Doing justice in aesthetics (Aesthetics of beauty)

This essay argues that recent attempts to celebrate the aesthetics of beauty because of its privileged connection to equitable or just social relations are misguided; such accounts-by Elaine Scarry, Wendy Steiner, and Peter de Bolla-continue to be conditioned by the normative inclusions and exclusions that have characterized writing on beauty at least since the eighteenth century. The essay also argues for a reconsideration of Kant's sublime in order to arrive at a more convincing connection between aesthetics and socialjustice. / REPRESENTATIONS 95. Summer 2006 (c) 2006 The Regents of the University of California.