Aesthetic Essays

S M P L C T Y: Ecological Civilisation and the Will to Art

I am in the process of publishing a collection of essays on aesthetics. The provisional Table of Contents is posted below and I will add links to the essays as I publish them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface – The Apocalyptic SublimeDownload

BOOK ONE ­– THE WILL TO ART 

Introduction – The Aesthetic DimensionDownload
The Cosmos as a ‘Readymade’: Dignifying the Aesthetic UniverseDownload
Creative Evolution and the Will to ArtDownload
Pessimism without Despair: Suffering, Desire, and the Affirmation of LifeDownload
An Aesthetic Justification of Existence: The Redemptive Function of ArtDownload
Camus on Art and Revolt: Overcoming Nihilism in an Absurd UniverseDownload
Rescuing Aestheticism from the Dandies: Critical DistinctionsDownload
Homo Aestheticus, the Artful Species: An Evolutionary PerspectiveDownload
Giving Birth to Oneself: Ethics as an ‘Aesthetics of Existence’Download
The Politics of Beauty: Schiller on Freedom and Aesthetic EducationDownload

BOOK TWO – THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART

Bad Faith and the Fear of Freedom: Can Art Shake Us Awake?Download
Banish the Poets! The Power and Politics of Aesthetic EducationDownload
Making Art While the World Weeps: Political Reflections on AestheticsDownload
Art Against Empire: Marcuse on the Aesthetics of RevoltDownload
Answering Estragon: Art, Godot, and UtopiaDownload
Industrial Aesthetics: A Critique of TasteDownload
Artful Descent: A Cosmodicy of S M P L C T YDownload
Poet-Farmer: A Thoreauvian Aesthetics of SufficiencyDownload
Democratising the Poet: William Morris and the Art of Everyday LifeDownload

The Aesthetic State: Toward an Ecological Democracy of Art (forthcoming, 2024)

Conclusion: Revisiting The Glass Bead Game (forthcoming, 2024)