Martin Jay is one of America's leading intellectual historians. His work spans almost all important questions concerning the subject of modernity. Outstanding Polish scholars engage in a dialogue with Jay’s work, discussing significant problems of modernity and postmodernity. The book offers a broad panorama of contemporary thought approached from various angles. It is also a unique exercise of intercultural intellectual dialogue covering many areas from literature to politics. The book also includes an essay on photography by Martin Jay and his (...) detailed response to the other contributors, which has the character of an extended conversation with them. The book can serve as an assessment of the uptake of Jay’s ideas, and equally well as a general introduction to the genealogy of modernity and postmodernity. (shrink)

This article discusses works of two artists—Marina Abramović and Elżbieta Jabłońska —who explore a clash between heroism and everydayness in the kitchen space. Everyday routine inexorably demands being performed. Its uncompromising decrees spare neither mystics nor the free souls of artists. Even the most spiritual people must eat and drink. To solve the conflict of matter and spirit, these artists draw on different traditions that transcend reality: mysticism and the superheroes of popular culture, respectively. Abramović enters the kitchen as St. (...) Teresa of Avila while Jabłońska dons Superman’s cap. Does one have to rise above the ground to feel that cooking, cleaning, and washing up are not beyond the powers of an average woman? Are the body and the soul doomed to fight each other permanently? Each artist’s work suggests different answers and solutions. (shrink)

This book is the first essay collection on Richard Shusterman, the foremost representative of contemporary pragmatist aesthetics, a philosopher whose books have been translated into more than fifteen languages. The 12 essays, which cover the wide-ranging scope of Shusterman’s pragmatist thought, divide into three sections: Literary Theory and Philosophy of Art; Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics; and Somaesthetics. Written by an international group of authors from different philosophical perspectives, the book’s essays not only provide a good introduction to Shusterman’s innovative (...) pragmatist theories, but show their useful applications to important and controversial topics in philosophy, politics, religious and gender studies, the arts, and somaesthetics. The book also includes two new texts by Shusterman: an introductory essay in which he explains the trajectory of his intellectual development and a detailed response to the other contributors, which closes the book. (shrink)

This book is the first essay collection on Richard Shusterman, the foremost representative of contemporary pragmatist aesthetics, a philosopher whose books have been translated into more than fifteen languages. The 12 essays, which cover the wide-ranging scope of Shusterman’s pragmatist thought, divide into three sections: Literary Theory and Philosophy of Art; Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics; and Somaesthetics. Written by an international group of authors from different philosophical perspectives, the book’s essays not only provide a good introduction to Shusterman’s innovative (...) pragmatist theories, but show their useful applications to important and controversial topics in philosophy, politics, religious and gender studies, the arts, and somaesthetics. The book also includes two new texts by Shusterman: an introductory essay in which he explains the trajectory of his intellectual development and a detailed response to the other contributors, which closes the book. (shrink)