Aesthetics of Anxiety (SUNY series, Insinuations: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature) - Hardcover

Ronen, Ruth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0791476677 ISBN 13: 9780791476673

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2009

Synopsis

What is the relation of anxiety to aesthetics? Aesthetics of Anxiety brings psychoanalysis into dialogue with aesthetics, providing provocative and original insights into aesthetic theory and experience. From Aristotle's katharsis to the role played by pain and disgust in the aesthetics of the avant-garde, the notion of anxiety helps us understand the particular kind of discontent (or negative pleasure) that accompanies aesthetic experience. Anxiety, articulated through such notions as desire, the unconscious, and the real, is also presented as a productive tool for understanding the Kantian aesthetic categories of pleasure, beauty, the sublime, and genius. Aesthetics of Anxiety goes beyond the idea that there is anxiety in aesthetics to place anxiety at the very heart of aesthetic experience, thus transforming anxiety into a particularly aesthetic affect that becomes part of our understanding of every work of art, every act of creation.

About this title

About the Author

Ruth Ronen is Professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University and the author of Possible Worlds in Literary Theory and Representing the Real.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0791476677
• ISBN 13: 9780791476673
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 183