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Utilizing a wide range of theoretical and creative texts, Phillips offers an examination of subjectivity as considered, enacted, and embodied, through the frame of minimalist aesthetics. Provocatively, he makes the claim that lived experience is capable of being refined according to the paradoxically rich parameters of a minimalist aesthetic.

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Introduction 1. Stirrings of Discontent: A Theoretical Context 2. Becoming Fiction: Sarraute, Stein, Hemingway 3. Carver, Sarraute, Toussaint 4. Echenoz, Fabre, DeLillo 5. Lights Camera Action 6. ´Mark the Music´: Microsound and Becoming-Silence 7. The Masochistic Body 8. The ´Somaesthetic´ Turn: Becoming-Minimal 9. On Virtue, Verbs, and the Virtual Conclusion and Post Script: On Being Able

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"This is a very well written, theoretically complex, and conceptually lucid work that wishes to analyze the intersection of aesthetic practices and the articulation of subjectivity: who we are and how we interact with the world and with ourselves. Phillips is equally sophisticated and successful in his analysis and deep probing of the texts at hand, whether they be philosophical, psychological, cultural, or artistic (literature, performance pieces, or music). The scope of the writing is far-reaching; the project is very ambitious; the mind behind the work is very sharp and insightful. Phillips proves his talents over and over again." - Annabel Martín, Associate Professor of Spanish, Comparative Literature, and Women´s and Gender Studies, Dartmouth College, USA

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Thomas Phillips is an English Lecturer at North Carolina State University, USA.

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