{"product_id":"the-ethics-of-visuality-levinas-and-the-contemporary-gaze-9781780765167","title":"The Ethics of Visuality: Levinas and the Contemporary Gaze","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOur world is saturated with images. Overwhelmed by this proliferation of visual stimuli, our gaze becomes increasingly bored and distracted. Do we ever really read and engage with images? Can they ever provide the sense of meaningfulness we crave? French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas confronted and subverted these questions. A superficial reading of his works might indicate an ambivalence if not a wholesale critique of the visual, whose mode of signification remains, for him, objectified, finite and flat. Yet an enigmatic statement  -  'Ethics is an optics'  -  recurred throughout his work. Hagi Kenaan takes this mysterious idea as the starting point for a strikingly original philosophical argument on the place of visuality in Levinas' ethics. The Ethics of Visuality analyses Levinas' philosophy of the human face in order to show how his vision of 'Otherness'(alterity and transcendence) can open up for us a new and surprising kind of optics that is so needed for an ethical living in the contemporary world. Where other critical approaches have largely undermined Levinas' ambivalence towards the visual, The Ethics of Visuality uncovers the relevance of Levinas' bias against the visual to developing a radical philosophy\/theory of visual meaning in which the aesthetic is always already intertwined with the ethical.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn  excellent  book. The  questions  it  asks  are  most  acute  and  they  renew  the  analysis  of  the  question  of  the  Face  in  Levinas's  philosophy,  which  is  quite  an  achievement.  Dr  Hagi  Kenaan  is  not  content  with  explaining  the  main  lines  of  Levinas's  thought  on  the  Face,  he  proposes  a  fine  phenomenological  approach  of  what  it  means  \"to  see\"  in  general  and  what  it  means  to  see  a  Face  in particular,  while  giving  concrete  examples  which  is  a  very  good  pedagogical  approach  too.  His  knowledge  of  the  different  phenomenological  philosophers  is excellent  and  he  refers  to  them  in  a  most  appropriate  way.  His  analysis  of  the  act  of  speaking  (dibour)  and  of  its  subtle  and  necessary  link  to  the  Face,  is  also  very  well  done.  I  also  want  to  underline  Dr  Hagi  Kenaan's  qualities  of  explanations  and  rational  deductions in  his  book.  This  is  a  fine  and  clever  book.  Professor Catherine  Chalier, Professor of Philosophy, University of Paris X- Nanterre  Kenaan's brilliant study reveals what Levinas' 'ethical turn' has to teach us about the ethical potential of the visual. His study offers nothing less than a guide for restoring us to an ethics of vision in our postmodern world. It is an urgent, compelling and, ultimately, hopeful work.  Martin Berger, Professor and Chair, History of Art and Visual Culture, University of California at Santa Cruz.  The Ethics of Visuality is an extraordinary achievement. The author offers a brilliant meditation not only on Levinas' thought but also through it, engaging and going beyond it, culminating in profound insights. It is a must-read for anyone seriously interested not only in visuality but also in the very condition of what it means to speak with responsibility about appearance.  Lewis R. Gordon, Professor of Philosophy, African American Studies and Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut at Storrs and author of Disciplinary Decadence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eContents  Preface: The Rule of the Frontal \t\t\t\t\t\t  Ethics is an Optics: Preliminary Remarks   Face 1: \tThe Gleam of Infinity  Face 2: \tHow a Face Looks Face 3: \tFace and Object Face 4: \tWhy A Face, All of a Sudden Face 5: \tVision, Gaze, Other Face 6: \tFace and Resistance Face 7: \tOutside Talk 1The Face of Language  Talk 2Expression \t\t Talk 3The First Word  Talk 4Saying and Betraying Talk 5Word, Window, Screen  Talk 6Listening to a Big Bird Talk 7The Open   References","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52091177238871,"sku":"9781780765167","price":22.79,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781780765167.jpg?v=1762274266","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-ethics-of-visuality-levinas-and-the-contemporary-gaze-9781780765167","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}