Beauty Unlimited

by Peg Zeglin Brand (Editor), Eleanor Heartney (Contribution by), Carolyn Korsmeyer (Foreword by), No l Carroll (Contribution by), Gregory Velazco y Trianosky (Contribution by)

Overview

Emphasizing the human body in all of its forms, Beauty Unlimited expands the boundaries of what is meant by beauty both geographically and aesthetically. Peg Zeglin Brand and an international group of contributors interrogate the body and the meaning of physical beauty in this multidisciplinary volume. This striking and provocative book explores the history of bodily beautification; the physicality of socially or culturally determined choices of beautification; the interplay of gender, race, class, age, sexuality, and ethnicity within and on the body; and the aesthetic meaning of the concept of beauty in an increasingly globalized world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253006493
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	12/03/2012
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Peg Brand Weiser is Adjunct Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Arizona and Emerita Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis. She is editor of  Beauty Matters and (with Carolyn Korsmeyer) Feminism and Tradition in Aesthetics, and author of numerous essays in feminist aesthetics dealing with women's art, creativity, beauty standards and sports. She served as the first Chair of the Feminist Caucus Committee of the American Society for Aesthetics and is the former First Lady of Indiana University (1994-2002).

Read an Excerpt

The venerable problem of the One and the Many is nowhere more dramatic than with Beauty—that ultimate value, inescapable in aesthetics, contentious in art, capricious in fashion, and altogether debatable. Inviting yet resisting definition, beauty oscillates between particular and universal.—from the Foreword by Carolyn Korsmeyer

Table of Contents

Foreword: Carolyn Korsmeyer
Introduction: Peg Zeglin Brand

Part I. Revising the Concept of Beauty: Laying the Groundwork
1. Arthur Danto and the Problem of Beauty Noël Carroll
2. Savages, Wild Men, Monstrous Races: The Social Construction of Race in the Early Modern Era Gregory Velazco y Trianosky
3. Beauty's Relational Labor Monique Roelofs
4. Queer Beauty: Winckelmann and Kant on the Vicissitudes of the Ideal Whitney Davis
5. Worldwide Women Eleanor Heartney

Part II. Standards of Beauty
6. Jenny Saville Remakes the Female Nude—Feminist Reflections on the State of the Art
Diana Tietjens Meyers
7. Indigenous Beauty Phoebe M. Farris
8. Is Medical Aesthetics Really Medical? Mary Devereaux
9. The Bronze Age Revisited: The Aesthetics of Sun Tanning Jo Ellen Jacobs
10. ¿Tienes Culo? How to Look at Vida Guerra Karina Céspedes and Paul C. Taylor
11. Beauty between Disability and Gender: Frida Kahlo in Paper Dolls Fedwa Malti-Douglas

Part III. The Body in Performance
12. Beauty, Youth, and the Balinese Legong Dance Stephen Davies
13. Bollywood and the Feminine: Hinduism and Images of Womanhood Jane Duran
14. Seductive Shift: A Review of "The Most Beautiful Woman in Gucha" Valerie Sullivan Fuchs
15. Feminist Art, Content and Beauty Keith Lehrer
16. ORLAN Revisited: Disembodied Virtual Hybrid Beauty Peg Zeglin Brand

Part IV. Beauty and the State
17. Beauty Wars: The Struggle over Female Modesty in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa Allen Douglas and Fedwa Malti-Douglas
18. Orientalism Inside/Out: The Art of Soody Sharifi Cynthia Freeland
19. Beauty and the State: Female Bodies as State Apparatus and Recent Beauty Discourses in China Eva Kit Wah Man
20. Gendered Bodies in Contemporary Chinese Art Mary Wiseman
Contributors
Index

What People are Saying About This

"In such different contexts these authors dramatize the various ways that beauty can function in relation to personal desires, artistic values, and social authority. Here we can discover beauty not only as a quality and a value, but also as a project and a practice that drives our lives from both within and without—internal standards, external expectations, and ambivalence meeting in provocative disputation."

from the foreword by Carolyn Korsmeyer

In such different contexts these authors dramatize the various ways that beauty can function in relation to personal desires, artistic values, and social authority. Here we can discover beauty not only as a quality and a value, but also as a project and a practice that drives our lives from both within and without—internal standards, external expectations, and ambivalence meeting in provocative disputation.

Editorial Reviews

"The cultural, ethnic, and geographical diversity of the artistic practices is integral to the examination of the many beauties and provides the operating premise of the book. The diversity represented in this volume whether in discourse style or topic is not an add-on; instead, it is the organizing principle. The book is designed the way I wish more courses in philosophy were designed, with the idea that the history of philosophy is just one among many important sources of beauty's knowledge.72.1 Winter 2014"—Journal Aesthetics and Art Criticism

"The title of the anthology reflects its worthy call to arms: let's move past traditional theories of beauty, move from a local to a global view, and engage in more (and different) dialogs on feminist perspectives on beauty."—Hypatia

"This collection meets a need for a feminist aesthetics text which bridges aesthetic theory, art and popular culture, and acknowledges the evolving character of standards of beauty and the many meanings of feminism around the globe.36.4 Dec. 2013"—Teaching Philosophy

"In such different contexts these authors dramatize the various ways that beauty can function in relation to personal desires, artistic values, and social authority. Here we can discover beauty not only as a quality and a value, but also as a project and a practice that drives our lives from both within and without—internal standards, external expectations, and ambivalence meeting in provocative disputation."—from the foreword by Carolyn Korsmeyer

From the Publisher

"The cultural, ethnic, and geographical diversity of the artistic practices is integral to the examination of the many beauties and provides the operating premise of the book. The diversity represented in this volume whether in discourse style or topic is not an add-on;
instead, it is the organizing principle. The book is designed the way I wish more courses in philosophy were designed, with the idea that the history of philosophy is just one among many important sources of beauty’s knowledge." —Journal Aesthetics and Art Criticism

Journal Aesthetics and Art Criticism

The title of the anthology reflects its worthy call to arms: let's move past traditional theories of beauty, move from a local to a global view, and engage in more (and different) dialogs on feminist perspectives on beauty.

Hypatia

This collection meets a need for a feminist aesthetics text which bridges aesthetic theory, art and popular culture, and acknowledges the evolving character of standards of beauty and the many meanings of feminism around the globe.36.4 Dec. 2013

Teaching Philosophy

"In such different contexts these authors dramatize the various ways that beauty can function in relation to personal desires, artistic values, and social authority. Here we can discover beauty not only as a quality and a value, but also as a project and a practice that drives our lives from both within and without—internal standards, external expectations, and ambivalence meeting in provocative disputation." —from the foreword by Carolyn Korsmeyer

from the foreword by Carolyn Korsmeyer