First of all, I would like to record my sincere thanks to the two anonymous reviewers from Routledge. Their insightful suggestions and criticisms came at just the right time and helped me in arriving at the final version of the manuscript. Amir Ahmadi also read the manuscript in its entirety and offered a number of valuable suggestions for improvement. At Routledge, Margo Irvin, Katie Laurentiev and Lynne Askin-Roush were a pleasure to work with.
An earlier version of chapter 2 was published as ‘The Problem of the Image: Sacred and Profane Spaces in Walter Benjamin’s Early Writing,’ Critical Horizons 14.3 (2013) (www.maneyonline.com/cri). The version published here substantially amends and supersedes that version. No other material in this book has been previously published.
The research undertaken for this book had the support of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project: ‘Persuasive Force: the role of aesthetic experience in moral persuasion.’ I would like to thank the ARC for the opportunity to conduct this study. I have also been fortunate to have a period of study leave from Monash University to complete the project. I would like to thank the Faculty of Art’s Outside Study Program and successive supportive faculty, school, and departmental heads and colleagues: Pauline Nestor, Sue Kossew, Brett Hutchins, and Toby Handfield.
Particular acknowledgement is due to the people who read and offered their advice on the ARC application: Andrew Benjamin, Graham Oppy, Chris Worth, Bernadette McSherry, Lisa Trahair, and Joanne Witheridge. Jeff Malpas deserves special thanks for talking me through the technicalities of good grant writing. The project grant was held with Krzysztof Ziarek and Andrew Benjamin. This book has benefited from the many workshops and informal conversations held with these two colleagues. Andrew Benjamin’s initiative in establishing the Research Unit in European Philosophy provided a congenial home at Monash for research into aesthetics.
A number of people who have participated in workshops on topics in contemporary aesthetics over the past few years in New York, Paris, Melbourne, and Prato gave very helpful critical evaluations of early versions of some of this material and generously shared their own research. I am especially indebted to: J. M. Bernstein, Alice Crary, Gregg Horowitz, Lydia Goehr, Lisabeth During, Ewa Plonowska-Ziarek, David S. Ferris, Howard Caygill, Rebecca Comay, Miguel de Beistegui, Paul Smith, and Karen Lang.
On more than one occasion, Jean-Philippe Deranty has drawn my attention to salient material for this project and provided a useful sounding board for ideas.
Jessica Whyte and Rachel Torbett re-kindled my interest in Benjamin’s writing. I have been very lucky to have the opportunity to work with each of them. Rachel, and her delicate sensibility for detail, is deeply missed.
This book is for Amir.