Synopses & Reviews
Faced with an increasingly media-saturated, globalized culture, art historians have begun to ask themselves challenging and provocative questions about the nature of their discipline. Why did the history of art come into being? Is it now in danger of slipping into obsolescence? And, if so, should we care?
In Writing Art History, Margaret Iversen and Stephen Melville address these questions by exploring some assumptions at the disciplineand#8217;s foundation. Their project is to excavate the lost continuities between philosophical aesthetics, contemporary theory, and art history through close readings of figures as various as Michael Baxandall, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Lacan, and Alois Riegl. Ultimately, the authors propose that we might reframe the questions concerning art history by asking what kind of writing might help the discipline to better imagine its actual practicesand#8212;and its potential futures.
About the Author
Margaret Iversen is professor of the history of art at the University of Essex and author of Beyond Pleasure: Freud, Lacan, Barthes, among other titles. Stephen Melville is professor emeritus of the history of art at Ohio State University and author of Seams: Art as Philosophical Context and other works.
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1and#160;Whatand#8217;s the Matter with Methodology?
Chapter 2and#160;Historical Distance (Bridging and Spanning)
Chapter 3and#160;On the Limits of Interpretation: Dand#252;rerand#8217;s Melencolia I
Chapter 4and#160;What the Formalist Knows
Chapter 5and#160;The Spectator: Riegl, Steinberg, and Morris
Chapter 6and#160;The Gaze in Perspective: Merleau-Ponty, Lacan, Damisch
Chapter 7and#160;Seeing and Reading: Lyotard, Barthes, Schapiro
Chapter 8and#160;Plasticity: The Hegelian Writing of Art
Chapter 9and#160;Curriculum
Notes
Works Cited
Index