Flirting with fascism – the Sloterdijk debate

According to a recent article in The Observer (10 October 1999) the fashionable dinner tables of German society are buzzing with controversy over ʻthe death of critical theory and the future of metaphysicsʼ. The article refers to a debate provoked by a conference address given at Elmau in Bavaria last July by Peter Sloterdijk. His […]

106 Reviews

Friedrich Schlegelʼs two-hundred-year-old fragment ʻNothing is more rarely the subject of philosophy than philosophy itselfʼ shows its age. Now, its inversion seems true. Whether through recognition that philosophyʼs self-legitimating critique of the unexcavated presuppositions of other disciplines threatens to prove itself wanting; or, through various concerns for philosophyʼs apparently imminent death (which philosophers frequently seem […]

109 Reviews

Reviews The tale of TedTed Honderich, Philosopher: A Kind of Life, Routledge, London, 2001. x + 441 pp., £20.00 hb., 0 415 23697 5. There has been a surprisingly close relationship between philosophy and autobiography ever since Augustine. Indeed, it could plausibly be argued that modern European philosophy begins with Descartesʼ first-hand account of how […]

Marxism and the Visual Arts Now, University College London, 8–10 April 2002

Conference report Scholasticism and swaggerMarxism and the Visual Arts Now University College London, 8–10 April 2002 The title of this conference produced the expectation that critical analysis relating specifically to current artistic practices would be an issue of some urgency for contributors. For a surprising amount of them it was not. Nevertheless, the conference came […]

Beyond Barthes: Rethinking the phenomenology of photography

Beyond Barthes Rethinking the phenomenology of photography Andrew fisher This article attempts to outline a phenomenology of photography, oriented by the situation of photography in contemporary media culture. Various recent photographic art practices have come to emphasize what may be seen as specifically phenomenological issues of appearance, perception and form. The widespread use of photography […]

The involution of photography

The involution of photography Andrew fisher As we settle further into the era of digital media and globalized visual culture, it might be tempting to think that photography holds no more than historical interest. Yet it continues to feature in debates with considerable significance for the present. [1] The terms by which it was negotiated […]