Margaret Iversen - Böcker

Photography is often associated with the psychic effects of trauma: the automatic nature of the process, wide-open camera lens, and light-sensitive film record chance details unnoticed by the photographer similar to what happens when a traumatic event bypasses consciousness and lodges deeply in the unconscious mind. Photography, Trace, and Trauma takes a groundbreaking look at photographic art and works in other media that explore this important analogy. Examining photography and film, molds, rubbings, and more, Margaret Iversen considers how these artistic processes can be understood as presenting or simulating a residue, trace, or "index" of a traumatic event. These approaches, which involve close physical contact or the short-circuiting of artistic agency, are favored by artists who wish to convey the disorienting effect and elusive character of trauma. Informing the work of a number of contemporary artists including Tacita Dean, Jasper Johns, Mary Kelly, Gabriel Orozco, and Gerhard Richter the concept of the trace is shown to be vital for any account of the aesthetics of trauma; it has left an indelible mark on the history of photography and art as a whole.

Photography is often associated with the psychic effects of trauma: the automatic nature of the process, wide-open camera lens, and light-sensitive film record chance details unnoticed by the photographer similar to what happens when a traumatic event bypasses consciousness and lodges deeply in the unconscious mind. Photography, Trace, and Trauma takes a groundbreaking look at photographic art and works in other media that explore this important analogy. Examining photography and film, molds, rubbings, and more, Margaret Iversen considers how these artistic processes can be understood as presenting or simulating a residue, trace, or "index" of a traumatic event. These approaches, which involve close physical contact or the short-circuiting of artistic agency, are favored by artists who wish to convey the disorienting effect and elusive character of trauma. Informing the work of a number of contemporary artists including Tacita Dean, Jasper Johns, Mary Kelly, Gabriel Orozco, and Gerhard Richter the concept of the trace is shown to be vital for any account of the aesthetics of trauma; it has left an indelible mark on the history of photography and art as a whole.

Faced with an increasingly media-saturated, globalized culture, art historians have begun to ask themselves challenging and provocative questions about the nature of their discipline. Why did the history of art come into being? Is it now in danger of slipping into obsolescence? And, if so, should we care? In "Writing Art History", Margaret Iversen and Stephen Melville address these questions by exploring some assumptions at the discipline's foundation. Their project is to excavate the lost continuities between philosophical aesthetics, contemporary theory, and art history through close readings of figures as various as Michael Baxandall, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Lacan, and Alois Riegl. Ultimately, the authors propose that we might reframe the questions concerning art history by asking what kind of writing might help the discipline to better imagine its actual practices - and its potential futures.

Faced with an increasingly media-saturated, globalized culture, art historians have begun to ask themselves challenging and provocative questions about the nature of their discipline. Why did the history of art come into being? Is it now in danger of slipping into obsolescence? And, if so, should we care? In "Writing Art History", Margaret Iversen and Stephen Melville address these questions by exploring some assumptions at the discipline's foundation. Their project is to excavate the lost continuities between philosophical aesthetics, contemporary theory, and art history through close readings of figures as various as Michael Baxandall, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Lacan, and Alois Riegl. Ultimately, the authors propose that we might reframe the questions concerning art history by asking what kind of writing might help the discipline to better imagine its actual practices - and its potential futures.

In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud observed that the life-enhancing pleasure principle seems disrupted by something internal to the psyche. He took into account the possibility of a “death instinct” bent on returning the living organism to its origin of undifferentiated matter. In Beyond Pleasure: Freud, Lacan, Barthes, Margaret Iversen uses the writing of Freud, Lacan, the Surrealists, and Roland Barthes to elaborate a theory of art beyond the pleasure principle. Lacan was in close contact with the Surrealists and, early in his career, exchanged ideas with Dalí. This book offers a detailed reading of Dalí’s “paranoiac-critical” tour de force, The Tragic Myth of Millet’s Angelus, in which he demonstrates a method of interpretation that involves the projection and analysis of paranoid fantasies. The author later discusses the aesthetic dimension of the disintegrative death drive explored in Georges Bataille’s Eroticism and in Anton Ehrenzweig’s Hidden Order of Art, both of which inspired Robert Smithson. Iversen also takes up a postwar-era narrative that examines Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. Beyond Pleasure shows that the aesthetics of Freud’s theory continue to resonate in the contemporary art world.

