Readings and Writings: Semiotic Counter-strategies

Wollen, Peter

ISBN 10: 0860910555 / ISBN 13: 9780860910558

Published by Verso Editions and NLB, London, 1982

About this Item

Ownership name stamp on front and rear pastedowns, else fine in good dj with faded spine, but no chips or major tears. No illustrations.

Seller Inventory # 002349

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Readings and Writings: Semiotic Counter-strategies
• Publisher: Verso Editions and NLB, London
• Publication Date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0860910555
• ISBN 13: 9780860910558
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: Apparent First Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • cinema

About this title

Synopsis

The films of Hitchcock, Welles and Godard; the aesthetics of photography and the technology of cinema; art and revolution in Russia and in Mexico; the avant-gardes in film and in painting-these are among the many topics of Peter Wollen's essays. Interwoven with fictional treatments of such themes as memory, dream, sexuality and writing, they compose a remarkable, perhaps unique, volume.
These "readings and writings" are informed by Marxism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, and the history of art itself. Their concern is with signification: with the ways in which meanings are produced in dominant art forms and with the counter-strategies by which these meanings may be questioned or dislodged, in the practice of politically and aesthetically radical alternatives. A concluding retrospect reviews the political, intellectual and aesthetic avant-garde currents of the fifteen years over which these texts were written, outlining some perspectives for oppositional art today.

About the Author

Peter Wollen (1938-2019) was a cultural critic, film theorist, curator and avant-garde filmmaker. His books include Signs and Meaning in the Cinema, Raiding the Icebox, Readings and Writings, and Singin' in the Rain. He co-wrote the screenplay for Antonioni's The Passenger, and subsequently made six films in collaboration with Laura Mulvey, including Riddles of the Sphinx. His final film was a solo project, Friendship's Death, starring Tilda Swinton.