Beautiful Bright and Blinding: Phenomenological Aesthetics and the Life of Art

Through a careful analysis of concrete examples taken from everyday experience and culture, Beautiful, Bright, and Blinding develops a straightforward and powerful aesthetic methodology founded on a phenomenological approach to experience-one that investigates how consciousness engages with the world and thus what it means to take such things as tastes, images, sounds, and even a life itself as art. H. Peter Steeves begins by exploring what it means to see, and considers how disruptions of sight can help us rethink how perception works. Engaging the work of Derrida, Heidegger, and Husserl, he uses these insights about”seeing”� to undertake a systematic phenomenological investigation of how we perceive and process a range of aesthetic objects, including the paintings of Arshile Gorky, the films of Michael Haneke, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, zombie films, The Simpsons, the performance art of Rachel Rosenthal and Andy Kaufman, and even vegan hot dogs. Refusing hierarchical distinctions between high and low art, Steeves argues that we must conceptualize the whole of human experience as aesthetic: art is lived, and living is an art. Additional ISBNs1438466544, 1438466536, 9781438466545, 9781438466538Beautiful, Bright, and Blinding: Phenomenological Aesthetics and the Life of Art is written by H. Peter Steeves and published by Suny Press. ISBNs for Beautiful, Bright, and Blinding are 9781438466552, 1438466552 and the print ISBNs are 9781438466545, 1438466544. Additional ISBNs include 1438466544, 1438466536, 9781438466545, 9781438466538.