My chapter on art and suffering is now published in the Routledge anthology, Aesthetic Ethics.

It is so great to see this in print! This is the fruit of my research that I did in France during the summer of 2024! Here is my previous post on my work during that summer. What a great summer!

Here is a pdf of the chapter:

Here is the abstract:

When faced with tragedy, human language often fails, forcing us to admit that there are some experiences that words cannot explain. In this silent space of deep suffering, art has a sole voice as it is able to speak to us in a language all its own. Because of this ability, I will argue that art has an ethical obligation to speak into our sufferings. Drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s idea that art arises out of silence and Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous claim that art justifies existence, I will first offer further proof for why it is that art must speak of suffering. Next, I will describe how art fulfills this obligation due to its natural use of the vocabulary surrounding suffering including death, brokenness, despair and absurdity as seen in illustrations from the art of the French existentialists, Simone de Beauvoir, Gabriel Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Lastly, I will reveal what art says to us in the midst of suffering to demonstrate its indispensability; for it is the uncompromising message of art which refuses to soften reality while also calling us to action that makes it possible for us to bear the suffering.