Modernity has radically challenged the assumptions that guide our ordinary lives as persons, in ways we are not normally aware. We live our concrete lives taking for granted that personal decisions, desires, relationships, actions, aspirations, values, and knowledge are central to our existence. But in modernity, we think of these matters as private, idiosyncratic, and subjective, even irrational. This modern conception of ourselves and the associated way of reflection known as modern critical thinking came to dominate our thinking is culminates in the dualistic philosophy of Rene Descartes. This dualism has spawned a reductionist view of persons and tainted "the personal" with connotations of bias, partiality, and privacy, leaving us with the presumption that if we seek to be objective and intellectually respectable, we must expunge the personal. William H. Poteat's work in philosophical anthropology has confronted this concern head on. He undertakes a radical critique of the various forms of mind-body dualism and materialist monism that have dominated Western intellectual concepts of the person. In a unique style that Poteat calls post-critical, he uncovers the staggering incoherencies of these dualisms and shows how they have resulted in a loss of the personal in the modern age. He also formulates a way out of this modern cultural insanity. This constructive dimension of his thought is centered on his signature concept of the mindbody, the pre-reflective ground of personal existence. The twelve contributors in this collection explore outgrowths and implications of Poteat's thought. Recovering the Personal will be of interest to a broad range of intellectual readers with interests in philosophy, psychology, theology, and the humanities.

One of the most captivating and provocative artists of the Sensation generation, Richard Billingham (b. 1970) came to prominence in the late 1990s with his visceral photobook Ray's a Laugh, a slice of everyday life in a high-rise sink estate in the British West Midlands. This book is the first comprehensive discussion of Billingham's art practice. Articulating the socio-historical, aesthetic, geographical as well as anthropological aspects of Billingham's art, the book situates his work within the British neorealist tradition in visual art, cinema and televisual culture. Beginning with the first photographic studies of his father in the early 1990s, Cashell argues that these sympathetic, haunting images prefigure the later development of his thematic concerns. Significant consideration is also given to Billingham's cinematic oeuvre, including his recent feature-length autobiographical film, Ray & Liz, which substantially clarifies the complex continuity of his developing aesthetic vision. Illustrated throughout with colour and black and white reproductions, Photographic Realism: The Art of Richard Billingham combines investigative research with interviews and studio conversations, providing a subtle and sophisticated critical evaluation of the artist's key photographic and film-based works from the 1990s to the present.

Accused by the tabloid press of setting out to 'shock', controversial artworks are vigorously defended by art critics, who frequently downplay their disturbing emotional impact. This is the first book to subject contemporary art to a rigorous ethical exploration. It argues that, in favouring conceptual rather than emotional reactions, commentators actually fail to engage with the work they promote. Scrutinising notorious works by artists including Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Richard Billingham, Marc Quinn, Sally Mann, Marcus Harvey, Hans Bellmer, Paul McCarthy, Tierney Gearon, and Tracey Emin, "Aftershock" insists on the importance of visceral, emotional and 'ethical' responses. Far from clouding our judgement, Cashell argues, shame, outrage or revulsion are the very emotions that such works set out to evoke. While also questioning the catch-all notion of 'transgression', this illuminating and controversial book neither jumps indiscriminately to the defence of shocking artworks nor dismisses them out of hand.