Hardcover

Published: 17th September 2012

Ships: 7 to 10 business days

RRP $187.99

$169.50

10%
OFF

 Add to Wishlist

Click on the Google Preview image above to read some pages of this book!

This book provides a richly rewarding vision of the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of somaesthetics. Composed of fourteen wide-ranging but finely integrated essays by Richard Shusterman, the originator of the field, Thinking through the Body explains the philosophical foundations of somaesthetics and applies its insights to central issues in ethics, education, cultural politics, consciousness studies, sexuality and the arts. Integrating Western philosophy, cognitive science and somatic methodologies with classical Asian theories of body, mind and action, these essays probe the nature of somatic existence and the role of body consciousness in knowledge, memory and behavior. Deploying somaesthetic perspectives to analyze key aesthetic concepts (such as style and the sublime), he offers detailed studies of embodiment in drama, dance, architecture and photography. The volume also includes somaesthetic exercises for the classroom and explores the ars erotica as an art of living.

Advance praise: 'Richard Shusterman's collection takes the first philosophical step in the new millennium, going beyond the action theory that emerged in the 1970s and building a historical pyramid from Socrates to his own conception of somaesthetics: a scholarly monument ranging from muscle memory to vital topics in aesthetics, including ars erotica.' Arthur C. Danto, Columbia University 'History will remember Richard Shusterman for precipitating the somatic turn that the increasingly embodied discipline of philosophy has taken in our own time ... Calling his readers back to a relatively straightforward and practical account of everyday lived experience, he challenges us to reconceive how it is that an educated body consciousness enables us reflexively to structure, theorize, aestheticize, and indeed 'appreciate' the entire human experience in the fullest sense of this term. By fully acknowledging the sentient and purposive body as an aesthetic medium through which a life is lived deliberately, sensitively, and graciously, we are best able to enchant the ordinary and to inspire the everyday.' Roger T. Ames, University of Hawai'i '... powerful ... Bridging analytic and continental philosophical traditions; lived, embodied experience and the cogito; the intellect and the senses; Shusterman moves gracefully from philosopher to practitioner and back again. He shows how philosophy as an embodied art of living can find expression in today's disembodied world, while interpreting and redefining philosophical insights that others have stripped of their somatic implications ... he is hopeful about our bodies - a striking kind of hope, in a Western context of disdain for the 'abnormal,' a radically objectifying visual culture, and environments that serve the physical flourishing of almost no one. Shusterman still believes that a somaesthetic philosophy can speak with and to body practices in the service of a politics of transformation. His creative and diverse essays not only tell but also show us what this might look like.' Cressida J. Heyes, University of Alberta

ISBN: 9781107019065
ISBN-10: 1107019060
Audience: Tertiary; University or College
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 374
Published: 17th September 2012
Dimensions (cm): 22.8 x 15.2  x 2.5
Weight (kg): 0.63