Proximate Difference in Aesthetics: Jacques Derrida and Institutional Critique examines interconnections between the texts of Jacques Derrida and works related to Institutional Critique in art. At a juncture between philosophy and art, texts by Derrida such as “Différance,” “Parergon,” “Economimesis,” and “Force of Law,” and works by Marcel Broodthaers, Michael Asher, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Fred Wilson, Louise Lawler, Andrea Fraser, Maria Eichhorn, and Cameron Rowland reveal shared investments in questions around the archive, the institutional frames for art, and the collision of aesthetics, economics, and the law. These juxtapositions lead to insights not only into the relevance of Derrida’s work to contemporary aesthetics, but also into how the approaches of Institutional Critique offer a way of thinking through issues raised by Derrida’s texts. In being against traditional aesthetics, Derrida and the artists under consideration brush up against the foundational premises of the institutions of philosophy, aesthetics, and art, creating productive frictions that expose not only the foundational fictions and premises of their respective fields, but also an alternative means of approaching philosophy, art, and aesthetics. The small differences that Derrida and these artists open up through their practice radically reframe ways of thinking about their respective institutions, fields, and traditions.

This volume brings Continental philosophical interpretations of Van Gogh into dialogue with one another to explore how for Van Gogh, art places human beings in their world, and yet in other ways displaces them, not allowing them to belong to that world.

Are your students baffled by Baudrillard? Dazed by Deleuze? Confused by Kristeva?

Other beginners' guides can feel as impenetrable as the original texts to students who "think in images." Contemporary Thinkers Reframed instead uses the language of the arts to explore the usefulness in practice of complex ideas.

Short, contemporary and accessible, these lively books utiliZe actual examples of artworks, films, television shows, works of architecture, fashion and even computer games to explain and explore the work of the most commonly taught thinkers. Conceived specifically for the visually-minded, the series will prove invaluable to students right across the visual arts.

'Deconstruction' is touted in every visual area from architecture to fashion, yet few really understand what Derrida's notorious concept means, much less his elusive idea of "differance." In fact Derrida's work can seem almost impenetrable. This guide explains Derrida's key concepts through examples from across the whole spectrum of the arts, looking at the work of architects such as Bernard Tschumi and Daniel Libeskind, fashion designers such as Ann Demeulemeister and at the work of artists as varied as Kara Walker, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Rachel Whiteread and Jeff Wall. Showing what Derrida's work really "means" in practice, this short guide makes this thinker's complex work accessible to a wider public.

In this edited collection of essays, ten experts in film philosophy explore the importance of transcendence for understanding cinema as an art form. They analyze the role of transcendence for some of the most innovative film directors: David Cronenberg, Karl Theodor Dreyer, Federico Fellini, Werner Herzog, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Terrence Malick, Yasujiro Ozu, and Martin Scorsese. Meanwhile they apply concepts of transcendence from continental philosophers like Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze, Martin Heidegger, Michel Henry, Edmund Husserl, Karl Jaspers, Søren Kierkegaard, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Each of the ten chapters results in a different perspective about what transcendence means and how it is essential to film as an art medium. Several common threads emerge among the chapters. The contributors find that the limitations of human existence are frequently made evident in moments of transcendence, so as to bring characters to the margins of their assumed world. At other times, transcendence goes immanent, so as to emerge in experiences of the surprising nearness of being, as though for a radical intensification of life. Film can also exhibit “ciphers of transcendence” whereby symbolic events open us to greater realizations about our place in the world. Lastly, the contributors observe that transcendence occurs in film, not simply from isolated moments forced into a storyline, but in a manner rooted within an ontological rhythm peculiar to the film itself.

This volume brings Continental philosophical interpretations of Van Gogh into dialogue with one another to explore how for Van Gogh, art places human beings in their world, and yet in other ways displaces them, not allowing them to belong to that world.