Downcast eyes : the denigration of vision in twentieth-century French thought /

Downcast eyes : the denigration of vision in twentieth-century French thought /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Jay, Martin, 1944-
Imprint:	Berkeley : University of California Press, c1993.
Description:	1 online resource (xi, 632 p.)
Language:	English
Series:	A centennial book Centennial book.
Subject:	Vision. Cognition and culture. Philosophy, French -- 20th century. Civilization. Cognition and culture. Intellectual life. Philosophy, French. Vision. Vision, Ocular Philosophy Culture France -- Civilization -- 20th century. France -- Intellectual life -- 20th century. France.
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11106578

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780520915381 0520915380 0520081544 (alk. paper) 0585200467 9780585200460 9780520088856 9780520081543 0520088859
Notes:	"A Centennial book"--P. [ii]. Includes bibliographical references and index. Restrictions unspecified Electronic reproduction. [Place of publication not identified]: HathiTrust Digital Library. 2021. Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 digitized 2021. HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
Summary:	Long considered "the noblest of the senses," vision has increasingly come under critical scrutiny by a wide range of thinkers who question its dominance in Western culture. These critics, especially prominent in twentieth-century France, have challenged vision's allegedly superior capacity to provide access to the world. They have also criticized its supposed complicity with political and social oppression through the promulgation of spectacle and surveillance. Martin Jay turns to this antiocularcentric discourse and explores its often contradictory implications in the work of such influential figures as Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Guy Debord, Luce Irigaray, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida. Jay begins with a discussion of the theory of vision from Plato to Descartes, then considers vision's role in the French Enlightenment before turning to its status in the culture of modernity. From French Impressionism to Georges Bataille and the Surrealists, Roland Barthes's writings on photography, and the film theory of Christian Metz, Jay provides lucid and fair-minded analyses of thinkers and ideas widely known for their difficulty. His book examines the myriad links between the interrogation of vision and the pervasive antihumanist, antimodernist, and counter-enlightenment tenor of much recent French thought. Refusing, however, to defend the dominant visual order, he calls instead for a plurality of "scopic regimes." Certain to generate controversy and discussion throughout the humanities and social sciences, Downcast Eyes will consolidate Jay's reputation as one of today's premier cultural and intellectual historians
Other form:	Print version: Downcast eyes Berkeley : University of California Press, c1993. 0520081544 (alk. paper)
Standard no.:	ebc223794

Description
Summary:	Long considered "the noblest of the senses," vision has increasingly come under critical scrutiny by a wide range of thinkers who question its dominance in Western culture. These critics of vision, especially prominent in twentieth-century France, have challenged its allegedly superior capacity to provide access to the world. They have also criticized its supposed complicity with political and social oppression through the promulgation of spectacle and surveillance.<br> <br> <br> <br> Martin Jay turns to this discourse surrounding vision and explores its often contradictory implications in the work of such influential figures as Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Guy Debord, Luce Irigaray, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida. Jay begins with a discussion of the theory of vision from Plato to Descartes, then considers its role in the French Enlightenment before turning to its status in the culture of modernity. From consideration of French Impressionism to analysis of Georges Bataille and the Surrealists, Roland Barthes's writings on photography, and the film theory of Christian Metz, Jay provides lucid and fair-minded accounts of thinkers and ideas widely known for their difficulty.<br> <br> <br> <br> His book examines the myriad links between the interrogation of vision and the pervasive antihumanist, antimodernist, and counter-enlightenment tenor of much recent French thought. Refusing, however, to defend the dominant visual order, he calls instead for a plurality of "scopic regimes." Certain to generate controversy and discussion throughout the humanities and social sciences, Downcast Eyes will consolidate Jay's reputation as one of today's premier cultural and intellectual historians.
Item Description:	"A Centennial book"--P. [ii].
Physical Description:	1 online resource (xi, 632 p.)
Format:	Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002.
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	9780520915381 0520915380 0520081544 0585200467 9780585200460 9780520088856 9780520081543 0520088859