Cultural/Aesthetic Studies and Emergent Order

Argyros, Alexander J. A Blessed Rage for Order: Deconstruction, Evolution, and Chaos. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1991. 356 pp.

In a challenge to deconstructivism, Argyros argues that while socio-institutional contexts play a major role in defining the human world, other contexts are also vital. Culture is on an endless innovative continuum with the natural world. Among theorists relevant to this bibliography, Prigogine is particularly important. See particularly Part III: “Chaos.” 227-349.

Turner, Frederick. Beauty: The Value of Values, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1991.

A fascinating exploration of possible dimensions of evolution and self-organization largely ignored. Experiencing aesthetic beauty is an adaptive function driving evolution through sexual selection. Turner links aesthetics with brain research, arguing that neurotransmitters in the brain respond to inherited systems through which beauty is perceived.

Titles not yet annotated:

Alexander, Christopher. The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe. The Process of Creating Life, Book Four, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 (Nov.), 480 pp. (unclear whether / volume or for all four volumes)

Alexander, Christopher. The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe. The Process of Creating Life, Book Three, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 (Oct.), 480 pp.

Alexander, Christopher. The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe. The Process of Creating Life, Book Two, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 (Dec.), 480 pp.

Alexander, Christopher. The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe. The Phenomenon of Life, Book On, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 480 pp.

Alexander, Christopher. The Timeless Way of Building, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. 568 pp.

Alexander, Christopher, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein. A Pattern Language, Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. 1216 pp.