Transgression and the Aesthetics of Evil

"Philosophically acute, theoretically adept, and elegantly composed, Taran Kang’s Transgression and the Aesthetics of Evil explores the fraught and fascinating terrain where the aesthetic and ethical transect. Mindful of the interdiction on aestheticizing evil while also attentive to the emancipatory capacities of transgression, Kang traces evil from the eighteenth century’s commitment to the moral claims of aesthetic projects through subsequent assertions of aesthetic autonomy to produce an epistemic intervention in the apperception of evil."

Marian Eide, Professor of English, Texas A&M University

"The definition of evil has posed an ongoing problem for the post-theological world, in which there is ‘nothing to fall back on,’ in Hannah Arendt's notable words. Taran Kang's remarkable book turns to the aesthetics of evil not for distraction, temptation, or even subversion, but rather to insist on the moral and political capacities of the imagination itself. This is an erudite and rigorous study that will be of key importance to a wide readership with interest in modern intellectual history, philosophy, and the arts."

Michael P. Steinberg, Barnaby Conrad and Mary Critchfield Keeney Professor of History and Professor of Music and German Studies, Brown University