The growing exploration of political life from an aesthetic perspective has become so prominent that we must now speak of an "aesthetic turn+? in political thought. But what does it mean and what makes it an
aesthetic
turn? Why now? This diverse and path-breaking collection of essays answers these questions, provoking new ways to think about the possibilities and debilities of democratic politics.Beginning from the premise that politics is
already
"aesthetic in principle, +? the contributions to
The Aesthetic Turn in Political Thought
from some of the world's leading political theorists and philosophers, disclose a distinct set of political problems
: the aesthetic problems of modern politics
. The aesthetic turn in political thought not only recognizes that these problems are different in kind from the standard problems of politics, it also recognizes that they call for a different kind of theorizing - a theorizing that is itself aesthetic.A major contribution to contemporary theoretical debates,
will be essential reading to anyone interested in the interdisciplinary crossroads of aesthetic and politics.