This essay explores the nihilistic nature of the idea of postmodern aesthetics in the Western world by highlighting its historical and cultural specificity in contrast with non-Western postmodernities, in particular in East Asia, and this in spite of their formal similarities. We then have to question the nature, possibility and implication of Western postmodern aesthetics overcoming itself within the context of globalisation.

In this interview, conducted following the publication of Le Temps revient, Michel Maffesoli discusses his view of postmodernity and its connection with the aesthetic, current intellectual life, the ‘tribalism’ for which he is best known in the Anglophone world, and his own intellectual development.

The lies about the reasons for the U.S. war against Iraq provoked no mass public outcry in the United States against the war. What is the process of justification for this war, a process that seems to need no reasons? Mann argues that the process of justification is not a process of rational deliberation but one of aesthetic self-constitution, of rebuilding a masculine national identity. Included is a feminist reading of the National Defense University document Shock and Awe.

The paper analyses how some types of postmodern art have been used as a means of copying by the aid of humour with the unpleasant restrictions and changes of the way of life during the emergency and alert states in Romania. Artă Reinterpretată is a Facebook page that offers posts on various aspects of life during the pandemics quarantine and lockdown, including isolation or exploiting love, couple and family difficulties; during the relaxation measurement and, finally, during rights restriction for (...) those whom do not have The Green Covid Card. It does so by reinterpreting classical paintings, by adding to them a text or an image or both and thus creating a humourist situation meant to ease upon the hardships of a situation we cannot change. (shrink)

The paper considers the philosophical relationship between the form and the shape through the meaning of conceptualist art, which Arthur Coleman Danto emphasizes in his aesthetic theory. Even though modern art from the beginning of the 20th century signalled the break between the form and the shape, it has fully come to life in the postmodern sense. It will be shown that conceptual artists have understood how it is possible to keep the shape of a thing without changing its (...) form, with the idea displacing it from a predetermined function. For conceptual, postmodern art, it will be decisive to keep the shape while changing the form in which such a work of art is created, changing the character of things that were not a work of art until then. According to Hartmann’s aesthetic theory, this creates a unique aesthetic object that does not rest on the work of art itself but its perception. Danto exemplified such a path with Duchamp’s Fountain and Warhol’s Brillo Box, which witnessed a change of the form while retaining the shape, establishing postmodern aesthetics as essentially conceptual. (shrink)

This essay examines the response of Habermas and Giddens to postmodern criticisms of modernity. Although Giddens and Habermas recognize that the "totalizing critique" of poststructuralism lacks a convincing analysis of social interaction, neither of their perspectives adequately addresses the postmodern themes of aesthetics, play, and cultural memory. Giddens and Habermas believe that these dimensions of social life are important; yet they remain underdeveloped in their approaches. This essay explores the theoretical consequences of aesthetics, play, and cultural (...) traditions for social theory, drawing on the pragmatists, the psychoanalyst Winnicott, and early critical theory. The aesthetic and playful moments of experience must be recast in terms of social theory to avoid the solipsism so often characteristic of postmodernism. The essay ends by suggesting how the theories of Habermas and Giddens could benefit by a closer consideration of these issues. (shrink)

The lies about the reasons for the U.S. war against Iraq provoked no mass public outcry in the United States against the war. What is the process of justification for this war, a process that seems to need no reasons? Mann argues that the process of justification is not a process of rational deliberation but one of aesthetic self-constitution, of rebuilding a masculine national identity. Included is a feminist reading of the National Defense University document Shock and Awe.

The article reveals the philosophical, worldview, aesthetically-axiological aspects of considering the universe as a symbolic phenomenon of the postmodern era. It is emphasized that the analysis of beauty, as the basic category of aesthetics, needs to find out its aggregate nature, depending on the individual and social semantic characteristics of reality. One of the key points of such an analysis is its metaphysical problematic – the direct emergence of constructive emotion into the realm of the transcendental, namely, the (...) view of Man from the Universe from the standpoint of eternity. The timeliness and necessity of considering the problem of the symbolic context of the universe is obvious in the context of the third millennium, the realities of which call into question the very fact of conservation of wildlife on Earth. In the minds of assimilating the finality of the earthly boot, its primarity of progressive stochasticity, in the midst of the amplification of the eschatological context, the people of the era of postmodernity are demonstrating the development of the fastflowing, hardened nonsense. In the philosophical tradition, the symbol is the role of a pure "selfness", not tied to the powerful moment of the object: the symbolic picture does not reflect reality, as it is - the symbol of knowing the "refair" in the sphere of the virtual. It is proved that for the modern man the Universe is the object of not only scientific, technological, but also philosophical, cultural studies, it synthesizes for the unity of the object of scientific interest, a symbol of aesthetic pleasure and a source of formation of appropriate images and archetypes. (shrink)

What is truth in the postmodern age? The artistic generation of the twentieth century has grown up immersed in the delirious imagination of postmodern thought, which insists upon the ultimate uncertainty of meaning and that there is no self-evident truth. This title explores the possibilities and parameters of a postmodern imagination freed from the philosophical responsibilities of fiction, fact, and replication of lived experience. Mobilizing an array of scholars and contemporary artists, this study examines postmodern thinking (...) through the lenses of identity and visual culture. Speculative, critical, and always creative in its approach, "In Praise of Nonsense" focuses on theories of disappearance, irony, and nonsense, where the pleasures of the imaginary give rise to artistic inspiration. (shrink)

MIRJAM HORN, POSTMODERN PLAGIARISMS: CULTURAL AGENDA AND AESTHETIC STRATEGIES OF APPROPRIATION IN US-AMERICAN LITERATURE, WALTER DE GRUYTER, BERLIN/BOSTON, 2015.Marko Bogunović.

