Emancipated Spectator

The theorists of art and film commonly depict the modern audience as aesthetically and politically passive. In response, both artists and thinkers have sought to transform the spectator into an active agent and the spectacle into a communal performance.

In this follow-up to the acclaimed The Future of the Image, Rancière takes a radically different approach to this attempted emancipation. First asking exactly what we mean by political art or the politics of art, he goes on to look at what the tradition of critical art, and the desire to insert art into life, has achieved. Has the militant critique of the consumption of images and commodities become, ironically, a sad affirmation of its omnipotence?

About the author

Jacques Rancière is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris-VIII. His books include The Politics of Aesthetics, On the Shores of Politics, Short Voyages to the Land of the People, The Nights of Labor, Staging the People, and The Emancipated Spectator.Gregory Elliott is a member of the editorial collective of Radical Philosophy and author of Althusser: The Detour of Theory and Labourism and the English Genius: The Strange Decay of Labour England?.

Summary

The foremost philosopher of art argues for a new politics of looking

Product details

• Authors: Jacques Ranciere, Jacques Rancière
• Assisted by: Gregory Elliott (Translation), Elliott Gregory (Translation)
• Publisher: Verso
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 16.03.2021
• EAN: 9781788739641
• ISBN: 978-1-78873-964-1
• No. of pages: 144
• Series: THE ESSENTIAL RANCIERE
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; Social sciences, law, business > Political science; Theory of art, PHILOSOPHY / Aesthetics, ART / Criticism & Theory, Social & political philosophy, Political science & theory, social and political philosophy, Philosophy: aesthetics, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / History & Criticism, Political science and theory, Deconstructionism, Structuralism, Post-structuralism, Structuralism and Post-structuralism