Everyday Aesthetics: Prosaics, the Play of Culture and Social Identities - Hardcover

Mandoki, Katya

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0754658899 ISBN 13: 9780754658894

Publisher: Routledge, 2007

Synopsis

Katya Mandoki advances in this book the thesis that it is not only possible but crucial to open up the field of aesthetics (traditionally confined to the study of art and beauty) toward the richness and complexity of everyday life. She argues that in every process of communication, whether face to face or through the media, fashion, and political propaganda, there is always an excess beyond the informative and functional value of a message. This excess is the aesthetic. Following Huizinga's view of play as an ingredient of any social environment, Mandoki explores how various cultural practices are in fact forms of playing since, for the author, aesthetics and play are Siamese twins. One of the unique contributions of this book is the elaboration and application of a semiotic model for the simultaneous analysis of social interactions in the four registers, namely visual, auditory, verbal and body language, to detect the aesthetic strategies deployed in specific situations. She argues that since the presentation of the self is targeted towards participants' sensibilities, aesthetics plays a key role in these modes of exchange. Consequently, the author updates important debates in this field to clear the way for a socio-aesthetic inquiry through contexts such as the family, school, medical, artistic or religious traditions from which social identities emerge.

About this title

Synopsis:

Aesthetic studies have traditionally been confined to the analysis of art and beauty. In this book, Katya Mandoki advances the thesis that it is not only possible but urgent to open up aesthetic studies toward the richness and complexity of contemporary social life. Mandoki analyzes common situations in contexts such as the family, school, religion, medical and funerary traditions to detect the aesthetic strategies by which these practices acquire significance. Starting from Dewey's pragmatism and biologically inspired philosophy, Mandoki updates key debates in aesthetics to project them into the realm of a socio-aesthetic inquiry. She argues that in every process of communication, whether face to face interactions or through the media, fashion, marketing, or political propaganda, there is always an excess beyond the informative and functional value of a message: this excess is the aesthetic. Teachers and students interested in qualitative analyses in humanities and social sciences will find an original, precise and insightful proposal in this book.

About the Author:

Katya Mandoki is Professor of Aesthetics, Semiotics and Design at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0754658899
• ISBN 13: 9780754658894
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 344