For the past thirty years, Hal Foster has pushed the boundaries of cultural criticism, establishing a vantage point from which the seemingly disparate agendas of artists, patrons, and critics have a telling coherence. In The Anti-Aesthetic, preeminent critics such as Jean Baudrillard, Rosalind Krauss, Fredric Jameson, and Edward Said consider the full range of postmodern cultural production, from the writing of John Cage, to Cindy Sherman's film stills, to Barbara Kruger's collages. With a redesigned cover and a new afterword (...) that situates the book in relation to contemporary criticism, The Anti-Aesthetic provides a strong introduction for newcomers and a point of reference for those already engaged in discussions of postmodern art, culture, and criticism. Includes a new afterword by Hal Foster and 12 black and white photographs. (shrink)

The era of the Internet of Things provides a free space for the public to participate in the consumption, production, dissemination and sharing of art and aesthetics in a way that is accessible and equal to all. This promotes the development of daily aesthetic and artistic practices of the masses in the age of sharing, thus promoting the development of Community Art. Based mainly on the perspectives and theoretical orientations of the disciplines of art theory and art anthropology, this (...) paper explores the development and impact of Community Art based on the research background of the post-modern art world by comprehensively applying research methods such as theoretical deduction, phenomenology and case study analysis. In the postmodern art world, exchanges and intermingling between different art forms, such as contemporary art, popular art, ethnic folk art and local art, promote dialogue, exchange and cooperation between different groups and classes. Therefore, the postmodern art world has shaped a public aesthetic space based on the popular sharing platform of Community Art, which advances the construction of artistic community. Although this study is dedicated to a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of “Community Art” in the context of the postmodern art world, some points may not be adequately argued due to the author's current level of academic research and the availability of information. Future research can continue to expand the scope of the study and enrich the research methodology with the development of the practice, so as to better make up for the shortcomings of this study. (shrink)

Philosophy is, generally speaking, divorced from real life, and therefore, monotonous and rigid. But the author maintains that philosophy must be poetic. He advocates philosophy with beautiful features. Western postmodern art is closely related to real life, so art becomes life-oriented and vitalized. Philosophy may be inspired by Western postmodern art as follows: It should philosophize about life; philosophers may use reason to argue for an art-oriented realm of life and achieve a philosophy featuring beauty. Traditional Western philosophy (...) is typical of pursuit of abstract concepts and ideals and an estrangement from the sensible world and life. To make philosophy achieve artistic beauty, we must bring to an end traditional Western philosophy. With the end of old philosophy, a new philosophy came into being with the name of “post-philosophy”. One of the features of “post-philosophy” is the union of philosophy and poetry, which is no other than making philosophy achieve artistic beauty. The union of philosophy and poetry is also an important feature of most of traditional Chinese philosophy. Traditional Chinese philosophy ,especially, that of Daoism is similar to Western post-modern art. Both of them stress the realm of life and uphold the beauty of life, mind and spirit. Since the middle of the last century, under the influence of traditional Western philosophy, Chinese philosophy lost its traditional beauty. To keep this beauty, we need to go further and understand philosophy as a discipline to upgrade the realm of life. The beauty of life realm comes before the beauty of philosophy. Therefore, Chinese philosophy needs to become life-oriented like postmodern art. Inheriting and developing Daoism philosophy while absorbing the philosophy of life shown through postmodern art, seems to be a good way for us to enhance the realm of life and pursue the beauty of philosophy. (shrink)

Mark C. Taylor _Hiding_ Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1997 ISBN: 0-226-79159-9 354 pp.

Barbara Maria Stafford's Body Criticism is analyzed for its reliance upon monstrous bodies as the source of an alternative to the art history of the Enlightenment. A counterculture of the flesh caught in its own vision of skin diseases, bumps, and medical pathologies is painstakingly reproduced as the official opposition to reason's body. The art establishment is required to admit engravers, cartoonists, kaleidoscopists, and phrenologists. Critical questions are raised regarding Stafford's use of iconology and genealogy, as well as a critical (...) difference over the question of the revolutionary status of the postmodern aesthetic traced from the camera obscura to virtual reality perception. (shrink)

