Surface and Depth

Richard Shusterman is Professor of Philosophy at Temple University and the Collège International de Philosophie. His books include Performing Live: Aesthetic Alternatives for the Ends of Art (also from Cornell), Pragmatist Aesthetics, and Practicing Philosophy.

出版者:Cornell University Press

作者:Richard Shusterman

页数:304

出版时间:2002-6-13

价格:GBP 22.99

装帧:Paperback

isbn号码:9780801486838

图书标签:文艺学文学理论美学哲学文学

A paradox of surface and depth pervades the field of aesthetics. How can art's surface meanings and qualities be properly appreciated without understanding the cultural context that shapes their creation and perception? But exploring such underlying cultural conditions challenges perception of those immediate qualities and meanings of aesthetic surface that constitute the captivating power of art. If aesthetics is both surface and depth, impassioned immediacy yet also critical distance of judgment, how can this doubleness be held together in one philosophical vision?In his new book, Richard Shusterman explores the dialectics of surface and depth by examining key issues in the philosophy of art and culture -- from the logic of interpretation and evaluation to the roots of taste and convention, from the meanings of aesthetic purity and immediacy to the role of nature, theory, and history in our experience and understanding of art. In treating these topics, Shusterman combines the methods of analytic philosophy, critical theory, and poststructualism to arrive at new positions, displaying the philosophical versatility, originality of vision, and graceful, accessible writing that have become his trademark. Surface and Depth is crowned by a new definition of art as dramatization.