Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis is an excellent book, very original and elegantly written. Chiara Bottici's contribution to the field of politics is an original one, since, even though there exist other theories about the social imaginary, Bottici's is pivotal in allowing us to understand contemporary politics and its paradoxes. It is a great addition to the field of academic discussions about politics, religion, imagination, and conceptual history. -- Maria Pia Lara, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Chiara Bottici's Imaginal Politics is an original, suggestive, and solid contribution to political philosophy broadly understood. The strength of Bottici's work lies in its scope and potential for unifying several strands of inquiry into one integrated theory of the imaginal and working out the consequences of this notion for a variety of disciplines. The whole field of 'politics and the imagination' is rapidly expanding, and I would not be surprised if this book were to turn into one of the key references in the field. -- Alessandro Ferrara, University of Rome Tor Vergata, and former president of the Italian Association of Political Philosophy In her new book, Chiara Bottici continues her pathbreaking work in imaginal cultural analysis. Neither properly imaginary nor precisely imaginative, the imaginal is the image broken free of the restraints of both indexicality and referentiality, becoming in the process free-floating agencies in modernity's advertising, spectacular, sports, military, and political games. -- Hayden White, University Professor, Emeritus, University of California, Santa Cruz Insightful, wide-ranging, and exciting. -- Laura Hengehold Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Part 1. Imagining 1. From Phantasia to Imagination 2. From Imagination to the Imaginary and Beyond? 3. Toward a Theory of the Imaginal Part 2. Politics 4. A Genealogy of Politics: From Its Invention to the Biopolitical Turn 5. Imaginal Politics 6. Contemporary Transformations Between Spectacle and Virtuality Part 3. The Global Spectacle 7. The Politics of the Past: The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations 8. The Repositioning of Religion in the Public Sphere: Imaginal Consequences 9. Imagining Human Rights: Gender, Race, and Class The Freedom of Equals: A Conclusion and a New Beginning Notes Bibliography Index
