and Aristotle is evident in all periods/locations

performance environments, emerging and multisensational atmospheres hypersensorial scenographies

This book makes fascinating connections between the ways in which contemporary television serials cue cognitive operations, solicit emotional responses, and elicit aesthetic appreciation The discussions in this book will have much to add to debates on the emotional and cognitive effects of television dramas on their audiences, and thus larger questions of what should or should not be represented on screen The chapters explore a number of questions including: - How do the particularities of form and style in contemporary serial television engage us cognitively, emotionally, and aesthetically? - How do they foster cognitive and emotional effects such as feeling suspense, anticipation, surprise, satisfaction, and disappointment? - Why and how do we value some serials while disliking others? - What is it about the particularities of serial television form and style, in conjunction with our common cognitive, emotional, and aesthetic capacities, that accounts for serial television's cognitive, socio-political, and aesthetic value, and its current ubiquity in popular culture? This book will appeal to postgraduates and scholars working in television studies as well as film studies, cognitive media theory, media psychology, and the philosophy of art

Cognition is a paradoxical process, from the moment of the formation of human subjectivity, through its relationship with the Other (or more precisely: l'autre) and with the world, to the ontological status of the world as such. This is what this book has at stake. The book deals with selected aspects of poststructural thought which are introduced into the language of contemporary science, prose, and poetry. Such an enterprise is possible by treating philosophy, science, and poetry as languages which can try to enter into a dialogue through metaphors. This is the ground on which the project is implemented.

This monograph takes an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach to 20th and 21st -century Canadian Daoist poetry, fiction and criticism in comparative, innovative and engaging ways. Of particular interest are the authors' refreshing insights into such holistic and topical issues as the globalization of concepts of the Dao, the Yin/Yang, the Heaven-Earth-Humanity triad, the Four Greats, Five Phases, Non-action and so on, as expressed in Canadian literature and criticism - which produces Canadian-constructed Daoist poetics, ethics and aesthetics. Readers will come to understand and appreciate the social and ecological significance of, formal innovations, moral sensitivity, aesthetic principles and ideological complexity in Canadian-Daoist works.