Understanding Cavell, Understanding Modernism: : Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism Paola Marrati Bloomsbury Academic

Understanding Cavell, Understanding Modernism

Description

Stanley Cavell, undoubtedly one of the most singular and influential voices in contemporary philosophy, has written extensively on modernist art – particularly on painting, photography, music, and literature. He has also dedicated an impressive body of work to cinema, whose complex and nuanced status in regard to modernism constitutes one of Cavell's main concerns. However, Cavell's importance for understanding modernism is not exhausted by his interest in, and analyses of, modernist art and literature. Equally significant, and perhaps even more original, is his understanding of ordinary language philosophy as a modernist enterprise in its own terms.

Following the structure for the Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism series, this volume is divided into three distinct parts. The first part, "Conceptualizing Cavell," features introductory essays on Cavell's most important works. The second part, "Cavell and Aesthetics," delves into more specific aspects and problems pertaining to Cavell's aesthetics and its moral and political implications. The third part is an extended glossary of Cavell's key words and concepts.

Abbreviations
Contributors
Introduction: Stanley Cavell and the Quest of a Voice of One's Own for Philosophy (Paola Marrati, Johns Hopkins University, USA)

Part 1 Conceptualizing Cavell
1. Must We Mean What We Say? and the (Re)Birth of Ordinary Language Philosophy (Sandra Laugier, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, France)
2. Modernism in The World Viewed (Hugo Clémot, Université de Tours, France and Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, France)
3. Senses of Walden: Thoreau's Exemplary Act (Paul Standish, University College London, UK)
4. The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (Paola Marrati, Johns Hopkins University, USA)
5. Democracy as a Way of Life and An-archic Perfectionism: Rereading Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome (Naoko Saito, University of Kyoto, Japan)

Part 2 Cavell and Aesthetics
6. In Quest of the Ordinary: Philosophy, Literature and the Romantic Response (Andrew Brandel, Harvard University, USA)
7. Measuring the Value of Human Life According to a Perfectionist Philosopher: A reading of Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life (David LaRocca, Harvard University, USA)
8. Modernism: Notes toward a Philosophical Approach (Piergiorgio Donatelli, Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy)
9. Modernism and Film at Criticism: Rethinking the “Aesthetic Possibilities” of the Medium (Elise Domenach, Ecole Normale Supérieure, France)
10. Cavell and the Modernity of Film (Eli Friedlander, Tel Aviv University, Israel)

Part 3 Glossary
11. Claim (Sandra Laugier, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, France)
12. Criteria (Martin Shuster, University of North Carolina, USA)
13. On the Human Form of Life (Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University, USA)
14. Skepticism (Jeroen Gerrits, SUNY Binghamton, USA)
15. Tragedy (Nicole Jerr, United States Air Force Academy, USA)

Index

Product details

Published	Aug 21 2025
Format	Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition	1st
Extent	304
ISBN	9781501313646
Imprint	Bloomsbury Academic
Series	Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

It has been widely recognized that Cavell's focus on judgment and grammatical criteria establishes a close connection between our ability to speak and our capacity for aesthetic response. However, the connection between Cavell's account of skepticism and his writings on modernist art and literature has received much less attention. This volume goes a long way towards correcting that imbalance.

R. M. Berry, Professor Emeritus of English, Florida State University, USA
The contributors to this volume offer an impressively deep exploration of one of Cavell's central tasks, which was the renewal of philosophy. In the process, they show how modernism remains an essential, ongoing project, not bound by historical limits. The result is a book that goes beyond conventional understandings of Cavell and of modernism by getting at the heart of both.

Anthony J. Cascardi, Sidney and Margaret Ancker Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature, Rhetoric, and Spanish, University of California, Berkeley, USA