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Book SynopsisKarl Rosenkranz (1805 1879) was a German philosopher. He followed Kant and Herbart as professor of philosophy in Königsberg; in 1848-49 he took part in the reform government in Berlin.Andrei Pop is Associate Professor in the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.Mechtild Widrich is Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art History in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA.Trade ReviewRosenkranz’s prose, given new life in this fine translation, sparkles with enlivening incident and wry asides … Rosenkranz’s essay is a text to linger over. * Times Literary Supplement *The great value of the concept of ugliness is dialectical. The contrast with the beautiful can be a distinct way of illuminating that notion, and with it the ideal of art as such. Karl Rosenkranz’s Aesthetics of Ugliness, here carefully edited, lucidly introduced, and elegantly translated by Andrei Pop and Mechtild Widrich, shows us in detail how one might understand this contrast, illuminating fundamental issues in aesthetics and in the self-understanding of modernity along the way – a very valuable contribution to any discussion. * Robert Pippin, Professor, the Committee on Social Thought, Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago, USA *Table of ContentsTable of Contents: 1. Introductory essay by Andrei Pop and Mechtild Widrich 2. Karl Rosenkranz, Aesthetics of Ugliness, 1853 3. The Text: Introduction Section 1: Formlessness Section 2: Incorrectness Section 3: Deformation or Disfiguration Conclusion Rosenkranz's and editors' notes 4. Texts crucial to the understanding of the Aesthetics of Ugliness: i) Rosenkranz’s review of Hegel's Aesthetics, 1836 and 1839 ii) Rosenkranz's entry on "Aesthetics in its Development" in the Brockhaus Conversation-Lexikon, 1838 iii) Rosenkranz, “Beauty and Art” section of his System of Science, 1850 Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe Feminist Uncanny in Theory and Art Practice investigates the widely debated, deeply flawed yet influential concept of the uncanny through the lens of feminist theory and contemporary art practice. Not merely a subversive strategy but a cipher of the fraught but fertile dialogue between feminism and psychoanalysis, the uncanny makes an ideal vehicle for an arrangement marked by ambivalence and acts as a constant reminder that feminism and psychoanalysis are never quite at home with one another.The Feminist Uncanny begins by charting the uncanniness of femininity in foundational psychoanalytic texts by Ernst Jentsch, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan and Mladen Dolar, and contextually introduces a range of feminist responses and appropriations by Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva and Sarah Kofman, among others. The book also offers thematically organised interpretations of famous artworks and practices informed by feminism, including Judy Chicago's Dinner Party, Faith RinTrade ReviewA powerful feminist critique of not only the home, but a number of borders and boundaries. -- Oxford Art JournalThe Feminist Uncanny in Theory and Art Practice provides a much needed remedy of the Freudian uncanny for a feminist art history. Kokoli’s intertextual coupling of ‘woman’ and the ‘unhomely’ unhinges the uncanny from castration and propagates it in a novel series of ‘domestic’ spheres in work by women artists and collectives. Whether in the postal art of Feministo or the paraconceptualism of Susan Hiller, Kokoli’s feminist uncanny transforms homelessness into a home which is strange, subversive and revels in its ambivalence. The Feminist Uncanny in Theory and Art Practice is set to become a core curriculum text. -- Maria Walsh, Senior Lecturer in Art History and Theory, University of the Arts London, UKThis book is an essential reading for anyone interested in the productive yet troubling collaboration and contradictions between feminism and the theoretical apparatus of psychoanalysis. Kokoli proposes the feminist uncanny as the site of this critical encounter, exploring the multiple definitions of the concept and offering new readings of prominent feminist artworks as well as less well known projects. -- Mo Throp, Researcher and PhD Supervisor, University of the Arts London, UKIn The Feminist Uncanny, Alexandra Kokoli brings the psychoanalytic and political registers of domestic space into tension through a new dialogue of the uncanny with feminist artistic practices. Offering the reader deeper insights into the unsettling nature inherent in such practices of resistance and liberation, Kokoli makes an important original contribution to contemporary feminist scholarship. -- August Jordan Davis, Senior Research Fellow, University of Southampton, UKIn this fascinating book, Alexandra Kokoli pursues the thread of the ‘uncanny’, taking it from Freud through interlocking and mutually interrogating layers of theory, to reveal its potential in feminist fine art. The heterogeneous range of art work engaged with enables Kokoli to expose and examine the broader, subversive significance of the ‘feminist uncanny’, opening up an innovative, unsettling and rewarding approach to feminist fine art practices. -- Sue Tate, Research Fellow, University of the West of England and Freelance Art Historian, UKAlexandra Kokoli’s The Feminist Uncanny is a smart and engaging re-evaluation of the long-standing troubled relationship between feminism and psychoanalysis, and its complex manifestation in feminist art practice. Kokoli not only offers a series of deft analyses of the diverse provocations made by this genealogy but, focusing on the marginal yet powerful spaces of femininity within culture, rethinks the feminist calling card that the ‘personal is political’. -- Joanne Morra, Reader in Art History and Theory, University of the Arts London, UKTable of ContentsTOC Introduction: Why Witches? Part 1 (‘Theory’) Chapter 1: The Uncanny Feminine Chapter 2: The Feminist Uncanny Part 2 (‘Practice’) Chapter 3: ‘Moving Sideways’ and Other Dead Metaphors: Susan Hiller’s Paraconceptualism Chapter 4: Squats and Evictions: The Uncanny as Unhomely Chapter 5: Dinner Parties: Eating Out, Coming Together Chapter 6: Legions (‘For we are many’) Chapter 7: Family Albums: World Making as Compensation Postscript A: The Academic One Postscript B: The Melancholic One Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA provocative account of the philosophical problem of difference' in art history, Tintoretto's Difference offers a new reading of this pioneering 16th century painter, drawing upon the work of the 20th century philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Bringing together philosophical, art historical, art theoretical and art historiographical analysis, it is the first book-length study in English of Tintoretto for nearly two decades and the first in-depth exploration of the implications of Gilles Deleuze's philosophy for the understanding of early modern art and for the discipline of art history. With a focus on Deleuze's important concept of the diagram, Tintoretto's Difference positions the artist's work within a critical study of both art history's methods, concepts and modes of thought, and some of the fundamental dimensions of its scholarly practice: context, tradition, influence, and fact. Indicating potentials of the diagrammatic for art historical thinking across the registers ofTrade ReviewAn ambitious and well-orchestrated monograph that seeks to address emerging problems in diverse but contiguous domains ... [A] complex but gratifying inquiry. * Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy *An important contribution to a genuinely philosophical study of a painter. This book is both a brilliantly argued and highly original study of Tintoretto. It is one of the first to attempt to interconnect the art historical and the philosophical and needs to be viewed as integral to the creation of a new field of study. * Andrew Benjamin, Professor of Philosophy and the Humanities, Kingston University, UK *Even the most reflective contemporary art history continues to imagine artistic practices as puzzles posed to the discourse of their time. From T.J. Clark's reading of Manet to Georges Didi-Huberman's interpretation of Fra Angelico, the move is to reveal how critical discourse is stalled or ruined by the apparently inassimilable artwork. This strategy is supported by art history's sense of theories and theorists. As an alternative Vellodi suggests Deleuze, for whom such arguments subordinate "difference to the identical." This is an exemplary book: Vellodi reads historical sources together with the recent past of art history, in order to present a "diagram" of Tintoretto in which the present is fully implicated. It is a model of thoughtful writing on art. * James Elkins, Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA *Vellodi’s book is destined to become one of the classic studies of Tintoretto, not because it offers a new interpretation of his work, but because it sees Tintoretto’s paintings as an “ongoing affront” to the discipline of art history. As such, Vellodi winds up proposing a radically new approach to the history of art that is inspired by Deleuze, one that focuses less on Tintoretto’s historical context than his “difference” from that context. A ground-breaking and revolutionary book. * Daniel W. Smith, Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University, USA *With assured thought and lucid prose, as well as a masterful pacing that allows her initially to broach but also to revisit and further develop complex ideas, Vellodi presents not only an original thesis about Tintoretto’s ‘stage-method’ and a masterful understanding of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, but a work that traverses each as a method of demonstrating art-historical thought at work. * Art History *Table of ContentsList of Figures Preface Prologue 1.Tintoretto: A Problem for Art History? - Tradition and Contextualism - Representational Thought - Theory, Philosophy - Towards Deleuze - Deleuze and Art History - The Diagram 2. Tintoretto and his Time? - Christ Among the Doctors - Annibale’s hesitation - Aretino’s U-Turn - Miracle of the Slave - Historia - The Stage-Method - Painting and Theatre - Tintoretto: From Theatre to Drama - Genealogy of the Stage-Method in Tintoretto’s Works - Ridolfi’s Motto - Art History’s Recycling of Ridolfi’s Motto - Deleuze and Diagrams of Art History - Deleuze’s Tintoretto 3. Diagrammatic Constructivism - Thought as Difference - Deleuze’s Diagram and Kant’s Schema - Kant’s Constructivism - Pierce’s Diagram: An empiricist’s Constructivism - Pure Icons - Diagrammatic Subversion of Iconography in Tintoretto’s Works - Tintoretto’s Ghostly Figures - The Genetic method: Maimon and Deleuze - Deleuze’s Transcendental Empiricism - Tintoretto’s Constructivism. Stage Method as Diagram? 4. Diagrammatic Aesthetic - Deleuze after Kant: Sensation and Genesis - Genetic Method in the Third Critique - Material Aesthetic and the Work of Art - Aesthetic Paradigm - Diagrammatic Aesthetic - Diagrammatic Art - Tintoretto’s Material Constructivism - Constructivism Beyond Venetian Empiricism - Tintoretto’s Imagination - Boschini’s Experience - The Scuola Grande di San Rocco 5. Diagrammatic Time - Time of Difference - Anachronism in Contemporary Art History - Constructivism, Time and Art - Deleuze’s Syntheses of Time - The Third Synthesis of Time and Nietzsche’s Eternal Return - The Diagram, Genealogy and History - Tintoretto’s Time - Tintoretto’s Return in the 2011 Venice Biennale Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisMario Slugan is Postdoctoral Associate Fellow in the Department of Film and Television Studies and the Department of German Studies at the University of Warwick, UK researching film philosophy and film history. He is the author of Montage as Perceptual Experience: Berlin Alexanderplatz from Döblin to Fassbinder (2017) and the managing editor of an open-access peer-reviewed academic journal Apparatus: Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Institutional Context 2. Film Theory 3.Assessment of Theory 4. Analytic and Cognitivist Debates 5. Interpretation and Filmmaking 6. Philosophy of Art Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisKatarzyna Zimna is an independent artist, researcher and book illustrator based in London and Lodz, Poland. Her work has featured in exhibitions across Europe. She teaches at the Institute of Architecture of Textiles at the Technical University of Lodz.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Modern Perspectives on Play 2. 12Play is a Movement in between the Opposites 3. Play: From Modern Strategy t oPost-modern Tactic 4. The Turn to Play Conclusion Notes References SelectedBibliography Index

