Hal Foster (ed.): The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture (1983)

A seminal collection of late-twentieth-century cultural criticism. Named a Best Book of the Year by the Village Voice and considered a bible of contemporary cultural criticism. In The Anti-Aesthetic, preeminent critics such as Jean Baudrillard, Rosalind Krauss, Fredric Jameson, and Edward Said consider the full range of postmodern cultural production, from the writing of John Cage, to Cindy Sherman’s film stills, to Barbara Kruger’s collages. The book provides a strong introduction for newcomers and a point of reference for those already engaged in discussions of postmodern art, culture, and criticism.

With essays by Jean Baudrillard, Douglas Crimp, Kenneth Frampton, Jurgen Habermas, Fredric Jameson, Rosalind Krauss, Craig Owens, Edward W. Said, Gregory L. Ulmer

Edited and with an introduction by Hal Foster
Publisher Bay Press, 1983
ISBN 0941920011, 9780941920018
159 pages

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William J. Mitchell (ed.): The Language of Images (1980)

“A remarkably rich and provocative set of essays on the virtually infinite kinds of meanings generated by images in both the verbal and visual arts. Ranging from Michelangelo to Velazquez and Delacroix, from the art of the emblem book to the history of photography and film, The Language of Images offers at once new ways of thinking about the inexhaustibly complex relation between verbal and iconic representation.”—James A. W. Heffernan, Dartmouth College

Publisher University of Chicago Press, 1980
ISBN 0226532151, 9780226532158
307 pages

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Cornelius Castoriadis: The Imaginary Institution of Society (1975/1987)

This is one of the most original and important works of contemporary European thought. First published in France in 1975, it is the major theoretical work of one of the foremost thinkers in Europe.

Castoriadis offers a brilliant and far-reaching analysis of the unique character of the social-historical world and its relations to the individual, to language and to nature. He argues that the most traditional conceptions of society and history overlook the essential feature of the social-historical world, namely that this world is not articulated once and for all but is in each case the creation of the society concerned. In emphasizing the element of creativity, Castoriadis opens the way for rethinking political theory and practice in terms of the autonomous and explicit self-institution of society.

Castoriadis’ wide-ranging discussion deals with many issues which are currently topical in the English-speaking world: the critique of Marxism; the creative and imaginary character of language; the relations between action and social institutions; the nature of the unconscious and the reappraisal of psychoanalysis; and the role of symbolism on both the individual and the social levels. This book will be of great interest to anyone concerned with social and political theory and contemporary European thought.

First published as L’institution imaginaire de la société, by Les Editions du Seuil.
This English translation first published 1987 by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Translated by Kathleen Blamey
Publisher Polity Press, May 1997
Reprinted 2005
ISBN: 9780745619507, 0745619509
448 pages

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