Publisher Description

Criticism and Modernity traces the conditions under which criticism emerges as a socio-cultural practice within the institutionalized forms of European modernity and democracy. It argues that criticism is born out of anxieties about national supremacy in the late seventeenth century, with the consequence that the emergent national cultures of the eighteenth century and since become sites for the regulation of the democratic subject through the academic formof arguments about the proper relations of aesthetics to ethics and politics. The central issue is that of legitimation: how can subjective aesthetic experiences regulate the norms of ethical justice? Thatquestion is posed not as an abstract philosophical issue, but rather as a question properly located within the struggles for national culture. The usual Germanic source of modern aesthetics and criticism is here placed in the broader European context, involving contests between England, France, Scotland, Ireland, and the emergent Germany and Italy. Writers addressed include Corneille, Dryden, Molière, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Schiller, Hegel,Schopenhauer; and, throughout, the legacy of these thinkers is found in the most recent contemporary theory, in work by Agamben, Badiou, Lyotard, MacIntyre, and others. A closing chapter considers theformation of the university across modern Europe, in Vico's Naples, Humboldt's Berlin, Newman's Dublin, Blair's Edinburgh, the France of Alain and Benda, the England of Leavis, as well as our contemporary institutional predicaments.

Author Biography

Uwe-Michael Gutzschhahn is a former children's-book editor, a writer, and translator. Thomas Docherty is a sculptor and children's-book illustrator.

Table of Contents

IntroductionSection I. Criticism and National TheatricalityTragedy and the Nationalist Condition of CriticismLove as the European HumourSection II. The Subject of DemocracyThe Culture of BenevolenceDemocracy Time and Time AgainThe Politics of SingularitySection III. Aesthetic EducationPessimism, Community, and Utopia in Aesthetic EducationEducation, English, and Criticism in the UniversityIndex

Review

`arresting and serious.'David Watson, Lit & History, Vol.9, No.1.

Long Description

Criticism and Modernity traces the conditions under which criticism emerges as a socio-cultural practice within the institutionalized forms of European modernity and democracy. It argues that criticism is born out of anxieties about national supremacy in the late seventeenth century, with the consequence that the emergent national cultures of the eighteenth century and since become sites for the regulation of the democratic subject through the academic form
of arguments about the proper relations of aesthetics to ethics and politics. The central issue is that of legitimation: how can subjective aesthetic experiences regulate the norms of ethical justice? That question is posed not as an abstract philosophical issue, but rather as a question properly located
within the struggles for national culture. The usual Germanic source of modern aesthetics and criticism is here placed in the broader European context, involving contests between England, France, Scotland, Ireland, and the emergent Germany and Italy. Writers addressed include Corneille, Dryden, Molière, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Schiller, Hegel, Schopenhauer; and, throughout, the legacy of these thinkers is found in the most recent contemporary
theory, in work by Agamben, Badiou, Lyotard, MacIntyre, and others. A closing chapter considers the formation of the university across modern Europe, in Vico's Naples, Humboldt's Berlin, Newman's Dublin, Blair's Edinburgh, the France of Alain and Benda, the England of Leavis, as well as our contemporary
institutional predicaments.

Review Text

`arresting and serious.'
David Watson, Lit & History, Vol.9, No.1.

Review Quote

'arresting and serious.'David Watson, Lit and History, Vol.9, No.1.

Feature

A fascinating study of how criticism in Europe became a means of regulating the democratic subject
Wide-ranging in time and geographical scope: from the late seventeenth century to the present, and across all the major European nations
Writers addressed include Corneille, Dryen, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Schiller, and Schopenhauer
Informed by the work of contemporary theorists such as Agamben, Badiou, Lyotard, and MacIntyre

Details