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Book SynopsisClaudia Mesch is Associate Professor of Art History at the School of Art at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. Her publications include Joseph Beuys: The Reader (edited with Viola Michely, I.B.Tauris and MIT Press, 2007) and Modern Art at the Berlin Wall: Demarcating Culture in the Cold War Germanys (I.B.Tauris, 2008)Table of ContentsIntroduction: A Prehistory of Political Modernist Art Chapter 1: State-Sponsored Art, 1949-present -Zhadnovian socialist realism and 1945: Alexander Deineka - Postwar Western socialist realisms: André Fougeron; Renato Guttuso; Pablo Picasso; Diego Rivera - African socialist realisms: Tshibumba kanda Matulu, Congo; Monument to Agostinho Neto, Angola - American art and the Cold War: Jackson Pollock - Political Cold War Painting in the west: Sigmar Polke; Eugen Schoenebeck; Erro; Bernard Rancillac; Tseng Kwong Chi - Wric Bulatov and late-Soviet political painting Chapter 2: Civil Rights/Postcolonial Movements,1960- - Art of the Civil Rights movement and its legacies: Romare Bearden; Betye Saar; David Hammons; Lorna Simpson - Postcolonialist art: Yinka Shonibare; Chris Ofili; Steve McQueen; Bodys Isek Kingelez; Meschac Gaba Chapter 3: The Anti-War Movement, 1965- - Vietnam: Leon Golub; Nanacy Spero; Ed Kienholz; Peter Saul; George Segal; Erro ( Gundmundur Gundmundsson); the Guerilla Art Action Group; Mark di Suvero' Groupe Cronica; Wolf Vostell; Martha Rosler - Afghanistan, the Gulf Wars, and Middle East conflict: Jeff Wall; Harun Farocki; Walid Ra'ad - Torture: Luis Camnitzer; Doris Salcedo; Francisco Botero Chapter 4: Feminisim.,1970- -US feminisims: Womanhouse ( Miriam Shapiro and Judy Chicago); Betye Saar; Carolee Schneeman; Eva Hesse; Ana Mendieta; Barbara Kruger; Cindy Sherman - European femininisms: Mona Hatoum; Shirin Neshat; Le Groupe Amos (Congo); Wangechi Mutu Chapter 5: Gay Rights, 1969- - Gay rights and AIDS activism inside and outside of the artworld: ACTUP; Gran Fury; Group Material; Ross Bleckner; David Wojnarowicz; Martin Wong; Oliviero Toscani ( for Benetton) - Lesbian identity: Catherine Opie Chapter 6: Environmentalist Art, 1972- - Origins of a "land ethic" in art reclamation: Robert Smithson; Hans Haacke; Betty Beaumont; Alan Sonfist; Agnew Denes; Helen Mayer-Harrison and Newton Harrison: Joseph Beuys - New environmentalism: Mel Chin; kathryn Miller; Ines Doujak; Sokari Douglas-Camp and Platform London; Beatriz da Costa Chapter 7: Anti-Globalization, 1999- - In real time and space: Thomas Hirshhorn; Alfredo Jaar; Alighiero Boetti - Migrants' and Workers' rights: mierle Laderman Ukeles; Yolanda Lopez; Chantal Akermann; Multiplicity; Minerva Cuevas; Huit Facettes ( Senegal); Corie Cole; the Border Film Project - Informatics Activism: 0100101110101101.ORG; Radical Software Group; Mongrel; Raqs Media Collective Epilogue: Art and Politics to Come - Bioethics: Eduardo Kac; Critical Art Ensemble: Tissue Culture & Art

