Overview

This edited collection provides an in-depth and wide-ranging exploration of pragmatist philosopher Richard Shusterman’s distinctive project of “somaesthetics,” devoted not only to better understanding bodily experience but also to greater mastery of somatic perception, performance, and presentation. Against contemporary trends that focus narrowly on conceptual and computational thinking, Shusterman returns philosophy to what is most fundamental—the sentient, expressive, human body with its creations of living beauty. Twelve scholars here provide penetrating critical analyses of Shusterman on ontology, perception, language, literature, culture, politics, aesthetics, cuisine, music, and the visual arts, including films of his work in performance art.

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9789004468795

Table of Contents

Reviews

""This book accurately reflects the diversity that can be seen in the research of philosophers inspired by Shusterman […] Part of the book’s strength is that the authors of the studies have known Shusterman personally for many years, they can see his entire oeuvre and, accordingly, are able to interpret certain details in depth [...] Abrams’s edited collection on Shusterman’s somaesthetics is like a journey in which rational planning progresses while evoking emotional memories. It brings the reader much closer to somaesthetics and its multiple possibilities of interpretation and application. The entire book, not least through the golden image of the philosopher without words, demonstrates that soundless screams cannot go unnoticed and the clamorous silence of the body can be a reality."" - Nóra Horváth, in: The Journal of Somaesthetics 9/1-2 (2023), p. 39-45. ""For the first time, a book is devoted entirely to the practical and performative dimension of Shusterman’s somaesthetics. This is important because the aforementioned dimension is rich and complex, with several ramifications, including the question of performance, the question of popular arts and hip hop in particular, and the political question [...] The book does more than describe somaesthetics [...] It also allows its authors to criticize its foundations, open up debates, and/or propose the extension or reform some of its features, to put forward new theses whose ambition is to advance pragmatism on a general scale. [...] A book whose reading is undoubtedly experienced as an active, somatic, and affective experience."" - Alice Dupas, in: Pragmatism Today 14/2 (2023), p. 85-89. ""Abrams has managed to compile a book that captures the immense complexity of Shusterman’s philosophy, art, and life (while still making no claim to completeness) [...] Although less than three hundred pages in length, the contents of the Abrams volume are extremely comprehensive and wide-ranging. This is due to the great choice of the authors of the texts, who are both true experts in Shusterman’s philosophy and undisputed experts in their respective fields of knowledge, which is reflected in the quality of the individual chapters of the book. [...] The added value of Abrams’ book is that the reader feels that Shusterman is somehow suddenly closer to him. Even though he knows him as a world renowned figure in contemporary philosophy, he suddenly sees him as a human being – a philosopher and an artist (in the conjunction of all of the above words) whose life creates philosophy, and whose philosophy is created by his life"" - Lukáš Arthur Švihura, in: The Slovak Journal of Aesthetics 12/2 (2023) [Full review] ""Jerold J. Abrams’s edited volume Shusterman’s Somaesthetics: From Hip Hop Philosophy to Politics and Performance Art, recently published in the Brill series ‘Studies in Somaesthetics,’ aims (and, in my opinion, definitely succeeds) to offer a broad overview and a detailed interpretation of Richard Shusterman’s decades-long, thematically wide and pluralist, and quite often theoretically challenging, philosophical path."" - Stefano Marino, in: The Slovak Journal of Aesthetics 12/2 (2023) [Full review]

Author Information

Jerold J. Abrams is Professor of Philosophy at Creighton University and editor of The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick. His essays have appeared in The Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Practicing Pragmatist Aesthetics, Shusterman’s Pragmatism, and many other volumes.

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