Focusing his analysis on the lengthy “Voice of Poetry” essay, Abel provides a robust defense of Oakeshott’s nonrepresentational and nonpractical conception of art. Critics who suggest that Oakeshott goes too far in severing art from truth and morality fail to grasp that Oakeshott’s fundamental philosophical concern is to identify the differentia of aesthetic experience vis-à-vis…
Here is my review in the Southern Literary Review of Jessica Hooten Wilson’s excellent two books (the original and my preferred version is here): Walker Percy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the Search for Influence. The Ohio State University Press, 2017 Reading Walker Percy’s Novels. Louisiana State University Press, 2018 aestheticsCatholicismDostoyevskyjessica hooten wilsonphilosophical literatureWalker Percy
Just published. Hopefully this will be a cracking and informative read. Surprisingly, it’s published by a university press. aestheticsAlessandro De RosachessEnnio Morriconefilmmusic
For those who’ve never read that most subtle, cultivated, humane and refined of minds Michael Oakeshott’s concerns resonate as deeply as ever. For the novice, I’d recommend his mid-career Rationalism in Politics, a most elegant collection of essays. A more difficult, but for me the vital underpinning cutting across all his work, is his equally elegant and…
My chum and technical philosopher par excellence, Andrew Irvine, has just had this massive project come to fruition. What a generous and substantive act of community service for CanLit scholars that even the regressive whiners (you know, the “grievance studies” shit-puppets) will benefit from. Here is Andrew explaining the rationale behind the project. …
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Gassed, 1919. Oil on canvas, 90 ½ × 240 in. ©Imperial War Museums Horace Pippin (1888–1946). The End of the War: Starting Home (1930–33) aestheticsarmisticeArtClaggett WilsonHorace PippinJohn Singer Sargentpainting
This should be a cracking read. aestheticsCamille PagliacultureLiberal educationregressive left
AFTER READING Feeling and Form, Susanne Langer’s extraordinary work on aesthetics, one inevitably goes back to her earlier book Philosophy in a New Key, of which according to the author the former is the companion volume — not just to get one’s bearings in the general semiotic on which the aesthetic is based, but in…
Mishima’s classic published in English (translated by Ivan Morris) on this date in 1959. See Donald Keene’s original review “Beauty Itself Became a Deadly Enemy” in the NYT. aestheticsDonald KeeneJapanphilosophical literatureYukio Mishima
My chum Graham MacDonald’s new book is now available. aestheticsConservatismEconomicsGraham MacDonaldjohn ruskinnatural lawpolitical economyPolitical philosophyVictoriana
manwithoutqualities 