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Book SynopsisHeather G. Kaplan is Assistant Professor of Art Education at the University of Texas El Paso, USA.Christine Marmé Thompson is Professor Emeritx at Pennsylvania State University, USA.

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Book SynopsisJulia Straub is Lecturer in Literatures in English at the University of Berne, Switzerland.Trade Review"A Victorian Muse makes an important contribution to research on the nineteenth-century reception of Dante. Julia Straub's approach combines theoretical sophistication with clarity of exposition and wide-ranging scholarship. Her work will also be of value to those interested in gender issues, aesthetics and relationships between media during the period." (Nick Havely, Professor of English & Related Literature, University of York, UK; editor of Dante's Modern Afterlife) "If Dante is 'the central man of all the world' as Ruskin argued, then Beatrice, as Julia Straub so beautifully argues, is the central woman, a figure who embodies the idealisations of Victorian culture, but also their critique. The most arresting chapter for me was that on Walter Pater, where Straub demonstrates that a study of Beatrice's redemptive femininity actually allows the articulation of a specifically masculine mode of creativity." (Alison Milbank, Associate Professor, Department of Theology, The University of Nottingham, UK)"Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; List of Figures; 1. Introduction: Beatrice's Victorian Afterlife; 2. Seeing Beatrice: The Visualization of Beatrice in Victorian Culture; 3. Looking for the Real Beatrice: The Rossetti Family; 4. Ideal Visions: Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Rossetti; 5. Deconstruction of an Ideal: George Eliot's Romola; 6. Mourning a Male Beatrice: Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam; 7. Construction of a New Ideal: Walter Pater's 'Diaphaneite'; Conclusion; Biliography; Index.

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Trade ReviewThe book’s constructive project is worthy of attention. Kaspar uses the many objections to intuitionism to pare the theory down to its essentials; then, he develops a framework that promises to solve the explanatory and epistemological puzzles that the view faces. ... An engaging and accessible work. -- Robert William Fischer, Texas State University, USA * Philosophy in Review *In this exceptionally rewarding study of Deleuze and futurism, Helen Palmer enacts new possibilities for rigorous scholarship, where precise formal analysis and powerful conceptual innovation combine to give us the deepest practical explanation of Deleuze’s radical philosophy of language, while pointing to the continued importance of futurism as template for avant-garde movements. * James Williams, University of Dundee, UK *This important new study sheds more light on a movement that has profoundly influenced the development of literature and the arts in the 20th century internationally. While there are excellent books dealing with futurism, the avant-garde, and Deleuze’s philosophy individually, there is no book bringing together those two topics for comparison like this book does. It highlights for the first time the connection between the futurist manifestoes and Deleuze’s philosophical writings, from both a conceptual and a linguistic perspective * Anna Lawton, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University, USA *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Poetics of Futurism: Zaum, Shiftology, Nonsense 2. Poetics of Deleuze: Structure, Stoicism, Univocity 3. The Materialist Manifesto 4. Shiftology #1: From Performativity to Dramatisation 5. Shiftology #2: From Metaphor to Metamorphosis 6. The See-Sawing Frontier: Linguistic Spatiotemporalities 7. Conclusion: Suffixing, Prefixing Notes Bibliography Index

