Nigel Saint - Böcker

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.

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. As well as a substantial interview with Sorbonne professor Bernard Vouilloux, this volume focuses on a range of theorists who usually sit 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 by Baudrillard, Merleau-Ponty, Metz and Nancy. All of these thinkers are given introductory and exploratory treatment here, and are allowed to talk between themselves. By looking at a wider set of theories and theorists relating to the visual, the debates are able to cross-fertilize, with the chapters divided into five major areas: phenomenology and beyond; new art histories and genealogies; semiotics and methodologies; memory and the body; and the digital era. This volume brings together international scholars working within Visual Culture and Art History, to look in detail at a range of issues in French contemporary visual theory. The chapters cover the main media of visual culture: fine art, cinema, museology, photography, as well as the key philosophical coordinates of modern times – phenomenology, structuralism and semiology, post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, sociology, aesthetics and Marxism. Throughout, the volume offers in-depth accounts of keywords, broad critical and historical contexts, and close attention to the language of visual theory.

Psychopathologies of the Living makes the work of the French psychoanalyst Pierre Fédida (1934–2002) available in English for the first time.Patrick ffrench and Nigel Saint present key essays selected from Fédida’s extensive oeuvre. The book directs attention to two salient dimensions of Fédida’s writing: his attention to the pathologies of the body, considered as both a psychic and somatic entity, and his insistence on the relevance of psychoanalytic thought to the sciences of life. The chapters included in this collection detail Fédida’s creative use of aesthetic sources in his psychoanalytic work, his distinctive and creative manipulation and revision of central psychoanalytic concepts and his precise attention to the texts of Freud, Ferenczi and Winnicott, among others. This selection of Fédida’s essays also shows his avoidance of thematisation or explicit theorisation; for Fédida the theory of psychoanalysis must arise out of the specific interplay of language and the ‘space of the session’.Psychopathologies of the Living will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training and to academics and scholars of philosophy, aesthetics and literary studies.

Psychopathologies of the Living makes the work of the French psychoanalyst Pierre Fédida (1934–2002) available in English for the first time.Patrick ffrench and Nigel Saint present key essays selected from Fédida’s extensive oeuvre. The book directs attention to two salient dimensions of Fédida’s writing: his attention to the pathologies of the body, considered as both a psychic and somatic entity, and his insistence on the relevance of psychoanalytic thought to the sciences of life. The chapters included in this collection detail Fédida’s creative use of aesthetic sources in his psychoanalytic work, his distinctive and creative manipulation and revision of central psychoanalytic concepts and his precise attention to the texts of Freud, Ferenczi and Winnicott, among others. This selection of Fédida’s essays also shows his avoidance of thematisation or explicit theorisation; for Fédida the theory of psychoanalysis must arise out of the specific interplay of language and the ‘space of the session’.Psychopathologies of the Living will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training and to academics and scholars of philosophy, aesthetics and literary studies.

Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987) is now recognised as a writer of international stature. The success of "Memoires d'Hadrien" (1951) and her election to the Academie franiaise in 1980 have created a worldwide audience for her work across the genres - novel, short story, essay, memoir and play - and for her published interviews and correspondence. By subverting some of Yourcenar's own accounts of her work and engaging with recent developments in the fields of art history and critical theory, Nigel Saint offers new directions in literary studies and visual culture studies. His reading of "Yourcenar" embraces both the historical novels and the lesser-known essays, and constructs an interdisciplinary theory for the analysis of visual experience as inflected by writing.