Böcker av Henry W. Pickford

In this highly original interdisciplinary study incorporating close readings of literary texts and philosophical argumentation, Henry W. Pickford develops a theory of meaning and expression in art intended to counter the meaning skepticism most commonly associated with the theories of Jacques Derrida.Pickford arrives at his theory by drawing on the writings of Wittgenstein to develop and modify the insights of Tolstoy's philosophy of art. Pickford shows how Tolstoy's encounter with Schopenhauer's thought on the one hand provided support for his ethical views but on the other hand presented a problem, exemplified in the case of music, for his aesthetic theory, a problem that Tolstoy did not successfully resolve. Wittgenstein's critical appreciation of Tolstoy's thinking, however, not only recovers its viability but also constructs a formidable position within contemporary debates concerning theories of emotion, ethics, and aesthetic expression

Drawing on work in contemporary analytic philosophy and Adorno's normative aesthetic theory, this book aims to show how selected Holocaust artworks in a variety of media (lyric poetry by Paul Celan, Holocaust memorials, quotational texts by Heimrad Backer, Claude Lanzmann's film Shoah and Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus) fulfill both aesthetic and historical requirements of the genre.