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Trade ReviewThe anthology features contributions from tutors, guest speakers and students, all of whom delve into what “the curatorial” is and what it might mean in the future ... The multiplicity of perspectives included in this book ... [are] a useful addition. * Museus e Estudos Interdisciplinaires *Arguing that curating like mapping is an outmoded concept, the specially commissioned essays in The Curatorial propose curatorial as a disruptive activity that provokes us to rethink received knowledge about art, art history, philosophy and cultural heritage. With its rich collection of texts by leading writers and theorists, The Curatorial is essential reading for anyone active in the arts as a curator, practitioner or writer. * Dr. Sue Malvern, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Art, University of Reading, UK *Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors List of Illustrations Preface Irit Rogoff (Goldsmiths College, UK) and Jean-Paul Martinon(Goldsmiths College, UK) Introduction Jean-Paul Martinon (Goldsmiths College, UK) Part I: Send-Offs 1. On the Curatorial, From the Trapeze Raqs Media Collective 2. Theses in the Philosophy of Curating Jean-Paul Martinon (Goldsmiths College, UK) 3. Whence the Future? Alfredo Cramerotti (University of Wales, UK) 4. The Expanded Field Irit Rogoff (Goldsmiths College, UK) 5. Dear Art,Yours Sincerely Natasa Ilic (WHW, Croatia and Germany) Part II: Praxeologies 6. The Curator Crosses the River: A Fabulation Stefan Nowotny (Goldsmiths College, UK) 7. Becoming-Curator Suzana Milevska (Institute of Gender Studies, Macedonia) 8. An Exhausted Curating Leire Vergara (Goldsmiths College, UK and University of the Basque Country, Spain) 9. Eros, Plague, Olfaction: Three Allegories of the Curatorial Jenny Doussan (Goldsmiths College, UK) Part III: Moves 10. The Task at Hand: Transcending the Clamp of Sovereignty Ariella Azoulay (Brown University, USA) 11. The Simple Operator Sarah Pierce (Sandberg Institute, The Netherlands) 12. Three Short Takes on the Curatorial Doreen Mende (Dutch Art Institute, The Netherlands) 13. Aku menjadi saksi kepada / What I am Thinking Roopesh Sitharan (University of Santa Cruz, USA) 14. Betrayal and the Curatorial Joshua Simon (Museum of Bat Yam, Israel and New School, NY, USA) Part IV: Heresies 15. A Conspiracy Without a Plot Stefano Harney (Singapore Management University, Singapore) and Valentina Desideri 16. What does a Question Do? Micropolitics and Art Education Susan Kelly (Goldsmiths College, UK) 17. Being Able to Do Something Nora Sternfeld (Aalto University, Finland) 18. The Politics of Residual Fun Valeria Graziano (Queen Mary University, UK) Part V: Refigurations 19. Modern Art: Its Very Idea Helmut Draxler (Merz Academy, Germany) 20 Two Invoking Media: Radio and Exhibition Jean-Louis Déotte (University of Paris, France) 21. In Unfamiliar Terrain Anshuman Dasgupta (Visva-Bharati University, India) 22. Curating Ghostly Objects Cihat Arinç 23. Non-Museums Adnan Madani (Goldsmiths College, UK) Part VI: Stages 24. Curating, Dramatization, and the Diagram Bridget Crone(Goldsmiths College, UK) 25. Curating Context Aneta Szylak(Copenhagen University, Denmark and Goldsmiths, UK) 26. Backstage and Processuality Ines Moreira(Goldsmiths College, UK) 27. This is Not About Us Je Yun Moon(Goldsmiths College, UK) Coda The Curatorial Charles Esche (University of the Arts, London, UK) Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisJonathan Schroeder is William A. Kern Professor in Communications at Rochester Institute of Technology, USA.Anna Westerstahl Stenport is Chair and Professor in the School of Modern Languages at Georgia Institute of Technology, USA.Eszter Szalczer is Professor of Theatre and Head of History, Literature and Criticism of the Theatre Program at the University at Albany, New York, USA.Trade ReviewAugust Strindberg was not only a leading innovator in the modern theatre but also in modern art, in a new visual culture, on stage and on canvas. This highly stimulating book brings together a range of younger researchers, practitioners, artists, and prominent intellectuals to reassess a major literary figure from the perspective of visual theory and art history. * Göran Söderström, Professor Emeritus of Art History, Lund University and Stockholm University, Sweden, head of the Strindberg Museum (1973-1990), and author of Strindbergs måleri (2017) *This interdisciplinary collection brings together essays by Strindberg scholars, theater directors, and literary and cultural theorists that explore the interplay between writing, photography, painting, and modernity in Strindberg’s work. A welcome contribution to Strindberg’s scholarship, August Strindberg and Visual Culture illuminates the relationship of his work as a whole to visual cultures and different media since the turn of the last century. * Lynne R. Wilkinson, Associate Professor of Germanic Languages, Comparative Literature, and Women's and Gender Studies, University of Texas at Austin, USA *Table of ContentsForeword: An Extraordinary Transdisciplinary Artist Daniel Birnbaum, The Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, Sweden 1. Introduction: Visual Culture, August Strindberg, and The Double Image of Modernity Eszter Szalczer, Anna Westerstahl Stenport, and Jonathan Schroeder 2. Hands, Dissection, and Embodied Seeing: Strindberg and Munch Allison Morehead, Queen’s University, Canada 3. May the Force Be With You”: Strindberg's Paintings Arnold Weinstein, Brown University, USA 4. Strindberg the Environmentalist? Blood-stained Landscapes and the French Tradition of Nature Painting Eszter Szalczer, University at Albany, SUNY, USA 5. Ghosts of the Brain Made Real: Anti-theatricality, Visuality, and Disembodiment Across Strindberg’s Late Chamber Media Amy Holzapfel, Williams College, USA 6. Méliès’s Dream Film and Strindberg’s Dream Play: Compressing Time and Space Scott MacKenzie, Queen’s University, Canada, and Anna Westerståhl Stenport, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA 7. Strindberg and the Images of the Stage: A Dramaturg’s Perspective Magnus Florin, The Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm, Sweden 8. Staging Strindberg’s A Dream Play: A Visual Essay Robert Wilson, Artist and Director 9. Robert Wilson’s Photographic Elements of A Dream Play Jonathan Schroeder, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA 10. Dream-Playing the Archive: Exploring the 1915-18 Düsseldorf production of A Dream Play Astrid von Rosen, University of Gothenburg, Sweden 11. Anticipations of the Digital: Dispersing Strindberg Berndt Clavier, Malmö University, Sweden, and Timothy Engström, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA 12. Picturing Miss Julie: Gender and Visuality in Performance Practice Kristina Hagström-Ståhl, Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Art, Sweden 13. Strindberg’s Self-Portraits in Context Lisa Hostetler, George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York, USA 14. My Strindberg Selfies Pierre Guillet de Monthoux, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark 15. Scenography, Photography, Cinematography: Strindberg and the Technologies of Visual Representation Freddie Rokem, Tel Aviv University, Israel 16. Liv Ullmann’s Miss Julie: An Interview with Reflections Liv Ullmann, Director and Actress

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Book SynopsisAlthough beauty, in the pre-modern Arab world, was enjoyed and promoted almost everywhere, Islam does not possess a general theory on aesthetics or a systematic theory of the arts. This is a study of the Arabic discourse on beauty. The author had to search for her evidence in written statements from a wide variety of sources, such as the Qur'an, legal, religious and Sufi texts, chronicles, biographies, belle-lettres, literary criticism, and scientific, geographic and philosophical literature. The result is a compendium of references to beauty in chapters on the Religious Approach, Secular Beauty and Love, Music and Belle-Lettres, and the Visual Arts. This approach is informative and provocative. For the generalist, it provides comparative material for an understanding of the early Arab cultural context. For the specialist, it raises questions of sponsorship and purpose.

