Bold and controversial work on a hot new topic in philosophy
Groundbreaking and original—the first book of its kind
Explores the relationship of art and pornography in film, literature, and art, in a wide range of cultural and historical contexts
Art and Pornography presents a series of essays which investigate the artistic status and aesthetic dimension of pornographic pictures, films, and literature, and explores the distinction, if there is any, between pornography and erotic art. Is there any overlap between art and pornography, or are the two mutually exclusive? If they are, why is that? If they are not, how might we characterize pornographic art or artistic pornography, and how might pornographic art be distinguished, if at all, from erotic art? Can there be aesthetic experience of pornography? What are some of the psychological, social, and political consequences of the creation and appreciation of erotic art or artistic pornography? Leading scholars from around the world address these questions, and more, and bring together different aesthetic perspectives and approaches to this widely consumed, increasingly visible, yet aesthetically underexplored cultural domain. The book, the first of its kind in philosophical aesthetics, will contribute to a more accurate and subtle understanding of the many representations that incorporate explicit sexual imagery and themes, in both high art and demotic culture, in Western and non-Western contexts. It is sure to stir debate, and healthy controversy.

Edited by Hans Maes, University of Kent, and Jerrold Levinson, University of Maryland

Hans Maes received his PhD from the University of Leuven, Belgium, and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and University of Maryland, USA. He is currently Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Art at the University of Kent and Associate Director of the Aesthetics Research Group. He has authored papers on a variety of subjects in aesthetics, including the role of intention in the interpretation of art, the notion of free beauty, and the relation between art and pornography. In 2010 he was elected President of the Dutch Society for Aesthetics.

Jerrold Levinson is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he has taught since 1976. He is the author of Music, Art, and Metaphysics (Cornell University Press, 1990), The Pleasures of Aesthetics (Cornell University Press, 1996), Music in the Moment (Cornell University Press, 1998), L=art, la musique, et l=histoire (Editions de l`eclat, 1998), La musique de film: fiction et narration (Presses Universitaires de Pau, 2000), and Contemplating Art (OUP, 2006), as well as editor of Aesthetics and Ethics (CUP, 1998) and The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics (OUP, 2003), and co-editor of Aesthetic Concepts (OUP, 2001).

Contributors:
Brandon Cooke, Minnesota State University
David Davies, McGill University
A.W. Eaton, University of Illinois-Chicago
Andrew Kania, Trinity University, San Antonio
Hans Maes, University of Kent
Christy Mag Uidhir, University of Houston, Texas
Jerrold Levinson, University of Maryland
Bence Nanay, University of Antwerp/University of Cambridge
Alex Neill, University of Southampton
Michael Newall, University of Kent
Henry John Pratt, Marist College, New York
Jesse Prinz, City University of New York
Petra Van Brabandt, University of Antwerp
Elisabeth Schellekens, Durham University
Kathleen Stock, Sussex University
Cain Todd, Lancaster University


Introduction
I. Pornography, Erotica, and Art
1: Hans Maes: Who Says Pornography Can`t Be Art?
2: Alex Neill: The Pornographic, the Erotic, the Charming, and the Sublime
3: David Davies: Pornography, Art, and the Intended Response of the Receiver
4: Jerrold Levinson: Is Pornographic Art Comparable to Religious Art? Reply to Davies
II. Pornography, Imagination, and Fiction
5: Cain Todd: Imagination, Fantasy, and Sexual Desire
6: Kathleen Stock: Pornography and Imagining about Oneself
7: Christy Mag Uidhir and Henry John Pratt: Pornography at the Edge: Depiction, Fiction, and Sexual Predeliction
III. Pornography, Medium, and Genre
8: Petra van Brabandt and Jesse Prinz: Why Do Porn Films Suck
9: Bence Nanay: Anti-Pornography: André Kertész`s Distortions
10: Michael Newall: An Aesthetics of Transgressive Pornography
IV. Pornography, Ethics, and Feminism
11: Brandon Cooke: On the Ethical Distinction Between Art and Pornography
12: Andrew Kania: Concepts of Pornography: Aesthetics, Feminism, and Methodology
13: A. W. Eaton: What`s Wrong With The (Female) Nude? A Feminist Perspective on Art and Pornography
14: Elisabeth Schellekens: Taking a Moral Perspective: On Voyeurism in Art
Index