Philosophy : Aesthetics

Joan Hawkins offers an original and provocative discussion of taste, trash aesthetics, and avant-garde culture of the 1960s and 1970s to reveal the subversiveness of the horror film as a genre. Full of unexpected insights, Cutting Edge calls for a rethinking of high/low distinctions—and a reassigning of labels at the video store. more...

Price: $70.50

Was performance important to Deleuze? Is Deleuze important to performance; to its practical, as well as theoretical, research? What are the implications of Deleuze's philosophy of difference, process and becoming, for Performance Studies, a field in which many continue to privilege the notion of performance as representation, as anchored by its imitation of an identity: 'the world', 'the play', 'the self'? Deleuze and Performance is a collection of new essays dedicated to Deleuze's writing on theatre and to the productivity of his philosophy for (re)thinking performance. This book provides rigorous analyses of Deleuze's writings on theatre practitioners such as Artaud, Beckett and Carmelo Bene, as well as offering innovative readings of historical and contemporary performance including performance art, dance, new media performance, theatre and opera, which use Deleuze's concepts in exciting new ways. Can philosophy follow Deleuze in overcoming the antitheatrical tradition embedded in its history, perhaps even reconsidering what it means to think in the light of the embodied insights of performance's practitioners? Experts from the fields of Performance Studies and Deleuze Studies come together in this volume and strive to examine these and other issues in a manner that will be challenging, yet accessible to students and established scholars alike. more...

Price: $148.99

Typically philosophers have either viewed beauty as objective and judgments of beauty as universally valid, or else they have viewed beauty as subjective and regarded judgments of beauty as merely private preferences. Immanuel Kant is famous for his unique third path. Kant argues that beauty is subjective, but the judgment of taste about beauty is capable of universal validity. In his view, the beautiful is not a feature of objects themselves, but merely represents the way we respond to objects. Furthermore, the judgment of taste about beauty is a merely 'aesthetic' judgment - i.e., one based on a feeling of pleasure we take in the object. The judgment of taste, on the other hand, possesses 'universal validity': to call something beautiful is implicitly to 'demand' that all others find it beautiful as well. Kant's views about the taste for the beautiful have long been the subject of controversy. Scholars have differed over the interpretation of the demand contained in a judgment of taste and whether Kant's attempt to legitimate this demand is successful. Brent Kalar argues that the demands of taste should be understood as involving a uniquely aesthetic normativity rooted in Kant's cognitive psychology. If the basis of aesthetic pleasure in the activity of the cognitive faculties is properly understood, then Kant's attempt to legitimate the demands of taste may be regarded as a success. This leads Kalar to give a new interpretation of the nature of the beautiful according to Kant that re-examines the relationship between 'free play' and the 'form of purposiveness' in Kant's aesthetics, and restores the 'aesthetic ideas' to their rightful centrality in Kant's theory. more...

Price: $130.00

This title offers insight into a range of art and performance practices that have emerged as a result a more technological world. These practices are integral to alternative and mainstream performance culture and the author explores their aesthetic theorisation and analyses other approaches, including those offered by research into neuroesthetics. more...

Price: $74.95

A unique collection of essays on popular culture, politics, aesthetics, feminism, and postmodernism, along with complete scripts from three of Kipnis’ videotapes. more...

Price: $75.00