Current philosophies of art remain sadly dominated by visions of its end and lamentations of decline. Defining the very notions of art and the aesthetic as special products of Western modernity, they suggest that postmodern challenges to traditional high culture pose a devastating danger to Art's future. Richard Shusterman's new book cuts through the seductive confusions of these views by tracing the earthy roots of aesthetic experience and showing how the recent flourishing of aesthetic forms outside modernity's sacralized realm of (...) fine art evince the persistent presence of an artistic impulse far deeper and more durable than the modernist moment. Performing Live defends the abiding power of aesthetic experience by exploring its diverse roles, methods, and meanings, especially in fields marginal to traditional aesthetics but now most vibrantly alive in today's culture and new media. Ranging from rap, techno, and country music to cinema, cyberspace and urban design, Shusterman develops his radical theory of "somaesthetics," charting the complex network of bodily arts so prominent in contemporary life and self-styling. By blending concrete aesthetic analysis with insightful social critique, Shusterman, a well-known pragmatist philosopher, provides a rich menu and critical guide for today's pursuit of the art of living. (shrink)

Race and ethnicity are two of the most pervasive aspects of life in America. That there are different races and ethnies, that each person is a member of one or more races and ethnies, is probably taken for granted by most people. And difficulties of various kinds involving race and ethnicity in a variety of ways are abundant. Yet, both raciality and ethnicity—what determines and characterizes a race and an ethnie, respectively; whether or not it is ever appropriate to take (...) race or ethnicity into account when making moral judgments about persons—are hardly settled matters, including whether it is correct to say that races, in particular, even exist. This too is an important aspect of prevailing difficulties. Race, especially, continues to be the focus of intense political struggle, and thus is presently a topic of equally intense and wide-ranging discussion. (shrink)

What do we learn about language from reading Wittgenstein'sPhilosophical Investigations? This question gains urgency from Wittgenstein's alleged animus against philosophical theorizing and his indirectness. Section 1 argues that Wittgenstein's goal is to prevent philosophical questioning about the foundations of language from the beginning. This conception of his aim is not in tension with Wittgenstein's use of the notion of community; community interpretations of his views betray a misguided commitment to the coherence of the idea that language might need grounding. Wittgenstein's (...) goal is not to enjoin us not to step outside of language-games, but to show that we have insufficiently clear grasp of the terms we try to use to express the limits of intelligibility. Section 2 suggests that appreciating Wittgenstein's moral concerning the relation between language and philosophizing about it involves allowing him to teach us how to read his book. What makes readingPhilosophical Investigations possible is openness to learning how not to forget our lives in language. (shrink)

This paper uses the conceptual apparatus of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy to tackle a foundational issue in the philosophical literature on group identity, namely, the problem of difference. This problem suggests that any appeal to a collective identity is oppressive because it imposes a shared identity on the members of a group and suppresses the internal differences of the group. I develop a Wittgensteinian view of identity that dissolves this problem by showing the conceptual confusions on which it rests. My Wittgensteinian (...) view of identity tries to establish two main theses: first, that identity is bound up with difference and presupposes heterogeneity; and second, that the solidarity of identity groups, far from being obstructed by differences, actually requires diversity. Drawing from gender and sexuality studies, I use the mechanism of disidentification to show how there can be shared identities and identity-based solidarity without the erasure of differences. Key Words: community • difference • ethnicity • familial view • gender • identity • race • sexuality • solidarity • Wittgenstein. (shrink)

A paper about cross-cultural and cross-racial loving that emphasizes the need to understand and affirm the plurality in and among women as central to feminist ontology and epistemology. Love is seen not as fusion and erasure of difference but as incompatible with them. Love reveals plurality. Unity–not to be confused with solidarity–is understood as conceptually tied to domination.