The Aesthetics of Desire and Surprise

Phenomenology and Speculation

Jadranka Skorin-Kapov

The Aesthetics of Desire and Surprise: Phenomenology and Speculation covers issues central to contemporary continental philosophy (desire, expectations, excess, rupture, transcendence, immanence, surprise). The proposed term desire||surprise captures the phenomenological-speculative character of the pair not yet and no longer. Non-obvious parallels between different thinkers are drawn, and the argumentation is organized around philosophical figures relevant in the sequence desire – excess –pause (rupture, break) – recuperation (surprise). The works of Levinas, Žižek, Bataille, Blanchot, Foucault, and Ricoeur are interpreted and positioned according to the proposed template of desire - excess - pause. The consideration of limit experiences involves authors fascinated by transgression, and the question of whether excess is immanent or transcendent. This discussion considers works by Nietzsche, Deleuze, Žižek, and Foucault. The analysis of surprise and the beginning of recovery after the pause considers works by Fink, Merleau-Ponty, Nancy, Lyotard, Dufrenne, Bachelard, and Seel. The provocative argument elaborated in this work is that surprise starts with indifference. Furthermore, the argument is that surprise begins where the concept reaches its ending, hence that the limit of speculative thinking at its ending is the limit of aesthetics at its beginning. The work of Hegel, Schelling and Jaspers are discussed in order to argue for the beginning of aesthetics there where knowledge ends.

Philosophical thematic is contextualized via sections on artists such as Duchamp and Mondrian, and on some films, provoking interest of aestheticians working in art history and cultural studies departments.

Lexington Books

Pages: 220 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4985-1846-8 • Hardback • October 2015 • $90.00 • (£60.00)

978-1-4985-1848-2 • Paperback • October 2019 • $39.99 • (£24.95)

978-1-4985-1847-5 • eBook • October 2015 • $38.00 • (£24.95)

Subjects: Philosophy / Aesthetics, Art / History / General, Philosophy / Continental Philosophy

The Aesthetics of Desire and Surprise

Phenomenology and Speculation

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

The Aesthetics of Desire and Surprise: Phenomenology and Speculation covers issues central to contemporary continental philosophy (desire, expectations, excess, rupture, transcendence, immanence, surprise). The proposed term desire||surprise captures the phenomenological-speculative character of the pair not yet and no longer. Non-obvious parallels between different thinkers are drawn, and the argumentation is organized around philosophical figures relevant in the sequence desire – excess –pause (rupture, break) – recuperation (surprise). The works of Levinas, Žižek, Bataille, Blanchot, Foucault, and Ricoeur are interpreted and positioned according to the proposed template of desire - excess - pause. The consideration of limit experiences involves authors fascinated by transgression, and the question of whether excess is immanent or transcendent. This discussion considers works by Nietzsche, Deleuze, Žižek, and Foucault. The analysis of surprise and the beginning of recovery after the pause considers works by Fink, Merleau-Ponty, Nancy, Lyotard, Dufrenne, Bachelard, and Seel. The provocative argument elaborated in this work is that surprise starts with indifference. Furthermore, the argument is that surprise begins where the concept reaches its ending, hence that the limit of speculative thinking at its ending is the limit of aesthetics at its beginning. The work of Hegel, Schelling and Jaspers are discussed in order to argue for the beginning of aesthetics there where knowledge ends.

Philosophical thematic is contextualized via sections on artists such as Duchamp and Mondrian, and on some films, provoking interest of aestheticians working in art history and cultural studies departments.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 220 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4985-1846-8 • Hardback • October 2015 • $90.00 • (£60.00)

978-1-4985-1848-2 • Paperback • October 2019 • $39.99 • (£24.95)

978-1-4985-1847-5 • eBook • October 2015 • $38.00 • (£24.95)

Subjects: Philosophy / Aesthetics, Art / History / General, Philosophy / Continental Philosophy

Author

Jadranka Skorin-Kapov is professor of operations research at Stony Brook University, with additional PhDs in philosophy and art history, and author of Darren Aronofsky's Films and the Fragility of Hope.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1: Desire and Excess
Chapter 2: Limit Experiences, Difference, Repetition, and Singularity
Chapter 3: Surprise
Chapter 4: The Properly Aesthetic Experience and Knowledge
Chapter 5: Desire||Surprise and the Irreducible in an Aesthetic Encounter
Conclusion

Reviews

The book's strength is in her [Skorin-Kapov's] imaginative reading of the history of philosophy. . . .Skorin-Kapov's book connects well with a history of aesthetics that deserves to be scrutinized and rewritten from new exciting angles.
— Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Jarred by endless war and jaded by decades of ‘culture industry’, one might think of surprise as a quaintly exotic or even extinct experience. Yet in proving the irrepressible character of what she calls ‘the desire for the unexpected’ and its intrinsic tie to the ‘Aha!’ experience, Jadranka Skorin-Kapov rekindles hope in a seemingly hopeless world.

— Robert Harvey, Stony Brook University

The arguments, analyses, and insights presented in The Aesthetics of Desire and Surprise are new and important. The strongest features of the work are its originality and thoroughness. Many works refer to surprise as a component of some other analysis, but no other work that I know of is devoted exclusively to the phenomenology of surprise. Surprise is an underappreciated category of the aesthetic that gets its due in this work.
— Richard Gilmore, Concordia College

The Aesthetics of Desire and Surprise

Phenomenology and Speculation

Jadranka Skorin-Kapov

The Aesthetics of Desire and Surprise

Phenomenology and Speculation

ALSO AVAILABLE