Cool-Kawaii: Afro-Japanese Aesthetics and New World Modernity

By Thorsten Botz-Bornstein

The Cool-Kawaii: Afro-Japanese Aesthetics and New World Modernity, by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, analyzes and compares African American cool culture and the Japanese aesthetics of kawaii or cute and characterizes them as expressions set against oppressive homogenizations of a technocratic world. The Cool-Kawaii sheds light on the history and development of both cultures in three main ways: First, both emerge from similar historical conditions; second, both are in search of human dignity and liberation, and finally, both kawaii and African American cool establish a new kind of modernity able to transcend both traditionalism and anti-traditionalist modernity.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0739148451
• ISBN13: 9780739148457
• Release Date: December 2010
• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Length: 238 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.1"