The Aesthetics of Degradation
The Aesthetics of Degradation

Author: Adrian Nathan West

Publisher: Watkins Media Limited

Published: 2016-06-14

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 1910924199

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Pornography keeps getting more extreme. Manufacturers, defenders and consumers of porn rely on a mix of wilful ignorance and bad faith to avoid serious discussion. When we do talk about violence against women in the porn world, the debate all too often becomes technical, complicated by legalities and outrage. But what are the moral and psychological consequences of the mercantilization of abuse? In this studied and ruthless examination of the place of pornography in contemporary life, translator and critic Adrian Nathan West treads dangerous literary and social ground, transcending cliches about free expression and the demands of the market to look at the moral discomfort of violent pornography from the perspective of the viewer. Collapsing distinctions between novel, memoir, and essay, this book will not make for light reading. But at its core is an extraordinarily brave and honest concern for the women and men who have been hurt in the name of sexual gratification.

Between Nature and Culture
Between Nature and Culture

Author: Emily Brady

Publisher: Global Aesthetic Research

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781786610768

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This book provides a systematic, philosophical account of the main issues that pertain to the aesthetics of modified environments, as well as new insights concerning the generation and appreciation of landscapes and environments that fall between (non-human) nature and (human) culture, including gardens and ecologically restored landscapes.

The Destruction of Art
The Destruction of Art

Author: Dario Gamboni

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2013-06-01

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1780231547

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Last winter, a man tried to break Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain sculpture. The sculpted foot of Michelangelo’s David was damaged in 1991 by a purportedly mentally ill artist. With each incident, intellectuals must confront the unsettling dynamic between destruction and art. Renowned art historian Dario Gamboni is the first to tackle this weighty issue in depth, exploring specters of censorship, iconoclasm, and vandalism that surround such acts. Gamboni uncovers here a disquieting phenomenon that still thrives today worldwide. As he demonstrates through analyses of incidents occurring in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America and Europe, a complex relationship exists among the evolution of modern art, destruction of artworks, and the long history of iconoclasm. From the controversial removal of Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc from New York City’s Federal Plaza to suffragette protests at London’s National Gallery, Gamboni probes the concept of artist’s rights, the power of political protest and how iconoclasm sheds light on society’s relationship to art and material culture. Compelling and thought-provoking, The Destruction of Art forces us to rethink the ways that we interact with art and react to its power to shock or subdue.

Inspiration and Technique
Inspiration and Technique

Author: John Roe

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9783039103140

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While Plato extols inspired poetry (as opposed to poetry produced by means of technique), Aristotle conceives of poetry only in terms of technê. Underlying the opposition between inspiration and technique are two different approaches to 'form': inspiration is concerned with the impression of ideas or forms within the poet's psyche (the author's forma mentis), whereas technique deals with the transposition of the artist's idea into the material form of the work (the forma operis). This dual view of form, and of its complex relation to matter, may be said to lie at the basis of a dual approach to aesthetic issues - a psychological and a textual one. Taking their cue from this opposition, the essays gathered here explore some of the most momentous phases in the history of aesthetics, from Graeco-Roman philosophy and oratory to Renaissance poetry and literary criticism, from neoclassical poetics to Romantic and Victorian views on inspired visions, to recent issues in neuroaesthetics, philosophy of art and literary linguistics. In so doing, they collectively point to the irremediable and continuing dualism of a critical tradition that has alternately emphasized the ideal elements of beauty and the material constituents of art.

Malina
Malina

Author: Ingeborg Bachmann

Publisher: New Directions Publishing

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 0811228738

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Now a New Directions book, the legendary novel that is “equal to the best of Virginia Woolf and Samuel Beckett” (New York Times Book Review) In Malina, originally published in German in 1971, Ingeborg Bachmann invites the reader into a world stretched to the very limits of language. An unnamed narrator, a writer in Vienna, is torn between two men: viewed, through the tilting prism of obsession, she travels further into her own madness, anxiety, and genius. Malina explores love, "deathstyles," the roots of fascism, and passion.

Aesthetics and Nature
Aesthetics and Nature

Author: Glenn Parsons

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-11-02

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1350121614

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The appreciation of nature and natural beauty demands our attention as environmental issues become ever more urgent. In this timely introduction, Glenn Parsons provides an overview of philosophical work on the aesthetics of nature, identifying key conceptual questions, clarifying central theories, and analyzing the ethical ramifications of our experience of natural beauty. Outlining five major approaches to understanding the aesthetic value of nature, this second edition explores the aesthetic appreciation of nature as it occurs in wilderness, in gardens, and in the context of appreciating environmental art. Now updated to cover recent developments in the field, it includes: · A new chapter on the sublime, the picturesque, and the beautiful · Expanded discussion of empirical and evolutionary accounts of nature appreciation, as well as the appreciation of the environment in non-Western cultures · A new chapter on the aesthetic appreciation of animals · An in-depth analysis of the appreciation of nature through cinema and photography · Discussion of the relation between environmental appreciation and climate change Combining a clear and engaging style with a sophisticated treatment of a fascinating subject, Aesthetics and Nature explores the aesthetic dimension of humanity's relationship with our physical surroundings. This a must-read for anyone who cares about nature and the future of our environment.

The Aesthetics of Rule and Resistance
The Aesthetics of Rule and Resistance

Author: Lisa Bogerts

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2022-03-11

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1805399195

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Effective visual communication has become an essential strategy for grassroots political activists, who use images to publicly express resistance and make their claims visible in the struggle for political power. However, this “aesthetics of resistance” is also employed by political and economic elites for their own purposes, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish from the “aesthetics of rule.” Through illuminating case studies of street art in Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Caracas, and Mexico City, The Aesthetics of Rule and Resistance explores the visual strategies of persuasion and meaning-making employed by both rulers and resisters to foster self-legitimization, identification, and mobilization.

Counternarratives
Counternarratives

Author: John Keene

Publisher: New Directions Publishing

Published: 2016-05-17

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 081122435X

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Now in paperback, a bewitching collection of stories and novellas that are “suspenseful, thought-provoking, mystical, and haunting” (Publishers Weekly) Ranging from the seventeenth century to the present, and crossing multiple continents, Counternarratives draws upon memoirs, newspaper accounts, detective stories, and interrogation transcripts to create new and strange perspectives on our past and present. “An Outtake” chronicles an escaped slave’s take on liberty and the American Revolution; “The Strange History of Our Lady of the Sorrows” presents a bizarre series of events that unfold in Haiti and a nineteenth-century Kentucky convent; “The Aeronauts” soars between bustling Philadelphia, still-rustic Washington, and the theater of the U. S. Civil War; “Rivers” portrays a free Jim meeting up decades later with his former raftmate Huckleberry Finn; and in “Acrobatique,” the subject of a famous Edgar Degas painting talks back.

The Aesthetics of Decay
The Aesthetics of Decay

Author: Dylan Trigg

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780820486468

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In The Aesthetics of Decay, Dylan Trigg confronts the remnants from the fallout of post-industrialism and postmodernism. Through a considered analysis of memory, place, and nostalgia, Trigg argues that the decline of reason enables a critique of progress to emerge. In this ambitious work, Trigg aims to reassess the direction of progress by situating it in a spatial context. In doing so, he applies his critique of rationality to modern ruins. The derelict factory, abandoned asylum, and urban alleyway all become allies in Trigg's attack on a fixed image of temporality and progress. The Aesthetics of Decay offers a model of post-rational aesthetics in which spatial order is challenged by an affirmative ethics of ruin.