Beautiful Ugliness

Mark William Roche is the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Professor of German Language and Literature, concurrent professor of philosophy, and former dean of the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of many books, including Realizing the Distinctive University (University of Notre Dame Press, 2017) and Why Choose the Liberal Arts? (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), which won the Frederic W. Ness Book Award.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations and Translations Introduction Part One. Conceptual Framework 1. Unveiling Ugliness 2. Aesthetic Categories 3. Intellectual Resources 4. Imperial Rome 5. Late Medieval Christianity 6. The Theological Rationale for Christianity's Immersion in Ugliness Part Two. Historical Interlude 7. Modernity 8. Modernity's Ontological and Aesthetic Shift Part Three. Forms of Beautiful Ugliness Styles of Beautiful Ugliness 9. Repugnant Beauty 10. Fractured Beauty 11. Aischric Beauty 12. Beauty Dwelling in Ugliness 13. Dialectical Beauty 14. Speculative Beauty Conclusion Works Cited Index

"Roche's erudition is not easily matched, not only in the study of Hegel's philosophy, but also in literature and the arts. Examples from literature, painting, music, theatre, and film abound in this book, bringing an entirely new dimension to the author's philosophical argument." -Vladimir Marchenkov, coeditor of Hegel's Political Aesthetics "There is something refreshing in Mark William Roche's seriousness and audacity in engaging a theme of great interest, too often neglected. The author addresses and overcomes this neglect, addressing the ugly and beauty in an ordered systematic way. I know nothing which matches its range of engagement." -William Desmond, author of Godsends: From Default Atheism to the Surprise of Revelation "Probably since Karl Rosenkranz's famous Aesthetics of the Ugly of 1853 no comparable effort has been made to look at the various forms in which ugliness can be used for aesthetic purposes and thus become itself a part of the beautiful. Roche's richly illustrated Beautiful Ugliness is highly recommended to philosophers, theologians, and historians of art and literature." -Vittorio Hoesle, author of A Short History of German Philosophy "It is hard to deny that Beautiful Ugliness is an enormously rich, argumentatively dense, and intelligent book that has the power to trigger many discussions. It shows, perhaps precisely through its provocative potential, the enormous power of a rational aesthetics of the ugly." -Christian Illies, co-author of Philosophy of Architecture "Beautiful Ugliness is a guidebook for navigating the landscape of ugly art, helpfully presenting a wide range of examples from all artistic genres, and, more importantly, developing a taxonomy of kinds of 'beautiful ugliness,' ways in which ugliness contributes to the beauty of an artwork." -Law & Liberty