Description
Book Synopsis* Jacques Ranciere is a leading French philosopher, particularly well known for his work in aesthetics and political philosophy * In this concise and brilliant text, Ranciere presents a thoughtful analysis of the way in which artworks and films represent historical events and those who were involved.
Trade Review"As our world seems to continually move from one catastrophe to the next without a credible governing leadership, authors like Rancière... force us to conceive of politics differently."
LA Review of Books
“The equality of all before the light and the inequality of the little people as the great pass by are both written on the same photographic plate.” With this sentence, Jacques Rancière effectively aligns his conception of aesthetic theory as the always antagonistic distribution of the sensible under the sign of the demand for equality with the invention of photography. It is a beautiful and breathtaking conceit in what is, perhaps, the most beautiful of Rancière’s texts. His accounts here of the figures of history in photography, film, and painting generally - with dazzling accounts of particular works - expand and deepen his aesthetic theory in intriguing ways. Indeed, I cannot imagine a more inviting entrée to Rancière’s thinking about art, history and politics than this little book."
J.M. Bernstein, New School for Social Research
Table of ContentsThe Unforgettable
1. In Front of the Camera Lens
2. Behind the Window
3. The Threshold of the Visible
4. In the Face of Disappearance
Senses and Figures of History
1. Of Four Senses of History
2. History and Representation: Three Poetics of Modernity
3. On Three Forms of History Painting
Films cited
