Reclaiming Wonder: After the Sublime

Genevieve Lloyd illuminates and challenges some perplexing aspects of contemporary attitudes to wonder. Central to her argument is the claim that wonder has come to be largely eclipsed by the allure of the notion of the Sublime - a concept closely associated with Romantic Idealism.
Lloyd offers us a renewed sense of wonder, reconnected with its philosophical history, that plays a significant role in contemporary social critique. In her path to reclaim wonder, she moves between philosophical and literary sources. She draws especially on Flaubert's responses to Romanticism and his related treatment of stupidity, which influenced the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida. She also reaches into contemporary debates on refugees, secularisation and climate change.

Genevieve Lloyd is Emeritus Professor in Philosophy at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia and a fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. Her main research areas have been in History of Philosophy, Philosophy and Literature and Feminist Philosophy. She is the author of Reclaiming Wonder: After the Sublime (Edinburgh University Press, 2018), Enlightenment Shadows (Oxford University Press, 2013), Providence Lost (Harvard University Press, 2008), Collective Imaginings(Routledge, 1999), Spinoza and the Ethics (Routledge, 1996), Part of Nature (Cornell University Press, 1994), Being in Time (Routledge, 1993) and The Man of Reason (2nd edn) (Routledge,1993).