Let us revive the true sense of fine arts: enchantment! In the conceptualised, commercialised, artificial approach to fine arts, we forgot its authentic experiential sense. It lies at the imaginative heart of all arts there to be retrieved by the creative recipient as the very 'truth of it all'.

Kosky focuses on a handful of artists - Walter De Maria, Diller + Scofidio, James Turrell, and Andy Goldsworthy - to show how they introduce spaces hospitable to mystery and wonder, redemption and revelation, and transcendence and creation.

This original and multidimensional book brings a refreshing new approach to the study of the arts of the Middle East. By dealing in one volume with dance, music, painting, and cinema, as experienced and practiced not only within the Middle East but also abroad, Images of Enchantment breaks down the artificial distinctions--of form, geography, 'high' and 'low' art, performer and artist--that are so often used to delineate the subjects and processes of Middle Eastern artistic culture. The eighteen essays in this book cover themes as diverse as Bedouin dance, the music of Arab Americans, cinema in Egypt and Iran, Hollywood representations of the Middle East, and contemporary Sudanese painting. The contributions come from scholars and critics and from the artists themselves. Together, they present a wide-ranging and holistic view of the arts in their social, political, anthropological, and gender contexts. Contributors: Walter Armbrust, Farida Ben Lyazid, Kay Hardy Campbell, Virginia Danielson, Marjorie Franken, Sondra Hale, Carolee Kent, Hamid Naficy, Salwa Mikdadi Nashashibi, Anne K. Rasmussen, Selim Sednaoui, Simon Shaheen, Rebecca Stone, Chaïbia Talal, Karin Van Nieuwkerk, William Young, Sherifa Zuhur.

A groundbreaking conception of interactive media, inspired by continuity, field, and process, with fresh implications for art, computer science, and philosophy of technology. In this challenging but exhilarating work, Sha Xin Wei argues for an approach to materiality inspired by continuous mathematics and process philosophy. Investigating the implications of such an approach to media and matter in the concrete setting of installation- or event-based art and technology, Sha maps a genealogy of topological media—that is, of an articulation of continuous matter that relinquishes a priori objects, subjects, and egos and yet constitutes value and novelty. Doing so, he explores the ethico-aesthetic consequences of topologically creating performative events and computational media. Sha's interdisciplinary investigation is informed by thinkers ranging from Heraclitus to Alfred North Whitehead to Gilbert Simondon to Alain Badiou to Donna Haraway to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Sha traces the critical turn from representation to performance, citing a series of installation-events envisioned and built over the past decade. His analysis offers a fresh way to conceive and articulate interactive materials of new media, one inspired by continuity, field, and philosophy of process. Sha explores the implications of this for philosophy and social studies of technology and science relevant to the creation of research and art. Weaving together philosophy, aesthetics, critical theory, mathematics, and media studies, he shows how thinking about the world in terms of continuity and process can be informed by computational technologies, and what such thinking implies for emerging art and technology.

This is a philosophical exploration of the role of art and religion as sources of meaning in an increasingly material world dominated by science. Relating themes in the history of European philosophy to topics in contemporary philosophy, Gordon Graham investigates the idea that art has the potential to re-enchant an irreligious world.

The anthropology of art is currently at a crossroads. Although well versed in the meaning of art in small-scale tribal societies, anthropologists are still wrestling with the question of how to interpret art in a complex, post-colonial environment. Alfred Gell recently confronted this problem in his posthumous book Art and Agency. The central thesis of his study was that art objects could be seen, not as bearers of meaning or aesthetic value, but as forms mediating social action. At a stroke, Gell provocatively dismissed many longstanding but tired questions of definition and issues of aesthetic value. His book proposed a novel perspective on the roles of art in political practice and made fresh links between analyses of style, tradition and society. Offering a new overview of the anthropology of art, this book begins where Gell left off. Presenting wide-ranging critiques of the limits of aesthetic interpretation, the workings of objects in practice, the relations between meaning and efficacy and the politics of postcolonial art, its distinguished contributors both elaborate on and dissent from the controversies of Gells important text. Subjects covered include music and the internet as well as ethnographic traditions and contemporary indigenous art. Geographically its case studies range from India to Oceania to North America and Europe.

The Enchantment of Poetry marks an intriguing collaboration between an artist and a poet. Dr Georgios D. Kordis, a professor, theologian, and important artist of his time, created the fine art drawings. A renowned, world-class iconographer in the Byzantine tradition, Kordis has introduced surrealistic and impressionistic influences that create amazing images that add to Byzantine art traditions. In this volume, the works of Kordis are accompanied by the ideologies and scenarios presented by poetess and muse Lady Sarah Paris. Her poems topics range from historical and religious subjects to romantic and mythical imagery. Lady Pariss poetry encompasses her insights, opinions, fantasies, research, and experiences to realize the depth of the connection between Kordiss art and her writings. Finding inspiration in the Master Painter, Lady Paris has written very special poems, songs, and stories referencing these wonderful fine art treasures. The Enchantment of Poetry brings together two art forms that benefit from the presence of the other in this enchanting illustrated collection.

Women and Pilgrimage presents scholarly essays that address the lacunae in the literature on this topic. The content includes well-trodden domains of pilgrimage scholarship like sacred sites and holy places. In addition, the book addresses some of the less-well-known dimensions of pilgrimage, such as the performances that take place along pilgrims' paths; the ephemeral nature of identifying as a pilgrim, and the economic, social and cultural dimensions of migratory travel. Most importantly, the book's feminist lens encourages readers to consider questions of authenticity, essentialism, and even what is means to be a "woman pilgrim". The volume's six sections are entitled: Questions of Authenticity; Performances and Celebratory Reclamations; Walking Out: Women Forging Their Own Paths; Women Saints: Their Influence and Their Power; Sacred Sites: Their Lineages and Their Uses; and Different Migratory Paths. Each section will enrich readers' knowledge of the experiences of pilgrim women. The book will be of interest to scholars of pilgrimage studies in general as well as those interested in women, travel, tourism, and the variety of religious experiences.

Introduction : from mirror to anamorphosis -- Uncanny : the blind field in Edward Hopper -- Paranoia : Dalí meets Lacan -- Encounter : Breton meets Lacan -- Death drive: Robert Smithson's Spiral jetty -- Mourning : the Vietnam Veterans Memorial -- The real : what is a photograph? -- Conclusion : after Camera lucida.

An anthology of compelling essays by Marina Warner, one of our pre-eminent writers and critics. Art-writing at its most useful should share the dynamism, fluidity and passions of the objects of its enquiry, argues Marina Warner. In this new anthology of some of her most compelling work, she captures the visual experience of the work of several artists - with a notable focus on the inner lives of women - through an exploration of the range of stories and symbols to which they allude. Metamorphosis features vividly in the imagery, stories and media of the art that Warner has chosen to write about: in connection with animals in the work of Louise Bourgeois, for instance; with the Catholicism of Damien Hirst; and with performance as a medium of memory and resistance in the installations of Joan Jonas. Rather than drawing on connoisseurship, the author's approach grows principally out of anthropology and mythology. She argues that art and aesthetics increasingly fulfil a magical social function - a principle that runs through these writings to give the collection a quality that is polemical as well as coherent. With an introductory essay and illustrations throughout, Marina Warner investigates how artists noted for their treatment of disturbing, uncanny material have reached beyond the visible, to express interior states. Truly inspiring, her writing unites the imagination of artist, writer and reader, creating a reading experience parallel to the intrinsic pleasure of looking at art.