The ""theoretical turn"" within the arts and humanities in the 1970's and 1980's has, for many, had its day, with work produced under its rubric all too often feeling tired or even downright lazy. In its place -- whilst hazarding against an outright rejection of theory -- this book, introduced by Mieke Bal, presents work by a new generation of scholars responding directly to Bal's idea of the ""travelling concept."" By taking a concept from one discipline and, with a genuine understanding of its origin, thoughtfully applying this in a new context, exciting new possibilities are opened up for...

Concentrationary Memories is based in the idea that the concentrationary plague unleashed on the world by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s has remained and is now a permanent presence shadowing modern life. It also argues that memory - and, indeed, art in general - must be invoked to show this haunting of the present by this menacing past so that we can read for the signs of terror and counter its deformation of the human.

The book presents political and cultural readings of film, art, photographic and literary practices, which analyses different cultural responses to...

Concentrationary Memories has, as its premise, the idea at the heart of Alain Resnais's film Night and Fog (1955) that the concentrationary plague unleashed on the world by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s is not simply confined to one place and one time but is now a permanent presence shadowing modern life. It further suggests that memory (and, indeed, art in general) must be invoked to show this haunting of the present by this menacing past so that we can read for the signs of terror and counter its deformation of the human. Through working with political and cultural theory on readings...

The influential cultural critic Elisabeth Bronfen sets out in this book a conversation between literature, cinema, and visual culture. The crossmappings in and between these essays address the cultural survival of image formulas involving portraiture and the uncanny relation between the body and its representability, the gendering of war, death and the fragility of life, as well as sovereignty and political power. Each chapter tracks transformations that occur as aesthetic figurations travel not only from one historical moment to the next, but also from one medium to another. Following...