1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910827355003321

Autore

Ray Gene <1963->

Titolo

Terror and the sublime in art and critical theory : from Auschwitz to Hiroshima to September 11 / / by Gene Ray

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

ISBN

1-349-53124-3

1-281-36811-3

9786611368111

1-4039-7944-8

Edizione

[1st ed. 2005.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xiv, 188 pages)

Collana

Studies in European culture and history

Disciplina

700/.4164

Soggetti

Sublime, The, in art

Horror in art

Psychic trauma

Arts, European - 20th century

Aesthetics, Modern - 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction : the hit -- Ch. 1. Reading the Lisbon earthquake : Adorno, Lyotard, and the contemporary sublime -- Ch. 2. Joseph Beuys and the "after-Auschwitz" sublime -- Ch. 3. Ground Zero : Hiroshima haunts "9/11" -- Ch. 4. Mirroring evil : Auschwitz, art and the "war on terror" -- Ch. 5. Little glass house of horrors : taking Damien Hirst seriously -- Ch. 6. Blasted moments : remarking a Hiroshima image -- Ch. 7. Installing a "new cosmopolitics" : Derrida and the writers -- Ch. 8. Working out and playing through : Boaz Arad's Hitler videos -- Ch. 9. Listening with the third ear : echoes from Ground Zero -- Ch. 10. Conditioning Adorno : "after Auschwitz" now.

Sommario/riassunto

The eleven interconnected essays of this book penetrate the dense historical knots binding terror, power and the aesthetic sublime and bring the results to bear on the trauma of September 11 and the subsequent War on Terror. Through rigorous critical studies of major works of post-1945 and contemporary culture, the book traces transformations in art and critical theory in the aftermath of Auschwitz



and Hiroshima. Critically engaging with the work of continental philosophers, Theodor W. Adorno, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-Francois Lyotard and of contemporary artists Joseph Beuys, Damien Hirst, and Boaz Arad, the book confronts the shared cultural conditions that made Auschwitz and Hiroshima possible and offers searching meditations on the structure and meaning of the traumatic historical 'event'. Ray argues that globalization cannot be separated from the collective tasks of working through historical genocide. He provocatively concludes that the current US-led War on Terror must be grasped as a globalized inability to mourn.