Debrix develops a model of tabloidized international relations, where responses are organized by and supportive of a strong centralized US government - focusing on the exploitation of insecurities caused by 9/11 manifested in the US tabloid media.

What are the predominant aesthetics of the twenty-first century? Thorsten Botz-Bornstein argues that deculturation, embodied by the conspicuous vulgarity of kitsch, is the overriding visual language of our times. Drawing on the work of Islam scholar Olivier Roy, who argued that religious fundamentalism arises when religion is separated from the indigenous cultural values, Botz-Bornstein shows that the production of 'absolute' truths through deculturation also exists in contemporary education. The neoliberal environment has separated learning from culture by emphasizing standardization and quantified learning outcomes. In a globalized environment, the idea of culture is no longer available as a referent; instead we are taught to rely on the culturally neutral term 'excellence'. For Botz-Bornstein, this is an absolute value similar to the 'truth' of religious fundamentalists. Similarly, kitsch is what happens when aesthetic values are separated from cultural contexts. Kitsch is aesthetic fundamentalism. Kitsch aesthetics are an aesthetics of excellence. The consumption of kitsch can be understood as an intrinsically narcissistic impulse, reinforced by social media, individuals recycling their own selves without being confronted with the culture of the “other.” The existence of self-centred “alternative truths”, fake news and conspiracy theories and selfies are linked together in the fundamentalism–neoliberalism–kitsch pattern. Including analysis of the intersections of 'cute', 'excellent', 'sublime', and 'interesting' in contemporary aesthetic culture, this is a journey through philosophy, psychology and cultural theory, redefining a new aesthetics of deculturation.

This book gives a comprehensive overview of the ways in which the relation between German Idealism and feminist philosophy has been explored. It demonstrates the significance of German Idealism for feminist philosophy, and simultaneously brings out the relevance of feminist readings and interpretations for a critical understanding of German Idealism. Key Features: • Presents original work on the German Idealists and considers their legacy within feminist thought from different philosophical perspectives. • Incorporates perspectives from queer theory, new materialism and critical philosophy of race, and so explores German Idealism through the subversion and transformation of meanings and conceptual arrangements. • Challenges the epistemic boundaries of philosophy by engaging the thought of women contemporary with the German Idealists such as Bettina von Arnim and Karoline von Günderrode. • Places the work of the German Idealists on gender, sexuality, marriage and family within the wider contexts of colonialism and European nation building. • Considers how several key concepts of German Idealism (such as subject, reason, enlightenment, autonomy and the sublime) have been central targets of feminist theory. • Includes a Black feminist critique of Kantian universalism. Fully reflecting the diversity that characterizes feminist thinking today, The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism and Feminist Philosophy is essential reading for scholars and graduate students of German idealism, feminist philosophy and feminist theory. Chapter(s) “The Taxonomy of ‘Race’ and the Anthropology of Sex: Conceptual Determination and Social Presumption in Kant” is/are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

In Victorian Modernism: Pragmatism and the Varieties of Aesthetic Experience Jessica Feldman sheds a pragmatist light on the relation between the Victorian age and Modernism by dislodging truistic notions of Modernism as an art of crisis, rupture, elitism and loss. Examining the works of John Ruskin (art critic and social thinker), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (poet and painter), Augusta Evans (best-selling domestic novelist,)and William James (philosopher and psychologist), Feldman relates them to selected twentieth-century creations.

When James died in 1910 he left a large body of manuscript material that has never appeared in print. The most important of these manuscripts are those of the years 1903 and 1904 called "The Many and the One." The manuscripts in the rest of the volume contain James's reflections over 40 years in the form of drafts, memoranda, and notebook entries.

"When John Cage opened his compositions to chance sounds in the 1950s, and Andy Warhol began exhibiting paintings of Brillo boxes in the 1960s, the art of the commonplace seemed like something radically, even frighteningly, new. But noting an unprecedented shift, around 1800, away from the idealism of Western aesthetics, Leonard shows that attacks on the art object as outspoken as any made by twentieth-century avant-gardists can be found in the works of Wordsworth, Ruskin, Carlyle, Emerson, and Whitman. From Wordsworth to Cage, a certain kind of artist sought to re-orient humanity's devotion from the next world to this one, to situate paradise in "the simple produce of the common day." "Enough of Science and Art," Wordsworth began his first book of poems. "Come forth into the light of things." Two hundred years later, John Cage would tell us, "We open our eyes and ears seeing life, each day excellent as it is. This realization no longer needs art." By studying artists together with poets, Leonard uncovers the rich tradition that links Wordsworth to Cage and illuminates many figures in between. Into the Light of Things transforms our understanding of modern culture."--Jacket.