Download or read book Aesthetic Life and Why It Matters written by Dominic Lopes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "You have a complex and detailed aesthetic life. You make aesthetic decisions every day. You wake up, shower, and dress. When you decide what to wear, you think about how it feels and fits, how it expresses your style. You wander into the kitchen and think about what to eat. When you decide what to eat, you think about flavor, texture, smell. You head out into the world. You see your car, your bike, your shoes and appreciate how they look. When you decide what to buy, you think about how it will look in your house, or how it sounds or feels. You make aesthetic decisions every day-about what to listen to, what to watch, whether to arrange things just so, about how to sit, strut, or sing. You have aesthetic feelings and reactions every day. The sunset swings into view as you turn a corner and you think, "That's beautiful." A wave of calm and pleasure wash over you. You take a bite of cake and you think, "Wow, that's sweet." Maybe too sweet. You hear that new song and it blows you away. You play it on repeat and for your friends. You try the new restaurant and you think: "It's bland, boring, awesome, exciting, brilliant, bold." The novel is wonderful, the film disappoints, the dress looked better in the store. You have aesthetic feelings and reactions every day and these reactions move you through the world and shape your sense of self and well-being. You create aesthetic looks, atmospheres, and objects every day. When you dress you create an outfit that you put into the world. When you have friends over you play music, light a candle, arrange the dinner table, set a mood. You exercise aesthetic creativity when you design your tattoo, put on makeup, pierce your ear or nose, spritz cologne or perfume, or pay close attention to your hair. Almost everything you do has an aesthetic dimension-from the way you make your bed, prepare your coffee, and tie your shoes, to the way you speak to others and adjust photos to post on social media. You create aesthetic value every day. You have a complex and detailed aesthetic life that you orchestrate every day through your aesthetic decisions, reactions, feelings, and actions"--

Download or read book Aesthetic Life written by Miya Elise Mizuta Lippit and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of modern Japan engages the fields of art history, literature, and cultural studies, seeking to understand how the "beautiful woman" (bijin) emerged as a symbol of Japanese culture during the Meiji period (1868-1912). With origins in the formative period of modern Japanese art and aesthetics, the figure of the bijin appeared across a broad range of visual and textual media: photographs, illustrations, prints, and literary works, as well as fictional, critical, and journalistic writing. It eventually constituted a genre of painting called bijinga (paintings of beauties). Aesthetic Life examines the contributions of writers, artists, scholars, critics, journalists, and politicians to the discussion of the bijin and to the production of a national discourse on standards of Japanese beauty and art. As Japan worked to establish its place in the world, it actively presented itself as an artistic nation based on these ideals of feminine beauty. The book explores this exemplary figure for modern Japanese aesthetics and analyzes how the deceptively ordinary image of the beautiful Japanese woman--an iconic image that persists to this day--was cultivated as a "national treasure," synonymous with Japanese culture.

Download or read book Performing Live written by Richard Shusterman and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Aesthetic Sense of Life written by Bruce Edward Fleming and published by Rlpg/Galleys. This book was released on 2008 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Aesthetic Sense of Life is a fast-moving book about how to see the world and get value from living every day with the "everyday." Do the infinite number of sensations we're surrounded with every day have intrinsic value? If not, what gives them value? Who appreciates the sunrise if we don't? Is it enough for just us to appreciate it? Or do we have to share it? The Aesthetic Sense of Life considers and answers to questions such as these in clear, readable prose, offering a way of looking at life that makes clear its value and its meaning. The aesthetic sense of life is neither the viewpoint of the saints--for whom the sensations of the world are mere murmuring and illusion--nor the viewpoint of those completely fulfilled by their things, their gadgets, the particulars of their own lives. Most of us fall in the middle between these two extremes: we appreciate, say, a good cup of coffee, a power tool, a new set of towels, or a juicy steak, but don't think the answer to the riddle of existence is to be found in any of these. We appreciate them without thinking them sufficient. What's missing from them? What's missing is this: a sense that they can give meaning to life. The Aesthetic Sense of Life proposes that meaning is found not in these particulars, but in consciousness of the patterns they form. The feel of our towels or the taste of our coffee is just for us. Others have their own sensations, so they don't need ours. What we can share with other people, and thus use to re-establish the bonds of human warmth, are the patterns made by these particulars, something others can appreciate as well. Awareness of these patterns constitutes the aesthetic sense of life, which gives richness and meaning to the everyday.

Download or read book The Extraordinary in the Ordinary The Aesthetics of Everyday Life written by Thomas Leddy and published by Broadview Press. This book was released on 2012-02-07 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the aesthetics of the objects and environments we encounter in daily life. Thomas Leddy stresses the close relationship between everyday aesthetics and the aesthetics of art, but places special emphasis on neglected aesthetic terms such as ‘neat,’ ‘messy,’ ‘pretty,’ ‘lovely,’ ‘cute,’ and ‘pleasant.’ The author advances a general theory of aesthetic experience that can account for our appreciation of art, nature, and the everyday.