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Book SynopsisConsidering how culturally indispensable digital technology is today, it is ironic that computer-generated art was attacked when it burst onto the scene in the early 1960s. In fact, no other twentieth-century art form has elicited such a negative and hostile response. When the Machine Made Art examines the cultural and critical response to computer art, or what we refer to today as digital art. Tracing the heated debates between art and science, the societal anxiety over nascent computer technology, and the myths and philosophies surrounding digital computation, Taylor is able to identify the destabilizing forces that shape and eventually fragment the computer art movement.Trade ReviewTaylor's 'troubled history of computer art' is subtle, complex, multi-layered and often paradoxical, so any attempt to summarize or synthesize its content fails to convey the scope and depth of what is covered ... I intend to champion Taylor’s book whenever the lament arises about why the art world takes no notice of mathematical art ... I will urge everyone I know who has an interest in using the computer in any significant way in his or her art practice to read Taylor’s book for the cautionary lessons it has to offer. -- Gary Greenfield, University of Richmond, USA * Journal of Mathematics and the Arts *Taylor recovers and reassembles the fractured history of "computer art" from 1963, when the term came into use, until 1989, when "digital art" and "new media" became the preferred terms […] Taylor’s approach is integrative. He reconstructs the history of computer art not by isolating it from its scientific and mathematical nature but by combining that context with the "art and technology" and conceptual art movements of the 1960s. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and researchers/faculty. -- E. K. Mix, Butler University * CHOICE *How astonishing that the pioneers of computer, digital, algorithmic, programming, and mash-up art are largely unknown at the very moment when the computer, or more specifically its handheld, lap bound, or otherwise omnipresent progeny are transforming virtually every aspect of existence! I read this, fascinated by the continued relevance of the artists (and their disputes) and delighted to know that finally, with this publication, there exists a portrait of an evolving movement that has worked assiduously at the boundaries of the art world for fifty years. -- Hannah B Higgins, Professor of Art History, University of Illinois Chicago, USABy questioning the reasons for which art critics, artists and curators rejected computer-generated artefacts during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Grant Taylor makes a significant contribution to the historiography of 20th century culture. -- Margit Rosen, Researcher and Curator, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, GermanyAlthough computer-generated art was largely ignored by the art establishment in the 1960s and 70s, it's now viewed in a very different light. Grant Taylor's book provides an excellent - and much needed -overview of the beginnings of digital art and design. -- Douglas Dodds, Senior Curator, Victoria and Albert Museum, UKTable of ContentsIntroduction: Unorthodox Chapter 1: Future Crashes Chapter 2: Coded Aesthetics Chapter 3: Virtual Renaissance Chapter 4: Frontier Exploration Chapter 5: Critical Impact Epilogue: Aftermath Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisPioneering and Exploring the Spiritual Revolution in Modern ArtIn the early 20th century, the pioneering and celebrated painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) wrote this groundbreaking work advocating a powerful role for spirituality in driving the creation of modern art. Voicing his own strong opinions as well as the philosophical passions of his peers, Kandinsky urged traditional artists to break free from the limiting restraints of the material world in their work. By faithfully using their own uninhibited thoughts and inner emotions for inspiration-essentially channeling the human spirit instead of representing material concerns-he believed that artists could transcend the norms of the time to reach new levels of abstract expression and aesthetic beauty. Likewise, he also challenged the viewing public to admire art with a fierce spiritual hunger. With insightful explorations of form and color theory, creative inspiration, psychology, religion, music, ethics, and even politics, Kandinsky makes a strong case for his artistic revolution. The movement he inspired with his theories played a pivotal role in the development of modern art, particularly in the growth and evolution of abstract painting. Featuring an enlightening introduction by the book''s translator, Michael T. H. Sadler, providing generational and cultural context for Kandinsky and his work, Concerning the Spiritual in Art gives testimony to the mind and creative expression of Kandinsky and other artists of his generation. This seminal and thought-provoking book exploring the heart of the artistic endeavor belongs in the library of every serious artist and student of modern art. This work is also available from Echo Point Books in a paperback edition; just look for ISBN 1635619068.

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Book SynopsisPioneering and Exploring the Spiritual Revolution in Modern ArtIn the early 20th century, the pioneering and celebrated painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) wrote this groundbreaking work advocating a powerful role for spirituality in driving the creation of modern art. Voicing his own strong opinions as well as the philosophical passions of his peers, Kandinsky urged traditional artists to break free from the limiting restraints of the material world in their work. By faithfully using their own uninhibited thoughts and inner emotions for inspiration-essentially channeling the human spirit instead of representing material concerns-he believed that artists could transcend the norms of the time to reach new levels of abstract expression and aesthetic beauty. Likewise, he also challenged the viewing public to admire art with a fierce spiritual hunger. With insightful explorations of form and color theory, creative inspiration, psychology, religion, music, ethics, and even politics, Kandinsky makes a strong case for his artistic revolution. The movement he inspired with his theories played a pivotal role in the development of modern art, particularly in the growth and evolution of abstract painting. Featuring an enlightening introduction by the book''s translator, Michael T. H. Sadler, providing generational and cultural context for Kandinsky and his work, Concerning the Spiritual in Art gives testimony to the mind and creative expression of Kandinsky and other artists of his generation. This seminal and thought-provoking book exploring the heart of the artistic endeavor belongs in the library of every serious artist and student of modern art.This book is also available from Echo Point Books in hardcover, ISBN 1635618908.

