Tony C. Brown examines ldquo;the inescapable yet infinitely troubling figure of the not-quite-nothingrdquo; in Enlightenment attempts to think about the aesthetic and the savage. The various texts Brown considersmdash;including the writings of Addison; Rousseau; Kant; and Defoemdash;turn to exotic figures in order to delimit the aesthetic; and to aesthetics in order to comprehend the savage.In his intriguing exploration Brown discovers that the primitive introduces into the aesthetic and the savage an element that proves necessary yet difficult to conceive. At its most profound; Brown explains; this element engenders a loss of confidence in onersquo;s ability to understand the humanrsquo;s relation to itself and to the world. That loss of confidencemdash;what Brown refers to as a breach in anthropological securitymdash;traces to an inability to maintain a sense of self in the face of the New World. Demonstrating the impact of the primitive on the aesthetic and the savage; he shows how the eighteenth-century writers he focuses on struggle to define the humanrsquo;s place in the world. As Brown explains; these authors go back again and again to ldquo;exoticrdquo; examples from the New Worldmdash;such as Indian burial mounds and Maori tattooing practicemdash;making them so ubiquitous that they come to underwrite; even produce; philosophy and aesthetics.
#1796900 in eBooks 2012-08-03 2012-08-03File Name: B00BG2MJJG
Review
11 of 29 people found the following review helpful. IrishnessBy ColI am reading this book so I am aware these are first impressions. So far; it is pretty offensive. Apparently the proud heritage I inherited from my parents; grandparents and so on is so much fluff and nonsense. So no one of Euro- American heritage has an authentic claim to ethnic identity? What is the purpose of this book? I may amend this later and I certainly intend to read it closely but so far; it is so much hyperbole.