philosophy
Wrestling with the Angel Experiments in Symbolic Life Tracy McNulty “A stellar piece of scholarship. Its timely intervention
Radical History and the Politics of Art Gabriel Rockhill
“Direct and uncompromising, Rockhill sets forth
into controversies at the heart of today’s theoretical
a political philosophy of aesthetics that is at
humanities will draw the admiring attention of large
once sensuous and pragmatic. Research is based
audiences in multiple fields. This book definitely and
on German and French works in their original
deservedly will be a huge success.”
articulation, and the analyses take up not what is
—Adrian Johnston, University of New Mexico
Tracy McNulty reconsiders contemporary political, legal, and social theory from a psychoanalytic perspective, arguing for the enabling function of formal and symbolic constraints in sustaining desire as a source of creativity, innovation, and social change.
McNulty begins by calling for a richer understanding of the psychoanalytic concept of the symbolic and the resources it offers for an examination of the social link and the political sphere. She analyzes examples of “experimental” articulations of the symbolic and their creative use of formal limits and constraints not as mere prohibitions or rules but as “enabling constraints” that favor the exercise of freedom. She concludes with the relationship between will and constraint in Kant’s aesthetic philosophy and the experimental works of the collective Oulipo. “This is a very exciting book, stunningly intelligent and beautifully written. It engages with theoretical arguments in a way that is always rigorous and wonderfully lucid and accessible.” —Elizabeth Weed, Brown University Tracy McNulty
is professor of French and comparative
literature at Cornell University.
thematic but better: what is couched in contradiction. A strong contribution to a practical theoretical and historical appreciation of aesthetics and politics.” —Tom Conley, Harvard University
Gabriel Rockhill rethinks the relationship between art and politics. Rather than understanding the two spheres as separated by an insurmountable divide or linked by a privileged bridge, Rockhill demonstrates that art and politics are not fixed entities with a singular relation but rather dynamically negotiated, sociohistorical practices with shifting and imprecise borders.
Rockhill proposes a significant departure from extant debates on what is commonly called “art” and “politics,” and the result is an impressive foray into the force field of history, in which cultural practices are meticulously analyzed in their social and temporal dynamism without assuming a conceptual unity behind them. Rockhill therefore develops an alternative logic of history and historical change, as well as a novel account of social practices and a multidimensional theory of agency. Gabriel Rockhill
is associate professor of philosophy at
Villanova University, directeur de programme at the Collège International de Philosophie, and director of the Critical Theory Workshop in Paris, France.
$30.00 / £20.50 paper 978-0-231-16119-0 $90.00 / £62.00 cloth 978-0-231-16118-3 $29.99 / £20.50 ebook 978-0-231-53760-5 J u n e 336 pages p h i lo s o p h y / Ps yc h o lo g y I n s u rr e c t i o n s : Cr i t i c a l S t u d i e s i n
$28.00 / £19.50 paper 978-0-231-15201-3 $85.00 / £58.50 cloth 978-0-231-15200-6 $27.99 / £19.50 ebook 978-0-231-52778-1 A u g u s t 288 pages p h i lo s o p h y / P o l i t i c s / Art
R e l i g i o n , P o l i t i c s , a n d C u lt u r e
N e w D i r e c t i o n s i n Cr i t i c a l T h e o ry
All Rights: Columbia University Press
All Rights: Columbia University Press
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