Life as art : aesthetics and the creation of self / Zachary Simpson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Simpson, Zachary, 1979-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Life.

Aesthetics.

Physical Description:

viii, 301 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, Md. : Lexington Books, [2012]

Summary:

Life as Art: Aesthetics and the Creation of Self brings the resources of contemporary aesthetics since Nietzsche to bear on the problems of how one integrates the aesthetic emphases of meaning, liberation, and creativity into one's daily life. By linking together the aesthetic and ethical accounts of critical theorists, phenomenologists, and existentialists into a coherent view on the artful life, Zachary Simpson, shows the ways in which much of contemporary Continental theory has been concerned with alternative ways of constructing one's own life. Seen as a unified phenomenon, life as art signifies an active attempt to create a life that bears the resistance, openness, and creativity found in artworks.

Life as Art is intended for advanced undergraduates or graduate students familiar with some Continental philosophy and with an interest in theories related to existentialism, phenomenology, aesthetics, and politics, and for scholars in philosophy and religion. Book jacket.

Contents:

The path ahead

Dandyism and life is art

Nietzsche's ideal types

Theodor Adorno on negative thinking and utopia

Herbert Marcuse and the artful individual

Martin Heidegger and poetic thinking

Merleau-Ponty and Marion on the thought of being

Albert Camus on the life artist

Foucault's aesthetics of existence

Conclusion: life as art.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780739168707

0739168703

9780739179314

0739179314

OCLC:

808930359