The Politics of Aesthetics - Softcover

Rancière, Jacques

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826489540 ISBN 13: 9780826489548

Publisher: Continuum, 2006

Synopsis

The Politics of Aesthetics rethinks the relationship between art and politics, reclaiming "aesthetics" from the narrow confines it is often reduced to. Jacques Rancière reveals its intrinsic link to politics by analysing what they both have in common: the delimitation of the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, the thinkable and the unthinkable, the possible and the impossible.

Presented as a set of inter-linked interviews, The Politics of Aesthetics provides the most comprehensive introduction to Rancière's work to date, ranging across the history of art and politics from the Greek polis to the aesthetic revolution of the modern age.

Already translated into five languages, this English edition of The Politics of Aesthetics includes a new afterword by Slavoj Zizek, an interview for the English edition, a glossary of technical terms and an extensive bibliography.

About this title

Review:

"'Locating the political significance of art has not only gone out of fashion, it has in recent years become a source of embarrassment. No one has argued against this repression with more precision, nuance, and undeniable force than Jacques Ranciere... This book, with an emphatic "Afterword" by Zizek, provides a riveting and compelling outline of the central elements of Ranciere's politics of aesthetics and its relation to his demanding rethinking of the political.' J.M. Bernstein, New School for Social Research 'A benchmark, this compact book shows why Ranciere is one of the most compelling thinkers and writers in France since Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze.' Tom Conley, Harvard University 'This is possibly the most important essay, despite its length, since Adorno's Aesthetic Theory.' Adrian Rifkin, Professor of Visual Culture, Middlesex"

Synopsis:

"The Politics of Aesthetics" rethinks the relation between art and politics, reclaiming "aesthetics" from its current narrow confines to reveal its significance for contemporary experience. Here, Jacques Ranciere develops a critical aesthetic that goes far beyond the paradigms of modernism and modernity and their 'posts' which still haunt us. Presented as a set of inter-linked interviews, "The Politics of Aesthetics" ranges across art and politics, the uses and abuses of modernity, the role of visual technologies, the relationship between history and fiction, utopias, the avant-garde and the three aesthetic regimes, which constitute the 'partitions of the sensible.' Already translated into five languages, this English edition of "The Politics of Aesthetics" includes a new afterword by Slavoj Zizek and a new interview with Ranciere in which he situates his writing within the context of the work of, amongst others, Foucault, Barthes, Ricoeur, Kristeva, Derrida, Badiou, Balibar and Zizek.

About this edition

• Publisher: Continuum
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0826489540
• ISBN 13: 9780826489548
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 126