Synopses & Reviews
andlt;Pandgt;This is a book about the public display of death in contemporary culture. It consists of a series of essays on specific cases in which death is displayed in museums and in photography. The essays focus mainly on representations of violence and death in events in recent Israeli history, including the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian Intifada, and on the visual presence of traumatic events in Israeli culture throughout the twentieth century. They show how images of these events both shape and aestheticize the viewer's experience of death.The book offers a new reading of the work of Walter Benjamin, particularly his essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Engaging the disciplinary perspectives of philosophy, art history, cultural studies, and photographic theory, the book also draws upon the work of such writers as Jean Baudrillard, Pierre Bourdieu, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jean-Luc Nancy.andlt;/Pandgt;
Review
"Azoulay has an eye for seeking engaging artwork and combining theoretical tools." Doris Bittar Aljadid The MIT Press
Review
"A book of both profound and theoretical weight and immediate social resonance." James Cunning Holland Afterimage The MIT Press
Review
"How the author could have come to understand the history of the interaction of computation and mathematics so thoroughly and accurately is utterly beyond me. Given the immense number of people involved in the research described, it is thoroughly amazing that someone has surveyed it all and put it together. And done it superbly."--Robert Boyer, Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin The MIT Press
Review
"The various parts of this work add up to a most valuable, comprehensive statement about the changing relations between art, culture, and power in contemporary democracy."--Yaron Ezrahi, Department of Political Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem The MIT Press
Review
Winner of the 2002 Infinity Award for Writing presented by The International Center of Photography for excellence in the field of photography.
Review
"In this original and daring analysis of the politics of art, Azoulay shows how photography, the organization of public space, and the museum as an institution both conceal and reveal basic ideological commitments. Few accounts of the aftermath of the Holocaust or of Israel's recent strife-ridden history uncover as keenly as this work does the close ties to be found between political act and rhetorical representation."--Berel Lang, Professor of Humanities, Trinity College The MIT Press
Review
"Ariella Azoulay's Death's Showcase is critical discourse at its best: irreverent, politically charged, and yet scrupulously attentive to both specific artworks and the philosophical dimensions of the task of interpretation. We need to learn new ways of seeing, Azoulay insists in incisive analyses of contemporary art, photojournalism, philosophy, and interviews with military surveillance experts, because how we see our surroundings directly determines the politics of being--and the politics of non-being as well."--Ulrich Baer, Department of German, New York University, author of *Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma* The MIT Press
Review
"Zoom forward, track back. Death's Showcase is a fascinating unfolding of these simultaneous operations, whereby photographic, televisual, and museological spaces create an unbridgeable, permanently mourned distance from some auratic object as they draw us closer to things. Ariella Azoulay's is an exciting new voice on the critical scene, politically savvy, artistically astute, and smart on the whole range of issues surrounding the display of death in modern culture."
Review
"This is an original and important book on a significant topic. Spectral Evidence is at once learned and critical, informative and imaginative, concrete in its own practice and theoretically sophisticated. It is clearly formulated even when addressing complex issues."--Berel Lang, Professor of Humanities, Trinity College The MIT Press
Review
"Didi-Huberman composes an absolutely fascinating story about the emergence of modern subjectivity from the netherworld and darkrooms of nineteenth-century medicine. This gorgeously written and provocative landmark study is indispensable for anyone interested in questions of gender, the history of science, photography, and medicine: in short, in how we see ourselves as who we are."--Ulrich Baer, Department of German, New York University, author of *Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma*
Review
"*Is Oedipus Online?* refreshes the screen of psychoanalysis. Its wit consists not just in its humorous updating of Freudian vocabulary, but more significantly in its compelling argument that Freud's theorization of the inhuman core of humanity is as valid and useful in understanding today's dilemmas as it ever was. The dialogue it coaxes between Deleuze and Lacan is one of the book's many incentive bonuses."--Joan Copjec, author of *Imagine There's No Woman* The MIT Press
Review
"You have heard it said that 'we are not yet thinking.' Alenka Zupancic gives us proof to the contrary in this exhilarating book. By pulling from Nietzsche's texts a powerful new concept -- that of Noon -- she decisively vacates the claim that Nietszche was the champion of a relativism necessitated by the death of God. Arguing, rather, that skeptical relativism resurrects God for the modern world, she reevaluates completely Nietzsche's contribution to thought. It is impossible to overstate the significance of The Shortest Shadow's philosophical achievement."--Joan Copjec, author of *Imagine There's No Woman*
Review
"Chiesa reintroduces us to Lacan in the same way Lacan reintroduces us to Freud: setting aside received ideas, false projections, and impressionistic readings, he uncovers what is most basic and original in Lacan's thought while demonstrating conclusively why an engagement with it is indispensable for modern philosophy. This is a dynamic, unsurpassed reading of Lacan that will ignite new interest in his work and rekindle the passion of initiates."--Joan Copjec, author of *Imagine There's No Woman*
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"How the author could have come to understand the history of the interaction of computation and mathematics so thoroughly and accurately is utterly beyond me. Given the immense number of people involved in the research described, it is thoroughly amazing that someone has surveyed it all and put it together. And done it superbly."--Robert Boyer, Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austinandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press The MIT Press
