Overview

In Towards a Productive Aesthetics: Contemporary and Historical Interventions in Blake and Brecht, Keith O’Regan mobilises a constellative approach to compare the political-aesthetic strategies of William Blake (1757-1827) and Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). O’Regan traces two similar trajectories in each author’s work: an exploration of how capitalist domination defines conjunctures, and an investigation of how historical figures, themes and terrains illustrate past failures or losses that can be cleaved open for radical possibilities in the present. Brecht and Blake posit an “oppositional aesthetics of the now” that articulates a theory of experience under capitalism, while counter-posing an oppositional form of existence.

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Reviews

Radical aesthetics has long been indebted to the works of William Blake and Bertolt Brecht. But never before have these two great authors been brought together and their works refunctioned to produce an aesthetics of resistance for our times. Astutely deploying Walter Benjamin's concept of now time, this is precisely what Keith O'Regan achieves in this vital study. The result is a thoroughly original intervention in radical social theory and cultural studies. - David McNally A powerful interrogation of oppositional aesthetics in the work of two of the most inventive writers of the last few centuries. O'Regan's striking juxtaposition of Brecht and Blake features a welcome emphasis on the dynamics of production and the forces that shape it, illuminating at every turn-from big ideas to local tactics-what was to be done. - Ian Balfour, York University

""Radical aesthetics has long been indebted to the works of William Blake and Bertolt Brecht. But never before have these two great authors been brought together and their works “refunctioned” to produce an aesthetics of resistance for our times. Astutely deploying Walter Benjamin’s concept of now time, this is precisely what Keith O’Regan achieves in this vital study. The result is a thoroughly original intervention in radical social theory and cultural studies."" — David McNally ""A powerful interrogation of oppositional aesthetics in the work of two of the most inventive writers of the last few centuries. O’Regan’s striking juxtaposition of Brecht and Blake features a welcome emphasis on the dynamics of production and the forces that shape it, illuminating at every turn—from big ideas to local tactics—what was to be done."" — Ian Balfour, York University

Author Information

Keith O’Regan, PhD (2017), teaches in the Writing and Humanities Departments of York University. His recent publications centre on comparative analyses of historical and contemporary film, and writing and graduate education.

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