Art as a Social System (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics) - Hardcover

"Art as a Social System deserves to be read as a brilliant synthesis of every major philosophy of art, from Baumgarten to Kristeva, and as an ambitious attempt to understand art history in its entirety. . . . It seems inevitable that North American academics in the humanities will soon confront this challenging work." -- Literary Research / Recherche Litteraire "Thus, what is most interesting about Luhmann's view of art is also what is most interesting about his general theory: its sophisticated and elaborate explorations in the evolutionary development of the media of communication, which are perhaps unparalleled in contemporary theory." -- American Journal of Sociology "This book is a pleasure to read. It is literate, informed, unpretentious, and patient...The book is a spectacular example of one anthropologist's selection of the technical world as an object of study after generations of sociocultural anthropologists' bias against the same." * ISIS * "Overall this is a fascinating, stimulating and thought-provoking book not always in ways that may have been intended by the author."

This is the definitive analysis of art as a social and perceptual system by Germany's leading social theorist of the late 20th century. It combines three decades of research in the social sciences, phenomenology, evolutionary biology, cybernetics, and information theory with an intimate knowledge of art history, literature, aesthetics, and contemporary literary theory.