Suchergebnisse

How are the aesthetics of fear politically mobilised & politically mobilising? This article directs this question to a specific series of events beginning with the bombing of the London transportation system on 7/7, the near repeat performance of this event on 7/21, & the 'Shoot to Kill to Protect' policy's first application which resulted in the killing of electrician Jean Charles de Menezes on 7/22. In particular, it addresses itself to one specific aestheticisation of fear, the images posted on the website Werenotafraid.com & the incessant circulation & discussion of these images since 7/7. The article argues that the asetheticisation of the London bombings through this specific website illustrates the often overlooked second movement in the Kantian sublime: the movement from rupture to a restoration of order & of closure. What interests me are the aesthetic strategies by which Werenotafraid.com effects a restoration of order & gives closure to the breakdown of the British imagination, of not only national security but also unity. This article first traces the reliance of these aesthetic strategies on a Kantian morality. It then explains how these Kantian-inflected strategies repair the breakdown of the British imagination of security through a very specific 'panhuman' restoration of British unity. Finally, it analyses the failures of the Werenotafraid.com project, politically & morally. Figures. Adapted from the source document.

British literary criticism in the 1930s was concerned with both aesthetics & the ideological exigencies of the period; & the works of Christopher Caudwell, Ralph Fox, & Alick West stand foremost in the critical discussions of Marxist-oriented novels, stories, & poems. This article plays particular attention to Caudwell's Romance and Realism: A Study of English Bourgeois Literature, Fox's The Novel and the People, & West's Crisis and Criticism. The three authors created a broad field of Marxist literary criticism & brought debate about the relationship of art to politics to a broader theoretical plane. Despite arguments that deny value in their works, the authors are seen as expanding the exploration of the interdependence of literature, criticism, & ideology. L. A. Hoffman

Interprets Theodor W. Adorno's essay, "Uber Jazz" (1936), in terms of broader British debates concerning racism & popular culture & in terms of the state of Adorno's concerns at the time. Adorno argued that jazz was closely associated with the commercial music industry, &, to the extent that this industry confined jazz musicians to playing music that attracted largely wealthy, white audiences, it was a racist form of music. This interpretation is contextualized in terms of Adorno's experience of discrimination as a Jew in Germany & in terms of the racist music scene that greeted him when he became an exile in GB. Adorno's critique of the conventional depiction of jazz as black music identified a central tension in the relation between ethnicity, aesthetics, & social subordination that still resonates today. D. M. Smith

For a long time, the Russian literary prizes that were created in the 1990s had a bad reputation. Apart from the fact that they were repeatedly connected with scandalous decisions & influenced by literary struggles over direction, they gave rise to doubts as to whether the highly decorated works really possessed first-class aesthetic qualities & the kind of social relevance expected from outstanding artistic achievements. The longstanding practice of ignoring works that were socially & politically explosive seems to have been broken. The great literary prizes for 2006 confirm that the increasing tendency of the Russian novel towards politicization is finding resonance in jurors' decisions. The novel 2017 by Ol'ga Slavnikova & San'kia by Zakhar Prilepin are perfect examples of this. After the demise of the Soviet Union, it appeared as if literary life in Russia could be promoted mainly by new literary prizes no longer managed by the state. The media praises the institutionalization of the Buker (which, like its role model, the British Booker Prize, is supposed to be awarded to the best novel of the year), the creation of the Triumf (which is to recognize high achievements in all areas of the arts), & the establishment of countless other prizes. Adapted from the source document.

A review essay on books by (1) Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought (Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1999); (2) James Conniff, The Useful Cobbler: Edmund Burke and the Politics of Progress (Albany, NY: State U New York Press, 1994); (3) Stephen K. White, Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics, and Aesthetics (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994); (4) Luke Gibbons, Edmund Burke and Ireland: Aesthetics, Politics and the Colonial Sublime (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge U Press, 2003); (5) Seamus Deane, Foreign Affections: Essays on Edmund Burke (Cork, Ireland: Cork U Press, 2005); (6) Bruce Frohnen, Virtue and the Promise of Conservatism: The Legacy of Burke & Tocqueville (Lawrence, KS: U Press Kansas, 1993); (7) Francis Canavan, The Political Economy of Edmund Burke (New York: Fordham U Press, 1995); (8) Edmund Burke (Ed), Reflections on the Revolution in France (Stanford, CA: Stanford U.

A review article on books edited by: Bruce Robbins, Intellectuals: Aesthetics, Politics, Academics (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 1990) & Ralph Miliband, Leo Panitch, & John Saville, The Retreat of the Intellectuals: Socialist Register 1990 (London: Merlin Press, 1990 [see listings in IRPS No. 67]). Intellectuals, a collection of essays & interviews, examines left-wing intellectuals in contemporary society from a postmodern perspective. Poorly written & often incoherent, the volume includes essays on the peculiarities of English in the metanarratives of knowledge & power, & on the British cultural scene. Also included are interviews with Edward Said & Gayatri C. Spivak. The Retreat of the Intellectuals, a collection of sixteen essays, offers a resentment of socialism & an exploration of the current status of Left intellectuals. A superfluous testament to socialist faith, this book takes up the issue of socialism in pluralistic cultures, but offers little that has not already been said elsewhere. W. Howard