Aesthetics in a Multicultural Age

by Jeffrey Rhyne (Editor), Louis Freitas Caton (Editor), Emory Elliott (Editor)

Overview

Aesthetics in a Multicultural Age examines a variety of significant multidisciplinary and multicultural topics within the subject of aesthetics. Addressing the vexed relation of the arts and criticism to current political and cultural concerns, the contributors to this volume attempt to bridge the two decades-old gap between scholars and critics who hold conflicting views of the purposes of art and criticism. By exploring some of the ways in which global migration and expanding ethnic diversity are affecting cultural productions and prompting reassessment of the nature and role of aesthetic discourse, this volume provides a new evaluation of aesthetic ideas and practices within contemporary arts and letters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195146325
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	01/28/2002
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Emory Elliott is University Professor at the University of California, Riverside. Louis Freitas Caton is Professor of English at Auburn University. Jeffrey Rhyne is a graduate fellow in English at the University of California, Riverside.

Table of Contents

Contributors
Introduction: Cultural Diversity and the Problem of Aesthetics, Emory Elliott
PART I. CHALLENGES TO AN AESTHETICS OF DIVERSITY
Can Our Values Be Objective? On Ethics, Aesthetics, and Progressive Politics, Satya P. Mohanty
The Pragmatics of the Aesthetic, Giles Gunn
Aesthetics and Cultural Studies, Winfried Fluck
The Resistance to Cultural Studies, John Carlos Rowe
PART II. REDEFINING CATEGORIES OF VALUE AND DIFFERENCE
Desegregating American Literary Studies, Shelley Fisher Fishkin
Difference and Disciplinarity, Robyn Wiegman
Doing Justice to C.L.R. James's Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways, Donald E. Pease
Mumbo Jumbo, Theory, and the Aesthetics of Wholeness, Johnella E. Butler
PART III. AESTHETIC JUDGMENT AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE
Aesthetics Again? The Pleasures and the Dangers, Paul Lauter
"Every man knows where and how beauty gives him pleasure": Beauty Discourse and the Logic of Aesthetics, Amelia Jones
The Aesthetics of Wounding: Trauma, Self-Representation, and the Critical Voice, Kathleen McHugh
Beautiful Identities: When History Turns State's Evidence, Chon A. Noriega
Toward a Pluralist Aesthetics, Heinz Ickstadt
Afterword, Louis Freitas Caton
Index

Editorial Reviews

"The contributors to this volume all make separate, and mostly compelling, cases for the revitalization of the aesthetic in textual and extra-textual cultural productions.... Valuable for detailing [aesthetics'] continued relevance and even necessity for contemporary cultural study."—Postmodern Culture

"This collection is an important project, the topics addressed by the contributors timely and crucial. Can humanities professors maintain aesthetic values without slipping into elitism? Can they execute political critique without turning ham-fisted and illiberal? Aesthetics in a Multicultural Age is an important step in establishing a middle way, drawing the humanities out of the old Culture Wars contraries and into a more productive, less fractious mode of teaching and research."—Mark Bauerlein, Emory University

"Finally! A book that gets rid of the false opposition between aesthetics and multiculturalism. We live in an exciting time when a vibrant generation of artists and critics are not only championing the aesthetic but are also challenging conventional ideas about exactly what counts as the beautiful. Aesthetics in a Multicultural Age reminds us that poetics and politics often make the coziest of bedfellows."—Cathy N. Davidson, Duke University

From the Publisher