Download or read book The Emperor s New Nudity written by Yuval Kremnitzer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-12-10 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis of contemporary authoritarianism and the medium in which it flourishes, the internet, as well as what lies at the complex intersection of authority and technology. In recent decades, a new style of authoritarian politics has taken hold throughout the liberal-democratic world. The new authority figures are characterized by obscene, transgressive behavior, reminiscent of the “crowd” leader as theorized by Freud, only far less transient. In The Emperor's New Nudity, Yuval Kremnitzer considers the fraught intersection of authority and technology—the internet being the medium that has allowed contemporary authoritarianism to thrive—asking foundational questions such as: How can we think of the network as a social phenomenon? What can social and political phenomena teach us about the nature of the new technology? And how does technology reshape the very fabric of social and political life? Technology, Kremnitzer writes, leads us toward an impersonal and hyperrational world to such an extent that it renders human subjectivity outmoded. Authority, on the other hand, anchors our subjective identifications to certain figures and seems to be hopelessly primitive and irrational. What is required, then, is a dialectics of the primal—a study of the way in which what strikes us as essential enters into the dynamics of historical change. From this perspective, authority and technology can be said to be divided by a common object—the unwritten law, and the special knowledge that pertains to it: a knowledge without knowers.

Download or read book Uncovering Paris written by Lela F. Kerley and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2017-06-07 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1889 to 1914 nude spectacles increased at an astonishing rate as a result of burgeoning artistic experimentation, the commercialization of the female body, and the rise of urban nightlife. In particular, artists’ balls and music halls provided creative spaces in which women, artists, impresarios, and the illustrated press could cast the natural body as a source of sexual pleasure, identity, and reform. Emphasizing the role of erotic entertainment as an outlet and agent of modern sensibilities, Uncovering Paris: Scandals and Nude Spectacles in the Belle Époque offers a fresh approach to important topics of the period—Bohemian artists, the New Woman, and press censorship—and reinterprets them through the lens of la femme nue. Having inherited her name from the pictorial female Nude and the Nude’s real-life counterpart, the artist’s model, la femme nue operated as a screen onto which various groups projected their artistic drives, sexual desires, monetary interests, and cultural anxieties. A struggle to define pornography and art, freedom and censorship, and public and private spheres ensued among artists, theater directors, and moral leagues as a century-long tradition of equating civilization with clothing broke down in the face of performative challenges. In posing, singing, acting, and dancing in naturalist presentations, the artist’s model-turned-erotic entertainer engendered crises in ways of seeing the female body that contributed to and was indicative of a changing moral climate within which women were accorded more freedom to corporeally express themselves. Once denigrated and denounced as a sign of vulgar working-class sexuality, the revelation of female flesh became an integral aspect of twentieth-century French body culture. Drawing upon a range of colorful commentaries, dramatic debates, and evocative photos, Lela F. Kerley highlights the importance of nudity in the redrawing of moral boundaries as she uncovers key moments that amounted to a “culture war” in the years leading up to World War I. Through an investigation of street riots, court cases, and anti-pornography campaigns, Uncovering Paris offers an interdisciplinary approach to the scholarship on Belle Époque sexual politics and a rich glimpse into the social construction of morality in Belle Époque France.

Download or read book Passionate Discontent written by Patricia Mathews and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Art historian Patricia Mathews examines the artistic, social, and scientific discourses of fin-de-siecle France. Along the way, she illuminates the Symbolist construction of a feminized aesthetic that nonetheless excluded female artists from its realm. She analyzes contemporary cultural assumptions as well as theories such as social Darwinism, biological determinism, and degeneracy."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book The Return of Ancestral Gods written by Mariya Lesiv and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Ukraine struggles to find its national identity, modern Ukrainian Pagans offer an alternative vision of the Ukrainian nation. Drawing inspiration from the spiritual life of past millennia, they strive to return to the pre-Christian roots of their ancestors. Since Christianity dominates the spiritual discourse in Ukraine, Pagans are marginalized, and their ideas are perceived as radical. In The Return of Ancestral Gods, Mariya Lesiv explores Pagan beliefs and practices in Ukraine and amongst the North American Ukrainian diaspora. Drawing on intensive fieldwork, archival documents, and published sources not available in English, she allows the voices of Pagans to be heard. Paganism in Slavic countries is heavily charged with ethno-nationalist politics, and previous scholarship has mainly focused on this aspect. Lesiv finds it important to consider not only how Paganism is preached but also the way that it is understood on a private level. She shows that many Ukrainians embrace Paganism because of its aesthetic aspects rather than its associated politics and discusses the role that aesthetics may play in the further development of Ukrainian Paganism. Paganism in Eastern Europe remains underrepresented within Pagan studies, and this work helps to fill that gap. Extensive comparative references to various forms of Western Paganism allows English-speaking readers to better understand the world of Ukrainian Pagans.

