Through the precession of simulacra, we have arrived at a landscape of e-girls and sad boys, the aesthetic values of our time transposed onto the ecstatic communications of the hyperreal. Through Baudrillardian analysis, Alex Mazey attempts to trace a genealogy of Sad Boy Aesthetics, charting its earliest occurrences to progenitors like Yung Lean and Bladee, before moving towards more connective and investigational readings of Lil Peep.

The Aesthetics of Self-Harm presents a new approach to understanding parasuicidal behaviour, based upon an examination of online communities that promote performances of self-harm in the pursuit of an idealised beauty. The book considers how online communities provide a significant level of support for self-harmers and focuses on relevant case studies to establish a new model for the comprehension of the online supportive community. To do so, Alderton explores discussions of self-harm and disordered eating on social networks. She examines aesthetic trends that contextualise harmful behavior and help people to perform feelings of sadness and vulnerability online. Alderton argues that the traditional understanding of self-violence through medical discourse is important, but that it misses vital elements of human group activity and the motivating forces of visual imagery. Covering psychiatry and psychology, rhetoric and sociology, this book provides essential reading for psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists exploring group dynamics and ritual, and rhetoricians who are concerned with the communicative powers of images. It should also be of great interest to medical professionals dealing with self-harming patients.

Ushering in a new era of confessional music that spoke openly about experiences of trauma, depression, and self-loathing, Nine Inch Nails' seminal album, The Downward Spiral, changed popular music forever—bringing transgressive themes of heresy, S&M, and body horror to the masses and taking music technology to its limits. Released in 1994, the album resonated across a generation, combining elements of metal, industrial, synth-pop, and ambient electronica, and going on to sell over four million copies. Now, Into the Never explores the creation and cultural impact of The Downward Spiral, one of the most influential and artistically significant albums of the twentieth century. Inspired by David Bowie's Low and Pink Floyd's The Wall, the album recounts one man's disintegration as he descends into nihilism and nothingness. Blurring the lines between autobiography and concept album, creation and decay, it is also the story of Trent Reznor (who is Nine Inch Nails) as he pushed himself to the edge of the abyss, trapped in a cycle of addiction and self-destruction. The Downward Spiral also presents a reflection of America and a wider culture of violence, connecting the Columbine High School shooting, the infamous Manson family murders, and the aftermath of Vietnam and the Gulf War. Featuring new interviews with collaborators and artists inspired by the album, Into the Never sets The Downward Spiral in the context of music of the era and brings the story up to date, from Reznor's recovery to his reinvention as an Oscar-winning soundtrack artist.

White, heterosexual, middle-class men have long served as the standard for masculine “beauty,” even if such men have refused to embrace this term. This study seeks to denaturalize this standard by exploring the connections between beauty and the broad spectrum of masculinities. The chapters included in Hunks, Hotties, and Pretty Boys contribute primarily to the field of gender studies, specifically masculinity studies. They consider twentieth-century representations of male beauty through a variety of mediums: performance, literature, art, photography, film and television. Although the contributors hail from both the humanities and the social sciences, all share a concern for how beauty informs, shapes, defines, and re-defines our understanding of masculinity itself. These scholars investigate a range of historical periods and draw from a broad scope of critical approaches. Some interrogate male beauty through the female gaze and look to the influence of female performance on notions of masculine beauty. Others examine how queer and racial constructions of male beauty refuse and offer alternatives to hegemonic models of identity. Another revisits previous philosophical and theoretical conceptions of beauty, only to deconstruct gendered conceptions of the beautiful and the sublime. In all, these essays complicate masculine beauty by examining Chicano, Asian, working class, and female constructions of male beauty in Western culture.

This translation was made from the third edition of The Foundations of Aesthetics as prepared by the author (I ed. 1933. II ed. 1949. III ed. 1957. IV ed. in Works 1966). Some parts of the text were deleted from this translation such as references to examples which could not be understood by non-Polish readers (e.g. reminiscences about famous theatrical interpretations. theatrical productions dating back many years or references to literary characters which serve as specific examples in the consciousness of readers of Polish literature). Names and works of Polish authors cited in the text have been supplemented by brief information notes (the numbers referring to these footnotes have been differentiated by block parentheses). In the block parentheses in the author's footnotes the latest editions are given. Illustrations at the end of the book have been placed according to the order in which they would best serve to analyze the various topics. IX STANISLAW OSSOWSKI'S CONCEPTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCES The Foundation of Aesthetics is the first major work by Stanislaw Ossowski. Ossowski is well known to the English reader for his socio logical works, and especially for his book Class Structure in Social Consciousness and the majority of his works deal with various theoretical and methodological problems of sociology. It should be stressed here, that the book in the field of aesthetics constitutes a turning point in his biography. in the process of changing his focus of interest from logic to sociology.

What is the appropriate content of aesthetics for students of art at different age levels? How can it best be taught? How should it be combined with studio work and other art disciplines? Michael J. Parsons and H. gene Blocker answer these and other questions in a volume designed to help art educators, potential educators, and curriculum developers integrate aesthetics into the study of art in the school curriculum. The two introduce some of the philosophical problems and questions in art, encouraging teachers and others to form a personal outlook on these issues.