The Difference Aesthetics Makes

“The Difference Aesthetics Makes reconsiders the centrality of aesthetics to the humanities and elaborates an aesthetics of ‘illiberal’ humanism that emerges from relations of difference, not identity; from dissensus, not consensus. This timely and significant book will be of crucial importance for readers in English, American studies, ethnic studies, anthropology, art history, and beyond.” - Lisa Lowe, author of The Intimacies of Four Continents

“Reading various texts to demonstrate how minority literature presents itself as the productive other to dominant articulations of the aesthetic, Kandice Chuh makes significant interventions in inquiries around the relationship between politics and aesthetics, the humanities as a site of critical alternatives, and the role that minority discourse plays in those inquiries. An exciting and ambitious book.” - Roderick A. Ferguson, author of One-Dimensional Queer

“Chuh provides a lucid, polemical, and extraordinarily persuasive proposal for reconceiving the humanities.... It is difficult to come away from The Difference Aesthetics Makes without feeling that it makes an exceptional contribution to cultural studies in particular and to the humanities at large.” - Kiron Ward, Journal of American Studies

“In The Difference Aesthetics Makes, Kandice Chuh provides a fresh answer to an old question: What if losing the humanities as many have known them does not constitute a crisis? What if, after all, this so-called crisis affords an opportunity for the humanities to be remade?” - Michele Speitz, Journal Of British Studies