Radical History and the Politics of Art

Author:   Gabriel Rockhill (Assistant Professor of Philosophy) ,  Alfredo Gomez-Muller
Publisher:   Columbia University Press
Volume:   29
ISBN:  

9780231152006


Pages:   288
Publication Date:   15 July 2014
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
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Radical History and the Politics of Art


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Full Product Details

Author:   Gabriel Rockhill (Assistant Professor of Philosophy) ,  Alfredo Gomez-Muller
Publisher:   Columbia University Press
Imprint:   Columbia University Press
Volume:   29
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.496kg
ISBN:  

9780231152006


ISBN 10:   0231152000
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   15 July 2014
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Language:   English

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: Art and Politics in the Time of Radical History Part I. Historical Encounters Between Art and Politics 1. For a Radical Historicist Analytic of Aesthetic and Political Practices 2. Realism, Formalism, Commitment: Three Historic Positions on Art and Politics Part II. Visions of the Avant-Garde 3. The Theoretical Destiny of the Avant-Garde 4. Toward a Reconsideration of Avant-Garde Practices Part III. The Politics of Aesthetics 5. The Silent Revolution: Ranciere's Rethinking of Aesthetics and Politics 6. Productive Contradictions: From Ranciere's Politics of Aesthetics to the Social Politicity of the Arts Part IV. The Social Politicity of Aesthetic Practices 7. The Politicity of 'Apolitical' Art: A Pragmatic Intervention Into the Art of the Cold War 8. Rethinking the Politics of Aesthetic Practices: Advancing the Critique of the Ontological Illusion and the Talisman Complex Conclusion: Radical Art and Politics-No End in Sight Notes Index

Reviews

Direct and uncompromising in his views, Rockhill sets forward a political philosophy of aesthetics, that is at once sensuous and pragmatic. The research is based on German and French works in their original articulation, and the analyses themselves take up not what is thematic but, better, what is couched in contradiction. The book will be a strong contribution to a practical -- both theoretical and historical -- appreciation of aesthetics and politics. -- Tom Conley, Harvard University Art feels too impossibly urgent for it not to matter to the shape of our living together; yet locating where the join between life and art is, precisely, has proved elusive. In this invaluable study, Gabriel Rockhill vanquishes the myth that either there is some privileged moment -- of form, content, or effect -- uniting art and politics or there is none. With subtlety and analytic rigor, Rockhill demonstrates the nexus connecting -- or separating -- art and politics is always bound to the dense weave of social practices located at concrete historical times in specific geographical locales. Along the way Rockhill provides a scintillating new analysis of the avant-garde, and the most acute analysis of Jacques Ranciere's aesthetic theory I have come across. Anyone interested in the question of art and politics will want to read this book. -- J. M. Bernstein, New School for Social Research Much has been written about the relationship between art and politics. How may one reunite what was originally separated? is a question that foregrounds a deep-seated sophism that is the cause of major misunderstandings, for art and politics have never been different entities and one understands nothing about art and politics as long as one thinks of them as self-contained. Gabriel Rockhill argues definitively against the talisman complex which is based on our spontaneously essentialist bias and on an ontology which always ends up sidestepping true analysis. As a radical historicist, he is not shy of complexity and chooses to reinstate art and artworks in social life, i.e., where they have meaning and depth. To isolationist theories and concepts he opposes an energetic interventionist strategy that is particularly welcome in the present field of concept formation. -- Jean-Pierre Cometti, University of Provence In this passionate and rigorous meditation on the vexed issue of the politics of art, Gabriel Rockhill examines the theses of Wittgenstein, Sartre, Adorno, Marcuse, Lukacs, Burger and Ranciere to argue that it is as wrong to politicize aesthetics as to aestheticize politics. Since neither art nor politics can be founded ontologically, this lack of transcendence brings a saving grace. Understood as a historical field of collective negotiations, art recaptures its critical edge, its activist agency, and its social relevance. -- Jean-Michel Rabate, Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania In this bold and erudite intervention into 20th century controversies surrounding art and politics, Rockhill dissolves a whole series of reifications, essentialisms and other symptoms of magical thinking in a bath of radical historicism. Art and politics emerge as no longer clearly defined entities, but as a host of artistic and political practices, intertwined and interacting in an ever-changing, ever-contested constellation of encounters and relations. -- Kristin Ross, New York University We are living in a period when in many fields of humanities history is taken for granted more often than it is taken seriously. Gabriel Rockhill's Radical History & Politics of Art thoroughly challenges this attitude by demonstrating the subversive explanatory power of historical analysis. By considering art and politics as entirely immanent in socio-historical practices, Rockhill argues for their multiform relationship as displayed in various temporal, geographical, and social configurations. Thus, he integrates the disciplinary priorities of a theoretician of art into a style of discourse that offers a powerful philosophical way of reading history. Radical History & Politics of Art is elegantly written, informative, and never less than provocative. The result is a radical voice long unheard in the field of theoretical discourse on art. -- Adam Takacs, Eotvos Lorand University Budapest


