1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910458063703321

Autore

Bottici Chiara

Titolo

Imaginal politics : images beyond imagination and the imaginary / / Chiara Bottici ; cover image, J.R. Eyerman ; book & cover design, Chang Jae Lee

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Columbia University Press, , 2014

©2014

ISBN

0-231-52781-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (273 p.)

Collana

New Directions in Critical Theory

Disciplina

320.019

Soggetti

Imagination - Political aspects

Visualization - Political aspects

Imagery (Psychology) - Political aspects

Political science - Philosophy

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part 1. Imagining -- 1. From Phantasia to Imagination -- 2. From Imagination to the Imaginary and Beyond? -- 3. Toward a Theory of the Imaginal -- Part 2. Politics -- 4. A Genealogy of Politics: From Its Invention to the Biopolitical Turn -- 5. Imaginal Politics -- 6. Contemporary Transformations Between Spectacle and Virtuality -- Part 3. The Global Spectacle -- 7. The Politics of the Past: The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations -- 8. The Repositioning of Religion in the Public Sphere: Imaginal Consequences -- 9. Imagining Human Rights: Gender, Race, and Class -- The Freedom of Equals -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Between the radical, creative capacity of our imagination and the social imaginary we are immersed in is an intermediate space philosophers have termed the imaginal, populated by images or (re)presentations that are presences in themselves. Offering a new, systematic understanding of the imaginal and its nexus with the political, Chiara Bottici brings fresh perspective to the formation of political and power



relationships and the paradox of a world rich in imagery yet seemingly devoid of imagination. Bottici begins by defining the difference between the imaginal and the imaginary, locating the imaginal's root meaning in the image and its ability to both characterize a public and establish a set of activities within that public. She identifies the imaginal's critical role in powering representative democracies and its amplification through globalization. She then addresses the troublesome increase in images now mediating politics and the transformation of politics into empty spectacle. The spectacularization of politics has led to its virtualization, Bottici observes, transforming images into processes with an uncertain relationship to reality, and, while new media has democratized the image in a global society of the spectacle, the cloned image no longer mediates politics but does the act for us. Bottici concludes with politics' current search for legitimacy through an invented ideal of tradition, a turn to religion, and the incorporation of human rights language.