Jos de Mul and Renée van de Vall (eds.) Gimme Shelter: Global Discourses in Aesthetics. International Yearbook of Aesthetics. Volume 15. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013
Contents
Gimme Shelter. Global discourses in aesthetics contains a series of reflections on the impact of globalization on the arts and the aesthetic reflection on the arts. The authors – fifteen distinguished aestheticians from all over the world – discuss a variety of aesthetic questions brought forth by the aforementioned process of globalization. How do artistic practices and aesthetic experiences change in response to these developments? How should we articulate these changes on the theoretical level? When reflections on the significance of art and aesthetic experiences can no longer pretend to be universal, is it still possible to lay claim to a wider validity than merely that of one’s own particular culture? What type of vocabulary allows for mutual – dialogical or even polylogical – exchanges and understandings when different traditions meet, without obliterating local differences? Is there a possibility for a creative re-description of globalization? And is there a meaning of ‘the global’ that cannot be reduced to universalism and unification? Can we seek shelter in a legitimate way?
About the editors
Jos de Mul is professor of Man and Culture at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has also taught at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Fudan Univer- sity (Shanghai), and has been visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. From 2007 until 2010 he was the President of the International Associa- tion of Aesthetics. His work is on the interface of philosophical anthropology (and its history), aesthetics, and philosophy of technology. English publications include: Romantic Desire in (Post)Modern Art and Philosophy (State University of New York Press, 1999), The Tragedy of Finitude. Dilthey’s Hermeneutics of Life (Yale Univer- sity Press, 2004), Cyberspace Odyssey. Towards a Virtual Ontology and Anthropology (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), and Destiny Domesticated. The Rebirth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Technology (State University of New York Press, 2013). His work has been translated in more than a dozen languages. An extended CV and publication list is available at www.demul.nl.
Renée van de Vall is professor in Art and Media at Maastricht University where she is chair of the Department of Arts & Literature. She has been president of the Dutch Association for Aesthetics (2002-2006) and is currently Dutch delegate in the Executive Committee of the IAA. Her research interests are philosophical aesthetics and the phenomenology of contemporary visual art and spectatorship. She currently leads an interdisciplinary research project on the theory and ethics of the conservation of contemporary art. Some recent publications are At the Edges of Vision. A Phenomenological Aesthetics of Contemporary Spectatorship (2008); ‘A Penny For Your Thoughts. Brain-scans and the Mediation of Subjective Embodi- ment’ in R. van de Vall & R. Zwijnenberg (eds.) The Body Within: Art, Medicine and Visualisation (2009); and ‘Towards a Theory and Ethics for the Conservation of Contemporary Art’ in Art d’aujourd’hui – patrimoine de demain. Conservation et restauration des oeuvres contemporaines. (2009).