Cute Studies books
Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired Our Brains and Conquered the World
Why are some things cute, and others not? What happens to our brains when we see something cute? And how did cuteness go global, from Hello Kitty to Disney characters?
Cuteness is an area where culture and biology get tangled up. Seeing a cute animal triggers some of the most powerful psychological instincts we have - the ones that elicit our care and protection - but there is a deeper story behind the broad appeal of Japanese cats and saccharine greetings cards.
By Joshua Paul Dale
ISBN 1788162382
Published October 26, 2023 by Profile Books
The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness
Cuteness is one of the most culturally pervasive aesthetics of the new millennium and its rapid social proliferation suggests that the affective responses it provokes find particular purchase in a contemporary era marked by intensive media saturation and spreading economic precarity. Rejecting superficial assessments that would deem the ever-expanding plethora of cute texts trivial, The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness directs serious scholarly attention from a variety of academic disciplines to this ubiquitous phenomenon.
By Joshua Paul Dale, Joyce Goggin, Julia Leyda, Anthony P. McIntyre, Diane Negra
ISBN 9781138998766
Published December 16, 2016 by Routledge
Cute Studies journals
Cute Studies special journal issue
Cuteness is a rising trend in global popular culture, and much of it is flowing in, around and from East Asia. Yet little critical attention has been paid to this trend as a broad cultural phenomenon: a lack that the articles in this ‘Cute Studies’ issue address.
Edited by Joshua Paul Dale
ISSN 2051-7084
Published 2016 by Intellect Books
Cute Studies articles
“Cuteness is a Trojan Horse” in Rachel Maclean Exhibition Catalogue
Sneaking past our defenses like a Trojan horse, cuteness warms our hearts in an instant. However, it doesn’t always travel alone. When Rachel Maclean asks: “How can things that look sweet be simultaneously sinister?” she addresses what she calls the fundamental mystery of the cute object.
By Anette Hüsch (Author, Editor), Dörte Zbikowski (Author, Editor), Joshua Paul Dale (Author), Muriel Meyer (Author), Nina Power (Author), Matthew Shaul (Author)
ISBN: 3775747168
Published April 2020 by Hatje Cantz; Bilingual Edition
Cute Studies articles
“Cuteness Studies and Japan” article in The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture
Kawaii and cute are increasingly prominent aesthetics in contemporary global culture. The new field of cuteness studies, formed to address this phenomenon, analyzes not only its history and development, but also the connection between cuteness and gender, race, ethnicity, age, nationality, politics and interspecies affiliations. Its aim is to take seriously what is often dismissed as a facile commodity aesthetic.
Eds. Coates, Jennifer, Fraser, Lucy, Pendleton, Mark.
ISBN : 1138895202
Published January 2020 by Routledge.