"The question of complex systems is relatively new for critics today. Analyzing complex systems in Renaissance texts shows that the Christian kabbalistical concept of harmonia mundi led to an aesthetical development, reflecting the worldview of harmonious parallel worlds. Failure to perceive the esoteric text uniting apparently contradicting themes has often led Renaissance scholars to elaborate a theory of the instability of atmospheres characterizing the English Baroque. This article gives an example of a complex system in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra revealing (...) that the Christian kabbalistical Hercules unifies contradicting metaphors and intertexts of the play, and reintegrates this work in a form of semantic stability more in harmony with the aesthetics of its time. In the case of postmodern literature, contradictory intertexts appear as a device to deconstruct all values and logic previously established. With the study of a text structured by the optical questions around the refraction of light, this paper shows that in the case of Nabokov, the unifying system of apparently contradicting semantic systems is the underlying logic of scientific theory. In Nabokov's text, failing to perceive the fundamental intertext of scientific debate leads one to assimilate Nabokov's writing to a form of postmodern deconstruction. Both cases studied tend to show a continuity of a form of aesthetics through different epistemological eras.". (shrink)

"On Perry Anderson's The Origins Of Postmodernity, Clint Burnham's The Jamesonian Unconscious: The Aesthetics Of Marxist Theory, Steven Helmling's The Success And Failure Of Fredric Jameson: Writing, The Sublime, And The Dialectic Of Critique, Sean Homer's Fredric Jameson: Marxism, Hermeneutics, Postmodernism, Adam Roberts's Fredric Jameson and Christopher Wise's The Marxian Hermeneutics Of Fredric Jameson" published on 01 Jan 2002 by Brill.

Organizational aesthetics, both as a body of theory and a method of inquiry, is a rapidly expanding area of the organizational sciences. The Aesthetics of Organization accessibly draws key contributions delineating the emerging parameters of the field. It explains the significance of concepts devised by postmodern thinkers, through which emerge meaning and order in organizations. Methodological problems associated with investigations of the aesthetic are also highlighted so the reader can identify and understand the importance of recent ideas (...) on vision, perspective and periphery for learning in organizations. Through the contributions of leading international theorists, organizational aesthetics is defined in greater historical and theoretical depth, with a broad conceptual and practical range which academics will find invaluable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 64-73 [Access article in PDF] Postmodern Approach to Art Appreciation for Integrated Study in Japan This essay aims to clarify the issues of art appreciation education in Japan, and to examine a viewpoint for considering the issues in relation to a "Period for Integrated Study" established in 2002. Though ideas of art educationhave expanded in recent years, we are facing the (...) difficulty of approximately |a 20% cut in the number of art classes offered in Japanese compulsory education. In addition to this, involvement of art with Integrated Study, a new attempt to transcend the conventional learning of subjects, has presented urgent issues in art education along with current educational reforms.Based on analyses of the developmental characteristics of Japanese students' aesthetic sensitivity, we consider the issues of art appreciation education, and present a vision for involvement of art appreciation with Integrated Study. For example, Japanese students show a keen interest in formal elements with an inclination for expressiveness as a legacy received from the study of modernism in art education. On the other hand, students also show weakness in skills in finding artistic contexts. This should be considered as the most important issue of art appreciation education in Japan. It is necessary to enhance students' viewing in relation to social and cultural contexts in order to address this issue. We propose that this can be achieved through Integrated Study. Art appreciation in Integrated Study should take a postmodern approach to Japanese art education, which now has a strong inclination toward modernism. Educational Reform and Integrated Study With a rapid decline in the number of children, a rapidly aging society, and the advent of computerization and globalization, we now face problems which cannot be solved by conventional systems presently in place in Japanese society. In order to address these problems, drastic reforms that also include educational reform must be undertaken. Specific reform in education [End Page 64] can be seen in changes in the Course of Study. The most notable feature in the latest revision of the Course of Study is the establishment of the Period for Integrated Study. Integrated Study was established as a new project for the most highly prioritized issue of how students can acquire the so-called "Zest for Living." 1 Integrated Study is a required subject, with 105 to 110 class hours/year in third grade and above in elementary school, and 70 to 130 class hours/year in junior high school. The Course of Study does not prescribe the contents in detail but the periods are organized and implemented by each school according to regions and schools. However, it is suggested that schools proceed with the study of international understanding, conversation in foreign languages, information, the environment, social welfare, and health in a comprehensive and interdisciplinary way. IntegratedStudy puts an emphasis on students' initiative in identifying issues forthemselves, and on the cultivation of their talent and ability to solve those issues. Based on students' own interests, great importance is placed on problem-solving, open-ended activities, and the cultivation of independent and creative attitudes. Unlike the conventional unilateral teaching of knowledge for subjects, Integrated Study's purpose is to shift the direction of education so students can learn and think for themselves. In addition, Integrated Study focuses on authentic way and develops the skills of collecting, investigating, and connecting information, and reporting, announcing, and discussing. 2On the other hand, in curricula for elementary and junior high schools, the hours of art classes were reduced so that Japanese art education was put in a more difficult situation compared to previous curricula. Respectivesubjects are designed for students to learn basic abilities for the development of Integrated Study. Therefore, while educational reform is underway in Japan, art education faces the problem of maintaining basic learning at the same level as previously, relating art to Integrated Study.Relations between Integrated Study and art education have been discussed in various ways. 3 Two general problems can be pointed out. One isour concern that the originality of art as... (shrink)

