Drawing on case studies from the fields of cultural history, aesthetics, literature, film, gender studies, art history and theory, design history, and museology, this collection of thirteen essays provides a wide-ranging and multifaceted analysis of how the assignment of cultural values is changed, displaced, transferred, and acquired.

Contents: Adam Dodd: Size is in the Eye of the Beholder: On the Cultural History of Microfaunae in Seventeenth-Century Europe – Anja Johansen: Awarding Images, Celebrating Science: The Aesthetics and Aestheticization of Scientific Images in the Wellcome Image Awards – Jørgen Lorentzen/Wencke Mühleisen: Intimacy and Sexuality in Two Contemporary Norwegian Novels – Geir Uvsløkk: Politics and Aesthetics in Michel Houellebecq’s Novels – Anne Gjelsvik: From Hard Bodies to Soft Daddies: Action Aesthetics and Masculine Values in Contemporary American Action Films – Gry Brandser: The Bearded Ladies of Learning – Kjetil Fallan: Culture by Design: Co-Constructing Material and Meaning – Frode Helland/Julie Holledge: A Doll’s House as National Tradition: Understanding the Construction of Aesthetic Value – Søren Kjørup: Art as the Other? Reflections on Craft’s and Fine Art’s Places in the Aesthetic Field – Mari Hvattum/Brita Brenna/Torild Gjesvik/Janike Kampevold Larsen: The King’s Road: Constructing the Modern Landscape – Johan Schimanski/Stephen F. Wolfe: The Aesthetics of Borders – Stefan Krankenhagen: Collecting Europe: On the Museal Construction of European Objects – Anne Britt Ylvisåker: Digitising the Valuable - Valuing the Digitised.