Description
Book Synopsis"A welcome addition to the study of the ancient Near East. It breaks away from Eurocentric approaches and tries to do justice to Mesopotamian thought, thus shedding new light on the relationship between text and representation... Bahrani's book will become the center of a lively debate."-Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Trade Review"Bahrani opens up the field of discourse for the study of ancient Near Eastern art and brings it into dialogue with current disciplinary trends. . . . The book will stimulate further discussion about the nature(s) of Babylonian and Assyrian representation across the disciplinary divides." *
Journal of the American Oriental Society *
"A welcome addition to the study of the ancient Near East. It breaks away from Eurocentric approaches and tries to do justice to Mesopotamian thought, thus shedding new light on the relationship between text and representation. . . . Bahrani's book will become the center of a lively debate." *
Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Introduction
1. The Aesthetic and the Epistemic: Race, Culture, and Antiquity
2. The Extraterrestrial Orient: Despotic Time and the Time of the Despots
3. Ethnography and Mimesis: Representing Aesthetic Culture
4. Being in the Word: Of Grammatology and Mantic
5. Salmu: Representation in the Real
6. Decoys and Lures: Substitution and the Uncanny Double of the King
7. Presence and Repetition: The Altar of Tukulti-Ninurta
8. Conclusion: Image, Text, and Différance, or from Difference to Différance
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
