Cosmopolitan Aesthetics: Art in a Global World

About the Author

Daniel Herwitz is Fredrick Huetwell Professor of Philosophy, History of Art and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, USA where for a decade he directed the Institute for the Humanities. His previously published books include Aesthetics, Arts and Politics in a Global World (2017), the award winning Star as Icon (2008), and M.F. Husain (1988).

Product Description

New arts created in the context of new social realities are impacting our traditional ideas about aesthetics. Art, art markets and aesthetics now interact in ways that demand new forms of thought and revision of old. Cosmopolitan Aesthetics presents the first thorough account of the challenges facing aesthetics today in the light of globalization, introducing the history that underpins them.

This is an ideal starting point for anyone looking to better understand 21st century art and aesthetics. Beginning with globalization and the nature of global art markets today, Daniel Herwitz offers new insight into postcolonial aesthetics, colonial legacies, cultural property, the problems of global communication and aesthetic diversity, and the uneasy connection between aesthetics and politics, before providing a crucial grounding in 18th and 19th century aesthetics, with discussion of the three great modern aestheticians David Hume, Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel.

Review

“This book far extends the usual scope of aesthetic enquiry. It is written with a challenge, to open up the political and social imaginary through the historical and contemporary media of the arts. Its flair and wit, its insight and extensive range raises the stakes in a world market whose design threatens to close down and restrict the promise of the cosmopolitan who refuses any longer to be a colonialist.” ―Lydia Goehr, Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, USA

“Daniel Herwitz, one of our great authorities on the discipline of Aesthetics, here turns his attention to the ways the question of cosmopolitanism, first put forward by Kant and then called into question by Hegel and others, can-indeed must-- be adapted today if we are to make sense of art practice and reception as these intersect with the global art market. Designed for the general reader as well as for art historians and critics, Cosmopolitan Aesthetics is that rare thing-a truly necessary book.” ―Marjorie Perloff, Sadie D. Patek Professor of Humanities Emerita, Stanford University, USA

“The world according to Daniel Herwitz is endlessly rich, beautiful, and troubled. Cosmopolitan Aesthetics is perhaps his most important book to date, combining his unique philosophical command, political commitment, and aesthetic judgment with his signature electric wit. The result is a riveting and indispensable analysis of art, commerce, and taste in the post-global age.” ―Michael P. Steinberg Barnaby Conrad and Mary Critchfield Keeney Professor of History, Brown University, USA