This book offers an original contribution towards a new theory of intersubjectivity which places ethics of breath, hospitality and non-violence in the forefront. Emphasizing Indian philosophy and religion and related cross-cultural interpretations, it provides new intercultural interpretations of key Western concepts which traditionally were developed and followed in the vein of re-conceptualizations of Greek thought, as in Nietzsche and Heidegger, for example. The significance of the book lies in its establishment of a new platform for thinking philosophically about intersubjectivity, so as to nudge contemporary philosophy towards a more sensitive approach, which is needed in our times. Intended for philosophers, feminists and others concerned with intercultural philosophy, the book will appeal to readers interested in contemporary ethical and political theories. A Breath of Proximity will benefit all who seek a more sensitive approach in philosophy and often-neglected practical layers of our everyday intersubjective relations. Life as breath: such is the grand theme of Lenart Škof's wonderful new book. Ranging from Indian Vedic writings to Heidegger and Irigaray, Breath of Proximity cuts across the tired analytic/continental distinction in philosophy and proposes an ethical cosmology based on our human dwelling. A breath of fresh air! Kevin Hart is Professor of Christian Studies at the University of Virginia Lenart Škof wrote a very interesting book on breath and breathing which expresses and analyzes the essence of human existence. The breath or wind is the core point of humans. As you know, you will read in John 3.8 that the humans are born from the wind. The breath and wind have something to do with the ethics of being human, because humans live with breath and breathing. Ethics is essentially a way of life through breathing. Tadashi Ogawa is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Kyoto University Breath and breathing are central themes of Asian philosophies since ancient times. This was also the case in ancient Europe. But we forgot about this dimension in our academic discourse. The book of Lenart Škof brings into sight that well known Western philosophers of the 20th century picked this topic up again. The book is the most notable and far-reaching attempt to rediscover the fundamental dimension of breath and breathing for the contemporary discourse of philosophy. Rolf Elberfeld is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hildesheim.

This book offers an original contribution towards a new theory of intersubjectivity which places ethics of breath, hospitality and non-violence in the forefront. Emphasizing Indian philosophy and religion (Vedas and Upanishads) and related cross-cultural interpretations, it provides new intercultural interpretations of key Western concepts which traditionally were developed and followed in the vein of re-conceptualizations or revitalizations of Greek thought, as in Nietzsche and Heidegger, for example. The significance of the book lies in its establishment of a new platform for thinking philosophically about intersubjectivity, so as to nudge contemporary philosophy towards a more sensitive approach, which is needed in our times. Its originality lies in its innovative approach, which searches for the origin of ethical gestures (represented in respecting the breath/breathing) through the newly introduced concept of “mesocosm” as a space of a ritual, or a new ethical space of intersubjective encounters. The book also introduces the possibility of an original ethics based on breath. Intended for philosophers, feminists and others concerned with intercultural philosophy and comparative religion, the book will appeal to readers interested in contemporary ethical and political theories of peaceful conflict resolution and concepts of hospitality. A Breath of Hospitality will benefit all who seek a more sensitive approach in philosophy, including philosophy of religion, and often-neglected practical and educational layers of our everyday intersubjective relations.

Around the time this book is being written the world is faced with threats of terrorism, random shootings in various public places on a global scale, increased school violence especially in the United States, increased racial, ethnic, and religious tension worldwide as well as global forced displacement of people due to violence and human rights violations. Given this context, this project turns attention to the problematic of the “uprootedness of the modern man” in our age of technological advancement, globalization, and distraction. It introduces an innovative perspective to the study of communication ethics and the larger field of communication studies through an aesthetic ecology framework. The concept of aesthetic ecology refers to an environment that involves material, conceptual, and contemplative elements that are part of the ongoing dialogue between our sensuous and interpretive engagements in/with the world. Each chapter of this book explores an aspect of this aesthetic ecology in facilitating existential rootedness in connection to communication ethics.