Direct and uncompromising in his views, Rockhill sets forward a political philosophy of aesthetics, that is at once sensuous and pragmatic. The research is based on German and French works in their original articulation, and the analyses themselves take up not what is thematic but, better, what is couched in contradiction. The book will be a strong contribution to a practical -- both theoretical and historical -- appreciation of aesthetics and politics. -- Tom Conley, Harvard University Art feels too impossibly urgent for it not to matter to the shape of our living together; yet locating where the join between life and art is, precisely, has proved elusive. In this invaluable study, Gabriel Rockhill vanquishes the myth that either there is some privileged moment -- of form, content, or effect -- uniting art and politics or there is none. With subtlety and analytic rigor, Rockhill demonstrates the nexus connecting -- or separating -- art and politics is always bound to the dense weave of social practices located at concrete historical times in specific geographical locales. Along the way Rockhill provides a scintillating new analysis of the avant-garde, and the most acute analysis of Jacques Ranciere's aesthetic theory I have come across. Anyone interested in the question of art and politics will want to read this book. -- J.M. Bernstein, New School for Social Research Much has been written about the relationship between art and politics. How may one reunite what was originally separated? is a question that foregrounds a deep-seated sophism that is the cause of major misunderstandings, for art and politics have never been different entities and one understands nothing about art and politics as long as one thinks of them as self-contained. Gabriel Rockhill argues definitively against the talisman complex which is based on our spontaneously essentialist bias and on an ontology which always end up sidestepping true analysis. As a radical historicist, he is not shy of complexity and chooses to reinstate art and artworks in the social life, i.e., where they have meaning and depth. To the isolationist theories and concepts he opposes an energetic interventionist strategy which is particularly welcome in the present field of forces of our concept-formation context. -- Jean-Pierre Cometti, University of Provence In this passionate and rigorous meditation on the vexed issue of the politics of art, Gabriel Rockhill examines the theses of Wittgenstein, Sartre, Adorno, Marcuse, Lukacs, Burger and Ranciere to argue that it is as wrong to politicize aesthetics as to aestheticize politics. Since neither art nor politics can be founded ontologically, this lack of transcendence brings a saving grace. Understood as a historical field of collective negotiations, art recaptures its critical edge, its activist agency, and its social relevance. -- Jean-Michel Rabate, Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania In this bold and erudite intervention into 20th century controversies surrounding art and politics, Rockhill dissolves a whole series of reifications, essentialisms and other symptoms of magical thinking in a bath of radical historicism. Art and politics emerge as no longer clearly defined entities, but as a host of artistic and political practices, intertwined and interacting in an ever-changing, ever-contested constellation of encounters and relations. -- Kristin Ross, New York University We are living in a period when in many fields of humanities history is taken for granted more often than it is taken seriously. Gabriel Rockhill's Radical History & Politics of Art thoroughly challenges this attitude by demonstrating the subversive explanatory power of historical analysis. By considering art and politics as entirely immanent in socio-historical practices, Rockhill argues for their multiform relationship as displayed in various temporal, geographical, and social configurations. Thus, he integrates the disciplinary priorities of a theoretician of art into a style of discourse that offers a powerful philosophical way of reading history. Radical History & Politics of Art is elegantly written, informative, and never less than provocative. The result is a radical voice long unheard in the field of theoretical discourse on art. -- Adam Takacs, Eotvos Lorand University Budapest


Author Information

Gabriel Rockhill is associate professor of philosophy at Villanova University, Directeur de programme at the College International de Philosophie, and director of the Critical Theory Workshop in Paris, France. He is the author of Logique de l'histoire: pour une analytique des pratiques philosophiques and coeditor and contributor to Politics of Culture and the Spirit of Critique: Dialogues, Jacques Ranciere: History, Politics, Aesthetics, and Technologies de controle dans la mondialisation: enjeux politiques, ethiques et esthetiques.

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