Description
Book SynopsisExamining how the limitations of representation have been discussed from Kant up through Marxist theorists of postmodernism, this title illuminates the epistemological, political, aesthetic, ideological, and cultural issues hinging on the inevitable failures of representation.
Trade Review"
The Abyss of Representation is an ambitious and highly illuminating book."—Ernesto Laclau
”
The Abyss of Representation is an outstanding contribution to a theory of literature and aesthetic philosophy. It is a strong elaboration of the failure inherent in representation and that failure’s relevance to a cultural and political theory.”—Michael Bernard-Donals, coauthor of
Between Witness and Testimony: The Holocaust and the Limits of RepresentationTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Abbreviations for Works Cited xi
1. Representation and the Abyss of Subjectivity 1
2. Presentation beyond Representation: Kant and the Limits of Discursive Understanding 22
3. The Speculative Proposition: Hegel and the Drama of Presentation 53
4. Marx’s Key Concept? Althusser and the
Darstellung Question 84
5. Figuration and the Sublime Logic of the Real: Jameson’s Libidinal Apparatuses 127
6. The Theater of Figural Space 182
7. Can the Symptom Speak? Hegemony and the Problem of Cultural Representation 235
Notes 295
Bibliography 319
Index 327
