Communities of Sense: Rethinking Aesthetics and Politics [Paperback]

Beth Hinderliter (Editor), William Kaizen (Editor), Vered Maimon (Editor), Jaleh Mansoor (Editor), Seth McCormick (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2009

Communities of Sense argues for a new understanding of the relation between politics and aesthetics in today’s globalized and image-saturated world. Established and emerging scholars of art and culture draw on Jacques Rancière’s theorization of democratic politics to suggest that aesthetics, traditionally defined as the “science of the sensible,” is not a depoliticized discourse or theory of art, but instead part of a historically specific organization of social roles and communality. Rather than formulating aesthetics as the Other to politics, the contributors show that aesthetics and politics are mutually implicated in the construction of communities of visibility and sensation through which political orders emerge.

The first of the collection’s three sections explicitly examines the links between aesthetics and social and political experience. Here a new essay by Rancière posits art as a key site where disagreement can be staged in order to produce new communities of sense. In the second section, contributors investigate how sense was constructed in the past by the European avant-garde and how it is mobilized in today’s global visual and political culture. Exploring the viability of various models of artistic and political critique in the context of globalization, the authors of the essays in the volume’s final section suggest a shift from identity politics and preconstituted collectivities toward processes of identification and disidentification. Topics discussed in the volume vary from digital architecture to a makeshift museum in a Paris suburb, and from romantic art theory in the wake of Hegel to the history of the group-subject in political art and performance since 1968. An interview with Étienne Balibar rounds out the collection.

Contributors. Emily Apter, Étienne Balibar, Carlos Basualdo, T. J. Demos, Rachel Haidu, Beth Hinderliter, David Joselit, William Kaizen, Ranjanna Khanna, Reinaldo Laddaga, Vered Maimon, Jaleh Mansoor, Reinhold Martin, Seth McCormick, Yates McKee, Alexander Potts, Jacques Rancière, Toni Ross

Editorial Reviews

Review

“[A] provocative and wide ranging exploration of Jacques Ranciere’s (2006) controversial assertion that ‘politics is aesthetic in principle’ (p. 58) Although focusing largely on the discipline of art history, Communities also has a broad appeal for those interested in the connections between aesthetic philosophy, social theory, and art practices. Bookended with provocative essays by Ranciere and Etienne Balibar, the collection offers new insights into contemporary art, aesthetic theory, global citizenship, postcolonialism, architecture, and film studies. Just as Ranciere’s own writings encourage interdisciplinary hybridization that challenge canonical divisions between disciplines, so too the form of Communities embodies this fundamental political and scholarly commitment.” - Tyson E. Lewis, Teachers College Record

“. . . . the editors and contributors are to be commended for engaging with a dynamic and much-contested approach to art, and doing so at an early stage of its reception in the Anglophone world. The editors’ introductory essay is a helpful positioning of this perspective, explaining how it relates to debates regarding modernism, postmodernism, relational aesthetics and other attempts to rehabilitate notions from the aesthetic tradition. . . . And Rancière’s essay is one of the best introductions to his recent work on the import of the history of aesthetics and the logics at work in contemporary art.” - Joseph J. Tanke, Parallax

“A smart and timely consideration of the work of Jacques Ranciere in the context of contemporary art.”—Stephen Melville, co-editor of Vision and Textuality

“The essays collected here are more than timely. They speak to the blurring of aesthetic and political conflict that we are witnessing in the world at large. Both an aesthetic and a political object, Communities of Sense will be a reference work for the new directions in art criticism.”—Tom Conley, author of Cartographic Cinema

From the Publisher

"The essays collected here are more than timely. They speak to the blurring of aesthetic and political conflict that we are witnessing in the world at large. Both an aesthetic and a political object, Communities of Sense will be a reference work for the new directions in art criticism."--Tom Conley, author of Cartographic Cinema

"A smart and timely consideration of the work of Jacques Ranciere in the context of contemporary art."--Stephen Melville, co-editor of Vision and Textuality --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (September 18, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822345137
• ISBN-13: 978-0822345138
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #269,231 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific collection, May 13, 2010

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This review is from: Communities of Sense: Rethinking Aesthetics and Politics (Paperback)

As one interested in contemporary art and continental philosophy, this book is entirely in my line of interest. And the essays here are very interesting, covering ground from Dada to Hirschhorn to concepts of relational aesthetics. The theoretical connections throughout the works gathered here largely tie to the work of Jacques Rancière, who has the first essay in the collection. But as the introduction states, this is woven through the thinking of being with others found in Jean-Luc Nancy's works. It makes for a great approach to thinking the politics of art and aesthetics and issues of community. The collection finishes with Étienne Balibar in an interview. The whole text is highly recommended by me.