An influential forerunner of French Existentialism, the Russian-born thinker Lev Shestov (1866-1938) elaborated a radical critique of rationalist knowledge and ethics from the point of view of individual human existence. Best known for his ground-breaking comparative studies of Tolstoy and Nietzsche, and of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, Shestov defined his conception as the 'philosophy of tragedy'. Shestov's philosophical hermeneutics of the literary work of art was later developed and disseminated through the writings of his disciple, the Romanian-born Benjamin Fondane (1898-1944), who was also a poet, filmmaker and playwright. The two authors provided one of the earliest and most consistent critical accounts of Husserlian phenomenology in France. 'The philosophy of tragedy' and its associated notions of 'revolt' and existential truth had a lasting impact on a number of prominent writers and philosophers including Georges Bataille, Andre Gide, Andre Malraux, Albert Camus and Emmanuel Levinas.

Pictures of the Mind is the first integrated study of Surrealist photography and film, assessing the impact of early experimental practice and theoretical discourse on prominent post-war trends in art house cinema. Roland Barthes's interpretation of the photographic image, alongside Jacques Derrida's concepts of spectrality and trace, underscore an exploration of the recurrent references to the phantomatic aspect of photography and film in Surrealist theoretical writings and practice. The analysis uses Derrida's account of the uncanny to shed light on the Surrealist conception of photographic and film images as mental constructs, or pictures of the mind, rather than mere visual representations. This leads to a consideration of the similarities between the Surrealist conception of beauty as fixed-explosive and Gilles Deleuze's theory of the time-image as applied to Luis Bunuel's films. Ultimately, the impact of Surrealism on post-war cinema is assessed as part of a wider consideration of the status of photographic and filmic images in the age of digital cinema. The elaboration of an aesthetics of spectrality in early Surrealism is shown to have had lasting implications for a range of post-war filmmakers such as Chris Marker, Maya Deren, Nelly Kaplan, Federico Fellini, Andrei Tarkovsky, Jan Svankmajer, Akira Kurosawa, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Guillermo del Toro, Guy Maddin, Terry Gilliam and David Lynch.

This book examines a number of landmark shifts in our account of the relationship between human and divine existence, as reflected through the perception of time and corporeal experience. Drawing together some of the best scholars in the field, this book provides a representative cross-section of influential trends in the philosophy of religion (e.g. phenomenology, existential thought, Biblical hermeneutics, deconstruction) that have shaped our understanding of the body in its profane and sacred dimensions as site of conflicting discourses on presence and absence, subjectivity and the death of the subject, mortality, resurrection and eternal life.

This book examines a number of landmark shifts in our account of the relationship between human and divine existence, as reflected through the perception of time and corporeal experience. Drawing together some of the best scholars in the field, this book provides a representative cross-section of influential trends in the philosophy of religion (e.g. phenomenology, existential thought, Biblical hermeneutics, deconstruction) that have shaped our understanding of the body in its profane and sacred dimensions as site of conflicting discourses on presence and absence, subjectivity and the death of the subject, mortality, resurrection and eternal life.

For more than two thousand years, philosophers and theologians have wrestled with the irreconcilable opposition between Greek rationality (Athens) and biblical revelation (Jerusalem). In Athens and Jersusalem, Lev Shestov—an inspiration for the French existentialists and the foremost interlocutor of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Martin Buber during the interwar years—makes the gripping confrontation between these symbolic poles of ancient wisdom his philosophical testament, an argumentative and stylistic tour de force. Although the Russian-born Shestov is little known in the Anglophone world today, his writings influenced many twentieth-century European thinkers, such as Albert Camus, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Czesław Miłosz, and Joseph Brodsky. Athens and Jerusalem is Shestov’s final, groundbreaking work on the philosophy of religion from an existential perspective. This new, annotated edition of Bernard Martin’s classic translation adds references to the cited works as well as glosses of passages from the original Greek, Latin, German, and French. Athens and Jerusalem is Shestov at his most profound and most eloquent and is the clearest expression of his thought that shaped the evolution of continental philosophy and European literature in the twentieth century.

One of the most charismatic feature films of the New Wave, A Bout de souffle (1960) has retained its appeal not only as the emphatic statement of a generational break with tradition, but also as Godard's earliest rendition of a set of thematic and stylistic motifs that would become his trademark. A Bout de souffle is now a cult film, propelled in part by the memorable coupling of its leading actors, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, whose story on screen seemed to portray the troubled love affair between French cinema and Hollywood. In this original guide to the film, Ramona Fotiade analyses in depth its production and reception, as well as its mise-en-scene and editing. She situates A Bout de souffle in relation to Godard's filmography and critical writings up to 1960, focusing on a narrative and visual discourse that is now identified with a distinctive strand in postmodern French cinema. She also explores the impact of Godard's early counter-narrative and visual strategies on the independent American filmmakers and the French Cinema du Look during the 1980s and 1990s.

For more than two thousand years, philosophers and theologians have wrestled with the irreconcilable opposition between Greek rationality (Athens) and biblical revelation (Jerusalem). In Athens and Jersusalem, Lev Shestov—an inspiration for the French existentialists and the foremost interlocutor of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Martin Buber during the interwar years—makes the gripping confrontation between these symbolic poles of ancient wisdom his philosophical testament, an argumentative and stylistic tour de force. Although the Russian-born Shestov is little known in the Anglophone world today, his writings influenced many twentieth-century European thinkers, such as Albert Camus, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Czesław Miłosz, and Joseph Brodsky. Athens and Jerusalem is Shestov’s final, groundbreaking work on the philosophy of religion from an existential perspective. This new, annotated edition of Bernard Martin’s classic translation adds references to the cited works as well as glosses of passages from the original Greek, Latin, German, and French. Athens and Jerusalem is Shestov at his most profound and most eloquent and is the clearest expression of his thought that shaped the evolution of continental philosophy and European literature in the twentieth century.

One of the most charismatic feature films of the New Wave, A Bout de Souffle (1960) has retained much of its appeal not only as the emphatic statement of a generational break with tradition, but also as Godard's earliest rendition of a set of thematic and stylistic motifs that would become his trademark. Sustained critical attention over almost fifty years has made this a cult film, propelled in part by the memorable coupling of its lead actors, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, whose story on screen seemed to portray the troubled love affair between French cinema and Hollywood. In this original guide to the film, Ramona Fotiade provides an in-depth analysis of its production and reception contexts, as well as of salient aspects mise-en-scene and editing. She situates A Bout de Souffle in relation to Godard's filmography and critical writings up to 1960, focusing on the elaboration of a narrative and visual discourse that has come to be identified with a distinctive strand in postmodern French cinema. She also explores the impact of Godard's early counter-narrative and visual strategies on the independent American filmmakers and the French Cinema du Look during the 1980s and 1990s.