Black Is Beautiful - (Foundations of the Philosophy of the Arts) by Paul C Taylor (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Black is Beautiful identifies and explores the most significant philosophical issues that emerge from the aesthetic dimensions of black life, providing a long-overdue synthesis and the first extended philosophical treatment of this crucial subject.

• The first extended philosophical treatment of an important subject that has been almost entirely neglected by philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of art
• Takes an important step in assembling black aesthetics as an object of philosophical study
• Unites two areas of scholarship for the first time - philosophical aesthetics and black cultural theory, dissolving the dilemma of either studying philosophy, or studying black expressive culture
• Brings a wide range of fields into conversation with one another- from visual culture studies and art history to analytic philosophy to musicology - producing mutually illuminating approaches that challenge some of the basic suppositions of each
• Well-balanced, up-to-date, and beautifully written as well as inventive and insightful
• Winner of The American Society of Aesthetics Outstanding Monograph Prize 2017
  

Review Quotes

"The greatest contribution of the book to analytic aesthetics is that by examining the black aesthetic tradition, Taylor invites us to rethink how aestheticians and philosophers of art have approached the aesthetic tradition in general." - Adriana Clavel-Vazquez, University of Hull - The British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 59, Issue 2, April 2019

About the Author

Paul C. Taylor teaches Philosophy and African American studies at the Pennsylvania State University, where he has also served as Head of the Department of African American studies. Professor Taylor has provided commentary on race and politics for newspapers and radio shows on four continents. He is the author of Race: A Philosophical Introduction (Polity, 2003; 2nd ed. 2013), has recently completed On Obama (Routledge, 2015), and is one of the editors of the Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race (forthcoming).