Rethinks the existing definitions of aesthetics and ethics and the relations between them.

This forum of current discussions of ethics and aesthetics addresses a cross-section of disciplines including literary theory, philosophy, women's studies, postcolonial theory, art history, Holocaust studies, theology, and others. Contributors, ranging from philosophers and literary critics to practicing artists and art curators, answer such questions as: In the age of the collapse of metaphysics, what is the relation between philosophical reflection and art? If we question the privilege accorded to the aesthetic, can ethics alone offer a solution to the crisis of representation? Is it possible and ethically viable to represent the other in speech and image? What happens at the conjunction of aesthetics and politics? Can one speak of aesthetic configurations of the space of community? Are the concepts of ethics and aesthetics gendered and repressive of sexual difference? Considering the many works that consider either ethics or aesthetics almost exclusively within the confines of particular disciplines, this collection crosses the boundaries and continues the debate outside the rigid parameters of specialized discourses.

Dorota Glowacka's profile page

Stephen Boos' profile page

At the University of King's College, Dorota Glowacka is Associate Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences and Stephen Boos is Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences.

"This collection gives fresh and exciting readings of various historical figures and insights into contemporary ethical issues. The concern for the connection between aesthetics and ethics is one of the most important theoretical issues in contemporary theoretical debates. As Glowacka and Boos indicate, a pressing concern for contemporary theory and representation or artistic practice is how to represent or present the other without doing violence. The editors have put the collection together in a way that it speaks to many of the issues at the center of debates over representing otherness." — Kelly Oliver, State University of New York at Stony Brook