You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
In today's art world many strange, even shocking, things qualify as art. In this book, Cynthia Freeland explains why innovation and controversy are valued in the arts, weaving together philosophy and art theory with many fascinating examples. She discusses blood, beauty, culture, money, museums, sex, and politics, clarifying contemporary and historical accounts of the nature, function, and interpretation of the arts. Freeland also propels us into the future by surveying cutting-edge web sites, along with the latest research on the brain's role in perceiving art. This clear, provocative book engages with the big debates surrounding our responses to art and is an invaluable introduction to anyone interested in thinking about art.
Philosophy and Film moves from broad theoretical reflections on film as a medium to concrete examinations of individual films.
`A boundary-breaking book, mobilizing art for philosophical purposes with exciting and enlightening results.' Ivan Gaskell, Harvard University --
What is art? What counts as an aesthetic experience? Does art have to beautiful? Can one reasonably dispute about taste? What is the relation between aesthetic and moral evaluations? How to interpret a work of art?In Conversations on Art and Aesthetics, Hans Maes discusses these and other key questions in aesthetics with ten world-leading philosophers of art. The exchanges are direct, open, and sharp, and give a clear account ofthese thinkers' core ideas and intellectual development. They also offer new insights into, and a deeper understanding of, contemporary issues in the philosophy of art.
In a world where an artist's importance is often conferred by small groups of experts and cognoscenti, Bill Viola's rich imagery touches a nerve with large international audiences. His work never shies away from making big statements about human life and its relation to the universe, to the soul and human spirit, to nature and to death. He is one of those rare artists whose work makes us aware of our nature as human beings, taking art back to what were once its fundamental concerns and giving it a relevance to the emotional and spiritual lives of ordinary people.
In today's art world many strange, even shocking, things qualify as art. In this Very Short Introduction Cynthia Freeland explains why innovation and controversy are valued in the arts, weaving together philosophy and art theory with many fascinating examples. She discusses blood, beauty, culture, money, museums, sex, and politics, clarifying contemporary and historical accounts of the nature, function, and interpretation of the arts. Freeland also propels us into the future by surveying cutting-edge web sites, alongside the latest research on the brain's role in perceiving art. This clear, provocative book engages with the big debates surrounding our responses to art and is an invaluable introduction to anyone interested in thinking about art. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Aristotle still influences our abstract thinking, our search for principles, and our reflections on virtue, nature, essence, and sexual difference. Feminists here concede that they too philosophize within the tradition founded by the ancient Greeks. The contributors to this volume enter into new, creative, and subtle dimensions of inquiry about Aristotle from a broader feminist perspective.
Film has become such an underpinning of art and pop culture that its potential for inspiring serious thought is often overlooked. Our intellectual involvement with film has been minimized as more in the audience want to be merely amazed and entertained. Essays written by both established and cutting-edge philosophers of film concentrate in this work on the value of film in general and the value of certain films in particular for the study and teaching of ideas. The essays explore such topics as the significance of narrative unity for self knowledge in David Lynch's Lost Highway and in Paul Schrader's Affliction; ambiguity and responsibility in Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon; consciousness and cognition in Orson Welles's Citizen Kane; skepticism in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion and David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch; language and gender in Neil Jordan's The Crying Game; Platonic idealism in Chris Marker's La Jetee; race in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam; the concept of the imagination in cognitive film theory; and the role of ideology in feminist film theory. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
In this volume, Stephen Prince has collected essays reviewing the history of the horror film and the psychological reasons for its persistent appeal, as well as discussions of the developmental responses of young adult viewers and children to the genre. The book focuses on recent postmodern examples such as The Blair Witch Project. In a daring move, the volume also examines Holocaust films in relation to horror. Part One features essays on the silent and classical Hollywood eras. Part Two covers the postWorld War II era and discusses the historical, aesthetic, and psychological characteristics of contemporary horror films. In contrast to horror during the classical Hollywood period, contempo...
Since the 1970s, the academic study of film has been dominated by Structuralist Marxism, varieties of cultural theory, and the psychoanalytic ideas of Freud and Lacan. With Post-Theory, David Bordwell and Noel Carroll have opened the floor to other voices challenging the prevailing practices of film scholarship. Addressing topics as diverse as film scores, national film industries, and audience response. Post-Theory offers fresh directions for understanding film.