The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness

by Joshua Paul Dale (editor), Joyce Goggin (Editor), Julia Leyda (Editor)

Cuteness is one of the most culturally pervasive aesthetics of the new millennium and its rapid social proliferation suggests that the affective responses it provokes find particular purchase in a contemporary era marked by intensive media saturation and spreading economic precarity. Rejecting superficial assessments that would deem the ever-expanding plethora of cute texts trivial, The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness directs serious scholarly attention from a variety of academic disciplines to this ubiquitous phenomenon. The sheer plasticity of this minor aesthetic is vividly on display in this collection which draws together analyses from around the world examining cuteness’s fundamental role in cultural expressions stemming from such diverse sources as military cultures, high-end contemporary art worlds , and animal shelters. Pushing beyond prevailing understandings that associate cuteness solely with childhood or which posit an interpolated parental bond as its primary affective attachment, the essays in this collection variously draw connections between cuteness and the social, political, economic, and technological conditions of the early twenty-first century and in doing so generate fresh understandings of the central role cuteness plays in the recalibration of contemporary subjectivities.

Genres: Psychology, Sociology

310 pages, Hardcover

First published December 8, 2016

About the author

Joshua Paul Dale is the author of Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired our Brains and Conquered the World and a Professor of American Literature and Culture at Chuo University in Tokyo. Since moving to Japan in the 1990s, Dale has pioneered the field of Cute Studies, and has been featured as an expert on cuteness by media outlets such as The New York Times, TED-Ed, CNN, National Geographic, the Guardian, The Cut, Refinery29 and Discover Magazine. Visit his website at: www.cutestudies.org.

Reviews

[Nicolas Lontel · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai vraiment appris énormément sur le cute et le kawaii dans ce livre de "cute studies", de l'historique humiliant, voir son usage essentialiste dans les théories eugénistes nazies par un théoricien super influent!, du terme cute en contexte américain et européen tandis que son équivalent en Asie est libre de tout ce bagage péjoratif et tient plutôt d'une tradition beaucoup plus positive.

Beaucoup des textes s'intéressaient à l'usage du cute par le capitalisme et comment cela servait les intérêts marchands et économiques (des jeux de hasard aux marchands de crème glacée en passant par la culture cinématographique ou l'armée américaine en déploiement), plusieurs textes s'intéressent aussi à comment les artistes se servent du cute pour subvertir certains espaces ou attentes.

L'ensemble des textes est vraiment super intéressant, brosse un portrait très large (bien que les analyses sont très spécifiques) de ce qu'est le cute, son utilité, son appropriation, ses bénéfices, mais aussi les problèmes qui peuvent vite subvenir si on se laisse saisir par le ahhh, le cute petit chien en couverture!!!!! Tellement adorable ♥♥♥♥