Authored Books: Philosophy
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Things: In Touch with the Past
Oxford University Press, 2019 This book explores the value of artifacts that have survived from the past and that can be said to "embody" their histories. Such genuine or "real" things afford a particular kind of aesthetic experience--an encounter with the past--despite the fact that genuineness is not a perceptually detectable property. Although it often goes unnoticed, the sense of touch underlies such encounters, even though one is often not permitted literal touch. My blog post related to this project can be read here. The book is available here. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/things-9780190904876?q=korsmeyer&lang=en&cc=us and at www.amazon.com/Things-Touch-Past-Carolyn-Korsmeyer/dp/0190904879/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=korsmeyer+things&qid=1603815980&sr=8-1 |
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Savoring Disgust: The Foul and the Fair in Aesthetics Oxford University Press, 2011. Disgust is among the strongest of aversions, characterized by involuntary physical recoil and even nausea. Yet paradoxically, disgusting objects can sometimes exert a grisly allure, and this emotion can constitute a positive, appreciative aesthetic response when explored by works of art--a phenomenon I label "aesthetic disgust." Most treatments of disgust mistakenly interpret it as only an extreme reaction, neglecting the many subtle ways that it operates aesthetically. This study calls attention to the diversity and depth of its uses, considering the enormous variety for forms it can assume in works of art and--unexpectedly--even in foods. For a podcast interview with Carrie Figdor (New Books in Philosophy) about disgust in art, click here. This book is available here. and on Amazon, here. |
Gender and Aesthetics: An Introduction
Routledge, 2004 Polish translation 2008, Korean translation 2010, Japanese translation, 2010. Feminist approaches to art have been influential across a variety of disciplines, including art history, cultural and visual studies, and philosophy. This book is an introduction to feminist perspectives on major theories within philosophy of art and aesthetics. It examines the role of gender in forming ideas about art and artists, creativity, genius, and aesthetic qualities. Both contemporary and historical theorists are covered, including Plato, Kant, Hume, Irigaray, and Kristeva, among others. The book is available from: www.routledge.com/Gender-and-Aesthetics-An-Introduction/Korsmeyer/p/book/9780415266598 |
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Making Sense of Taste: Food and Philosophy Cornell University Press, 1999. Taste, perhaps the most intimate of the five external senses, has traditionally been considered beneath the concern of philosophy, too bound to the body, too personal and idiosyncratic. Yet, in addition to providing physical pleasure and nourishment, eating and drinking bear symbolic and aesthetic value in human experience, and the continually inspire writers and artists. This book explores how taste came to occupy so low a place in the hierarchy of senses and why it is deserving of greater philosophical respect and attention. This book was honored with the International Prize from the Italian Society for Aesthetics in 2014. Its Italian translation, Il senso del gusto: Cibo e filosofia (Ed. N. Parullo, trans. S. Marino) appeared in 2015. Other translations: Chinese (2000), Spanish (2002), Korean (2020). It may be purchased from the press: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/?q=Korsmeyer%20 And from: www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Taste-Food-Philosophy/dp/0801488133/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=korsmeyer+making+sense+of+taste&qid=1603844879&s=books&sr=1-1 |
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Feminist Scholarship: Kindling in the Groves of Academe by Ellen Carol Dubois, Gail Paradise Kelly, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, Carolyn Korsmeyer, and Lillian S. Robinson University of Illinois Press, 1985. Paperback 1987. In this collaborative work, five scholars assess the nature and extent of the emergence of feminist perspectives in history, literature, education, anthropology and philosophy. www.amazon.com/Feminist-Scholarship-Kindling-Groves-Academe/dp/0252009576/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=feminist+scholarship%3A+kindling+in+the+groves+of+academe&qid=1603908453&s=books&sr=1-1 |
Edited Books
Philosophical Perspectives on Ruins, Monuments, and Memorials
Edited by Jeanette Bicknell. Jennifer Judkins, and Carolyn Korsmeyer New York: Routledge, 2020. For an interview with the editors, see http://aestheticsforbirds.com/2019/11/29/whats-so-interesting-about-the-past-an-interview-about-ruins-monuments-and-memorials/ |

Aurel Kolnai on Disgust
Co-edited with Barry Smith
Open Court, 2004
Co-edited with Barry Smith
Open Court, 2004

Literary Philosophers? Borges, Calvino, Eco
Co-edited with Jorge Gracia and Rodolphe Gasché
Routledge, 2002.
Co-edited with Jorge Gracia and Rodolphe Gasché
Routledge, 2002.

Aesthetics: The Big Questions
Blackwell, 1998
Chinese translation 2001.
Blackwell, 1998
Chinese translation 2001.
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Aesthetics in Feminist Perspective
Co-edited with Hilde Hein
Indiana University Press, 1990
Co-edited with Hilde Hein
Indiana University Press, 1990