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"A book of both profound and theoretical weight and immediate social resonance." James Cunning Holland Afterimageandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"Azoulay has an eye for seeking engaging artwork and combining theoretical tools." Doris Bittar Aljadidandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"The various parts of this work add up to a most valuable, comprehensive statement about the changing relations between art, culture, and power in contemporary democracy."--Yaron Ezrahi, Department of Political Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalemandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"In this original and daring analysis of the politics of art, Azoulay shows how photography, the organization of public space, and the museum as an institution both conceal and reveal basic ideological commitments. Few accounts of the aftermath of the Holocaust or of Israel's recent strife-ridden history uncover as keenly as this work does the close ties to be found between political act and rhetorical representation."--Berel Lang, Professor of Humanities, Trinity Collegeandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"Ariella Azoulay's Death's Showcase is critical discourse at its best: irreverent, politically charged, and yet scrupulously attentive to both specific artworks and the philosophical dimensions of the task of interpretation. We need to learn new ways of seeing, Azoulay insists in incisive analyses of contemporary art, photojournalism, philosophy, and interviews with military surveillance experts, because how we see our surroundings directly determines the politics of being--and the politics of non-being as well."--Ulrich Baer, Department of German, New York University, author of *Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma*andlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"Zoom forward, track back. Death's Showcase is a fascinating unfolding of these simultaneous operations, whereby photographic, televisual, and museological spaces create an unbridgeable, permanently mourned distance from some auratic object as they draw us closer to things. Ariella Azoulay's is an exciting new voice on the critical scene, politically savvy, artistically astute, and smart on the whole range of issues surrounding the display of death in modern culture."
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"This is an original and important book on a significant topic. Spectral Evidence is at once learned and critical, informative and imaginative, concrete in its own practice and theoretically sophisticated. It is clearly formulated even when addressing complex issues."--Berel Lang, Professor of Humanities, Trinity Collegeandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"*Is Oedipus Online?* refreshes the screen of psychoanalysis. Its wit consists not just in its humorous updating of Freudian vocabulary, but more significantly in its compelling argument that Freud's theorization of the inhuman core of humanity is as valid and useful in understanding today's dilemmas as it ever was. The dialogue it coaxes between Deleuze and Lacan is one of the book's many incentive bonuses."--Joan Copjec, author of *Imagine There's No Woman*andlt;/Pandgt;
Synopsis
This is a book about the public display of death in contemporary culture. It consists of a series of essays on specific cases in which death is displayed in museums and in photography. The essays focus mainly on representations of violence and death in events in recent Israeli history, including the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian Intifada, and on the visual presence of traumatic events in Israeli culture throughout the twentieth century. They show how images of these events both shape and aestheticize the viewer's experience of death.The book offers a new reading of the work of Walter Benjamin, particularly his essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Engaging the disciplinary perspectives of philosophy, art history, cultural studies, and photographic theory, the book also draws upon the work of such writers as Jean Baudrillard, Pierre Bourdieu, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jean-Luc Nancy.
Synopsis
An interdisciplinary exploration of the visual presence of death in contemporary culture.
This is a book about the public display of death in contemporary culture. It consists of a series of essays on specific cases in which death is displayed in museums and in photography. The essays focus mainly on representations of violence and death in events in recent Israeli history, including the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian Intifada, and on the visual presence of traumatic events in Israeli culture throughout the twentieth century. They show how images of these events both shape and aestheticize the viewer's experience of death.
The book offers a new reading of the work of Walter Benjamin, particularly his essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.' Engaging the disciplinary perspectives of philosophy, art history, cultural studies, and photographic theory, the book also draws upon the work of such writers as Jean Baudrillard, Pierre Bourdieu, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jurgen Habermas, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Jean-Luc Nancy.
Synopsis
An interdisciplinary exploration of the visual presence of death in contemporary culture.
Synopsis
The book offers a new reading of the work of Walter Benjamin, particularly his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Engaging the disciplinary perspectives of philosophy, art history, cultural studies, and photographic theory, the book also draws upon the work of such writers as Jean Baudrillard, Pierre Bourdieu, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, J?rgen Habermas, Jean-Fran?ois Lyotard, and Jean-Luc Nancy.
About the Author
Ariella Azoulay teaches visual culture and contemporary philosophy at the Program for Culture and Interpretation, Bar Ilan University. She is the author of Once Upon A Time: Photography Following Walter Benjamin and Death's Showcase: The Power of Image in Contemporary Democracy, winner of the 2002 Infinity Award for Writing presented by the International Center for Photography for excellence in the field of photography (MIT Press, 2001).