A Return to Aesthetics: Autonomy, Indifference, and Postmodernism
Jonathan Loesberg
A Return to Aesthetics confronts postmodernism's rejection of aesthetics by showing that this critique rests on central concepts of classical aesthetic theory, namely autonomous form, disinterest, and symbolic discourse. The author argues for the value of these concepts by recovering them through a historical reinterpretation of their meaning prior to their distortion by twentieth-century formalism. Loesberg then applies these concepts to a discussion of two of the most significant critics of the ideology of Enlightenment, Foucault and Bourdieu. He argues that understanding the role of aesthetics in the postmodern critique of Enlightenment will get us out of the intellectual impasse ... Read more
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About Jonathan Loesberg
Reviews for A Return to Aesthetics: Autonomy, Indifference, and Postmodernism
Consciousness, Literature and the Arts "...this is a forward-looking and vital contribution to aesthetics. In a convincing account, which masterfully links careful historical analysis with contemporary debate, Loesberg offers what is badly needed: a way out and beyond ... Read more