Bioaesthetics: Making Sense of Life in Science and the Arts: 43 (Posthumanities)

Carsten Strathausen

ISBN 10: 1517900743 / ISBN 13: 9781517900748

Published by Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2017

About this Item

2017. Hardcover. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9781517900748

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Bioaesthetics: Making Sense of Life in Science and the Arts: 43 (Posthumanities)
• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1517900743
• ISBN 13: 9781517900748
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

In recent years, bioaesthetics has used the latest discoveries in evolutionary studies and neuroscience to provide new ways of looking at art and aesthetics. Carsten Strathausen’s remarkable exploration of this emerging field is the first comprehensive account of its ideas, as well as a timely critique of its limitations. 

Strathausen familiarizes readers with the basics of bioaesthetics, grounding them in its philosophical underpinnings while articulating its key components. Importantly, he delves into the longstanding problem of the “two cultures” that separate the arts and the sciences. Seeking to make bioaesthetics a more robust way of thinking, Strathausen then critiques it for failing to account for science’s historical and cultural assumptions. At its worst, he says, biologism reduces artworks to mere automatons that rubber-stamp pre-established scientific truths. 

Written with a sensitive understanding of science’s strengths, and willing to refute its best arguments, Bioaesthetics helps readers separate the sensible from the specious. At a time when humanities departments are shrinking—and when STEM education is on the rise—Bioaesthetics makes vital points about the limitations of science, while lodging a robust defense of the importance of the humanities.

About the Author

Carsten Strathausen is associate professor of German and English at the University of Missouri. He is the author of The Look of Things: Poetry and Vision around 1900.