| Camera Obscura: An Archeological Survey from the Paleolithic to the Iron Age Contributor(s): Kofman, Sarah (Author), Straw, Will (Translator) |
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ISBN: 0801485932 ISBN-13: 9780801485930 Publisher: Cornell University Press OUR PRICE: $38.56 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: December 1998 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Philosophy | History & Surveys - Modern - Philosophy | Aesthetics |
| Dewey: 140 |
| LCCN: 98-39015 |
| Physical Information: 0.39" H x 5.45" W x 8.48" (0.34 lbs) 112 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Marx, Freud, Nietzsche--in vastly different ways all three employed the metaphor of the camera obscura in their work. In this classic book--at last available in an English translation--the distinguished French philosopher Sarah Kofman offers an extended reflection on this metaphor. She contrasts the mechanical function of the camera obscura as a kind of copy machine, rendering a mirror-image of the work, with its use in the writings of master thinkers. In her opening chapter on Marx, Kofman provides a reading of inversion as necessary to the ideological process. She then explores the metaphor of the camera obscura in Freud's description of the unconscious. For Nietzsche the camera obscura is a metaphor for forgetting. Kofman asks here whether the magical apparatus of the camera obscura, rather than bringing about clarity, serves some thinkers as fetish. Camera Obscura is a powerful discussion of a metaphor that dominates contemporary theory from philosophy to film. |
Contributor Bio(s): Kofman, Sarah: - Sarah Kofman held the Chair of Philosophy at the University of Paris I. Among her numerous books are Socrates: Fictions of a Philosopher and The Enigma of Woman: Woman in Freud's Writings, both published by Cornell.Straw, Will: - Will Straw is Associate Professor in the Graduate Program in Communications at McGill University. |
