Phenomenology and the Arts

Phenomenology and the Arts develops the interplay between phenomenology as a historical movement and a descriptive method within Continental philosophy and the arts. Divided into five themes, the book explores first how the phenomenological method itself is a kind of artistic endeavor that mirrors what it approaches when it turns to describe paintings, dramas, literature, and music. From there, the book turns to an analysis and commentary on specific works of art within the visual arts, literature, music, and sculpture. Contributors analyze important historical figures in phenomenology—Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. But there is also a good deal of work on art itself—Warhol, Klee, jazz, and contemporary and renaissance artists and artworks. Edited by Peter R. Costello and Licia Carlson, this book will be of interest to students in philosophy, the arts, and the humanities in general, and scholars of phenomenology will notice incredibly rich, groundbreaking research that helps to resituate canonical figures in phenomenology with respect to what their works can be used to describe.