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Violence, Image and Victim in Bataille, Agamben and Girard

John Lechte author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Edinburgh University Press

Published:31st May '23

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Violence, Image and Victim in Bataille, Agamben and Girard cover

What is violence what is an image? How does violence relate to the image, and how do violence and the image implicate and define the victim? Explores the link between violence and the image for the first time Clarifies the role of violence and the image in the work of Georges Bataille, Giorgio Agamben and Ren Girard Shows the implications of Christ being equated with the image Provides new insights into what violence is and what the image is, which makes this a book for out time Bataille, Agamben and Girard are thinkers of the moment in as much as they each aim to explain the basis of society and culture in the context of power and the sacred. To study power and the sacred, the book shows, is to reveal the connection between violence and the image, a connection that shows what it means to be a victim. Separate chapters are devoted to the study of violence and the image as these appear in the work of Bataille, Agamben and Girard. The book concludes that no study of violence and the image can avoid engaging with the issue of the injustice of being a victim.

"One of the great undisclosed threads in contemporary theory lies in the connection between thinkers seemingly as diverse as Bataille, Agamben and Girard. Though each deals in their writing with sacrifice, victimization and violence, rarely do we find these thinkers conjoined in a study of their shared and divergent perspectives. What Lechte delivers in these pages is a highly original presentation of how a critical analysis of these thinkers might assist us in finding the truth behind the images routinely presented in our world. This is an insight, he successfully argues, which can only be illuminated by addressing how the mechanisms of sacrifice and violence ceaselessly continue to function behind nearly everything we see." -Colby Dickinson, Loyola University Chicago

ISBN: 9781399519779

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

240 pages