Home - Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Postmodernism, Postsocialism and Beyond
Author: Aleš Erjavec
Date Of Publication: Jun 2008
Isbn13: 9781847185778
Isbn: 1-84718-577-0
The book focuses on three interrelated issues: the relationship between modernism and postmodernism; visuality and visual culture; and the relation between the East (former European socialist countries) and the West as regards aesthetics, globalization, culture, and the mechanisms of the presentation and representation of contemporary visual art.

In the first part the author reflects upon some of the less noticed issues of modernism and its dominant theoretical narratives regarding art: its privileging of truth and its obfuscation of some segments of European art. One of his central tenets is that recent postsocialist politicized postmodern visual art contradicts Peter Bürger's canonical theory about the avant-garde art of the previous century.

The art and culture discussed throughout this volume predominantly concern the visual. For this reason, in the second part visual culture and its uneasy relationship with art and art history are an object of reflection, a topic which is then complemented with that of the embodied eye in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty. Photography, its relation to truth, and the problematic expectation that an ontology of photography is possible or necessary is the theme of the closing chapter of this part of the book.

In the third part the author offers a global view on philosophy of art, visual culture, and the institutions that disseminate them.

Aleš Erjavec is Director of Research in the Institute of Philosophy of the Center of Scientific Research of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Ljubljana) and Professor of Aesthetics in Ljubljana University and in the Faculty of the Humanities, Koper, where he is also the Chair of the Department of Cultural Studies. He authored or edited 13 books, among them Ideology and the Art of Modernism (Ljubljana 1988; Sarajevo 1991), Towards the Image (Changchun 2002), Postmodernism and the Postsocialist Condition: Politicized Art under Late Socialism (Berkeley 2003), and Love at Last Sight. Avant-Garde, Aesthetics, and the End of Art (Ljubljana 2004).

"I recommend this book to South African artists, art historians, and philosophers of art."

E. A. Mare, SAJAH, volume 23, No. 2, 2008

Price Uk Gbp: 34.99
Price Us Usd: 52.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)

We recommend

Language and Literature
Middle-earth and Beyond: Essays on the World of J. R. R. Tolkien

History
Arctic Discourses

Education
The Supportive School: Wellbeing and the Young Adolescent

Interesting reviews

From Navigating Music and Sound Education

“We rarely have the opportunity and time to engage with the practicalities of music teaching through the lens of evidence-based practice. This book provides us with a wonderful exception that is accessible to beginning and established teachers. It contains a wide range of stimulating and thought-provoking material that draws on real-world experiences and events, which are contextualised, informed and structured by theory. This is a powerful combination that we can visit again and again for insight and inspiration. Congratulations to all involved, particularly the editors for shaping such a valuable contribution!”
—Professor Graham F. Welch, University of London; President, International Society of Music Education

“Navigating music and sound education draws together a range of issues increasingly acknowledged to be at the basis of reflective and effective music learning and teaching: social settings, cultural dimensions, gender, indigeneity, varying cognitive approaches, inter-disciplinary connections, technology, types of learning, and creativity. It opens up areas of pedagogy that go beyond classroom methodology to acknowledge student individuality and encourage music learning and teaching grounded in the reality of students’ musical and social lives. It will be invaluable for those training to become educators and for teachers already in the field.”
—Associate Professor Peter Dunbar-Hall, University of Sydney

“This book brings an important contribution to music teacher education as it challenges the readers to rethink their paradigms of music education. It highlights the importance of preparing a reflective teacher, autonomous, creative and conscious of the multifaceted and multicultural locus in which they will work. The book also draws on the importance for music teachers to consider the context in which they work, and establish a dialog between local musical traditions, informal music practices and global trends of music teaching and learning. Most importantly, all chapters are in one way or another derived from research carried out on specific areas, thus stressing the importance of the research informed practice in music education.”
—Professor Liane Hentschke, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; International Society of Music Education Immediate Past President

Many readers will appreciate Steve Dillon and Kathy Hirche’s description of the future of education in their work with dynamic technological contexts.

Navigating Music and Sound Education is a wonderful guide and resource for pre-service music teachers, for teachers in the field, and for teacher educators.

It offers a range of fresh perspectives on the state of music education as it is and as it might be. Kari K Veblen

Navigating Music and Sound Education is an ambitious project which features current research from 20 individuals whose professional identities run the gamut from musician to songwriter to student to educator to music therapist to ethnomusicologist. The book’s scope is perhaps the most exciting aspect of Navigating Music and Sound Education.
Kari K Veblen
University of Western Ontario
British Journal of Music Education
October 2011