Criticism and Modernity: Aesthetics, Literature, and Nations in Europe and Its Academies

by Thomas Docherty

Overview

This book argues that from the late seventeenth century to the present national cultures have sought to regulate the democratic subject through the academic form of arguments about the proper relations of aesthetics to ethics and politics. It offers a radical reconsideration of the history of modernity, tracing the emergence of criticism as a socio-cultural practice across all the major European nations, and drawing on an extensive range of European literature and philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198185017
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/10/1999
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	1590L (what's this?)

About the Author

University of Kent

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