Contemporary Aesthetics does not publish book reviews. However, to inform our readers of new publications of interest, we do publish brief descriptions extracted from information provided by the publishers. These notices do not necessarily represent the views or judgment of this journal. Readers are invited to send us such information about books they think will interest other readers of CA.
Andrew Mason, What’s Wrong with Lookism? Personal Appearance, Discrimination, and Disadvantage (Oxford University Press, 27 October 2023), 256 pp.
ISBN: 9780192859792
People are treated differently as a result of their looks. But when is appearance discrimination, or “lookism” as it is often called, morally objectionable? This issue is important for at least two reasons. First, the benefits that flow to people who are regarded as visually attractive are sizeable and are enjoyed in a number of contexts, including employment, personal relationships, education, politics, and the criminal justice system. Second, appearance discrimination is of moral interest not only in its own right, but also in terms of its connection to other forms of discrimination. Appearance norms, that is, norms concerning how we should look, often place greater burdens on disadvantaged groups. As a result, discrimination on the basis of appearance, when it rewards people who conform to these norms, may involve, or interact with, the effects of, wrongful discrimination on the basis of features other than appearance, in a way that aggravates existing injustices.
What’s Wrong with Lookism? examines the morality of appearance discrimination in three contexts: employment decisions; the choice of friends or romantic partners; and the everyday practice of judging and commenting upon people’s looks. Andrew Mason develops a pluralist theory of what makes discrimination wrong that identifies three wrong-making features, namely, disrespect, deliberative unfairness, and contributing to unjust consequences, and demonstrates how the presence of one or more of these features in each of these contexts problematises the lookism that takes place in it.
Ivan Gaskell, Mindprints: Thoreau’s Material Worlds (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, November 2024), 240 pp.
ISBN: 9780226836072
A rediscovery of Thoreau’s interactions with everyday objects and how they shaped his thought.
Though we may associate Henry David Thoreau with ascetic renunciation, he accumulated a variety of tools, art, and natural specimens throughout his life as a homebuilder, surveyor, and collector. In some of these objects, particularly Indigenous artifacts, Thoreau perceived the presence of their original makers, and he called such objects “mindprints.” Thoreau believed that these collections could teach him how his experience, his world, fit into the wider, more diverse (even incoherent) assemblage of other worlds created and re-created by other beings every day. In this book, Ivan Gaskell explores how a profound environmental aesthetics developed from this insight and shaped Thoreau’s broader thought.
Madalina Diaconu, Aesthetics of Weather (Dublin/New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024), 288 pp.
ISBN 9781350416659
In an age of rife consumption and increasing need for consideration of sustainable social practices, an exploration of the aesthetics of weather from various angles becomes vital in shedding light on its importance to our experience of the changing world.
In response, offering an in-depth and nuanced examination of the aesthetics of weather, this book underlines the relevance the concept has for scientific communication, for fostering sustainable patterns of behaviour and for rejecting the environmentally-damaging “consumption” of landscapes and fine weather. In addition, it provides examples taken from global, contemporary popular culture whilst calling attention to the socioeconomic and political dimensions of individual experience, demonstrating and analysing our fascination with, and cultural interpretations of, weather phenomena in our everyday lives.
Within its three sections, the volume reinvents traditional phenomenological methods to create socially, politically and historically embedded ‘phenomenographies’ and explore the importance of aesthetic practices in shaping our experience of weather and climate. It also provides a deeper engagement with general topics, such as the relationship between perception, emotion, imagination, and cognition in our aesthetic experience of the weather, combining these with aesthetic analyses of the so-called “fine weather.”
With its broad scope of inquiry ranging from Aristotle to eco-phenomenology, from the pioneers of scientific meteorology to contemporary art, and from everyday aesthetics to geoengineering, this book argues that an aesthetics of weather inflected by greater knowledge and the taking of a critical stance towards aestheticism can become a valuable ally to climate ethics in the Anthropocene.
Erich Hatala Matthes, What to Save and Why: Identity, Authenticity, and the Ethics of Conservation (London: Oxford University Press, October 2024), 240 pp.
ISBN 9780197744550
What does a sanctuary for Hawaiian crows have in common with a troop of robots programmed to perform the Māori haka, or recreations of World Heritage Sites built in Minecraft?
A family heirloom. An endangered species. An ancient piece of pottery. A threatened language. These things differ in myriad ways, but they are tied together by a common thread: they are all examples of things that call out to be saved. The world is brimming with things worth saving, and we have limited time and resources. How do we decide what to save? Why do we make these choices?