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Book SynopsisUgliness is very much alive in the history of art. From ritual invocations of mythic monsters to the scare tactics of the early twentieth-century avant-garde, from the cabinet of curiosities to the identity politics of today, the ugly has been every bit as active as the beautiful, and often much more of a reality - Why then has it been so neglected? This book seeks to remedy this oversight through both broad theoretical reflection and concrete case studies of ugliness in various historical and cultural contexts. The protagonists range from cooks to psychoanalysts, from war prostheses to plates of asparagus, on a world stage stretching from ancient Athens to Singapore today. Drawing across disciplinary and cultural boundaries, the writers illuminate why ugliness, associated over the millennia with negative categories ranging from sin and stupidity to triviality and boredom, remains central to art and cultural practice.Table of ContentsAndrei Pop and Mechtild Widrich, Rethinking Ugliness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Politics of Ugliness Gretchen E. Henderson, The Ugly Face Club: A Case Study in the Tangled Politics and Aesthetics of Deformity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suzannah Biernoff, The Face of War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brandon Taylor, Picasso and the Psychoanalysts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mechtild Widrich, The ‘Ugliness’ of the Avant-garde . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Experience of Ugliness Edward Payne, Ribera’s Grotesque Heads: Between Anatomical Study and Cultural Curiosity . . . . . Frédérique Desbuissons, The Studio and the Kitchen: Culinary Ugliness as Pictorial Stigmatisation in Nineteenth-Century France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kathryn Simpson, I’m Ugly Because You Hate Me: Ugliness and Negative Empathy in Oskar Kokoschka’s Early Self-Portraiture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adele Tan, From Political Travesties to Aesthetic Justice – the Ugly in Teo Eng Seng’s D Cells . . . . The Theory of Ugliness Andrei Pop, Can Beauty and Ugliness Coexist? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kassandra Nakas, Putrefied, Deliquescent, Amorphous: The ‘Liquefying’ Rhetoric of Ugliness . . . . . Odeta Žukauskien?, Orderly Ugliness, Anamorphosis and Visionary Worlds. Jurgis Baltrušaitis’ Contribution to Art History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Three Definitions of Ugliness (1765, 1843, 1882) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Book SynopsisAccused by the tabloid press of setting out to 'shock', controversial artworks are vigorously defended by art critics, who frequently downplay their disturbing emotional impact. This is the first book to subject contemporary art to a rigorous ethical exploration. It argues that, in favouring conceptual rather than emotional reactions, commentators actually fail to engage with the work they promote. Scrutinising notorious works by artists including Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Richard Billingham, Marc Quinn, Sally Mann, Marcus Harvey, Hans Bellmer, Paul McCarthy, Tierney Gearon, and Tracey Emin, "Aftershock" insists on the importance of visceral, emotional and 'ethical' responses. Far from clouding our judgement, Cashell argues, shame, outrage or revulsion are the very emotions that such works set out to evoke. While also questioning the catch-all notion of 'transgression', this illuminating and controversial book neither jumps indiscriminately to the defence of shocking artworks nor dismisses them out of hand.Trade Review'Kieran Cashell discusses artists who use everything from soiled bed linens to blood to dead sharks in their works. Drawing on an impressive array of philosophical ideas, Cashell helps viewers tackle the messy details of art by Damien Hirst, Orlan, Marc Quinn, Tracy Emin, and more, as he provides a probing and subtle defense of the moral value of such recent 'transgressive' art.' - Cynthia A. Freeland Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy University of Houston, TexasTable of ContentsCONTENTS Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction The Incompatibility of Aesthetics and Contemporary Art Transgression: the War against Disinterestedness The Ethics of Transgressive Art 1 Everyone Hates a Tourist The Ethical Analysis of Contemporary Art Disinterestedness and Cultural Tourism The Ethical Evaluation of Art: Autonomism versus Moralism A Difficult Case: Marc Quinn and Alison Lapper Transgressive Art Meets the Autonomist-Moralist Model Quinn and Lapper Revisited: A Contextualist Analysis Conclusion 2 Carte Blanche Marcus Harvey’s Myra Preliminary Approaches to the Ethical Analysis of Myra ‘Suffer Little Children’: The Facts of the Case Myra: Portrait of a Serial Killer Postmodernism and the Absence of the Referent Thesis Contextualist Ethical Analysis of Myra Myra and Merited Response Theory Conclusion 3 Atrocity Exhibition Aesthetic Defences of the Work of Jake & Dinos Chapman The Canonic Defence and the Chapmans’ Disasters of War The Transgressive Defence of Transgressive Art Hans Bellmer, Bataille and Authentic Transgression The Trivial Pursuit of Psychoanalysis Evaluation of the Aesthetic Defences of Transgressive Art Acknowledging the Immorality of the Chapmans’ Work Contextual Ethical Evaluation of Zygotic Acceleration Conclusion 4 Fearless Speech Tracey Emin’s Ethics of the Self ‘With Myself Always Myself Never Forgetting’: The Structure of Ethical Subjectivity Exposure without Reserve: Emotional Response and its Moral Significance Shame: An Existential Analysis Concluding Ethical Evaluation: Tracey Emin’s Fearless Speech 5 Horrorshow The Transvaluation of Morality in the work of Damien Hirst Obscene Objects of Pleasurable Fascination Non-Human Animals and Ethical Inclusion Attending to the Other of the Animal: Art and the Ethics of Care Exquisite Corpse: Death and the Sublime Cognitive Immoralism The Artistic Transvaluation of Morality Aftershock: Tragic Sympathy and Meta-Ethical Significance Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book provides a unique, philosophical interpretation of a significant twentieth-century painter - Wassily Kandinsky. Michel Henry was one of the leading French philosophers of the twentieth century. His numerous works of philosophy are all organized around the theme of life. In contrast to the scientific understanding of life as a biological process, Henry's philosophy develops a conception of life as an immediate feeling of one's own living."Seeing the Invisible" marks Henry's most sustained engagement in the field of aesthetics. Through an analysis of the life and works of Wassily Kandinsky, Henry uncovers the philosophical significance of Kandinsky's revolution in painting: that abstract art reveals the invisible essence of life. Henry shows that Kandinsky separates colour and line from the constraints of visible form and, in so doing, conveys the invisible intensity of life - a force rooted in the corporeity and pathos of all living beings. More than just a study of art history, this book presents Kandinsky as an artist who is engaged in the project of painting the invisible and thus offers invaluable methodological clues for Henry's own phenomenology of the invisible.Trade Review"Michel Henry's work consistently re-imagines the means through which life incarnates or makes manifest to itself the very essence of its being. In Seeing the Invisible Henry extends his philosophy, as material phenomenology, to the aesthetic, reappraising abstract art in terms of affectivity, emotional life and the essential communication that takes place between the community and the artwork at the level of sensibility. Scott Davidson's clear and timely translation provides the reader with both a revolutionary take on twentieth century art and a gateway into the thought of one of the leading French philosophers of the past fifty years." - Dr Michael O'Sullivan, The Chinese University of Hong KongTable of ContentsTranslator's Preface; Introduction; Internal/External: The Invisible and the Visible; The Meaning of 'Abstract' in the Expression 'Abstract Painting'; Form; Pure Pictorial Form; Abstract Form: The Theory of Elements; The Disclosure of Pictoriality; Point; Line; The Picture Plane; The Unity of the Elements; Invisible Colors; Forms and Colors; Difficulties Concerning the Unity of Colors and Forms; Composition; Monumental Art; Music and Painting; The Essence of Art; All Painting is Abstract; Art and the Cosmos; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis work provides a unique, philosophical interpretation of a significant twentieth-century painter - Wassily Kandinsky. Michel Henry was one of the leading French philosophers of the twentieth century. His numerous works of philosophy are all organized around the theme of life. In contrast to the scientific understanding of life as a biological process, Henry's philosophy develops a conception of life as an immediate feeling of one's own living. "Seeing the Invisible" marks Henry's most sustained engagement in the field of aesthetics. Through an analysis of the life and works of Wassily Kandinsky, Henry uncovers the philosophical significance of Kandinsky's revolution in painting: that abstract art reveals the invisible essence of life.Henry shows that Kandinsky separates colour and line from the constraints of visible form and, in so doing, conveys the invisible intensity of life - a force rooted in the corporeity and pathos of all living beings. More than just a study of art history, this book presents Kandinsky as an artist who is engaged in the project of painting the invisible and thus offers invaluable methodological clues for Henry's own phenomenology of the invisible.Trade Review"Michel Henry's work consistently re-imagines the means through which life incarnates or makes manifest to itself the very essence of its being. In Seeing the Invisible Henry extends his philosophy, as material phenomenology, to the aesthetic, reappraising abstract art in terms of affectivity, emotional life and the essential communication that takes place between the community and the artwork at the level of sensibility. Scott Davidson's clear and timely translation provides the reader with both a revolutionary take on twentieth century art and a gateway into the thought of one of the leading French philosophers of the past fifty years." - Dr Michael O'Sullivan, The Chinese University of Hong KongTable of ContentsTranslator's Preface; Introduction; Internal/External: The Invisible and the Visible; The Meaning of 'Abstract' in the Expression 'Abstract Painting'; Form; Pure Pictorial Form; Abstract Form: The Theory of Elements; The Disclosure of Pictoriality; Point; Line; The Picture Plane; The Unity of the Elements; Invisible Colors; Forms and Colors; Difficulties Concerning the Unity of Colors and Forms; Composition; Monumental Art; Music and Painting; The Essence of Art; All Painting is Abstract; Art and the Cosmos; Index.

