In Feeling Beauty; G. Gabrielle Starr argues that understanding the neural underpinnings of aesthetic experience can reshape our conceptions of aesthetics and the arts. Drawing on the tools of both cognitive neuroscience and traditional humanist inquiry; Starr shows that neuroaesthetics offers a new model for understanding the dynamic and changing features of aesthetic life; the relationships among the arts; and how individual differences in aesthetic judgment shape the varieties of aesthetic experience. Starr; a scholar of the humanities and a researcher in the neuroscience of aesthetics; proposes that aesthetic experience relies on a distributed neural architecture -- a set of brain areas involved in emotion; perception; imagery; memory; and language. More important; it emerges from networked interactions; intricately connected and coordinated brain systems that together form a flexible architecture enabling us to develop new arts and to see the world around us differently. Focusing on the "sister arts" of poetry; painting; and music; Starr builds and tests a neural model of aesthetic experience valid across all the arts. Asking why works that address different senses using different means seem to produce the same set of feelings; she examines particular works of art in a range of media; including a poem by Keats; a painting by van Gogh; a sculpture by Bernini; and Beethovens Diabelli Variations. Starrs innovative; interdisciplinary analysis is true to the complexities of both the physical instantiation of aesthetics and the realities of artistic representation.
#1519786 in eBooks 2013-10-23 2013-10-23File Name: B00G6TC5CA
Review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. I confess. I like this book.By Jan DierckxWhen sixteen kids are shot on high school grounds; everyone looks for someone to blame. Meet Vernon Little; under arrest at the sheriffs office; a teenager wearing nothing but yesterdays underwear and his prized logo sneakers.Moments after the shooter; his best buddy; turns the gun on himself; Vernon is pinned as an accomplice. Out for revenge are the townspeople; the cable news networks; and Deputy Vain Gurie; a woman whose zeal for the Pritikin diet is eclipsed only by her appetite for barbecued ribs from the Bar-B-Chew Barn. So Vernon does what any red-blooded American teenager would do: he takes of for Mexico.I like this book because the author needs few words to characterize the white trash background and to describe the feelings of Vernon who is about to be accused of murder.If nothing else; this book reads like an engrossing mystery novel. One thing though: the novel doesnt ask much intellectual firepower to read it but is that so bad?1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Poetic unfolding storyBy Anna AndersenWasnt blown away by the book but liked how the story unfolds and how even though its written in a very colloquial first person; it has some very poetic touches. Very well written; just didnt find it gripping enough2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Certain aspect such as falling in love with a college coed and the instability of the ...By BarbaraThe book is well written. Although the plot takes place in Texas; the book was written by a Brit and won the booker prize. Certain aspect such as falling in love with a college coed and the instability of the psychologist are a little far fetched but makes sense in the long run. Good read.