Author: Ben-Ami Scharfstein File Type: pdf People all over the world make art and take pleasure in it, and they have done so for millennia. But acknowledging that art is a universal part of human experience leads us to some big questions Why does it exist? Why do we enjoy it? And how do the worlds different art traditions relate to art and to each other? Art Without Borders is an extraordinary exploration of those questions, a profound and personal meditation on the human hunger for art and a dazzling synthesis of the whole range of inquiry into its significance. Esteemed thinker Ben-Ami Scharfsteins encyclopedic erudition is here brought to bear on the full breadth of the world of art. He draws on neuroscience and psychology to understand the way we both perceive and conceive of art, including its resistance to verbal exposition. Through examples of work by Indian, Chinese, European, African, and Australian**artists, Art Without Borders probes the distinction between accepting a tradition and defying it through innovation, which leads to a consideration of the notion of artistic genius. Continuing in this comparative vein, Scharfstein examines the mutual influence of European and non-European artists. Then, through a comprehensive evaluation of the worlds major art cultures, he shows how all of these individual traditions are gradually, but haltingly, conjoining into a single current of universal art. Finally, he concludes by looking at the ways empathy and intuition can allow members of one culture to appreciate the art of another. Lucid, learned, and incomparably rich in thought and detail, Art Without Borders is a monumental accomplishment, on par with the artistic achievements Scharfstein writes about so lovingly in its pages.**

Author: Carl A. Huffman File Type: pdf Aristoxenus of Tarentum was reported to have been bitterly disappointed when Theophrastus was chosen instead of him to succeed Aristotle as the head of the Peripatetic School. He had a truly phenomenal output of some 453 volumes, most of which survive only in fragments. He was the most famous music theorist in antiquity and came to be referred to simply as the musician. In addition, he was a founder of Greek biography and wrote the life histories of Pythagoras, Archytas, Socrates, and Plato among others. This volume includes eleven selections, which are almost evenly divided between his work in music theory and biography. There is a chapter on his general biographical method as well as chapters on his specific treatments of the Pythagoreans, Socrates, and Plato. There are chapters evaluating the extent to which Aristoxenus was a historian of music, his account of music therapy, his views on musical character, the use of instruments and empiricism in his harmonic theory, and his relation to the Neoclassical Greek composers of the fourth century. This volume includes Did Aristoxenus Write Musical History?, Andrew Barker Instruments and Empiricism in Aristoxenus Elementa harmonica, David Creese Aristoxenus and Musical Ethos, Eleonora Rocconi Aristoxenus and Music Therapy Fr. 26 Wehrli Within the Tradition on Music and Catharsis, Antonella Provenza Aristoxenus and the Neoclassicists, Timothy Power Apollonius on Theophrastus on Aristoxenus, William W. Fortenbaugh Aristoxenus Biographical Method, Stefan Schorn Aristoxenus and the Pythagoreans, Leonid Zhmud Aristoxenus Life of Socrates, Carl A. Huffman Aristoxenus Life of Plato, John Dillon and Aristoxenus and the Early Academy, Andrew Barker. Spanning close to three full decades, Transactions Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities Series continues to pioneer in the field of classical studies.**About the Author Carl A. Huffman is Edwin L. Minar Professor of Classical Studies and Robert Stockwell Professor of Greek Language and Literature at DePauw University. His work has appeared in Classical Quarterly and Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. In addition, he is the author of Archytas of Tarentum Pythagorean, Philosopher, and Mathematician King and Philolaus of Croton Pythgorean and Presocratic.