Spheres of Action: Art and Politics

As dense with academic traditions as it is flush with insight, this collection offers an overview of significant theoretical work on the thriving intersections of art and politics in France, Italy, and Germany. The gathered essays first appeared in the journal Radical Philosophy and at a series of conferences hosted by Tate Britain, London. Together, they represent many of the preeminent cultural philosophers in Europe, among them Antonio Negri, Jacques Ranciere, and Peter Sloterdijk. The essays are striking in that their collective topical coherence is married successfully to a range of historical moments, artists, and political preoccupations. While much of the work requires some advanced study of, for instance, Felix Guattari or Michel Foucault as the price of admission, the enthusiasm of essays like Elisabeth Lebovici's study of the body as image can carry the collection for anyone with a light background in critical theory. The concurrent navigation of art, philosophy, and politics by so many renowned thinkers makes this collection worthwhile almost by default%E2%80%94that it manages to not only wrestle with dominant theoretical conversations but to also advance them easily warrants a second or third reading for anyone with a particularly academic curiosity. B&W illus. (Mar.)