In _Heterology and the Postmodern, _Julian Pefanis presents a new view of the history of poststructuralism and the origins of postmodernism by analyzing three important French theorists, Georges Bataille, Jean Baudrillard, and Jean-François Lyotard. Beginning with the introduction of Hegel in French postmodernist thought—largely but not exclusively through the thought of Georges Bataille—Pefanis argues that the core problematics of postmodern aesthetics—history, exchange, representation, and writing—are related to Bataille’s reconceptualization of the Hegelian framework. Pefanis explores how Bataille was (...) influenced by Hegel, Marcel Mauss, Freud, and Nietzsche, and traces the effects of this influence on the analyses and critiques of later postmodernists, most notably Lyotard and Baudrillard. Finally, employing these postmodernists along with Freud and Jacques Lacan, Pefanis discusses discourse on postmodernism and its relation to Freud’s concept of the death drive. This intellectual history makes valuable contributions to the debates over what the “postmodern” may mean for intellectual and political activity. (shrink)

In Postmodernity's Transcending: Devaluing God, Laurence Paul Hemming grapples with the philosophical weakness that characterizes postmodern theory, its privileging of the visual, and its reductive description of the self. He offers a profound challenge to many theologians and philosophers currently articulating questions concerning God, value, and the supposed "nihilism" of the postmodern situation. He does this by examining the origin and trajectory of the aesthetic sublime, beloved of postmodern theologians, philosophers, and theorists of art. Hemming's work undertakes (...) on one hand a history of the concept of the sublime; on the other, it explores the limits of theological thinking, where theology is understood either as a practice arising from faith or from thinking alone. By examining concepts like soul, experience, analogy, and truth, Hemming provokes contemporary Christian theology to a more serious engagement with philosophy. Hemming gives an authoritative genealogy of the predominance of the visual, beginning with the Presocratics and ending in the present. He examines the confrontation with God and the gods to be found in Protagoras, Longinus, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Zizek, and Derrida, and, in the process, offers innovative readings of these thinkers. A highly original study, Postmodernity's Transcending: Devaluing God will stimulate considerable discussion about postmodernity, representation, and subjectivity and, in particular, philosophical and theological discussions of the sublime and transcendence. -/- Introduction -- Postmodernity's transcending -- Rhetor and rhetoric -- The truth of sublimity -- The soul of sublimity -- Analogia entis -- Counting up to one is sublime -- Negating sublimity -- Devaluing God -- Transcending postmodernity -- Conclusion. (shrink)

Der Postmodernebegriff, Etikett für ein breites Panorama gesellschaftlicher und kultureller Phänomene der jüngeren Vergangenheit, bestimmt seit dem Beginn der achtziger Jahre Teile der Musikwissenschaft. Das Problem, inwiefern sich postmoderne Positionen, Ideen oder wissenschaftliche Methoden auf Fragen zur Musik übertragen lassen, provoziert seitdem höchst divergierende Deutungen und Wertungen historischer wie ästhetischer Sachverhalte. Diese Kontroverse basiert auf einem philosophischen Diskurs über das Verhältnis von Moderne und Postmoderne und ist in hohem Maße durch den französischen Poststrukturalismus inspiriert. Die hier vorliegende Untersuchung will selbst (...) keine Bestimmung des Postmodernebegriffs liefern, sondern - gewissermaßen von einer Meta-Ebene aus - diesen Diskurs auf seine impliziten Urteils- und Deutungsmuster zurückführen. Dabei zeigt sich, dass - aller vordergründigen Fehden zwischen Verfechtern und Verächtern der Postmoderne zum Trotz - sämtliche Parteien des Diskurses durch Normvorstellungen zusammengehalten werden, die in der Moderne und der Aufklärung wurzeln. Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen. (shrink)

Art, Beauty and Imitation in Plato's Philosophy -- Art and Imitation in Aristotle -- Horace, Pseudo-Longinus and the Aesthetics of Literature in Hellenism -- Plotinus, Neo-Platonic and Christian Conception of Beauty -- The Middle Ages and Dante Alighieri -- The Heritage of Kantian Philosophy in Romanticism -- Moritz: Beyond the Concept of Imitation -- Theory of Poetry of Early German Romanticism -- Hegel: Art as a Form of the Absolute Spirit -- Schopenhauer: Art as Disinterestedness and Knowledge of Reality (...) -- Nietzsche: Knowledge and Art -- Symbolism and Aestheticism -- Benedetto Croce: Art and intuition -- Linguistics and Criticism -- Antonio Gramsci: The Role of Intellectuals in Culture -- Structuralism -- Martin Heidegger: The Work of Art and Truth -- Hans-Georg Gadamer: Poetry and Interpretation -- Critical Theory: A New Attitude towards Art and Society -- Perspectives of Post-Structuralism -- The Practice of Deconstruction -- Contemporary Schools and Traditions in Literary and Critical Theory -- Postmodern and the New Character of the Literary Work. (shrink)

What is postmodern music and how does it differ from earlier styles, including modernist music? What roles have electronic technologies and sound production played in defining postmodern music? Has postmodern music blurred the lines between high and popular music? Addressing these and other questions, this ground-breaking collection gathers together for the first time essays on postmodernism and music written primarily by musicologists, covering a wide range of musical styles including concert music, jazz, film music, and popular music. (...) Topics include: the importance of technology and marketing in postmodern music; the appropriation and reworking of Western music by non-Western bands; postmodern characteristics in the music of Górecki, Rochberg, Zorn, and Bolcom, as well as Björk and Wu Tang Clan; issues of music and race in such films as The Bridges of Madison County, Batman, Bullworth, and He Got Game; and comparisons of postmodern architecture to postmodern music. Also includes nine musical examples. (shrink)

