Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) was one of the previous century’s most provocative thinkers. Can his work help us address the crisis currently facing the humanities?
The dominant economic discourse sees the humanities as “low-value,” an irritation at best. Lyotard helps us to think against this pervasive dismissal of creative activity, not by defending the honor of the humanities, but by inviting critical practices which aggravate this irritation. Critical practices trouble what counts as critique, embrace incertitude, and listen for silenced voices.
Twelve essays by artists and researchers take up Lyotard's invitation and begin to develop the idea of critical practice in the contemporary context. Three sections titled “What resists thinking;” “Long views and distances” and “Why art practice?” address contemporary concerns like affectivity, aesthetics, economic imperatives, militarism, pedagogy, posthumanism, and the closure of what in Lyotard's time was called "the West."
Four short pieces by Lyotard intervene in and buttress the discussion: “Apathy in Theory” and “Interview with Art Présent,” here published in English for the first time, and “Affect-phrase” and “The Other’s Rights” republished here to highlight his prescient concern for that which cannot be articulated.
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List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction – Kiff Bamford (Leeds Beckett University, UK) and Margret Grebowicz (University of Silesia, Poland)
Part I: What Resists Thinking
1. Listening to the Mute Voices of Words: Errant Pedagogy in the Zone, Derek R. Ford (DePauw University, USA)
2. Animal Testimony: Cetaceans Between the Interspecies and the Inhuman, Margret Grebowicz (University of Silesia, Poland) and Marina Zurkow(New York University, USA)
3. Under Threat: Rights and the “Thing”, Claire Nouvet (Emory University, USA)
4. A Matter of Time: Colour, Affect, and the Suffering of Thought, Georges Van Den Abbeele (University of California, USA)
Lyotard Supplement I
5. “The Affect-phrase” (from a Supplement to The Differend)—J.-F. Lyotard, translated by Keith Crome
6. “The Other’s Rights,” J.-F. Lyotard, translated by Chris Miller and Robert Smith
Part II: Long Views and Distances
7. Citing and Siting the Postmodern: Lyotard and the Black Atlantic, John E. Drabinski (Amherst College, USA)
8. Jean-Francois Lyotard’s Marxism, in Socialisme ou Barbarie and the Algerian War, Claire Pagès (The University of Tours, France)
9. Lyotard and the Inhuman Mode of Production, Bartosz Kuzniarz (University of Bialystok, Poland)
10. Lyotard after Us, Yuk Hui (City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
Lyotard Supplement II
11. “What we cannot reach flying we must reach limping” Art Présent: Interview with J.-F. Lyotard by Alain Pomarède, translated by Kiff Bamford and Roger McKeon
12. “Apathy in Theory”, J.-F. Lyotard, translated by Roger McKeon
Part III: Why Art Practice?
13. Mute Communication: Drawing the Military-Industrial Complex, Jill Gibbon (Leeds Beckett University, UK)
14. Critical Practice and Affirmative Aesthetics, Ashley Woodward (University of Dundee, UK)
15. “hang on tight and spit on me”: Lyotard and Contemporary Art, Stephen Zepke (Independent Researcher, Austria)
16. Uncertain? For Sure. Limping? Certainly: Limp Thoughts on Performance Practice, Kiff Bamford (Leeds Beckett University, UK)
“Afterword”: Lyotard’s Prescience, Peter Gratton (Southeastern Louisiana University, USA)
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
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Rather than a unified picture that would prescribe a one-way relation between theory (philosophy, concepts) and practice (artistic, political), Lyotard and Critical Practice presents us with multiple ways of undoing the difference between them, sometimes close to Lyotard’s own writings, sometimes remote from his concerns. In this, it is however much in the spirit of Lyotard, who was always ready to retrace his steps and take off in unexpected directions.
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By engaging with the philosophy of Jean-Francois Lyotard, this volume addresses the current crisis in the humanities and proposes new avenues for interdisciplinarity, critical practice and creativity.
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Taps into important concerns amongst humanities scholars today, especially those straddling disciplines and/or working on interdisciplinary projects
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781350201903
Publisert
2024-03-21
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury Academic
Høyde
234 mm
Bredde
156 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
248