Download or read book Renaissance Rivals written by Rona Goffen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For sixteenth-century Italian masters, the creation of art was a contest. They knew each other's work and patrons, were collegues and rivals. Survey of this artistic rivalry, the emotional and professional circumstances of their creations.

Download or read book Refocusing the Vision the Viewer and Viewing Through an Interdisciplinary Lens written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2010.

Download or read book The Nude A Study in Ideal Form written by Kenneth Clark and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the art of the Greeks to that of Renoir and Moore, this work surveys the ever-changing fashions in what has constituted the ideal nude as a basis of humanist form.

Download or read book Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision written by David Michael Levin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1993-11-08 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A genuine contribution to the literature . . . important especially to specialists in Continental philosophy but also to historians, literary theorists, and others who read recent European philosophy and who thus would want to think through the problem of the hegemony of vision."—David Hoy, University of California, Santa Cruz

Download or read book Touching Vision 2 023 written by Hiltrud Schinzel and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2023-03-17 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book's aim is to show how art can enrich a person's life. 22 essays starting from the themes of restoration and fine arts are arranged chronologically, with the focus slowly shifting towards generality, from disciplinary demarcation to inter- and transdisciplinary openness, as dictated by the spirit of the times. The visual updating of the author's cover design from 2004 points to "updates" both unintentional and intentional, but always inevitable, firmly rooted in the human desire to outwit the transience of time. Thus, the content of an essay may be critical, some essays creep into the poetic, some into the caricatural, nothing has the claim to permanence of an abstract truth, and everything serves to deepen the pleasure of art.

Download or read book Archaeologies of Vision written by Gary Shapiro and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-05-15 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While many acknowledge that Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault have redefined our notions of time and history, few recognize the crucial role that 'the infinite relation' between seeing and saying plays in their work. Shapiro reveals the full extent of Nietzsche and Foucault's concern with the visual.

Download or read book Alternative Nudes written by Yucel Yalim and published by Amherst Media. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We?ve all heard the idiom, ?Sometimes, less is more.? When it comes to photographing the female form, the ?more? is sometimes ?more trouble.? Without concealing wardrobe options, traditional poses, and unique props or scenic locales to avert the viewer?s gaze, he or she is presented with a nude subject that must, somehow, look confident, alluring, artistic, evocative, and provocative. As the artist in charge of accomplishing this great feat, you?re presented with one tall order. This book provides a behind-the-scenes look at every nuance of the creation of a range of nude and figure images. Focusing primarily on lighting and posing, author Yucel Yalim shows how to create dramatic, dimensional curves and highlight your subject?s best assets with minimal effort, staple equipment, and maximum impact. For each portrait, readers will learn about the concept behind the image, the challenges that had to be met, and how careful posing and lighting choices were made to create a dimensional and compelling view of the woman in front of the lens. Whether you are looking for unique poses, want to learn how playing with various lenses can help you build your repertoire, or want to investigate your post-processing options for creating a stronger, more creative image, this book will open your eyes to countless new approaches. Complete with rationale regarding the hows and whys behind the artistic decisions made, you?ll come away from this book with a solid foundation for producing exquisite, beautifully executed images perfectly tailored to your model?s unique look or interest. This book contains detailed lighting diagrams that help readers understand how to duplicate the style and mood in their own images.

Download or read book Vision and Textuality written by Stephen W. Melville and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The influence of contemporary literary theory on art history is increasingly evident, but there is little or no agreement about the nature and consequence of this new intersection of the visual and the textual. Vision and Textuality brings together essays by many of the most influential scholars in the field--both young and more established writers from the United States, England, and France--to address the emergent terms and practices of contemporary art history. With essays by Rosalind Krauss, Hal Foster, Norman Bryson, Victor Burgin, Martin Jay, Louis Marin, Thomas Crow, Griselda Pollock, and others, the volume is organized into sections devoted to the discipline of art history, the implications of semiotics, the new cultural history of art, and the impact of psychoanalysis. The works discussed in these essays range from Rembrandt's Danae to Jorge Immendorf's Café Deutschland, from Vauxhall Gardens to Max Ernst, and from the Imagines of Philostratus to William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams. Each section is preceded by a short introduction that offers further contexts for considering the essays that follow, while the editors' general introduction presents an overall exploration of the relation between vision and textuality in a variety of both institutional and theoretical contexts. Among other issues, it examines the relevance of aesthetics, the current concern with modernism and postmodernism, and the possible development of new disciplinary formations in the humanities. Contributors. Mieke Bal, John Bender, Norman Bryson, Victor Burgin, Thomas Crow, Peter de Bolla, Hal Foster, Michael Holly, Martin Jay, Rosalind Krauss, Françoise Lucbert, Louis Martin, Stephen Melville, Griselda Pollock, Bill Readings, Irit Rogoff, Bennet Schaber, John Tagg