Download or read book Everyday Aesthetics written by Yuriko Saito and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-01-03 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyday aesthetic experiences and concerns occupy a large part of our aesthetic life. However, because of their prevalence and mundane nature, we tend not to pay much attention to them, let alone examine their significance. Western aesthetic theories of the past few centuries also neglect everyday aesthetics because of their almost exclusive emphasis on art. In a ground-breaking new study, Yuriko Saito provides a detailed investigation into our everyday aesthetic experiences, and reveals how our everyday aesthetic tastes and judgments can exert a powerful influence on the state of the world and our quality of life. By analysing a wide range of examples from our aesthetic interactions with nature, the environment, everyday objects, and Japanese culture, Saito illustrates the complex nature of seemingly simple and innocuous aesthetic responses. She discusses the inadequacy of art-centered aesthetics, the aesthetic appreciation of the distinctive characters of objects or phenomena, responses to various manifestations of transience, and the aesthetic expression of moral values; and she examines the moral, political, existential, and environmental implications of these and other issues.

Download or read book Aesthetics of Everyday Life written by Curtis L. Carter and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-02 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a new trend in aesthetics appearing concurrently in the West and the East in the last ten years, the aesthetics of everyday life points to a growing diversification among existing methodologies for pursuing aesthetics, alongside the shift from art-based aesthetics. The cultural diversity manifest in global aesthetics offers common ground for the collaborative efforts of aesthetics in both the West and the East. Given the rapidly growing interest and its potential for attracting new audiences extending beyond the more narrowly focused traditions of twentieth-century analytic and environmental aesthetics, it stands to command its own share of attention in the future of aesthetic studies. The aesthetics of everyday life has become a stream of thought with a global ambition. This interest has led to numerous systematic and in-depth works on this topic, some of which were conducted by the authors represented in this volume. A salient feature of this book is that it not only represents the recent developments of the aesthetics of everyday life in the West, but also highlights the interaction between scholars in the West and the East on this topic. Thus, the project is a contribution toward mutual progress in the collaboration between Western and Eastern aesthetics. What distinguishes this book from other anthologies and monographs on this topic is that it reconstructs the aesthetics of everyday life through cultural dialogue between the West and the East, with a view to building a new form of aesthetics of everyday life, as seen from a global perspective. At present, the aesthetics of everyday life as a newly emergent approach to aesthetics may encounter skepticism among aestheticians accustomed to the rigors of analytic philosophers who prefer to discuss aesthetics at the level of abstract concepts and argument, and who tolerate the particulars of experience mainly as illustrations. But, there is no reason to abandon the pursuit of the aesthetics of everyday life in the face of such objections. On the contrary, there are many benefits to gain in bringing aesthetics to bear on a wider sphere of human life, made possible through efforts to show the relevance of aesthetics to a broader range of human actions.

Download or read book Bibliostyle written by Nina Freudenberger and published by Clarkson Potter. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A visual delight and an inspiration for every bibliophile with a growing home library, this dream-and-drool design book features some of the most jaw-dropping book collections of homeowners around the world. NAMED ONE OF JO’S FALL FAVORITES IN MAGNOLIA JOURNAL Interior designer Nina Freudenberger, New Yorker writer Sadie Stein, and Architectural Digest photographer Shade Degges give readers a peek at the private libraries and bookshelves of passionate readers all over the world, including Larry McMurtry, Silvia Whitman of Shakespeare and Co., Gay and Nan Talese, and Emma Straub. Throughout, gorgeous photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books inspire readers to live better with their own collections. Praise for Bibliostyle “Featuring enviable private libraries and packed floor-to-ceiling shelves, this beautiful volume makes a compelling case for books as décor.”—New York “Freudenberger spotlights the splendid, enviable personal libraries of literary figures whose owners obviously care about their book collections and have actually read them, too.”—The Boston Globe “This is a coffee table book that makes you think as well as admire and desire.”—Sydney Herald “Offers a look into the fabulous homes of book lovers the world over, showcasing how their interior design is built around the tomes they love most.”—CN “The photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books will inspire readers to live better with their own collections.”—Publishers Weekly “Nina Freudenberger teams with Sadie Stein of The New Yorker and photographer Shade Degges of Architectural Digest to showcase beautiful photographs of the private libraries of book lovers from all over the world.”—BookRiot

Download or read book Sickness Unto Death written by Soren Kierkegaard and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-01-28 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation [which accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self. Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity; in short, it is a synthesis.

