Social Aesthetics of Human Environments

Arnold Berleant is Professor (Emeritus) of Philosophy at Long Island University, USA, and Past President of the International Association of Aesthetics.

• List of FiguresPrefaceAcknowledgements Part I. Wherefore Aesthetics?1. Questioning Aesthetics 2. Transformations in AestheticsPart II. The Complicit Participant 3. Objects into Persons4. Duchampian Reflections on Descartes Part III. Environment as Cultural5. The Cultural Aesthetics of Environment6. Some Questions for Ecological AestheticsPart IV. Aesthetic Exploitation7. The Critical Aesthetics of Disney World8. The Subversion of BeautyPart V. Negative Aesthetics9. The Aesthetics of Terrorism10. Reflections on the Aesthetics of ViolencePart VI. Aesthetics as Cultural Critique 11. The Sublime Troubles of PostmodernismPart VII. Aesthetic Community12. Getting Along Beautifully: Ideas for a Social Aesthetics13. Aesthetics and CommunityNotesBibliographyAppendix – an annotated bibliography of writings by Arnold Berleant in social and political aesthetics and ethicsIndex

Arnold Berleant has been a very prolific author for more than half a century, always exploring new possibilities for aesthetic research. In The Social Aesthetics of Human Environments, he proposes focusing upon “aesthetic communities” an order based on the character and quality of human relations, a novel angle worth pursuing.