The article presents theoretical generalization and offers new solutions to the problem of developing creative skills in preschoolers in painting classes, taking into account the postmodern tendencies which are becoming increasingly common in the post-Soviet countries. The relevance of the article lies in the need to reform today’s education system in the post-Soviet space and develop pedagogical technologies to enhance the effectiveness of preschool education and reveal the creative potential of each child in the context of the postmodernism and (...) the latest achievements in psychology of creativity. The paper aims to develop and theoretically justify a technology for developing creative skills in preschoolers in painting classes in educational institutions for the postcolonial democracies on the example of Ukraine based on the analysis of relevant scientific sources and teaching placement. The article also substantiates the technology for developing creative skills in preschoolers in painting classes, which is defined as a model for organizing artistic and aesthetic activity of preschoolers aimed at expanding their cognitive experience and emotional perception of the world, as well as cultivating their aesthetic attitude to its objects and ensuring creative self-expression of each child. The article proves the validity of the open performative postmodernist approach, according to which playing activities, perception and enjoyment from creativity act as the main drivers of the creative activity of primary school children. (shrink)

Postmodernity's Musical Pasts considers music after 1945 as a representation of concepts such as "historicity" and "temporality". The volume understands postmodernity as a period in which both modernism and postmodernism co-exist. It is attracted to a wider interpretation of "historicity" that focuses on the complex nexus of past-present-future. "Historicity" is understood as leaning closely on "temporality", generally thought of as the linear progression of past, present and future. The volume broadens the absolutist understanding of temporality to include processes which can (...) occur in circular, spiral, transcending and other formations. The book covers an extensive spectrum of topics from classical to popular and neo-traditional musics to concerns of the disciplines of musicology. Such a wide range of topics from both the centre and the periphery of the musicological canon mirrors the eclectic and diverse nature of the postwar era itself. The first section investigates how to understand manifestations of the past in musical composition with regard to time, on the one hand, and with regard to genre, style and idiom, on the other. A second section shows how time and history manifest themselves in art music. A third section takes the contrasts and transitional moments of post-1945 practices further by looking at the temporality of reception from different angles. A final part investigates questions of nostalgia and temporalities of belonging. TINA FR HAUF is Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University, New York and serves on the faculty of The Graduate Center, CUNY. CONTRIBUTORS: Michael Arnold, Susana Asensio Llamas, Georg Burgstaller, Caitlin Carlos, Daniela Fugellie, Tina Fr hauf, John Koslovsky, Lawrence Kramer, Beate Kutschke, Laurenz L tteken, Max Noubel, Joshua S. Walden. (shrink)

This text probes the psychic and social roots of artistic scenarios of loss. Demonstrating that artistic activity is inextricably bonded to imaginary scripts of bereavement and these in turn to patterns of social dominance, the author argues in favor of an "aesthetics of lessness" that is, postmodern resistance to imaginary inscriptions of grief and their misogynist sequels. The book draws on psychoaesthetics, discourse theory and feminist social critiques to analyse literary visual figurations of loss. Included in its analysis (...) of the romantic and post-romantic imaginary are readings of Merimee, Nerval, Hoffmann, H.D., Anne Hebert, Proust and Beckett, and essays, among others, on Kollwitz, Glacometti, Bellmer, Klee, Gidal and Oulton. (shrink)

Kramer was one of the most visionary musical thinkers of the second half of the 20th century. In his The Time of Music, he approached the idea of the many different ways that time itself is articulated musically. This book has become influential among composers, theorists, and aestheticians. Now, in his almost completed text written before his untimely death in 2004, he examines the concept of postmodernism in music. Kramer created a series of markers by which we can identify (...) class='Hi'>postmodern works. He suggests that the postmodern project actually creates a radically different relationship between the composer and listener. Written with wit, precision, and at times playfully subverting traditional tropes to make a very serious point about this difference, Postmodern Music, Postmodern Listening leads us to a strongly grounded intellectual basis for stylistic description and an intuitive sensibility of what postmodernism in music entails. Postmodern Music, Postmodern Listening is an examination of how musical postmodernism is not just a style or movement, but a fundamental shift in the relationship between composer and listener. The result is a multifaceted and provocative look at a critical turning point in music history, one whose implications we are only just beginning to understand. (shrink)

