Full Description
Using a broad definition of the Durkheimian tradition, this book offers the first systematic attempt to explore the Durkheimians' engagement with art. It focuses on both Durkheim and his contemporaries as well as later thinkers influenced by his work. The first five chapters consider Durkheim's own exploration of art; the remaining six look at other Durkheimian thinkers, including Marcel Mauss, Henri Hubert, Maurice Halbwachs, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Leiris, and Georges Bataille. The contributors—scholars from a range of theoretical orientations and disciplinary perspectives—are known for having already produced significant contributions to the study of Durkheim. This book will interest not only scholars of Durkheim and his tradition but also those concerned with aesthetic theory and the sociology and history of art.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Alexander Riley
Chapter 1. Total Aesthetics: Art and The Elemental Forms
William Watts Miller
Chapter 2. Durkheim, the Arts, and the Moral Sword
W.S.F. Pickering
Chapter 3. Durkheim and Festivals: Art, Effervescence, and Institutions
Jean-Louis Fabiani
Chapter 4. The Power of Imagination and the Economy of Desire: Durkheim and Art
Pierre-Michel Menger
Chapter 5. Dostoevsky in the Mirror of Durkheim
Donald A. Nielsen
Chapter 6. Durkheim, L'Année sociologique, and Art
Marcel Fournier
Chapter 7. Marcel Mauss on Art and Aesthetics: The Politics of Division, Isolation, and Totality
Michèle Richman
Chapter 8. Too Marvelous for Words...: Maurice Halbwachs, Kansas City Jazz, and the Language of Music
Sarah Daynes
Chapter 9. Total Art - The Influence of the Durkheim School on Claude Lévi-Strauss's Reflections on Art and Classification
Stephan Moebius and Frithjof Nungesser
Chapter 10. Sex, Death, the Other, and Art: The Search for Mythic Life in the Work of Michel Leiris
Alexander Riley
Chapter 11. Apophasis in Representation: Georges Bataille and the Aesthetics and Ethics of the Negative
S. Romi Mukherjee
Chapter 12. Acéphale/Parsifal: Georges Bataille contra Wagner
Claudine Frank
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index