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Book SynopsisHow do we learn about the objects that surround us? As well as gathering sensory information by viewing and using objects, we also learn about objects through the written and spoken word - from shop labels to friends' recommendations and from magazines to patents. But, even as design commentators have become increasingly preoccupied with issues of mediation, the intersection of design and language remains under-explored.Writing Design provides a unique examination of what is at stake when we convert the material properties of designed goods into verbal or textual description. Issues discussed include the role of text in informing design consumption, designing with and through language, and the challenges and opportunities raised by design without language. Bringing together a wide range of scholars and practitioners, Writing Design reveals the difficulties, ethics and politics of writing about design.Trade ReviewWriting Design is long overdue. For well over a century, critics, historians, theorists and designers themselves have used a multitude of words to describe, suggest, denote, evoke and critique that evasive concept of 'design'. Now, for the first time, a group of scholars have set out to reflect on that long-standing practice and to make us think more deeply about the complex relationship that exists between words and things. * Professor Penny Sparke, Kingston University, London, UK *This volume promises to become essential reading for anyone interested in the historical and contemporary circumstances by which words describe design, and design defines language. From a range of international perspectives, the book's contributors show how the interrelationship between language and design is never passive, but always subject to mediation, negotiation, and at times contestation. * Jeremy Aynsley, Professor of History of Design, Royal College of Art, UK *Writing Design will be a pivotal book on the fast-filling Design Criticism bookshelf. Design Criticism manifests variously as a journalistic practice, a mode of political resistance, a literary genre, an interpretive tool - and now as an academic discipline. The growing number of pedagogical initiatives in Design Criticism demands a literature that supports and challenges these academic endeavours with new research, provocative thinking and thoughtful analysis. Writing Design collects important scholarship - representing a spectrum of approaches, viewpoints, and geographical origins - that explores the rich relationship between design and language and draws attention to the written word as an artefact, worthy of as much scrutiny as the designed entity it describes. As such, this carefully selected compendium of essays helps to stake out the territory, and provides students with a broad view of the field, its key debates, themes and issues, as well as with inspiration for their own research, and case studies for close analysis. I look forward to the Design Criticism bookshelf soon groaning under the weight of many more anthologies, theoretical treatises, narrative histories and polemical tracts of the same calibre as this pioneering volume. * Alice Twemlow, Chair, MFA Design Criticism Department School of Visual Arts, USA *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsGeneral Introduction, Grace Lees-MaffeiPART 1: RIGHTING DESIGN - ON THE REFORMING ROLE OF DESIGN CRITICISMIntroduction1. ‘Writing about Stuff': The Peril and Promise of Design History and Criticism, Jeffrey L. Meikle, University of Texas at Austin, USA2. Design Criticism and Social Responsibility: The Flemish Design Critic K.-N. Elno (1920-1993), Fredie Floré, Ghent University, Belgium3. The Metamorphosis of a Norwegian Design Magazine: Nye Bonytt, 1968-1971, Kjetil Fallan, University of Oslo, Norway4. Writing Contemporary Design into History, Stephen Hayward, University of the Arts London, UKPART 2: MEDIATIONS - BETWEEN DESIGN AND CONSUMPTIONIntroduction5. Thinking in Metaphor: Figurative Conceptualising in John Evelyn's Diary and John Ruskin's Stones of Venice, Anne Hultzsch, University College London, UK6. Regulating the Body in Army Manuals and Trade Guides: The Design of the First World War Khaki Service Dress, Jane Tynan, University of the Arts London, UK7. Vitaglass and the Discourse of Modern Culture, John Stanislav Sadar, Monash University, Australia8. Lewis Mumford's Lever House: Writing a House of Glass, Ann Sobiech Munson, Iowa State University, USA PART 3: DESIGNING WITH AND THROUGH LANGUAGEIntroduction9. Judging a Book by its Cover: or Does Modernist Form Follow Function?, Polly Cantlon and Alice Lo, both University of Waikato, New Zealand 10. Reading Details: Caruso St John and the Poetic Intent of Construction Documents, Mhairi McVicar, Welsh School of Architecture, UK11. Applying Oral Sources: Design Historian, Practitioner and Participant:, Chae Ho Lee, University of Hawai‘i at Mânoa, USA12. Fluid Typography: Construction, Metamorphosis and Revelation, Barbara Brownie, University of Hertfordshire, UK PART 4: SHOWING AS TELLING - ON DESIGN BEYOND TEXTIntroduction13. Showing Architecture Through Exhibitions: A Taxonomical Analysis Applied to the Case of the First Venice Architecture Biennale (1980), Léa-Catherine Szacka, University College London, UK14. Design as Language without Words: AG Fronzoni, Gabriele Oropallo, University College London, UK 15. On the Legal Protection of Design: Things and Words about Them, Stina Teilmann-Lock, Danish Design School, Denmark 16. Text-led and Object-led Research Paradigms: Doing Without Words, Michael Biggs and Daniela Büchler, both University of Hertfordshire, UKContributorsList of IllustrationsSelect BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisRefuting the assumption that art is a representational practice, this book engages with the work of Heidegger, Deleuze and Guattari, C.S. Pierce and Judith Butler. It argues for a performative relationship between art and artist. Drawing on themes as diverse as the work of Cezanne and Francis Bacon, the transubstantiation of the Catholic sacrament, and Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray", she challenges the metaphor of light as entertainment. She suggests that too much "light" may in fact reveal nothing. Finally, she asks: how does an "embodied" practice fare within the culture of conceptual art?

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Book SynopsisFor too long Social Practice has been the notoriously flimsy flipside of market-based contemporary art: a world of hand-wringing practitioners easily satisfied with the feeling of ''doing good'' in a community, and unaware that their quasi-activist, anti-formalist positions in fact have a long artistic heritage and can be critically dissected using the tools of art and theatre history. Helguera''s spunky primer promises to offer a much-needed critical compass for those adrift in the expanded social field. -Claire Bishop, Professor of Contemporary Art and Exhibition History, CUNY, and author of Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of SpectatorshipThis is an extremely timely and thoughtful reference book. Drawn from empirical and extensive experience and research, it provides a curriculum and framework for thinking about the complexity of socially engaged practices. Locating the methodologies of this work in between disciplines, Helguera draws on histories of performance, pedagogy, sociology, ethnography, linguistics, community and public practices. Rather than propose a system he exposes the temporalities necessary to make these situations possible and resonant. This is a tool that will allow us to consider the difficulties of making socially engaged art and move closer to finding a language through which we can represent and discuss its impact.-Sally Tallant, Artistic Director, Liverpool BiennialHelguera has produced a highly readable book that absolutely needs to be in the back pocket of anyone interested in teaching or learning about socially engaged art -Tom Finkelpearl, Director of the Queens Museum, New York, and author of Dialogues in Public Art

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Book SynopsisThis book argues for a renewed understanding of the fundamentally uncanny quality of the medium of photography. It especially makes the case for the capacity of certain photographs—precisely through their uncanniness—to contest structures of political and social dominance. The uncanny as a quality that unsettles the perception of home emerges as a symptom of modern and contemporary society and also as an aesthetic apparatus by which some key photographs critique the hegemony of capitalist and industrialist domains. The book’s historical scope is large, beginning with William Henry Fox Talbot and closing with contemporary indigenous photographer Bear Allison and contemporary African American photographer Devin Allen. Through close readings, exegesis, of individual photographs and careful deployment of contemporary political and aesthetic theory, The Photographic Uncanny argues for a re-envisioning of the political capacity of photography to expose the haunted, homeless, condition of modernity. Table of Contents1.A Political Uncanny: The Homelessness of Photographs.- 2.Eugene Atget’s Sacred Spaces: Uncanny Capitalism.- 3.August Sander’s Habitus.- 4.Walker Evans’s Emotions.- 5.Diane Arbus’s Uncanny Aura.- 6.Second Selves: Woodman, Meatyard, Allison.- 7.North American Uncanny: Shelley Niro.- 8.Ghosts of West Baltimore: Devin Allen.- 9.Conclusion: Revisiting the 18th-Century Visual Uncanny.