This article is primarily concerned with Zygmunt Bauman's ‘adoption’ of Levinas's ethic of primordial responsibility, and his attempt to found a ‘sociological’ critique of postmodern ambivalence upon the erasure of the face and loss of moral proximity. I have argued that the reading of Levinas which Bauman presents in Modernity and the Holocaust and Postmodern Ethics is radically incompatible with the redemptive significance of the Levinasian commandment; and that consequently, his attempt to determine the cognitive and aesthetic forms (...) involved in the adiaphorising trend of postmodern societies is unable to salvage the ethical relation from its own comprehensive/totalising necessity. I have also suggested that Derrida's reading of Totality and Infinity, discloses a certain ‘provocation’ in Levinas's writing; one which gestures towards a conception of ‘the ethical’ as an unforeseen possibility deployed within the resources of social identity. Thus, the idea of ‘situating’ Bauman's thought refers to what I consider to be his ambiguous position with regard to the ‘reflective’ project of a critical theory, and the transcendent necessity of the Levinasian commandment. Ultimately, it is this ambiguity which structures Bauman's writing of the ‘postmodern condition’. For having described the overwhelming powers of cognitive and aesthetic ‘heteronomy’ in the postmodern world, his only recourse is to a ‘politics of distant consequences’ in which the absolute difference of the face would have its originary demand intensified and retransmitted. Such a programmatic demand, I have argued, is radically at odds with an ‘ethical’ reception of racial, sexual or cultural ‘otherness’. (shrink)

The article clarifies the way in which ‘the aesthetic’ is conceptualised in relation to business ethics in order to assess its potential to inform theory building and developmental practices within the business ethics field. A systematic review of relevant literature is undertaken which identifies three ontologically based accounts of the relationship between the aesthetic and business ethics: ‘positive’ ones, ‘negative’ accounts and ‘Postmodern’ renderings. Five epistemologically based approaches are also made explicit: those in which the aesthetic is thought to (...) develop enhanced perceptual discernment, those in which the aesthetic catalyses emotional sensitivity, those in which the aesthetic contributes to imaginative capacity, those in which the aesthetic prompts integrative apprehension and those in which the aesthetic is seen to foster critical reflexivity. The review reveals two key findings: firstly, the dearth of empirically based research to substantiate claims made about the aesthetic’s ability to foster ethical capabilities, which leads to proposals for further research; secondly, the analysis indicates the significance of critical reflexivity both in resolving the apparent dichotomy between ontologically based perspectives asserting the aesthetic’s ability to lead to ethically sound or egregious behaviour, and in underpinning the capacities of perceptual discernment, emotional connectivity, imagination and integrative apprehension which epistemologically based approaches assert the aesthetic can foster. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.2 (2004) 88-94 [Access article in PDF] A Postmodern Tonantzín Jane Duran Visitors to the Puebla area in Mexico are frequently taken to the church of Santa María Tonantzínla, where they are told that they will see three or more styles of architecture simultaneously. Guidebooks to the area prominently feature this church and others like it, both as examples — or so the (...) reader is told — of the "Baroque," and as exemplars of the handiwork and craftsmanship of the indigenous.1 Because of the importance of various notions of style insofar as teaching in the arts is concerned, it might seem important to try to articulate what is meant by simultaneity of styles. In addition, today's students are often baffled by uses of the term "postmodern." In this essay I will argue that Santa María Tonantzínla may have somesurprising lessons for us all.There is no question that the visual effect of the building's interior is, in fact, stunning and that the visitor is simultaneously awed and bemused. Arrivals at this church in the Puebla suburb of Cholula see a riotous profusion of cherubs, angels, and other figures covering the walls, ceiling, nave, and almost every square inch of available space. Although some of the figures do indeed appear to bear a resemblance to those found in European structures created during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, other figures are more or less unrecognizable to most visitors, and clearly seem to be, as the books indicate, of non-European origin. To add to the effect of the stylistic mixing, the façade of the building is somewhat Romanesque, which only makes the interior more surprising and, in its own way, unexpected.I shall argue that work such as that at Tonantzín presents us with a variety of conceptual difficulties from the standpoint of aesthetics, and opens the door for some novel lines of argument. It is first of all quite unclear where the notion of "style" begins at Tonantzín; the boundaries are blurred and here, perhaps more than in most architectural treasures, one does not know how to announce or delineate the various styles. But much more important, [End Page 88] perhaps, is that this very amalgamation lends itself to the notion that one trope, the "postmodern," continually used in a discussion of contemporary architecture, is perhaps more relevant to Tonantzín than one might at first expect. In this essay I shall weave these two lines of argument together to support the contention that Tonantzín is, after all, postmodern. But before we can move to that assertion, it is important to try to think about what a meshing of such styles as "Spanish baroque" and "indigenous" could possibly mean, and why it has seemed urgent for writing on Tonantzín to employ these labels. Architectural Diversity In an intriguing article on the use of terms such as "modern" and "postmodern" in contemporary architecture, David Goldblatt has argued that Venturi's claim that modernity lacks what he terms diversity is more or less vacuous. As Goldblatt claims, the concept of diversity within a given work does not make much sense. More important for our purposes, Goldblatt goes on to provide a gloss on the notion of electicism, and its relation to a variety of architectural styles. He writes: When Venturi claims that modern architecture lacks diversity, he primarily means that it fails to achieve what he calls a pluralism. What he calls for is "Scarlatti and the Beatles, if diversity is to be achieved"....What Venturi is advocating is eclecticism.2As Goldblatt claims, eclecticism is the hallmark of the postmodern in architecture, and the eclectic pastiche that is Las Vegas — especially in terms of borrowed styles, ornamentation, and visible fripperies within the context of one building — becomes exemplary of that term and what it evokes. But to say simply that there may well be instances of the postmodern in architecture before the twentieth century, and before the decline of modernity itself, is to say very little. As Goldblatt... (shrink)

