Beschreibung:
This book explores the relationships between visual culture, social theory and the individual. Using a range of resources from Bourdieu′s action theory and the contribution of actor network theory, through to the artistic explorations of Bacon and Newman, this book shows how the concept of the individual is being reconstructed.
`This is a highly original, indeed an extraordinary book, standing out among the conventional philosophical treatments of subjectivity and reaching beyond the conventional area of investigation. Boyne′s feat is to find overlooked and unexplored angles which recast one of the perennial and ostensibly thoroughly familiar philosophical issues in a novel and fascinating light′ -
Zygmunt Bauman
This book explores the relationships between visual culture, social theory and the individual. Visual culture has emerged as a central area of debate and research in contemporary sociology, yet the field is still underdefined. In particular, the relationship between visual culture and the individual remains obscure. Sociologists have insisted that all aspects of the individual are open to sociological explanation. The result is that the individual sometimes seems to have been theorized away from sociological understanding.
Using a wide range of resources from Bourdieu′s action theory and the contribution of actor network theory, through to the artistic explorations of Francis Bacon and Barnett Newman, this book shows how the concept of the individual is being reconstructed.
PART ONE: THE DENIAL OF THE SUBJECT IN SOCIOLOGY
Introduction
Bourdieu and the Sociological Tradition
Actor Network Theory
The Place of the Subject within Constructionist Sociology
PART TWO: KEEPING TO THE SUBJECT: SUBJECTIVITY IN MODERN ART
Introduction
Barnett Newman
Existentialism and the Transcendent Subject
Georg Baselitz
Fragmented Subjectivity
Carnality and Power
The Human Subject in the Work of Francis Bacon
PART THREE: LOCATING THE SUBJECT
Introduction
Kieslowski′s Three Subjects
Only in the Present
Subjectivity and Time