Imperfectionist Aesthetics in Art and Everyday Life

Peter Cheyne is Associate Professor in British Literature and Culture, Shimane University, Japan, and Visiting Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, University of Durham, UK. He is the author of Coleridge’s Contemplative Philosophy (2020). Additionally, he is the editor of Coleridge and Contemplation (2017) and co-editor, with Andy Hamilton and Max Paddison, of The Philosophy of Rhythm: Aesthetics, Music, Poetics (2020).

• 1. Imperfectionist Aesthetics, Broadening the Field and Clarifying the DefinitionPeter CheyneI. Imperfection Across the Arts and Culture2. Imperfectionist Aesthetics and the Inclusionist EthosPeter Cheyne3. Imperfection and the Unfinished WorkAndy Hamilton4. Art Proper, Perfectionism, and the Sacred ArtsGordon GrahamII. Music5. Revisiting the Aesthetics of Imperfection after Thirty-Five YearsTed Gioia6. Close Enough for Jazz: Imperfection and Jazz ImprovisationDavid Wild7. A Social Aesthetics and Ethics of Imperfection: Insights from Karnatak Music, Jazz and Free Improvisation Lara PearsonIII. Visual and Theatrical Arts8. The Necessity of Imperfection: Philip Guston in the 1950sKaren Lang9. Thai Theatre and the Interplay of Perfection and ImperfectionSirithorn Siriwan and Sarawanee Sukhumvada10. Wabi-Sabi Aesthetic and Joseph Beuys’ Badewanne (1960)Eda KeskinIV. Literature11. The Aesthetics of Weeds: A Case in Junzaburō NishiwakiKaz Oishi and Yasuo Kobayashi12. The Poetics of Ruins: Matsuo Basho and Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Comparative StudyGregory Dunne13. The Aesthetics of Perfection and Imperfection in Iris Murdoch’s An Accidental ManFiona Tomkinson14. The Triumph of Imperfection: Yeats’s ‘Among School Children’Joseph S. O’LearyV. Everyday Life15. The Role of Imperfection in Consumer AestheticsYuriko Saito16. Imperfection and the Politics of RealismThomas Docherty17. Everyday Encounters with Aesthetic Imperfection and PerfectionJames Kirwan18. Aesthetic Imperfection and Ethical EdificationLucas Scripter19. Collecting What? Collecting as an Everyday Aesthetic ActLaura Di SummaVI. Body, Self, and the Person20. Bodies, Functions, and ImperfectionsSherri Irvin21. Imperfection as a Vehicle for Fat Visibility in Popular MediaCheryl Frazier 22. Imperfection and Beauty of CharacterGlenn Parsons23. The Self, Perfectionism, and the Value of ImperfectionChristopher HamiltonVII. Urban Environments24. Street Art, Graffiti, and Tags: The Value of Imperfection in Urban AestheticsAndrea Baldini25. The Aesthetics of Imperfection and Architectural Design for Memorial Sites: Four Documentation Centres on National Socialism in GermanyRumiko Handa26. Urban Experience as Aesthetic CompromiseSanna Lehtinen27. Grit and Urban (Im)PerfectionRenee Conroy.Index

"This collection of essays discusses the occurrence, function, and value of imperfection in a variety of human practices ... More work can be expected in this area, and this volume will be a reference point for those who will engage in it."Matteo Ravasio, British Journal of Aesthetics