Chiasmatic Encounters

Art, Ethics, Politics

Kuisma Korhonen, Arto Haapala, Sara Heinämaa, Kristian Klockars, Pajari Räsänen

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2018
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780739141793
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Aesthetics in Philosophy

The concept of chiasm has played major role in continental philosophy, where it has referred to various phenomenological and hermeneutic structures of reversibility, intertwining, and encounter. In Chiasmatic Encounters: Art, Ethics, Politics, fourteen international contributors representing various fields of expertise analyze this central concept and its significance for contemporary cultural theory. The authors discuss the work of major philosophers like Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir, Habermas, Levinas, Derrida, and Deleuze, adapting their ideas of chiasmatic relations to cultural analysis.

As the internal and external horizons of perception and experience are intertwined and reversed, various cultural texts, like a Vermeer painting, a symphony of Sibelius, a David Lynch movie, or a young girl walking in her summer dress, are seen from new and unexpected angles. The book also addresses the chiasmatic crossing between ethics and politics-- between unconditional ethical responsibility and always conditional political choices. Representing the cutting edge of contemporary cultural theory and interdisciplinary thinking, Chiasmatic Encounters is essential reading for anyone working in continental philosophy, aesthetics, or political theory.

Table of contents

• Abbreviations
• General Introduction: Rereading Chiasms
• PART ONE: Chiasmatic Art: Between Visibility and Ideality
• PART TWO: Becoming Deleuze
• PART THREE: Ethical Encounters
• PART FOUR: Does Politics Need Ethics? Does Ethics Need Politics?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Contributors
• Editors
• Series Editor