Examines the far-reaching economic implications of America's aging population--a group that by 2020 will control seventy percent of the nation's net worth--in terms of lifestyle, buying trends, politics, and society

Lifetrends: The Future of Baby Boomers and Other Aging Americans

Politics & Social Sciences

Wolff, Janet

Brown, Gene

Gerber, Jerry

Klores, Walter

Social Sciences

Macmillan Pub. Co.

Explores sociocultural influences on the construction of traditional aesthetic theories and judgments

Aesthetics and the sociology of art (Controversies in sociology)

G. Allen & Unwin

Feminism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and Marxism, among other critical approaches, have undermined traditional notions of aesthetics in recent decades. But questions of aesthetic judgment and pleasure persist, and many critics now seek a "return to aesthetics" or a "return to beauty." Janet Wolff advances a "postcritical" aesthetics grounded in shared values that are negotiated in the context of community. She relates this approach to contemporary debates about a committed politics similarly founded on the abandonment of certainty. Neither universalist nor relativist, the "aesthetics of uncertainty" provides a discourse on beauty that contemporary critics can engage with and offers a basis for judgment that is committed to assigning value to works of art. Wolff explores her position through a range of topics: the question of beauty in relation to feminist critique; the problematic status of twentieth-century English art, visual representations of the Holocaust, Jewish identity as portrayed by the artist R. B. Kitaj, refugee artists and modernism in 1940s Britain, and the nature and appeal of imagistic thinking in sociology. She addresses the desire for certainty and the timeliness of doubt and concludes with a meditation on the intersection of aesthetics and ethics, arguing that ethical issues are very much implicated in aesthetic discourse.

The Aesthetics of Uncertainty (Columbia Themes in Philosophy, Social Criticism, and the Arts)

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Columbia University Press

Feminism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and Marxism, among other critical approaches, have undermined traditional notions of aesthetics in recent decades. But questions of aesthetic judgment and pleasure persist, and many critics now seek a "return to aesthetics" or a "return to beauty."Janet Wolff advances a "postcritical" aesthetics grounded in shared values that are negotiated in the context of community. She relates this approach to contemporary debates about a committed politics similarly founded on the abandonment of certainty. Neither universalist nor relativist, the "aesthetics of uncertainty" provides a discourse on beauty that contemporary critics can engage with and offers a basis for judgment that is committed to assigning value to works of art.Wolff explores her position through a range of topics: the question of beauty in relation to feminist critique; the problematic status of twentieth-century English art, visual representations of the Holocaust, Jewish identity as portrayed by the artist R. B. Kitaj, refugee artists and modernism in 1940s Britain, and the nature and appeal of imagistic thinking in sociology. She addresses the desire for certainty and the timeliness of doubt and concludes with a meditation on the intersection of aesthetics and ethics, arguing that ethical issues are very much implicated in aesthetic discourse.

In this fascinating book of critical writings, Janet Wolff examines issues of exile, memoir, and movement from the perspective of the female stranger.

Resident Alien: Feminist Cultural Criticism

Literature & Fiction

Yale University Press

A valuable introduction to the central issues in the sociology of the arts, this work draws on sociology, art history, feminism, and literary and media studies, to explain the social nature of the arts, their production, distribution, and reception.  This second edition is the result of the author's chapter-by-chapter review and updating, taking into  account not only her own re-thinking on these issues but also the work that has been done in cultural studies and the sociology of the arts since the first edition appeared in 1984.   Wolff considers changes in sociology, literary studies, and cultural studies, and their implications for the project of the sociology of art: the relevance of post structuralist theory for an understanding of the author/artist; and the current, and perhaps unfounded, rejection of the concept of ideology. The author also assesses the question of cultural politics in relation to debates about postmodernism, as well as the matter of identity politics with regard to gender and ethnicity.  Containing a wealth of information about both past and present thinking on the sociology of art, this book will be of particular interest both to students of the arts and students of sociology.

The social production of art

St.Martin's Press

The Social Production of Art

Palgrave HE UK

This book has been a standard text for cultural studies and the sociology of art since its first appearance in 1981. It provides a clear and useful overview of theories and studies which contribute to the project of a sociology of art, ranging from sociology to art history, literary theory, feminism and media studies. The author also bridges the gap between European approaches and the American production of culture approach, and addresses the key questions of the role of the reader/viewer, the nature of authorship, and the possibility of cultural politics. The new edition contains an Afterword by the author.

The Social Production of Art (Communications and Culture, 13)

Red Globe Press

First published in 1983, Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art provides a lucid account of two divergent tendencies in the study of aesthetics. At the one extreme, traditional aestheticians have assumed that art and literature are wholly independent, following only the laws and inspirations of artists and artistic movements, and that the question of aesthetic value is accordingly unproblematic. At the other extreme, some sociologists have treated works of art as no more than manifestations of the socio-economic circumstances which produce them, arguing that aesthetic value is therefore entirely relative matter. Janet Wolff shows how both the extreme positions are untenable, and argues convincingly that we must accept that the conceptions and criteria of aesthetic value are socially constructed and inevitably ideological, while stopping short of the reductionist alternative which fails to recognise the irreducible questions of pleasure and of aesthetic discourse. 
This book provides an invaluably clear guide both to old debates and to otherwise obscure modern controversies, which will be welcomed both by students and scholars in the sociology of art, in aesthetics, in art history, and in literary criticism.

Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art (Routledge Revivals)

Routledge

Lifetrends: Your Future for the Next 30 Years

Reference

Avon/Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wolff, Janet. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wolff, Janet

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wolff, Janet. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Lifetrends: The Future of Baby Boomers and Other Aging Americans

Aesthetics and the sociology of art (Controversies in sociology)

The Aesthetics of Uncertainty (Columbia Themes in Philosophy, Social Criticism, and the Arts)

The Aesthetics of Uncertainty (Columbia Themes in Philosophy, Social Criticism, and the Arts)

Resident Alien: Feminist Cultural Criticism

The social production of art

The Social Production of Art

The Social Production of Art (Communications and Culture, 13)

Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art (Routledge Revivals)

Lifetrends: Your Future for the Next 30 Years