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).

In this wide-ranging exploration of wonder – its philosophic history, its psychological manifestations, its political implications – Lloyd reclaims its ancient connection to the liberating activities of the imagination. She traces the transformation of Platonic and Aristotelian wonder as the beginning of inquiry to Flaubert’s evocation of its stupefaction and Arendt's solemn attentiveness. The book concludes with a sensitive account of the role of wonder in facing the impasses of political dogmas as well as in prompting their imaginative re-visions. Lloyd uses her reclamation of wonder to illuminate our bewilderment, despair… and inventiveness in the face of radical Otherness.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Pause for Thought: Plato and Aristotle on Wonder2. Passion or Distraction? Descartes and Spinoza on Wonder3. Burke and Kant on the Sublime4. Romanticism and the Allure of the Sublime5. Wonder and Stupidity: Flaubert on Romanticism6. Reconnecting with Socratic Wonder: Heidegger and Arendt7. Derrida on Aporia, Time and Mortality8. Political Wonder and Social Critique9. Wonder and TranscendenceConclusion: The Future of WonderBibliography

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).

In this wide-ranging exploration of wonder – its philosophic history, its psychological manifestations, its political implications – Lloyd reclaims its ancient connection to the liberating activities of the imagination. She traces the transformation of Platonic and Aristotelian wonder as the beginning of inquiry to Flaubert’s evocation of its stupefaction and Arendt's solemn attentiveness. The book concludes with a sensitive account of the role of wonder in facing the impasses of political dogmas as well as in prompting their imaginative re-visions. Lloyd uses her reclamation of wonder to illuminate our bewilderment, despair… and inventiveness in the face of radical Otherness.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Pause for Thought: Plato and Aristotle on Wonder2. Passion or Distraction? Descartes and Spinoza on Wonder3. Burke and Kant on the Sublime4. Romanticism and the Allure of the Sublime5. Wonder and Stupidity: Flaubert on Romanticism6. Reconnecting with Socratic Wonder: Heidegger and Arendt7. Derrida on Aporia, Time and Mortality8. Political Wonder and Social Critique9. Wonder and TranscendenceConclusion: The Future of WonderBibliography