Good Entertainment: A Deconstruction of the Western Passion Narrative

Author:   Byung-Chul Han (Professor, Universität der Künste Berlin) ,  Adrian Nathan West (Translator (Spanish and German to English))
Publisher:   MIT Press Ltd
ISBN:  

9780262537506


Pages:   144
Publication Date:   08 October 2019
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
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Good Entertainment: A Deconstruction of the Western Passion Narrative


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A philosopher considers entertainment, in all its totalizing variety-infotainment, edutainment, servotainment-and traces the notion through Kant, Zen Buddhism, Heidegger, Kafka, and Rauschenberg.In Good Entertainment, Byung-Chul Han examines the notion of entertainment-its contemporary ubiquity, and its philosophical genealogy. Entertainment today, in all its totalizing variety, has an apparently infinite capacity for incorporation- infotainment, edutainment, servotainment, confrontainment. Entertainment is held up as a new paradigm, even a new credo for being-and yet, in the West, it has had inescapably negative connotations. Han traces Western ideas of entertainment, considering, among other things, the scandal that arose from the first performance of Bach's Saint Matthew's Passion (deemed too beautiful, not serious enough); Kant's idea of morality as duty and the entertainment value of moralistic literature; Heidegger's idea of the thinker as a man of pain; Kafka's hunger artist and the art of negativity, which takes pleasure in annihilation; and Robert Rauschenberg's refusal of the transcendent. The history of the West, Han tells us, is a passion narrative, and passion appears as a killjoy. Achievement is the new formula for passion, and play is subordinated to production, gamified. And yet, he argues, at their core, passion and entertainment are not entirely different. The pure meaninglessness of entertainment is adjacent to the pure meaning of passion. The fool's smile resembles the pain-racked visage of Homo doloris. In Good Entertainment, Han explores this paradox.

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Author:   Byung-Chul Han (Professor, Universität der Künste Berlin) ,  Adrian Nathan West (Translator (Spanish and German to English))
Publisher:   MIT Press Ltd
Imprint:   MIT Press
Dimensions:   Width: 11.40cm , Height: 1.10cm , Length: 17.80cm
ISBN:  

9780262537506


ISBN 10:   0262537508
Pages:   144
Publication Date:   08 October 2019
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

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Byung-Chul Han, born in Seoul, is Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at the Universit t der K nste Berlin (UdK). One of the most widely read philosophers in Europe, he is the author of more than twenty books, including including four previous volumes in the MIT Press Untimely Meditations series, In the Swarm- Digital Prospects, The Agony of Eros, Shanzhai- Deconstruction in Chinese, and Topology of Violence.

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