Beauty and... |
Beauty and... |
The Evolution of Allure:
Sexual selection from the Medici Venus to the Incredible
Hulk Linda Robbins: George Hersey's The Evolution
of Allure is a fascinating account linking the representation
in art of beauty and sexual attractiveness with evolution,
sexual selection and what is really going on in a culture.
Venus
in Exile Carrie Keats: In her book, Venus in
Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in 20 th -Century Art ,
Wendy Steiner underlines the assertion that modern art
is purposely ugly and attempts to trace the intellectual
roots of this monstrosity through the philosophies of
Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke, early twentieth century
arguments of the avant-garde and the movement to banish
the feminine, the sentimental and the beautiful in striving
to attain the shattering experience of the sublime.
A
Review of D. Meltzer's and M.H. Williams' book The
Apprehension of Beauty:The
Role of Aesthetic Conflict in Development, Violence
and Art Linda Robbins: This is a fascinating,
interesting, but difficult book about the 'apprehension'
of beauty. The title is a rather complicated pun as
to 'apprehend' something can mean to grasp it but 'apprehensive'
can also mean to be fearful of. Beauty attracts us,
we want to grasp it, but it also makes us anxious.
Our anxieties about beauty are epitomized in John Keats'
(1795-1821) poem 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci': "They
cried-"La Belle Dame sans Merci/Hath thee in thrall!"
"Why
Doesn't She?" : A Full-Length Review of Joanna Pitman's On
Blondes Michael Sones: If you are interested
in the history of beauty, hair color, and hairstyles
within the social context of culture then I think you
will find Joanna Pitman's On Blondes a book
with all of the compelling fascination of a 'blonde'
itself. Beginning with the ancient Greeks and concluding
with the holy female trinity of Madonna, Princess Diana,
and Margaret Thatcher it is an intriguing and knowledgeable
study of the history and place of the 'power of the blonde'
within the 'symbolic code' of different Western cultures.
Hair Matters: Beauty,
Power, and Black Women's Consciousness Aleatha Lillitos
reviews this interesting book about the politics of black
hair and black beauty. Is it a "sell-out" for a
black woman to use relaxers on her hair? The author of this
book, Ingrid Banks, is a social scientist and Assistant Professor
of Black Studies in the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies
at Virginia Tech. In the introduction she uses a news story that goes
straight to the heart of the emotional, historical and ideological matter
of the book; hair matters to black women in particular because hair is
not simply about perceptions of attractiveness or otherwise, but it also
signifies political, cultural and social meanings in relation to group
identity.
Beauty
and Redemption
Alan Stone: American Beauty and Elaine Scarry look or
aesthetic experience in unexpected places. The article
examines the relationship between the theme of Elaine
Scarry's 'On Beauty and Being Just' and the film 'American
Beauty' looking at loss, death, beauty, God, and redemption.
From The
Boston Review
Buff
Enough? by
Jonathan Rauch. A review of the The
Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession,
by Pope Jr., Phillips, and Olivardi. So
the first and most important thing to say about The Adonis Complex
is: Hooray! For years, the scientific and popular literature
has been full of hand wringing about eating disorders and
body obsessions in women; but about men, next to nothing.
The authors originally focused their own clinical work-in
psychiatry and psychology at the Harvard and Brown medical
schools-on women. Only gradually did they realize that "body
dysmorphic disorders," as body obsessions are officially
called, are also common in men, who almost never reveal
or discuss them. "We want to tell these men and the people
who love them," Pope and his colleagues write, "that they
no longer need to suffer alone, that the Adonis Complex-this
secret crisis of male body obsession-afflicts millions
in our society and around the world." From
Reason.
Art
and Sexual Selection
Denis Dutton: Lovers of evolutionary psychology have marveled
in the last few years on the capacity of this discipline
to throw new light on aspects of human life. Fundamental
to sexual selection in the animal kingdom is female choice,
as the typical routine for most species has males displaying
strength, cleverness, and general genetic fitness in order
to invite female participation in producing the next generation.
With the human animal, there is a greater mutuality of
choice, although even with us it is often males who propose
and females who dispose. This is one of the central ideas
of Miller's The
Mating Mind. From The John Hopkins University Press
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