Modern French Visual Theory

A critical reader

Edited by Nigel Saint, Andy Stafford

Publication date:

31 January 2013

Length of book:

288 pages

Publisher

Manchester University Press

Dimensions:

234x156mm

ISBN-13: 9780719081293

When French theory went global in the late twentieth century its visual wing was understandably built on the work of its best-known thinkers, notably Foucault, Derrida, Barthes and Deleuze. However these names merely scratch the surface of a vibrant and innovative body of theory that has been produced in France over the last six decades. This volume focuses on a range of theorists who usually languish under the academic radar, especially when outside of France: Arasse, Buci-Glucksmann, Damisch, Debray, Didi-Huberman, Heinich, Marin, Schefer and Stiegler. Also discussed is the important work on the visual of Baudrillard, Merleau-Ponty, Metz and Nancy. Five major areas of French contemporary visual theory are studied by international scholars working within Visual Culture and Art History: phenomenology and beyond; new art histories and genealogies; semiotics and methodologies; memory and the body; and the digital era.

Introduction - Nigel Saint and Andy Stafford Part 1. Precursors: Phenomenology and Semiotics 1. 'Merleau-Ponty: The Madness of Vision' (Nathalie Aubert) 2. 'Christian Metz: Constructing Meaning in Film' (Martine Joly) Part 2. New Art Histories and Genealogies 3. 'Daniel Arasse's Joyful Visual Science: In the Intimacy of History and Art' (Ralph Dekoninck) 4. 'Dream Perspectives: Hubert Damisch, Psychoanalysis, and Early Modern Art History' (David Packwood) 5. 'Christine Buci-Glucksmann: the Archaeology of Shadows or the Aesthetics of Image-Flux' (François-Xavier Gleyzon) Part 3. Representation, Mediology and Sociology 6. 'Louis Marin's Theories of Representation: between Text and Image, from Visuality to Figurability' (Agnès Guiderdoni) 7. 'Transmission versus Communication: Régis Debray's Mediology' (Andy Stafford) 8. 'Value, Meaning, Method: Nathalie Heinich's Sociological Perspectives on Visual Culture' (Shirley Jordan) Part 4. Memory, Body, Image 9. 'Seeing and Touching: Jean-Luc Nancy and the Ground of the Image' (Ian James) 10. 'Georges Didi-Huberman: Images, Critique and Time' (Nigel Saint) 11. 'Jean-Louis Schefer: The Body of the Image' (Patrick ffrench) Part 5. The Digital Era 12. 'Jean Baudrillard' (Paul Hegarty) 13. 'Real Time: Bernard Stiegler and the Politics of Digitalization (Arthur Bradley) Part 6. Afterword 14. Interview with Bernard Vouilloux (Saint and Stafford) Index

All in all, the volume overall is a magnificent achievement of conceptual organization, careful and coordinated management of a large team of expert contributors, and high editorial standards in general. A work highly-recommended for all specialist readers interested in French thought on the visual., Hugh Dauncey, Newcastle University, Contemporary French Civilization, 11 May 2015