Although there are distinctly American artists-Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Grandma Moses, Thomas Hart Benton, and Andy Warhol, for example-very little attention has been devoted to formulating any distinctively American characteristics of aesthetic judgment and practice. This volume takes a step in this direction, presenting an introductory essay on the possibility of such a distinctly American tradition, and a collection of essays exploring particular examples from a variety of angles. Some of the essays in this collection extend pragmatist and process insights (...) about the important place aesthetics has in molding and assessing experience. Other essays examine the place of American aesthetics in relation to such particular forms of art as painting, literature, music, and film. Three essays attend to the aesthetic aspects of a flourishing life. In each of the essays, American aesthetics is understood to arise out of deeply felt personal, historical, and cultural backgrounds. Consequently, not only are such relatively abstract notions as harmony, fit, elegance, proportion, and the like involved in aesthetic judgment, but also religious, political, and social factors become embroiled in aesthetic discernment. Thus the ongoing pattern of American aesthetics is shown to be distinguishable from such other varieties of aesthetic thought as analytic aesthetics, New Criticism, and postmodern approaches to aesthetics. (shrink)

Current philosophies of art remain sadly dominated by visions of its end and lamentations of decline. Defining the very notions of art and the aesthetic as special products of Western modernity, they suggest that postmodern challenges to traditional high culture pose a devastating danger to Art's future. Richard Shusterman's new book cuts through the seductive confusions of these views by tracing the earthy roots of aesthetic experience and showing how the recent flourishing of aesthetic forms outside modernity's sacralized realm (...) of fine art evince the persistent presence of an artistic impulse far deeper and more durable than the modernist moment. Performing Live defends the abiding power of aesthetic experience by exploring its diverse roles, methods, and meanings, especially in fields marginal to traditional aesthetics but now most vibrantly alive in today's culture and new media. Ranging from rap, techno, and country music to cinema, cyberspace and urban design, Shusterman develops his radical theory of "somaesthetics," charting the complex network of bodily arts so prominent in contemporary life and self-styling. By blending concrete aesthetic analysis with insightful social critique, Shusterman, a well-known pragmatist philosopher, provides a rich menu and critical guide for today's pursuit of the art of living. (shrink)

For the first time, the article analyses certain aspects of Russian poetry of the “Silver Age” in order to identify the rudiments or features which are characteristic of the postmodern creative paradigm. It is noted that a number of poets almost do not have any postmodernist tendencies. Despite the fact it is proved that postmodernism denies the personality-centric and aesthetically oriented concept of modernism, it nevertheless arose on the basis of modernism and has sharpened evolutionary features formulated in the (...) first half of the 20th century. The article aims to prove a hypothesis that arises in the authors during a preliminary perceptual reading of the poets` works of the “Silver Age”: in the early 20th century. Sporadically and consistently in individual authors can be observed irony, play, reconstruction and performance as precursor of postmodernist creative thinking. Specialties of the Russian poetry of the “Silver Age”, which directly correlate with postmodernist tendencies of the second half of the 20th century is not a description itself, but the realization of reality, ambivalence, as well as following the linguistic and figurative, conceptual, motive levels of gradual transitions between the paradigms of “symbolism – modernism” and “modernism – postmodernism”. The international significance of the article is that the material of one of the Eastern European literatures has proved the existence of postmodern features in the first half of the 20th century for the first time, which can serve as a deeper research in the field of literary typology, continuity; culturology and anthropology. (shrink)

Methodologically, philosophical aesthetics is undergoing an evolution that takes it closer to the sciences. Taking this methodological convergence as the starting point, I argue for a pragmatist and pluralist view of aesthetic explanations. To bring concreteness to discussion, I focus on vindicating genre explanations, which are explanations of aesthetic phenomena that centrally cite a work's genre classification. I show that theoretical resources that philosophers of science have developed with attention to actual scientific practice and the special sciences can be (...) used to make room for genre explanations in aesthetics. In turn, making room for genre explanations also demonstrates the plausibility of the pragmatist and pluralist view of aesthetic explanations. (shrink)

"Toward the Postmodern contains thirteen of Jean-Francois Lyotard's most representative essays on literature, aesthetics, and the psycho-political dimensions of discourse. These compelling essays, selected in consultation with the author and arranged chronologically, give a clear view of Lyotard's trajectory over the past three decades. They will enable Lyotard's English-speaking audience to comprehend the range of his principal preoccupations both before and after his engagement with the debate over the postmodern, and also to appreciate the polemical vigor of (...) his aesthetic critique." "Toward the Postmodern contains several previously untranslated essays and two unpublished recent studies. Edited with a perceptive introduction, a comprehensive current bibliography, and a thorough index, this volume will be an invaluable tool for both students and researchers."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

This interview is inspired the most important working-hypothesis presented in the volume Aesthetic Revolutions and the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde Movements, edited by Aleš Erjavec, that questions the legitimacy of the distinction between aesthetic and artistic avant-gardes, supported by the relationship of each concept with the modern revolutionary politics. The relevance of this contrast for determining modernity both in its ideological shape and its continuity, in the terms of postmodernity will be criticized in our discussion with professor Erjavec, reflecting on the manner (...) in which the artistic communities representative for Surrealism, Russian constructivism, Situationist International, Dadaism, Italian Futurism, 1960s American Art, as well as for Slovenian, Mexican or Romanian artistic movements of the 20th century opened the path for different democratic or totalitarian political attitudes, practices and ambitions. (shrink)

