Volume II of Lyotard's Miscellaneous Texts, "Contemporary Artists," gathers thirty-nine essays by Lyotard that deal with twenty-seven influential and innovative contemporary artists.
One of the major cultural philosophers of our time addresses, in his powerful and allusive critical voice, Malraux's reflections on art and literature. The result tells us as much about Lyotard as it does about Malraux.
This volume presents a close reading of Kant's "Critique of Judgment" looking specifically at the complex paragraphs 23-29: "The Analytic of the Sublime."
In The Differend, Lyotard subjects to scrutiny- from the particular perspective of his notion of 'differend' (difference in the sense of dispute)- the turn of all Western philosophies toward language; the decline of metaphysics; the present intellectual retreat of Marxism; the hopes raised and mostly dashed, by theory; and the growing political despair. Taking his point of departure in an analysis of what Auschwitz meant philosophically, Lyotard attempts to sketch out modes of thought for our present.
Music/Ideology is a response to the question: Must the practice of music analysis and music theory always reinscribe the ideology of aesthetic autonomy? And, if not, under what circumstances does it reinscribe that ideology? The responses to these questions should appeal not only to music and cultural theorists, but also to a larger audience engaged in critical theory. These essays serve as an introduction to the broad array of issues arising from approaches that represent the full spectrum, from music-theoretical to marxist and feminist issues. Such questions are of vital importance, and not only to those who are engaged in establishing a connection among music theory, music analysis, and aesthetic ideology. Music/Ideology presents today's most interesting critical thinkers in postmodern theory and music theory, introducing an interdisciplinary approach and covering a wide range of subjects - both by implication and explication.
This transdisciplinary project represents the most comprehensive study of imagination to date. The eclectic group of international scholars who comprise Imagination and Art propose bold and innovative theoretical frameworks for (re-) conceptualizing imagination in all of its divergent forms.
"Karel Appel. A gesture of colour is the first of a series of five volumes, bringing together the most important writings of Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) on contemporary art and artists. The book he devoted to the art of Karel Appel (1921-2006) is without doubt one of the most complete and inspired texts of all the writing included in the series. Neither the original French manuscript nor the English translation has ever been published before, and their presentation face to face should constitute a considerable plus. In this book, Lyotard presents Karel Appel's "matterism" as an offer of presence, presence deferred -- it is the visual where every predicate is suspended, the visual touched, "gesture" of colour more than property of colour, appearance at the edge of the abyss. Christine Buci-Glucksmann's epilogue situates Karel Appel. A gesture of colour within the whole of Lyotard's writings on art and his subsequent work."--P. [4] of cover.
The public generally regards the media with suspicion and distrust. Therefore, the media's primary concern is to regain that trust through the production of sincerity. Advancing the field of media studies in a truly innovative way, Boris Groys focuses on the media's affect of sincerity and its manufacture of trust to appease skeptics. Groys identifies forms of media sincerity and its effect on politics, culture, society, and conceptions of the self. He relies on different philosophical writings thematizing the gaze of the other, from the theories of Heidegger, Sartre, Mauss, and Bataille to the poststructuralist formulations of Lacan and Derrida. He also considers media "states of exception" and their creation of effects of sincerity—a strategy that feeds the media's predilection for the extraordinary and the sensational, further fueling the public's suspicions. Emphasizing the media's production of emotion over the presentation (or lack thereof) of "facts," Groys launches a timely study boldly challenging the presumed authenticity of the media's worldview.