Philosopher Erich Hatala Matthes explores these questions as they surface in radically diverse contexts–from museums to TikTok, and from National Parks to the corner of your attic. Matthes illustrates the deep relationship between the things we might save and our sense of self. If our cares and concerns are a fundamental part of our identity, then what we care for and preserve will play a significant role in shaping and maintaining our understanding of who we are. In a world in which everything that we care about is subject to powerful forces of change–from climate disturbance and armed conflict, to social transformation and the wear and tear of time–the terms on which we confront change will be key to whether and how we can save the things we care about in the ways that really matter to us. Will change be foisted upon us? Or is there a role for us to play in rejecting, influencing, or managing change? As he explores these questions, Matthes tackles related themes such as authenticity, agency, and appropriation: Who exactly should be responsible for saving things, and on whose behalf should such efforts be pursued? These are all essential elements to a fuller understanding of what to save and why.
Nicola Perullo, Aesthetics without Objects and Subjects: Relational Thinking for Global Challenges (Dublin/New York: Bloomsbury Academic, February 2024), 192 pp.
ISBN 9781350496910
Is there a connection between the environmental, climate, and political crises facing us today and Western dualism? By critically examining the subject/object dualism that has supported Western philosophy and aesthetics since the 17th century, Nicola Perullo presents a relational and co-operative account of aesthetic experience and human existence.
Exploring science, ontology and aesthetics through the perspectives of quantum physics’ relational interpretation and non-dualistic philosophies, Perullo draws on Western theories in anthropology and cultural traditions such as Buddhism and Daoism. We see how the ontology supported by dualism renders the world to consist of static, solid, and discrete things, making them vulnerable to be controlled, dominated, and possessed.
In Perullo’s analysis an alternative way of perceiving is offered: the “haptic” modality which is guided by cooperation, communication, and correspondence. Such a mode of perception and experience is ecological, precluding the possibility of domination, hierarchy, and exploitation. This challenge to the ramifications of the subject-object model, the very cornerstone of Western thought, is an exciting invitation to rethink the purpose of philosophizing and its impact on life.
Mariana Ortega, Carnalities: The Art of Living in Latinidad (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2024), 336 pp.
ISBN 978-1-4780-6024-6
In Carnalities, Mariana Ortega presents a phenomenological study of aesthetics grounded in the work of primarily Latinx artists. She introduces the idea of carnal aesthetics informed by carnalities, creative practices shaped by the self’s affective attunement to the material, cultural, historical, communal, and spiritual. For Ortega, carnal aesthetics offers a way to think about the affective and bodily experiences of racialized selves. Drawing on Gloria Anzaldúa, Chela Sandoval, José Esteban Muñoz, Alia Al-Saji, Helen Ngo, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Roland Barthes, and others, Ortega examines photographic works on Latinx subjects. She analyzes the photography of Laura Aguilar, Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas, and Susan Meiselas, among others, theorizing photography as a carnal, affective medium that is crucial for processes of self-formation, resistance, and mourning in Latinx life. She ends with an intimate reading of photography through a reflection of her own crossing from Nicaragua to the United States in 1979. Motivated by her experience of loss and exile, Ortega argues for the importance of carnal aesthetics in destabilizing and transforming normative, colonial, and decolonial subjects, imaginaries, and structures.
Cheng Xiangzhan, Ecoaesthetics and Ecosophy in China (Transnational Press London, October 2023), 199 pp.
ISBN 978-1-912997-79-4
Chinese ecoaesthetics, which originated in 1994, has developed theoretically over the last 30 years. This branch of aesthetics, which is “based on ecology” and to “transform aesthetically towards the era of ecological civilization,” uses ecological realism as its philosophical foundation and ecohumanism as its guiding principles. Its central aesthetic paradigm is known as the “body-mind-environment” model. Its main research object is “…ecological aesthetic appreciation,” an exploration of how to appreciate aesthetics and ecology through “ecological beauty.” Additionally, ecohumanism can be further improved by referring to principles of ecology and examining the aesthetic synergies between humans and the earth’s ecosystem. Ultimately, ecohumanism is not only a method to aid in survival in an ecological crisis, but to elevate the human condition through assuming ecological responsibilities and promoting ecological civilization, leading to a more valuable and meaningful life.
The theme of this book, Ecosophy C, can be summarized as “Moving toward the Aesthetics of Eternal Engendering”. Its key phrase, “Creating life” corresponds to shengsheng (生生) in Chinese, literally implying a continuous cycle of reproduction. Philosophically, this concept translates to “eternal engendering”. In essence, ecoaesthetics is the pursuit of the endless cycling of bio-engendering, which is the main goal of ecoaesthetics.