As a physiological or biological matter, breath is mostly considered to be mechanical and thoughtless. By expanding on the insights of many religions and therapeutic practices, which emphasize the cultivation of breath, the contributors argue that breath should be understood as fundamentally and comprehensively intertwined with human life and experience. Various dimensions of the respiratory world are referred to as "atmospheres" that encircle and connect human existence, coexistence, and the world. Drawing from a number of traditions of breathing, including from Indian and East Asian religion and philosophy, the book considers breath in relation to ontological, hermeneutical, phenomenological, ethical, and aesthetic concerns in philosophy. The wide-ranging topics include poetry, theater, environmental issues and health, feminism, and media studies.

Exploring the relations between the concepts of peace and violence with aesthetics, nature, the body, and environmental issues, The Poesis of Peace applies a multidisciplinary approach to case studies in both Western and non-Western contexts including Islam, Chinese philosophy, Buddhist and Hindu traditions. Established and renowned theologians and philosophers, such as Kevin Hart, Eduardo Mendieta, and Clemens Sedmak, as well as upcoming and talented young academics look at peace and non-violence through the lens of recent scholarly advances on the subject achieved in the fields of theology, philosophy, political theory, and environmentalism.

Breathing and its rhythms—liminal, syncopal, and usually inconspicuous—have become a core poetic compositional principle in modern literature. Examining moments when breath's punctuations, cessations, inhalations, or exhalations operate at the limits of meaningful speech, Stefanie Heine explores how literary texts reflect their own mediality, production, and reception in alluding to and incorporating pneumatic rhythms, respiratory sound, and silent pauses. Through close readings of works by a series of pairs—Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg; Robert Musil and Virginia Woolf; Samuel Beckett and Sylvia Plath; and Paul Celan and Herta Müller—Poetics of Breathing suggests that each offers a different conception of literary or poetic breath as a precondition of writing. Presenting a challenge to historical and contemporary discourses that tie breath to the transcendent and the natural, Heine traces a decoupling of breath from its traditional association with life, and asks what literature might lie beyond.

Explores the intrinsic relation of life to air, and breathing, through contemporary art In Out of Breath, Caterina Albano examines the cultural significance of breath and air to a wide array of forces in our midst, including economy, politics, infection, and ecological violence. Through a consideration of recent art practices and projects, including the dance project Breath Catalogue, which makes visible the breathing patterns of dancers, and Forensic Architecture’s Cloud Studies video, which investigates eight different kinds of clouds from airstrikes to herbicides to tear gas, Albano focuses on breath as both an intuitive process and a conveyer of meanings. Conceived in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and systemic inequalities that it has laid bare, Out of Breath shows the potential of artistic practices to mobilize affect as a form of cultural and political critique. Forerunners is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital works. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

Breathing is not a common subject in feminist studies. Breathing Matters introduces this phenomenon as a forceful potentiality for feminist intersec-tional theories, politics, and social and environmental justice. By analyzing the material and discursive as well as the natural and cultural enactments of breath in black lung disease, phone sex work, and anxieties and panic attacks, Breathing Matters proposes a nonuniver salizing and politicized understanding of embodiment. In this approach, human bodies are conceptualized as agential actors of intersectional poli-tics. Magdalena Górska argues that struggles for breath and for breathable lives are matters of differential forms of political practices in which vulnera-ble and quotidian corpomaterial and corpo-affective actions are constitutive of politics. Set in the context of feminist poststructuralist and new materialist and postconstructionist debates, Breathing Matters offers a discussion of human embodiment and agency reconfigured in a posthumanist manner. Its interdisciplinary analytical practice demonstrates that breathing is a phenomenon that is important to study from scientific, medical, political, environmental and social perspectives.

In Breathing Aesthetics Jean-Thomas Tremblay argues that difficult breathing indexes the uneven distribution of risk in a contemporary era marked by the increasing contamination, weaponization, and monetization of air. Tremblay shows how biopolitical and necropolitical forces tied to the continuation of extractive capitalism, imperialism, and structural racism are embodied and experienced through respiration. They identify responses to the crisis in breathing in aesthetic practices ranging from the film work of Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta to the disability diaries of Bob Flanagan, to the Black queer speculative fiction of Renee Gladman. In readings of these and other minoritarian works of experimental film, endurance performance, ecopoetics, and cinema-vérité, Tremblay contends that articulations of survival now depend on the management and dispersal of respiratory hazards. In so doing, they reveal how an aesthetic attention to breathing generates historically, culturally, and environmentally situated tactics and strategies for living under precarity.