ABSTRACT

Theory for Art History provides a concise and clear introduction to key contemporary theorists, including their lives, major works, and transformative ideas.  

Written to reveal the vital connections between art history, aesthetics, and contemporary philosophy, this expanded second edition presents new ways for rethinking the methodologies and theories of art and art history. The book comprises a complete revision of each theorist; updated and trustworthy bibliographies on each; an informative introduction about the reception of critical theory within art history; and a beautifully written, original essay on the state of art history and theory that serves as an afterword.  

From Marx to Deleuze, from Arendt to Rancière, Theory for Art History is designed for use by undergraduate students in courses on the theory and methodology of art history, graduate students seeking an introduction to critical theory that will prepare them to engage the primary sources, and advanced scholars in art history and visual culture studies who are themselves interested in how these perspectives inflect art historical practice.    

Adapted from Theory for Religious Studies by William E. Deal and Timothy K. Beal.

chapter |13 pages

Introduction

Becoming theoretical

part |30 pages

Predecessors

chapter |9 pages

Sigmund Freud

chapter |7 pages

Karl Marx

chapter |6 pages

Friedrich Nietzsche

chapter |5 pages

Ferdinand De Saussure

part |178 pages

Theory for art history

chapter |7 pages

Theodor W. Adorno

chapter |7 pages

Giorgio Agamben

chapter |9 pages

Hannah Arendt

chapter |7 pages

Louis Althusser

chapter |6 pages

Alain Badiou

chapter |8 pages

Roland Barthes

chapter |7 pages

Georges Bataille

chapter |6 pages

Jean Baudrillard

chapter |7 pages

Walter Benjamin

chapter |8 pages

Pierre Bourdieu

chapter |5 pages

Judith Butler

chapter |9 pages

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari

chapter |11 pages

Jacques Derrida

chapter |11 pages

Michel Foucault

chapter |10 pages

Martin Heidegger

chapter |6 pages

Luce Irigaray

chapter |6 pages

Julia Kristeva

chapter |8 pages

Jacques Lacan

chapter |6 pages

Emmanuel Levinas

chapter |7 pages

Jean-François Lyotard

chapter |5 pages

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

chapter |7 pages

Jacques Rancière

chapter |7 pages

Edward W. Said

chapter |6 pages

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

part |10 pages

Afterword

chapter |8 pages

An art history of events

Images, temporality, transmissibility