Paul A. Kottman

Paul A. Kottman (born 1970) is a comparatist, literary critic and scholar whose recent work belongs to the tradition of Aesthetic philosophy and anthropological philosophy. He is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the New School for Social Research in New York City, where he is a member of the Committee on Liberal Studies, and is affiliated with the Philosophy Department. He holds the Abilitazione, Professore Ordinario in Filosofia, Estetica (Professor of Philosophy, Aesthetics) in Italy. He has held Visiting Professorships at the University del Piemonte Orientale, (2006); the University of Tokyo (2011-12); the Università degli studi di Verona; Instituto per gli studi filosofici, Naples; and the International Chair in Political Languages, Dipartimento di Politiche Pubbliche e Scelte Colletive (POLIS). He has held a fellowship at Internationales Kolleg Morphomata, Universität zu Köln, and is Full Professor of Philosophy (Aesthetics), Italy National Scientific Committee. He is also the editor of a new book series at Stanford University Press, Square One: First Order Questions in the Humanities, is on the editorial board of Cultura della Modernità (Edizioni ETS, Italy), and the advisory boards of Columbia Themes in Philosophy, Social Criticism and the Arts (Columbia University Press) and Corpus: Filosofie e sapere (Paparo Edizioni, Italy)

Kottman is known for his philosophical readings of Shakespeare, and Shakespearean tragedy, in various essays and in his book, Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare]. According to Kottman, "Shakespearean tragedy works through the loss of any 'given' — nature, or God, or “fate” — that might explain human societies, histories, actions, destinies, relationships and values. Shakespeare challenges us to understand tragedies not as responding to existential facts (desire, or mortality) or historical situations (Henry V’s invasion of France, or the fate of the Roman republic), but as responding to the fact that there are no givens that fully govern our activities. At the same time, Shakespearean tragedy works through the loss of social bonds on which we depend for the meaning and worth of our lives together — showing those bonds to be, in spite of that dependence, fully dissolvable. In this way, Shakespearean tragedy helps us make sense of how we interact one another — without the help of any Archimedean standpoint, with only the interactions themselves as sources of intelligibility and meaning. In Shakespearean tragedy, our actions (must) explain themselves…. "^[1]

Bibliography

• (2017) Love as Human Freedom, Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1503602274
• (2009) Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0801893711
• (2007) A Politics of the Scene, Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0804758345
• Una politica della scena: Una lettura filosofica di Shakespeare [Italian translation of A Politics of the Scene] (Mimesis edizioni, 2014) ISBN 978-8857519913

Edited Volumes

• The Insistence of Art: Aesthetic Philosophy after Early Modernity (Fordham University Press, 2017) ISBN 9780823275809
• The Art of Hegel's Aesthetics: Hegelian Philosophy and the Perspectives of Art History Michael Squire, co-editor (Wilhelm Fink, 2017) ISBN 9783770562855
• Philosophers on Shakespeare (Stanford University Press, 2009) ISBN 9780804759205

Published Essays

• “Defying the Stars: Tragic Love as the Struggle for Freedom in Romeo and Juliet” Essay on Project Muse.
• “What is Shakespearean Tragedy?” Lead Essay in Oxford Handbook to Shakespearean Tragedy, edited by Michael Neill and David Schalkwyk (Oxford University Press, 2016)
• “How the Humanities Willl Save the World,” Los Angeles Review of Books, December 12, 2014
• “Series Editor Preface to [[Adriana Cavarero, Inclinations"] Stanford University Press 2016
• “Duel,” in Early Modern Theatricality, edited by Henry Turner (Oxford University Press, 2014)
• “Why Think about Shakespearean Tragedy?” in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Tragedy, edited by Claire McEchern (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
• Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington DC (Asides)
• “Quid non sentit amor? Romantic Love as the Struggle for Freedom in Ovid’s Pyramus and Thisbe” in Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, volume 19, number 3, 2012
• “Defying the Stars: Tragic Love as the Struggle for Freedom in Romeo and Juliet,” Shakespeare Quarterly, volume 63, no. 1, Spring 2012
• “Novus Ordo Saeclorum: Hannah Arendt on Revolutionary Spirit,” in Political Theology on the Scenes of Early Modernity, edited by Julia Reinhard Lupton and Graham Hammill (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
• “Slipping on Banana Peels, Tumbling into Wells: Philosophy and Comedy, Diacritics vol. 38, no. 4 (2008)