Download or read book Pragmatist Aesthetics written by Richard Shusterman and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2000-02-22 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This much acclaimed book has emerged as neo-pragmatism's most significant contribution to contemporary aesthetics. By articulating a deeply embodied notion of aesthetic experience and the art of living, and by providing a compellingly rigorous defense of popular art—crowned by a pioneer study of hip hop—Richard Shusterman reorients aesthetics towards a fresher, more relevant, and socially progressive agenda. The second edition contains an introduction where Shusterman responds to his critics, and it concludes with an added chapter that formulates his novel notion of somaesthetics.

Download or read book Practicing Philosophy written by Richard Shusterman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-04 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Applying contemporary pragmatism to the crucial question of how philosophy can help us live better, Shusterman develops his distinctive aesthetic model of philosophical living that includes politics, somatics, and ethnicity, while critically engaging the rival views of Dewey, Wittgenstein, and Foucault, as well as Rorty, Putnam, Goodman, Habermas, and Cavell.

Download or read book The Passion of Possibility written by Ingolf U. Dalferth and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-02-20 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Kierkegaard the most important thing in life is to become a single individual or a true self. We are all born as human beings, but this makes us only members of a crowd, not true selves. To become a true self, we must transcend what we are at any given time and orient ourselves to the possible and to the actuality of the possible, to which all that is possible owes itself. True selves exist only in becoming, they are fragile, and that is their strength. They are not grounded by their own activities, but in a reality extra se, the flip side of which is a deep passivity that underlies all their activity and allows them to continually leave themselves and move beyond their respective actualities toward the new and the possible. Therefore, without the passion of possibility, there is no truly single individual. This study of Kierkegaard's post-metaphysical theology outlines his existential phenomenology of the self by exploring in three parts what Kierkegaard has to say about the sense of self (finitude, uniqueness, self-interpretation, and alienation), about selfless passion (anxiety, trust, hope, and true love), and about how to become a true self (a Christian in Christendom and a neighbor of God's neighbors).

Download or read book The Aesthetic Value of the World written by Tom Cochrane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-25 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Aesthetic Value of the World, Tom Cochrane defends Aestheticism, the claim that everything is aesthetically valuable and that a life lived in pursuit of aesthetic value can be a particularly good one. Furthermore, in distilling aesthetic qualities, artists have a special role to play in teaching us to recognize values; a critical component of virtue. Cochrane grounds his account upon an analysis of aesthetic value as 'objectified final value', which is underwritten by an original psychological claim that all aesthetic values are distal versions of practical values. This is followed by systematic accounts of beauty, sublimity, comedy, drama, and tragedy, as well as appendix entries on the cute, the cool, the kitsch, the uncanny, the horrific, the erotic, and the furious.

Download or read book Philosophy and Literary Modernism written by Robert P. McParland and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-01 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy and Literary Modernism probes the relationship of authors with the thought of their time. The authors studied here include Conrad, Eliot, Faulkner, Forster, Hemingway, Hesse, Kafka, Joyce, Lawrence, Williams, and Woolf, among others. Literary modernism engaged with explorations of literary form, language, ways of knowing the world, identity, commitment, chance, truth, and beauty. The book considers how writers participated in the intellectual spirit of their time and with the thought of philosophers like Henri Bergson, G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Download or read book Modern Aesthetics written by D. Petsch and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-08-31 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This three volume set is a comprehensive account of the development of European aesthetics from the time of the ancient Greeks to the 1700s. This last volume covers 1400-1700.

Download or read book African Philosophical Currents written by John Murungi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the human world has reached a stage where no philosophical community can any longer philosophize in isolation from other philosophical communities. The African philosophical community is not an exception and neither is any other philosophical community. There is a widespread notion in the West that philosophy originated in Greece and found its way throughout Europe, from where it migrated to Africa. This book argues that Philosophy did not migrate to African from anywhere but that it is radically native to all communities. The chapters cover the erasure of African philosophy, African philosophical departures, the threat that Christianity has posed to African philosophy, African legal philosophy, African musical aesthetics and connections with classical philosophy. Arguing that the landscape of philosophy has a place not only for Africans but also for all human beings and that African philosophers are among the architects of this landscape, this book is an important read for scholars and students of African philosophy.

Download or read book On Moral Law and Quest for Selfhood written by Mohan Parasain and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-15 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an original intersection of concepts from Immanuel Kant’s moral command ethics and Søren Kierkegaard’s existential ethics. The Kantian formulation of moral law is based on theoretical ground while Kierkegaardian ethics of the quest for selfhood views it as the very act of living. The present work provides an account of both these perspectives and questions whether these approaches to morality are mutually exclusionary. Using Slavoj Žižek’s ‘parallax view’ in the realm of morality, it argues that moral philosophy must engage with a constant critique of ‘difference’ around which the transformation of our various perspectives to morality revolves. This work appeals for furtherance of the conversation model and participation of perspectives to transcend ‘positional confinement’. It advocates the traversing of the ethical parallax to allow for intellectual openness and an empathetic perception of the ‘other’. Engaging and well-researched, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of ethics, political philosophy and continental philosophy.