Performing Live: Aesthetic Alternatives for the Ends of Art

by Richard Shusterman and Richard M. Shusterman

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801486505
• ISBN13: 9780801486500
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.9" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Pragmatically Original

This is a very exciting and well-written book. Shusterman develops his pragmatist perspective on the themes of aesthetic experience, urbanism, popular art and the new media. There are also illuminating analyses of multiculturalism, style, and body culture. The philosophically most original part of the book may be the two new studies that elaborate his ground-breaking theory of somaesthetics -- a body-mind discipline of theory and practice. But my favorite chapters were those on urban aesthetics, style, and genius that combine strong argument with evocatively lyrical, personal writing. Three of the book's 10 chapters are based on earlier work from his Pragmatist Aesthetics, but they help complement the brand new chapters to turn the book into a very sustained, compelling argument. It all flows together like a great CD.