Daniel Alan Herwitz

"Visual art has a ubiquitous political cast today. But which politics? Daniel Herwitz seeks clarity on what is meant by politics, and how we can evaluate its presumption or aspiration in contemporary art. Drawing on the work of William Kentridge, drenched in war, violence and race and the artworld immolations of Bansky, Herwitz's examples range from the NEA 4 and the question of offense-as-dissent, to M.F. Husain and the Hindu nationalist Indian right wing. He is interested in understanding art practices today in the light of two opposing inheritances: the avant-gardes and their politicization of the experimental art object, and apolitical 18th-century aesthetics. His historically-informed approach reveals how crucial this pair of legacies is to reading the tensions in voice and character of art today. Driven by questions about the capacity of the visual medium to speak politically or acquire political agency , Hertwitz's book is for anyone working in aesthetics or the art world concerned with the fate of cultural politics in a world spinning out of control, yet within reach of emancipation"--

Liberty, Solidarity, and Rights

The Political Powers of Visual Art

Ashutosh Varshney

A distinguished collection of interdisciplinary thinkers provide fresh insights into the complex political and cultural meanings of Salman Rushdie's writing

Critical Encounters with Salman Rushdie

Midnight's Diaspora

The postcolonial state, like its European predecessor of the 18th and 19th centuries, deploys heritage institutions and instruments, museums, courts of law, and universities to empower itself with unity, longevity, exaltation of value, origin, and destiny. This book reveals the febrile pitch at which heritage is staked by examining situations in South Africa, India, and the US, to capture its perfect embodiment of the struggle to seize culture and society at moments of profound social change.

Heritage, Culture, and Politics in the Postcolony

Lydia Goehr

'The Don Giovanni Movement' examines the aesthetic and moral legacy of Mozart's operatic masterpiece in the literature, philosophy, and culture of the nineteenth century. Deeply rooted in the enlightenment and romanticism, the opera functions as icon andmyth, and its tensions still resonate today.

Daniel Alan Herwitz

Books

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