Charles Altieri, Postmodernisms Now: Essays on Contemporaneity in the ArtsJean-Marie Schaefer, The Art of the Modern Age: Philosophy of Art from Kant to HeideggerKarol Berger, A Theory of ArtTiffany Sutton, The Classification of Visual Art: A Philosophical Myth and Its HistoryJames Kirwan, BeautyRichard Wollheim, On the EmotionsBeryl Schlossman, Objects of Desire: The Madonnas of ModernismStan Godlovitch, Musical PerformanceJohn Dixon Hunt, Greater Perfections: The Practice of Garden TheoryTrevor Ponech, What Is Non-Fiction Cinema? On the Very Idea of Motion Picture Communication.

In the first half of the twentieth century there was a remarkable convergence of art and design in De Stijl, Constructivism and the Bauhaus. But in the second half of the twentieth century fine art relinquished its liaison with design due to the influence of Dada and Surrealism's postromantic antagonism to practical-functionalism. Dada and Surrealism and postmodern fine art are characterized by a critique of the dominant social discourse of functionalism and the demand for a sublime poetics to be (...) brought into everyday life. This article argues that the apparent antipathy between postmodern fine art and design can be ameliorated if we critically analyse interpretations of evolutionary theory by postromantic philosophers such as Nietzsche, Bergson, and Deleuze and Guattari. When Bergson notes that practical-functional reasoning was created by evolution he reveals a flaw in the pursuit of an aesthetics that is totally opposed to commonsense and practical-functionalism. And when we turn to Deleuze and Guattari we find another valuable concept in the form of their notion of the machinic, which assists further in reconciling the postromantic emphasis on the sublime with the practicality of mechanism. Moreover, Deleuze and Guattari's notion of the machinic is informed by chaos theory, which allows further elaboration in terms of complexity theory. Complexity theory can be understood as a process philosophy that has no need to figure the sublime in terms of a mysterious force of nature because the mystery is located within complex interactions among a manifold of components, what one might refer to as a cosmic, machinic, combinatoire that arises out of what Christopher Langton has called the edge of chaos. This makes it possible to replace the emphasis on desire as the fundamental force of nature evident in Nietzsche, Bergson, Deleuze and Guattari with a complexity-theoretical concept of a cosmicmachinic combinatoire. It is then possible to formulate a machinic, evolutionary aesthetics that can reconcile the postromantic demand for sublimity with the demand for practical-functionalism that lies at the heart of the discipline of design. In place of the modernist machine aesthetic that informed De Stijl, Constructivism and the Bauhaus we would have a postmodernist machinic aesthetic. (shrink)

As the institutionalization of the avant-garde took place, postmodern theory both reacted to and helped create the forces that eroded reason and even taste, labelled them quaint in the name of a postmodern theory, at the same time that mass commodity form was inscribing exchange value on all work of the imagination. In fact, the reality is that the system, the society of domination has enclosed discourse in such a way that, coupled to new social media and electronic (...) platforms, all radical, all working class or under class voices are pre vetted or erased, and only the most craven corporate financialized kitsch is validated. The collusion of galleries, collectors and curators, following the model of studio film and network TV, has equated popularity with quality. The problem then is to recuperate something of the lost radical conscience of art and culture. There is now an amnesia about the prehistory of society, of our own psyches, and of the imagination. The colonizing of consciousness has rendered the imagination of the west atrophied and almost inert. All art is a recreation of our own psychic formation (mimesis) as well as being shaped by its 'otherness', by a purposelessness. All stories are crime stories, all stories are about exile, and all stories are about homesickness. And all art contains a narrative. For only by having no purpose can the artwork posit the direction to which society must look to create an 'other' or elsewhere. To retain something of that utopian promise that is foundational in culture. The world is being dis-enchanted. The Utopian promise is not kept. (shrink)

Heidegger is against the modern tradition of philosophical “aesthetics” because he is for the true “work of art” which, he argues, the aesthetic approach to art eclipses. Heidegger's critique of aesthetics and his advocacy of art thus form a complementary whole. Section 1 orients the reader by providing a brief overview of Heidegger's philosophical stand against aesthetics, for art. Section 2 explains Heidegger's philosophical critique of aesthetics, showing why he thinks aesthetics follows from modern “subjectivism” (...) and leads to late-modern “enframing,” historical worldviews Heidegger seeks to transcend from within—in part by way of his phenomenological interpretations of art. Section 3 clarifies this attempt to transcend modern aesthetics from within, focusing on the way Heidegger seeks to build a phenomenological bridge from a particular work of art by Vincent van Gogh to the ontological truth of art in general. In this way, as we will see, Heidegger seeks to show how art can help lead us into a genuinely meaningful postmodern age. Section 4 concludes by explaining how this understanding of Heidegger's project allows us to resolve the longstanding controversy surrounding his interpretation of Van Gogh. (shrink)