Discussions of Kottman's Work

• Response to Paul A. Kottman, “Defying the Stars: Tragic Love as the Struggle for Freedom in Romeo and Juliet” Shakespeare Quarterly Volume 63, Number 1, Spring 2012 pp. 39-45 |
• Romeo and Juliet: A Critical Reader edited by Julia Reinhard Lupton (Bloomsbury, 2016)
• Jennifer Ann Bates, “Confusing Matters: Romeo and Juliet and Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature” Memoria di Shakespeare 201 (January 2014)pp. 173-
• Bruce Smith, “Scene” from Early Modern Theatricality, edited by Henry Turner (Oxford University Press 2014)
• Joseph Sterrett , The Unheard Prayer: Religious Toleration in Shakespeare's Drama (Brill, 2012)
• The Return of Theory in Early Modern English Studies, Volume 2, edited by P. Cefalu, G. Kuchar, B. Reynolds (Springer 2014)
• Thinking on Thresholds: The Poetics of Transitive Spaces, edited by Subha Mukherji (Anthem Press 2013)
• Richard van Oort, Shakespeare's Big Men: Tragedy and the Problem of Resentment (University of Toronto Press, 2016)
• Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, and Civic Life: The Boundaries of Civic Space, edited by Silvia Bigliazzi, Lisanna Calvi (Routledge 2015)
• Julia Reinhard Lupton, Thinking with Shakespeare (University of Chicago Press 2014)
• The Oxford Handbook of Shakespearean Tragedy edited by Michael Neill, David Schalkwyk (Oxford University Press 2016)
• James Kuzner, Shakespeare as a Way of Life: Skeptical Practice and the Politics of Weakness (Oxford University Press 2016)
• Björn Quiring, editor, “If Then the World a Theatre Present...“: Revisions of the Theatrum Mundi
• Radical Future Pasts: Untimely Political Theory edited by Romand Coles, Mark Reinhardt, George Shulman (University of Kentucky Press, 2014)
• The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment: Gender, Sexuality, and Race edited by Valerie Traub (Oxford University Press, 2016)
• Ewan Fernie, Shakespeare for Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 2017)
• Amir Khan, Shakespeare in Hindsight: Counterfactual Thinking and Shakespearean Tragedy (Edinburgh University Press 2016)

Reviews

• Review of A Politics of the Scene in the Times Literary Supplement.
• Review of A Politics of the Scene in The Drama Review.
• Review of A Politics of the Scene in Renaissance Quarterly.
• Review of A Politics of the Scene in Early Modern Literary Studies.
• Review of A Politics of the Scene in Shakespeare Studies.
• Review of A Politics of the Scene in Comparative Literature.
• Review of A Politics of the Scene in Journal for Cultural Research.
• Review of A Politics of the Scene in The Upstart Crow.
• Review of Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare in the Times Literary Supplement.
• Review of Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare in the Shakespeare Quarterly.
• Review of Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare in Comparative Drama.
• Review of Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare in Renaissance Quarterly.
• Review of Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare in Shakespeare Quarterly.
• Review of Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare in Review of English Studies.
• Review of Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare in Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England.
• Review of Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare in Studies in English Literature 1500-1900.
• Response to "Defying the Stars: Tragic Love as the Struggle for Freedom in Romeo and Juliet" in Shakespeare Quarterly.

Lectures

• Video of Kottman’s address at the international conference The Art of Hegel’s Aesthetics: Hegelian philosophy and the perspectives of art history

References

External links

• PaulKottman.com Website with bibliography of work, speaking engagements, etc.
• Academic homepage at The New School for Social Research