Download or read book Demanding Images written by Karen Strassler and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The end of authoritarian rule in 1998 ushered in an exhilarating but unsettled period of democratization in Indonesia. A more open political climate converged with a rapidly changing media landscape, yielding a vibrant and volatile public sphere within which Indonesians grappled with the possibilities and limits of democracy amid entrenched corruption, state violence, and rising forms of intolerance. In Demanding Images Karen Strassler theorizes image-events as political processes in which publicly circulating images become the material ground of struggles over the nation's past, present, and future. Considering photographs, posters, contemporary art, graffiti, selfies, memes, and other visual media, she argues that people increasingly engage with politics through acts of making, circulating, manipulating, and scrutinizing images. Demanding Images is both a closely observed account of Indonesia's turbulent democratic transition and a globally salient analysis of the work of images in the era of digital media and neoliberal democracy. Strassler reveals politics today to be an unruly enterprise profoundly shaped by the affective and evidentiary force of images.

Download or read book A View from the Bottom written by Tan Hoang Nguyen and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-29 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A View from the Bottom offers a major critical reassessment of male effeminacy and its racialization in visual culture. Examining portrayals of Asian and Asian American men in Hollywood cinema, European art film, gay pornography, and experimental documentary, Nguyen Tan Hoang explores the cultural meanings that accrue to sexual positions. He shows how cultural fantasies around the position of the sexual "bottom" overdetermine and refract the meanings of race, gender, sexuality, and nationality in American culture in ways that both enable and constrain Asian masculinity. Challenging the association of bottoming with passivity and abjection, Nguyen suggests ways of thinking about the bottom position that afford agency and pleasure. A more capacious conception of bottomhood—as a sexual position, a social alliance, an affective bond, and an aesthetic form—has the potential to destabilize sexual, gender, and racial norms, suggesting an ethical mode of relation organized not around dominance and mastery but around the risk of vulnerability and shame. Thus reconceived, bottomhood as a critical category creates new possibilities for arousal, receptiveness, and recognition, and offers a new framework for analyzing sexual representations in cinema as well as understanding their relation to oppositional political projects.

Download or read book On the Politics of Ugliness written by Sara Rodrigues and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-08-29 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ugliness or unsightliness is much more than a quality or property of an individual’s appearance—it has long functioned as a social category that demarcates access to social, cultural, and political spaces and capital. The editors of and authors in this collection harness intersectional and interdisciplinary approaches in order to examine ugliness as a political category that is deployed to uphold established notions of worth and entitlement. On the Politics of Ugliness identifies and challenges the harmful effects that labels and feelings of ugliness have on individuals and the socio-political order. It explores ugliness in relation to the intersectional processes of racialization, colonization and settler colonialism, gender-making, ableism, heteronormativity, and fatphobia. On the Politics of Ugliness asks that we fight against visual injustice and imagine new ways of seeing.

Download or read book The Nudes of Bonnard written by Sarah Elizabeth Bremser and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Poetry Catastrophe and Hope in the Vision of Isaiah written by Francis Landy and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-21 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book of Isaiah is one of the longest and strangest books of the Hebrew Bible, composed over several centuries and traversing the catastrophe that befell the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the 8th and 6th centuries BCE. Francis Landy's book tells the story of the poetic response to catastrophe, and the hope for a new and perfect world on the other side. The study traces two parallel developments: the displacement of the Davidic promise onto the Persian Empire, Israel, and the prophet himself; and the transition from exclusively male images of the deity to the matching of male and female prototypes, whereby YHWH takes the place of the warrior goddess. Poetry, Catastrophe, and Hope in the Book of Isaiah consists of close readings of individual passages in Isaiah, commencing with Chapter One and the problems of beginning, and ending with Deutero-Isaiah, composed subsequent to the Babylonian exile. The volume is arranged thematically as well as sequentially: the first chapter following the introduction concerns gender, the second death, the third the Oracles about the Nations. At the centre there is what Landy calls 'the constitutive enigma', Isaiah's commission in his vision to speak so that people will not understand. This renders the entire book potentially incomprehensible; the more we try to understand it, the greater the difficulty. For Landy, this creates a model of reading and writing, the challenge and the risk of going up blind alleys, of trying to make sense of a disastrous world. Isaiah's commission pervades the book. Throughout there is a promise of an age of clarity as well as social and political transformation, which is always deferred beyond the horizon. Hence it is a book without an ending, or with multiple endings. In the final chapters, the author turns to the central Chapter Thirty-Three, a mise-en-abyme of the book and a prayer for deliverance, and the issues of exile and the possibility of return. Like every poetic work, particularly in an era of cultural collapse, it is a critique of the past and a hope for a new humanity.