First Published in 2002. Modes and categories inherited from the past no longer seem to fit the reality experienced by a new generation. ‘New Accents’ is intended as a positive response to the initiative offered by such a situation. Each volume in the series will seek to encourage rather than resist the process of change, to stretch rather than reinforce the boundaries that currently define literature and its academic study. The present selection of papers, made from nearly two hundred published, represents in some measure the diversity of the work at the eight Essex Sociology of Literature Conferences.

First Published in 2002. Modes and categories inherited from the past no longer seem to fit the reality experienced by a new generation. ‘New Accents’ is intended as a positive response to the initiative offered by such a situation. Each volume in the series will seek to encourage rather than resist the process of change, to stretch rather than reinforce the boundaries that currently define literature and its academic study. The present selection of papers, made from nearly two hundred published, represents in some measure the diversity of the work at the eight Essex Sociology of Literature Conferences.

In Cannibalism and the Colonial World, published in 1998, an international team of specialists from a variety of disciplines - anthropology, literature, art history - discusses the historical and cultural significance of western fascination with the topic of cannibalism. Addressing the image as it appears in a series of texts - popular culture, film, literature, travel writing and anthropology - the essays range from classical times to contemporary critical discourse. Cannibalism and the Colonial World examines western fascination with the figure of the cannibal and how this has impacted on the representation of the non-western world. This group of literary and anthropological scholars analyses the way cannibalism continues to exist as a term within colonial discourse and places the discussion of cannibalism in the context of postcolonial and cultural studies.

In Cannibalism and the Colonial World, published in 1998, an international team of specialists from a variety of disciplines - anthropology, literature, art history - discusses the historical and cultural significance of western fascination with the topic of cannibalism. Addressing the image as it appears in a series of texts - popular culture, film, literature, travel writing and anthropology - the essays range from classical times to contemporary critical discourse. Cannibalism and the Colonial World examines western fascination with the figure of the cannibal and how this has impacted on the representation of the non-western world. This group of literary and anthropological scholars analyses the way cannibalism continues to exist as a term within colonial discourse and places the discussion of cannibalism in the context of postcolonial and cultural studies.

Art and Thought is a collection of newly commissioned essays that explores the relationship between the discipline of art history and important movements in the history of western thought. Brings together newly commissioned essays that explore the relationship between the discipline of art history and movements in the history of western thought.Considers the impact of the writings of key thinkers, including Aristotle, Kant, and Heidegger, on the way in which objects are perceived and understood and histories of art are constructed, deconstructed, and reconfigured according to varying sets of philosophical frameworks.Introduces the reader to the dynamic interface between philosophical reflections and art practices.Part of the New Interventions in Art History series, which is published in conjunction with the Association of Art Historians.

Art and Thought is a collection of newly commissioned essays that explores the relationship between the discipline of art history and important movements in the history of western thought. Brings together newly commissioned essays that explore the relationship between the discipline of art history and movements in the history of western thought.Considers the impact of the writings of key thinkers, including Aristotle, Kant, and Heidegger, on the way in which objects are perceived and understood and histories of art are constructed, deconstructed, and reconfigured according to varying sets of philosophical frameworks.Introduces the reader to the dynamic interface between philosophical reflections and art practices.Part of the New Interventions in Art History series, which is published in conjunction with the Association of Art Historians.

Photography After Conceptual Art presents a series of original essays that address substantive theoretical, historical, and aesthetic issues raised by post-1960s photography as a mainstream artistic medium  Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2011Appeals to people interested in artist's use of photography and in contemporary art  Tracks the efflorescence of photography as one of the most important mediums for contemporary art Explores the relation between recent art, theory and aesthetics, for which photography serves as an important test case Includes a number of the essays with previously unpublished photographsArtists discussed include Ed Ruscha, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Douglas Huebler, Mel Bochner, Sherrie Levine, Roni Horn, Thomas Demand, and Jeff Wall