A Democratic Enlightenment: The Reconciliation Image, Aesthetic Education, Possible Politics

Author:   Morton Schoolman
Publisher:   Duke University Press
ISBN:  

9781478008033


Pages:   336
Publication Date:   08 May 2020
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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A Democratic Enlightenment: The Reconciliation Image, Aesthetic Education, Possible Politics


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Overview

In A Democratic Enlightenment Morton Schoolman proposes aesthetic education through film as a way to redress the political violence inflicted on difference that society constructs as its racialized, gendered, Semitic, and sexualized other. Drawing on Voltaire, Diderot, and Schiller, Schoolman reconstructs the genealogical history of what he calls the reconciliation image-a visual model of a democratic ideal of reconciliation he then theorizes through Whitman's prose and poetry and Adorno's aesthetic theory. Analyzing The Help (2011) and Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Schoolman shows how film produces a more advanced image of reconciliation than those originally created by modernist artworks. Each film depicts violence toward racial and ethnic difference while also displaying a reconciliation image that aesthetically educates the public about how the violence of constructing difference as otherness can be overcome. Mounting a democratic enlightenment, the reconciliation image in film illuminates a possible politics for challenging the rise of nationalism's violence toward differences in all their diversity.

Full Product Details

Author:   Morton Schoolman
Publisher:   Duke University Press
Imprint:   Duke University Press
Weight:   0.476kg
ISBN:  

9781478008033


ISBN 10:   1478008032
Pages:   336
Publication Date:   08 May 2020
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  ix Introduction: Past as Prologue  1 Part I. The Reconciliation Image in Whitman 1. Democratic Vistas: Democratic Enlightenment and Reconciliation  47 2. Whitman's Discovery: Aesthetic Education through the Visual Image  79 First Bridge. Thinking with Adorno against Adorno  119 Part II. The Reconciliation Image in Adorno 3. Aesthetic Reason and Reflexivity, Twin Economies and Democratic Effects  145 4. Aesthetic Analogues: Art and Film  166 Second Bridge: The Reconciliation Image versus the Narrative Structure of Film  199 Part III. The Reconciliation Image in Film 5. The Help: Entangled in a Becoming  231 6. Gentlemen's Agreement: Beyond Tolerance  249 7. The Reconciliation Image in Film as Universal Art Form  273 Notes  281 Bibliography  301 Index  309

Reviews

“In a political climate marked by right-wing celebrations of misogyny, xenophobia, oligarchy, racism, militarism, and extractive capitalism, you might be skeptical of a book about ‘the reconciliation image.’ But Morton Schoolman, in a startling and effective admixture of Whitman's democratic ethos, Adorno's defense of a specifically aesthetic kind of critical reason, and contemporary films, contends that now is the time for new thinking about ‘reconciliation.’ This is an original, creative, provocative, rewarding, and timely book.” -- Jane Bennett, author of * Influx and Efflux: Writing Up with Walt Whitman * “Morton Schoolman is an accomplished, erudite, and wonderfully playful reader of both Whitman and Adorno. His insightful account of a ‘democratic enlightenment’ through encounters with images opens spaces for politics that we wouldn’t otherwise see. I didn’t want to put this provocative book down!” -- Lori Jo Marso, author of * Politics with Beauvoir: Freedom in the Encounter *


Morton Schoolman is an accomplished, erudite, and wonderfully playful reader of both Whitman and Adorno. His insightful account of a 'democratic enlightenment' through encounters with images opens spaces for politics that we wouldn't otherwise see. I didn't want to put this provocative book down! -- Lori Jo Marso, author of * Politics with Beauvoir: Freedom in the Encounter * In a political climate marked by right-wing celebrations of misogyny, xenophobia, oligarchy, racism, militarism, and extractive capitalism, you might be skeptical of a book about 'the reconciliation image.' But Morton Schoolman, in a startling and effective admixture of Whitman's democratic ethos, Adorno's defense of a specifically aesthetic kind of critical reason, and contemporary films, contends that now is the time for new thinking about 'reconciliation.' This is an original, creative, provocative, rewarding, and timely book. -- Jane Bennett, author of * Influx and Efflux: Writing Up with Walt Whitman *


Author Information

Morton Schoolman is Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York at Albany and author of Reason and Horror: Critical Theory, Democracy, and Aesthetic Individuality and The Imaginary Witness: The Critical Theory of Herbert Marcuse.

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