Timothy Morton: Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics (2007)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, animal, art, capitalism, ecocriticism, ecology, environment, kitsch, music, nature, object, phenomenology, philosophy, rhetoric, romanticism, sound
“In Ecology without Nature, Timothy Morton argues that the chief stumbling block to environmental thinking is the image of nature itself. Ecological writers propose a new worldview, but their very zeal to preserve the natural world leads them away from the “nature” they revere. The problem is a symptom of the ecological catastrophe in which we are living. Morton sets out a seeming paradox: to have a properly ecological view, we must relinquish the idea of nature once and for all.
Ranging widely in eighteenth-century through contemporary philosophy, culture, and history, Morton explores the value of art in imagining environmental projects for the future. Morton develops a vocabulary for reading “environmentality” in artistic form as well as content, and traces the contexts of ecological constructs through the history of capitalism. From John Clare to John Cage, from Kierkegaard to Kristeva, from The Lord of the Rings to electronic life forms, Ecology without Nature extends the view of ecological criticism. Instead of trying to use an idea of nature to heal what society has damaged, Morton sets out a new form of ecological criticism: “dark ecology.””
Publisher Harvard University Press, 2007
ISBN 0674024346, 9780674024342
249 pages
Reviews: Keegan (Studies in Romanticism, 2008), Philips (Oxford Literary Review, 2010), Holmes (Journal of Ecocriticism, 2012).
PDF (updated on 2012-10-31)
Comment (0)Fredric Jameson: The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983-1998 (1998)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, capitalism, critical theory, cultural production, deterritorialization, marxism, modernism, philosophy, postmodern, postmodernism, theory
Fredric Jameson, a leading voice on the subject of postmodernism, assembles his most powerful writings on the culture of late capitalism in this essential volume. Classic insights on pastiche, nostalgia, and architecture stand alongside essays on the status of history, theory, Marxism, and the subject in an age propelled by finance capital and endless spectacle. Surveying the debates that blazed up around his earlier essays, Jameson responds to critics and maps out the theoretical positions of postmodernism’s prominent friends and foes.
Publisher Verso, 1998
ISBN 1859841821, 9781859841822
Length 206 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-11-3)
Comment (1)Charles Harrison, Paul Wood (eds.): Art in Theory 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas (1992) [English, French]
Filed under book | Tags: · 1900s, abstract art, abstraction, aesthetics, art, art history, art theory, autonomy, avant-garde, beauty, capitalism, colour, communism, conceptual art, constructivism, cubism, dada, expressionism, formalism, futurism, happening, impressionism, institutional critique, language, machine, marxism, minimal art, modernism, postmodern, poststructuralism, productivism, psychoanalysis, realism, representation, revolution, romanticism, socialism, structuralism, surrealism, symbolism
“This volume provides comprehensive representation of the theories, which underpinned developments in the visual arts during the twentieth century. As well as writings by artists, the anthology includes texts by critics, philosophers, politicians and literary figures. The content is structured into eight broadly chronological sections, starting with the legacy of symbolism and concluding with contemporary debates about the postmodern.”
Publisher Blackwell, 1992
Reprinted 1999
ISBN 0631165754, 978-0631165750
1220 pages
Review: Patricia Railing (Art Book, 2004).
Art in Theory 1900-1990 (English, 1992, 13 MB, updated on 2015-9-5)
Art en théorie 1900-1990 (French, 1997, 24 MB, added on 2016-6-26)