A Return to Aesthetics: Autonomy, Indifference, and Postmodernism

Jonathan Loesberg

Published by Stanford University Press 2005

A Return to Aesthetics

Autonomy, Indifference, and Postmodernism

Jonathan Loesberg

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503625105

Overview
Contents

About this book

A Return to Aesthetics confronts postmodernism's rejection of aesthetics by showing that this critique rests on central concepts of classical aesthetic theory, namely autonomous form, disinterest, and symbolic discourse. The author argues for the value of these concepts by recovering them through a historical reinterpretation of their meaning prior to their distortion by twentieth-century formalism. Loesberg then applies these concepts to a discussion of two of the most significant critics of the ideology of Enlightenment, Foucault and Bourdieu. He argues that understanding the role of aesthetics in the postmodern critique of Enlightenment will get us out of the intellectual impasse wherein numbingly repeated attacks upon postmodernism as self-contradictory match numbingly repeated defenses. Construing postmodern critiques as examples of aesthetic reseeing gives us a new understanding of the postmodern critique of the Enlightenment.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Aesthetics and the Argument from Design Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	14
2 Indifferent Embodiment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
3 Foucault's Aesthetics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
4 Bourdieu's Aesthetics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	274
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	285

Language: English
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 304

eBook

Published: July 27, 2005
ISBN: 9781503625105