Thresholds, Defaults, and Cosbys: A Response to Bartel Jason Holt & Bernard Wills Our piece, “Art by Jerks,” proved timely in two ways. Soon after its publication several celebrity scandals shook the entertainment industry–those involving Weinstein, Spacey, and C.K.–giving it a veneer of prescience.[1] It also thus served as a suitable foil for Christopher […]
Category: SHORT NOTES
Thresholds, Defaults, and Cosbys: A Response to Bartel
SHORT NOTES
Wangheng Chen’s Chinese Environmental Aesthetics
Wangheng Chen’s Chinese Environmental Aesthetics Arnold Berleant Summary of Chinese Environmental Aesthetics by Wangheng Chen Wangheng Chen, Chinese Environmental Aesthetics, translated by Feng Su, edited by Gerald Cipriani (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 212 pp. ISBN 9780815364276 Environmental aesthetics as a focus of philosophic inquiry first developed in the West in the second […]
SHORT NOTES
Who Are We?
Who Are We? Jale Erzen Summary of Who Are We? by Wolfgang Welsch Wolfgang Welsch, Wer Sind Wir? (Hamburg: Nap New Academic Press, 2018), 166 pp., in German. ISBN: 978-3-7003-2077-7; 9 780826 464637 Wolfgang Welsch’s new book of 166 pages, in German, traces the evolution of mankind and her relation to the earth throughout […]
SHORT NOTES
Perception and World
Perception and World Wolfgang Welsch Summary of Truth and World by Wolfgang Welsch Wolfgang Welsch, Wahrnehmung und Welt (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2018), 76 pp., in German. ISBN 978-3-95757-605-7 The author presents the results of decades of his research on perception in summary form. First he clarifies the main point of the Aristotle’s theory […]
SHORT NOTES
Charting New Territory: the Aesthetic Value of Artistic Visions That Emanate in the Aftermath of Severe Trauma
Charting New Territory: the Aesthetic Value of Artistic Visions That Emanate in the Aftermath of Severe Trauma Tania Love Abramson & Paul R. Abramson We live in a world that fluently manufactures catastrophe. Though tragedy is deplorable, artistic imaginations encumbered by the configurations of adversity are nonetheless essential to how art is understood. Some […]
SHORT NOTES
Duchamp and the Science of Art
Duchamp and the Science of Art Miklos Legrady Postmodern art claims an intellectual foundation based on ideas proposed at the start of the 20th century, including a rejection of aesthetics by artist Marcel Duchamp and author Walter Benjamin. Today we can draw on readily available studies in the sciences of anthropology, sociology, and psychology […]
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The Cosmography of Aesthetics
The Cosmography of Aesthetics Yrjö Sepänmaa Summary of The Universe of Aesthetics: How to Understand Aesthetics in the 21st Century by Ossi Naukkarinen Ossi Naukkarinen, Estetiikan avaruus: Miten ymmärtää estetiikka 2000-luvulla? (Helsinki: Aalto ARTS Books, Aalto University, 2018), 223 pp., in Finnish. ISBN 978-952-60-7971-4 Ossi Naukkarinen, the first Professor of Aesthetics at Aalto University […]
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Reconsidering Darkness
Reconsidering Darkness Matti Tainio While a naturally dark night with starry skies is a paradigmatic example of the sublime, urban darkness has a different character. Generally speaking, true darkness hasn’t been present in most western cities since the 19th century. Contemporary urban night is not pitch-black due to illumination. Its darkness is incomplete because […]