Good Entertainment: A Deconstruction of the Western Passion Narrative

— —

Byung-Chul Han (Professor, Universität der Künste Berlin) Adrian Nathan West (Translator (Spanish and German to English))

Good Entertainment

A Deconstruction of the Western Passion Narrative

Byung-Chul Han (Professor, Universität der Künste Berlin), Adrian Nathan West (Translator (Spanish and German to English))

$32.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

MIT Press
08 October 2019

Popular philosophy; Society & culture: general

Series: Untimely Meditations

A philosopher considers entertainment, in all its totalizing variety-infotainment, edutainment, servotainment-and traces the notion through Kant, Zen Buddhism, Heidegger, Kafka, and Rauschenberg.

In Good Entertainment, Byung-Chul Han examines the notion of entertainment-its contemporary ubiquity, and its philosophical genealogy. Entertainment today, in all its totalizing variety, has an apparently infinite capacity for incorporation- infotainment, edutainment, servotainment, confrontainment. Entertainment is held up as a new paradigm, even a new credo for being-and yet, in the West, it has had inescapably negative connotations. Han traces Western ideas of entertainment, considering, among other things, the scandal that arose from the first performance of Bach's Saint Matthew's Passion (deemed too beautiful, not serious enough); Kant's idea of morality as duty and the entertainment value of moralistic literature; Heidegger's idea of the thinker as a man of pain; Kafka's hunger artist and the art of negativity, which takes pleasure in annihilation; and Robert Rauschenberg's refusal of the transcendent.

The history of the West, Han tells us, is a passion narrative, and passion appears as a killjoy. Achievement is the new formula for passion, and play is subordinated to production, gamified. And yet, he argues, at their core, passion and entertainment are not entirely different. The pure meaninglessness of entertainment is adjacent to the pure meaning of passion. The fool's smile resembles the pain-racked visage of Homo doloris. In Good Entertainment, Han explores this paradox.

By: Byung-Chul Han (Professor Universität der Künste Berlin)
Translated by: Adrian Nathan West (Translator (Spanish and German to English))
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 178mm, Width: 114mm, Spine: 11mm
ISBN: 9780262537506
ISBN 10: 0262537508
Series: Untimely Meditations
Pages: 144
Publication Date: 08 October 2019
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Byung-Chul Han, born in Seoul, is Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at the Universit t der K nste Berlin (UdK). One of the most widely read philosophers in Europe, he is the author of more than twenty books, including including four previous volumes in the MIT Press Untimely Meditations series, In the Swarm- Digital Prospects, The Agony of Eros, Shanzhai- Deconstruction in Chinese, and Topology of Violence.