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The alleged domination of the visual in contemporary culture -- initially theorized by French thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Georges Bataille, & Michel Foucault, & artists such as Marcel Duchamp -- has influenced the self-evaluation of recent US art. The repudiation of the high modernist evaluation of the "pure optical" introduced by Clement Greenberg & Michael Frid is explained in terms of the post-WWII relocation of the center of modernist art from Paris (France) to New York City; Rosalind Krauss & Norman Bryson observe the conspicuous lack of interest in the later "revenge" of French art theorists. Their influence has helped undermine the achievements of abstract expressionism while promoting neo-Dadaism, conceptual art, & minimalism, & has diminished the primacy of the visual. Adapted from the source document.

Presents a wide range of emerging models of historical interpretations of culture, including the "open house" concept of cultural history, which defines culture as high art, literature, & music -- & the "cultural encounter" model. Drawing on the centrality of Peter Burke's (1991) demand for a broad understanding of culture, some important contributions to the new cultural history are discussed. It is argued that the state, social groups, gender, & society itself are culturally constructed. 8 References. Adapted from the source document.

The "integration of Europe" is, among other things, a huge ideological undertaking. Part of that undertaking entails the appropriation of history for the political project of building a "European Union." One aspect of that appropriation of history is the rooting of Europe as a political community in historical times & places where Europe as such did not exist. Popular among such ideological constructs is presentation of the Carolingian Empire as the predecessor of contemporary, united Europe. By analyzing early medieval usages of the word Europe, the author argues that it is unwarranted to speak of any clear "idea of Europe," in the Carolingian period or, in turn, to portray the Carolingian Empire as the "first Europe" & a potential model for today's "integration of Europe.". Adapted from the source document.

This article deals with the problems Foucault's work is faced with when entering its later phase. The analysis of discontinuities in history is replaced by an analysis of continuities in subjectifying sexuality. If in the first part of The History of Sexuality the subject was still the effect of power relations, the latter two parts introduce the possibility of the subject of mastery over pleasures, which can only affect politics through ethics. In analyzing the late Foucault & two contemporary authors inspired by his work, namely Judith Butler & Giorgio Agamben, we assert that Foucault's project encounters difficulties precisely at the point where it is supposed to be the strongest: thinking the ruptures & the excesses in both the flux of power relations as well as on the level of the singularity of enjoyment. Why can he not cope with this in a different manner than by animating the antique subject of "the care of the self," which searches for its consistency in self-control? Instead of resorting to the virtues of moderation, why does he not rather deal with the problems of the discontinued subject with the construction of a subject that would subjectify the discontinuity itself? Adapted from the source document.