Political Aesthetics / Edition 1

by Crispin Sartwell

Overview

"I suggest that although at any given place and moment the aesthetic expressions of a political system just are that political system, the concepts are separable. Typically, aesthetic aspects of political systems shift in their meaning over time, or even are inverted or redeployed with an entirely transformed effect. You cannot understand politics without understanding the aesthetics of politics, but you cannot understand aesthetics as politics. The point is precisely to show the concrete nodes at which two distinct discourses coincide or connive, come apart or coalesce."—from Political Aesthetics

Juxtaposing and connecting the art of states and the art of art historians with vernacular or popular arts such as reggae and hip-hop, Crispin Sartwell examines the reach and claims of political aesthetics. Most analysts focus on politics as discursive systems, privileging text and reducing other forms of expression to the merely illustrative. He suggests that we need to take much more seriously the aesthetic environment of political thought and action. Sartwell argues that graphic style, music, and architecture are more than the propaganda arm of political systems; they are its constituents.

A noted cultural critic, Sartwell brings together the disciplines of political science and political philosophy, philosophy of art and art history, in a new way, clarifying basic notions of aesthetics—beauty, sublimity, and representation—and applying them in a political context. A general argument about the fundamental importance of political aesthetics is interspersed with a group of stimulating case studies as disparate as Leni Riefenstahl's films and Black Nationalist aesthetics, the Dead Kennedys and Jeffersonian architecture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801448904
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	08/15/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Crispin Sartwell is Associate Professor of Art and Art History at Dickinson College as well as a music journalist. He is the author of several books, including Against the State, Six Names of Beauty, and Extreme Virtue.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Idea of Political Aesthetics1. Leni Riefenstahl Meets Charlie Chaplin: Aesthetics of the Third Reich2. Artphilosophical Themes3. Dead Kennedys and Black Flags: Artpolitics of Punk4. Prehistory of Political Aesthetics5. Red, Gold, Black, and Green: Black Nationalist Aesthetics6. Arthistorical Themes7. Political Power and Transcendental Geometry: Republican Classicism in Early AmericaConclusion: Political Styles and Aesthetic IdeologiesAppendix: Riffing on Political Aesthetics: Suggestions for Case Studies and ResearchReferences
Index

What People are Saying About This

Philip Alperson

Beginning with the proposition that not all art is political but all politics is aesthetic, Crispin Sartwell challenges overly sharp distinctions between the domains of art, craft, rhetoric, poetics, and politics. Political Aesthetics is a lively and provocative book highly recommended for all who wish to think deeply about the complex relations between the aesthetic and the political.

Theodore Gracyk

Crispin Sartwell's 'poetics of politics' is a fascinating and refreshingly original study of the interplay of aesthetic values and political values. His balance of theory and application results in a book that deserves a wide audience.

Frederick M. Dolan

In Political Aesthetics, Crispin Sartwell writes both clearly and wittily, steers away from gratuitous abstraction, and maintains an engagingly direct tone. Sartwell's work on Nazi aesthetics and Riefenstahl, Speer, and Chaplin is sharp and deft, and his consideration of Republican Classicism in early America offers illuminating ideas about aesthetics of harmony, balance, and repose in relation to classical American concepts of politics and government.

Editorial Reviews

Sartwell proposes to expound and defend the bold and provocative view that although not all art is political, all politics is aesthetic.... Designed as an unconventional and unorthodox treatment of aesthetics and politics, this book is nicely written without too much jargon and enlivened by flashes of wit and insight.

Choice

Political aesthetics, called into being by Crispin Sartwell, attends to the aestheticfeatures of political science, that is, such things as political systems, andconstitutions. Understanding politics, which is the place of power, of contestationbetween interests and interest groups, is incomplete without political aesthetics.

Mind - T. J. Diffey

"Sartwell proposes to expound and defend the bold and provocative view that although not all art is political, all politics is aesthetic. . . . Designed as an unconventional and unorthodox treatment of aesthetics and politics, this book is nicely written without too much jargon and enlivened by flashes of wit and insight."—Choice (February 2011)

"Political aesthetics, called into being by Crispin Sartwell, attends to the aestheticfeatures of political science, that is, such things as political systems, andconstitutions. Understanding politics, which is the place of power, of contestationbetween interests and interest groups, is incomplete without political aesthetics."—T. J. Diffey, Mind (October 2015)

"Beginning with the proposition that not all art is political but all politics is aesthetic, Crispin Sartwell challenges overly sharp distinctions between the domains of art, craft, rhetoric, poetics, and politics. Political Aesthetics is a lively and provocative book highly recommended for all who wish to think deeply about the complex relations between the aesthetic and the political."—Philip Alperson, Temple University

"Crispin Sartwell's 'poetics of politics' is a fascinating and refreshingly original study of the interplay of aesthetic values and political values. His balance of theory and application results in a book that deserves a wide audience."—Theodore Gracyk, author of Listening to Popular Music

"In Political Aesthetics, Crispin Sartwell writes both clearly and wittily, steers away from gratuitous abstraction, and maintains an engagingly direct tone. Sartwell's work on Nazi aesthetics and Riefenstahl, Speer, and Chaplin is sharp and deft, and his consideration of Republican Classicism in early America offers illuminating ideas about aesthetics of harmony, balance, and repose in relation to classical American concepts of politics and government."—Frederick M. Dolan, California College of the Arts and University of California, Berkeley, author of Allegories of America

From the Publisher