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Book SynopsisPhotography: History and Theory introduces students to both the history of photography and critical theory.From its inception in the nineteenth century, photography has instigated a series of theoretical debates. In this new text, Jae Emerling therefore argues that the most insightful way to approach the histories of photography is to address simultaneously the key events of photographic history alongside the theoretical discourse that accompanied them.While the nineteenth century is discussed, the central focus of the text is on modern and contemporary photographic theory. Particular attention is paid to key thinkers, such as Baudelaire, Barthes and Sontag. In addition, the centrality of photography to contemporary art practice is addressed through the theoretical work of Allan Sekula, John Tagg, Rosalind Krauss, and Vilém Flusser. The text also includes readings of many canonical photographers and exhibitions including: Atget, Brassai, August Sander, Walker Trade Review'Jae Emerling has done the near impossible: he has written an introduction to the history and theory of photography that also adds significantly to the ways in which we come to see, know, and understand the world. Here, by focusing on the 'and' between history and theory, photography itself becomes ingeniously a form of thinking. Photography is history, is theory, is technology, is archive, is document, is truth, is time, is knowledge, is a way to generate new worlds politically and aesthetically. Emerling writes that 'to study the history and theory of photography is to write and create alongside—and in the middle of—images.' He couldn't be more right.' – Marquard Smith, Director, Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture, University of Westminster, UK'Jae Emerling has produced a timely and thoroughly useful book that shows how the history of photography and the theories encouraged by that history have shaped our experience of the photographic work of art. His writing eloquently and accessibly considers those debates that have lead to the concepts through which contemporary practitioners and viewers alike now confront the ‘impossible object’ of an art photograph. This book is a must for anyone serious about the production, appreciation, or use of photographic images in the 21st century. Emerling’s work beautifully defines artistic practice and theory as complementary but not identical, and points out that images are always already ensembles of history and ideas. For as he so succinctly states in his introduction, ‘The footprint of a bird is not a bird’.' – William Wylie, Professor of Art, University of Virginia, USA'Photography offers the most complex limit case for understanding representation in our time. What Emerling has done in situating the discourse of art photography on the dual thresholds of aesthetics/ethics and theory/history, is to open up the field to the ontological complexity of its subject domain. This book is an astonishing performance, a nuanced and lucid argument addressed to all those interested in why photography matters today.' – Claire Farago, Professor of Art History, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA'In exploring photography's inexorable relationship to theory Emerling has produced an elegant and rigorous analysis of key theoretical junctures within the history of this crucial medium of visual culture... [T]his excellent study is likely to become an indispensible volume for graduate students and scholars of photography and those interested in theories of visual culture. Highly recommended.' – M.R. Freeman, CHOICE magazine‘…we are now witnessing the publication of more single-voiced books [that] succeed in adding new perspectives and insights on photography, as Photography: History and Theory convincingly does’ – Helen Westgeest, CAA reviewsTable of ContentsIntroduction 1: The Thing Itself Gloss on Walter Benjamin, "Little History of Photography" (1931) 2: Frame (Matter and Metaphor) Gloss on Roland Barthes, "Rhetoric of the Image" (1964) 3: Documentary, or Instants of Truth Gloss on Susan Sontag, "Regarding the Pain of Others" (2002) 4: The Archive as Producer Gloss on Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969) 5: Time-Images Gloss on Vilém Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography (1983)

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Book SynopsisBlindness explores the fascinating paradoxes in the Western representation of blindness, revealing the ways in which the idea of absence of vision has been central in the history of visual culture.Table of ContentsIntroduction; I. Antiquity; Attitudes of the Bible; Classical Antiquity: Causes of blindness; Blindness and guilt; The blind seer; Ate; II.The Blind in the Early Christian World; The healing of the blind; Blindness and revelation: the story of Paul; A concluding observation; III. The Middle Ages; The Antichrist; Allegorical blindness; The blind beggar; The blind and his guide; IV. The Renaissance and its Sequel; The blind beggar; Metaphorical blindness; The revival of the blind seer; Early secularization of the blind; The blind beggar in the seventeenth century; V. The Disenchantment of Blindness: Diderot's Lettre sur les aveugles

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Book SynopsisA catalogue of the unique collection of modern and contemporary prints and drawings of film critic and author Alexander Walker (19302003).

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Book SynopsisThe ultimate picture book â packed with wonderful, quirky, amusing and delightful images from the British Museum. There is no text at all: the pictures, and combinations of pictures, speak for themselves

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Book SynopsisThe reader is invited to view Islamic art as no more and no less than ordinary art, neither better nor worse than anything else that counts as art. It follows that there are no special techniques required in Islamic aesthetics as compared with any other form of aesthetics.Trade ReviewOliver Leaman has written yet another challenging and iconoclastic work. This is a useful and imaginative project and clearly fills a need! Leaman is an accomplished and productive author and the book will be of genuine and considerable interest. -- Professor Lenn E. Goodman, Vanderbilt University, Nashville Oliver Leaman is a very distinguished, internationally regarded scholar of philosophy! his profound philosophical knowledge enables him to apply and analyse concepts of aesthetics to a multitude of art forms. -- Professor Ian R. Netton, University of Leeds ... although it claims to be but an introduction to the subject, it is an engaging and comprehensive one, with up-to-the-minute, primary-sourced chapters on literature, music, the Qur'an and medieval philosophies of seeing, not to mention the four on the visual arts. -- British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies Oliver Leaman has written yet another challenging and iconoclastic work. This is a useful and imaginative project and clearly fills a need! Leaman is an accomplished and productive author and the book will be of genuine and considerable interest. Oliver Leaman is a very distinguished, internationally regarded scholar of philosophy! his profound philosophical knowledge enables him to apply and analyse concepts of aesthetics to a multitude of art forms. ... although it claims to be but an introduction to the subject, it is an engaging and comprehensive one, with up-to-the-minute, primary-sourced chapters on literature, music, the Qur'an and medieval philosophies of seeing, not to mention the four on the visual arts.Table of ContentsForeword; Introduction; 1. Eleven Common Mistakes about Islamic Art; 2. God as Creator, Calligraphy and Symbolism; 3. Religion, Style and Art; 4. Literature; 5. Music; 6. Home and Garden; 7. The Miraculousness of the Qur'an; 8. Philosophy and Ways of Seeing; 9. Interpreting Art, Interpreting Islam, Interpreting Philosophy; Notes; Bibliography; Index of Qur'anic Passages; Index.

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