Communities Of Sense: Rethinking Aesthetics and Politics

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Review“[A] provocative and wide ranging exploration of Jacques Ranciere’s (2006) controversial assertion that ‘politics is aesthetic in principle’ (p. 58) Although focusing largely on the discipline of art history, Communities also has a broad appeal for those interested in the connections between aesthetic philosophy, social theory, and art practices. Bookended with provocative essays by Ranciere and Etienne Balibar, the collection offers new insights into contemporary art, aesthetic theory, global citizenship, postcolonialism, architecture, and film studies. Just as Ranciere’s own writings encourage interdisciplinary hybridization that challenge canonical divisions between disciplines, so too the form of Communities embodies this fundamental political and scholarly commitment.” - Tyson E. Lewis, Teachers College Record“. . . . the editors and contributors are to be commended for engaging with a dynamic and much-contested approach to art, and doing so at an early stage of its reception in the Anglophone world. The editors’ introductory essay is a helpful positioning of this perspective, explaining how it relates to debates regarding modernism, postmodernism, relational aesthetics and other attempts to rehabilitate notions from the aesthetic tradition. . . . And Rancière’s essay is one of the best introductions to his recent work on the import of the history of aesthetics and the logics at work in contemporary art.” - Joseph J. Tanke, Parallax“A smart and timely consideration of the work of Jacques Ranciere in the context of contemporary art.”—Stephen Melville, co-editor of Vision and Textuality“The essays collected here are more than timely. They speak to the blurring of aesthetic and political conflict that we are witnessing in the world at large. Both an aesthetic and a political object, Communities of Sense will be a reference work for the new directions in art criticism.”—Tom Conley, author of Cartographic CinemaFrom the Publisher"The essays collected here are more than timely. They speak to the blurring of aesthetic and political conflict that we are witnessing in the world at large. Both an aesthetic and a political object, Communities of Sense will be a reference work for the new directions in art criticism."--Tom Conley, author of Cartographic Cinema"A smart and timely consideration of the work of Jacques Ranciere in the context of contemporary art."--Stephen Melville, co-editor of Vision and Textuality