Richard Noble (ed.): Utopias (2009)

“Throughout its diverse manifestations, the utopian entails two related but contradictory elements: the aspiration to a better world, and the acknowledgment that its form may only ever live in our imaginations. Furthermore, we are as haunted by the failures of utopian enterprise as we are inspired by the desire to repair the failed and build the new. Contemporary art reflects this general ambivalence. The utopian impulse informs politically activist and relational art, practices that fuse elements of art, design, and architecture, and collaborative projects aspiring to progressive social or political change. Two other tendencies have emerged in recent art: a looking backward to investigate the utopian elements of previous eras, and the imaginative modeling of alternative worlds as intimations of possibility. This anthology contextualizes these utopian currents in relation to political thought, viewing the utopian as a key term in the artistic lineage of modernity. It illuminates how the exploration of utopian themes in art today contributes to our understanding of contemporary cultures, and the possibilities for shaping their futures.”

Artists surveyed include: Joseph Beuys, Paul Chan, Guy Debord, Jeremy Deller, Liam Gillick, Antony Gormley, Dan Graham, Thomas Hirschhorn, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Paul McCarthy, Constant A. Nieuwenheuys, Paul Noble, Nils Norman, Philippe Parreno, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Superflex, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Mark Titchner, Atelier van Lieshout, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol, Wochenklauser, Carey Young

Writers include: Theodor Adorno, Jennifer Allen, Catherine Bernard, Ernst Bloch, Yve-Alain Bois, Nicolas Bourriaud, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Alex Farquharson, Hal Foster, Michel Foucault, Alison Green, Fredric Jameson, Rosalind Krauss, Hari Kunzru, Donald Kuspit, Dermis P. Leon, Karl Marx, Jeremy Millar, Thomas More, William Morris, Molly Nesbit, Hans Ulrich Obrist, George Orwell, Jacques Rancière, Stephanie Rosenthal, Beatrix Ruf

Publisher MIT Press; with Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2009
Documents of Contemporary Arts series
ISBN 0262640694, 9780262640695
238 pages

Publisher

PDF (no OCR; updated on 2023-6-30)

Dimitris Vardoulakis (ed.): Spinoza Now (2011)

“What does it mean to think about, and with, Spinoza today? This collection, the first broadly interdisciplinary volume dealing with Spinozan thought, asserts the importance of Spinoza’s philosophy of immanence for contemporary cultural and philosophical debates.

Engaging with Spinoza’s insistence on the centrality of the passions as the site of the creative and productive forces shaping society, this collection critiques the impulse to transcendence and regimes of mastery, exposing universal values as illusory. Spinoza Now pursues Spinoza’s challenge to abandon the temptation to think through the prism of death in order to arrive at a truly liberatory notion of freedom. In this bold endeavor, the essays gathered here extend the Spinozan project beyond the disciplinary boundaries of philosophy to encompass all forms of life-affirming activity, including the arts and literature.

The essays, taken together, suggest that “Spinoza now” is not so much a statement about a “truth” that Spinoza’s writings can reveal to us in our present situation. It is, rather, the injunction to adhere to the attitude that affirms both necessity and impossibility.”

Contributors: Alain Badou, Mieke Bal, Cesare Casarino, Justin Clemens, Simon Duffy, Sebastian Egenhofer, Alexander García Düttmann, Arthur Jacobson, A. Kiarina Kordela, Michael Mack, Warren Montag, Antonio Negri, Christopher Norris, Anthony Uhlmann.

Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2011
ISBN 0816672814, 9780816672813
384 pages

Review: Sean Grattan (Mediations, 2011).

Publisher

PDF, PDF (updated on 2019-5-12)

querelles-net, Rezensionszeitschrift für Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung (2000-2011-) [German]

querelles-net erschließt die Vielzahl fachspezifischer, inter- und transdisziplinärer Veröffentlichungen im Bereich der Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung/Gender Studies. Wissenschaftliche Rezensionen geben einen Überblick über wichtige Publikationen und aktuelle Forschungsschwerpunkte. Die fortlaufend aktualisierte Bibliographie informiert über die Neuerscheinungen des Feldes.

querelles-net erscheint seit 2000 in Ergänzung zu Querelles. Jahrbuch für Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung (1996 ff.).

querelles-net ist Teil des Publikationsförderprogramms zur Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung an der Freien Universität Berlin.

Redaktionsleitung: Marco Tullney
Redaktion: Valeria Raupach, Anita Runge, Marco Tullney
Published by Freien Universität Berlin
ISSN 1862-054X
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Germany License (from Issue 2009 / 1)

PDF (Vol 12 Issue 2; 2011; EPUB)
View online (all issues; HTML articles)