A Democratic Enlightenment: The Reconciliation Image, Aesthetic Education, Possible Politics

321 Pages·2020·1.727 MB·English

by  Morton Schoolman

A DEMOC RATIC ENLIGHTENMENT

Morton Schoolman
A Democ ratic
Enlightenment
THE RECONCILIATION IMAGE, AESTHETIC
EDUCATION, POS SI BLE POLITICS
duke university press Durham and London 2020
© 2020 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper ∞
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Schoolman, Morton, [date] author.
Title: A democratic enlightenment : the reconciliation
image, aesthetic education, possible politics / Morton
Schoolman.
Other titles: Reconciliation image, aesthetic education,
possible politics
Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2020. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2019033253 (print)
lccn 2019033254 (ebook)
isbn 9781478007654 (hardcover)
isbn 9781478008033 (paperback)
isbn 9781478009054 (ebook)
Subjects: lcsh: Whitman, Walt, 1819–1892—Aesthetics. |
Reconciliation in literature. | Adorno, Theodor W.,
1903–1969—Aesthetics. | Reconciliation in motion pictures. |
Toleration—Philosophy. | Visual learning.
Classification: lcc ps3242.a34 s36 2020 (print) |
lcc ps3242.a34 (ebook) | ddc 811/.3—dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033253
lc ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033254
Cover art: Auguste Rodin, Thought. Alamy Stock Photo.
FOR
FINN, MILO, EVAN, AND JORDAN,
THEIR LOVING PARENTS
ETHAN & EMILY, RACHEL & MARC,
AND OUR
NA- NA
Long I was hugg’d close— long and long.
Im mense have been the preparations for me,
Faithful and friendly the arms that have help’d me.
— Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

CONTENTS
Acknowl edgments i x
Introduction: Past as Prologue 1
PART I THE RECONCILIATION IMAGE IN WHITMAN
1 Demo cratic Vistas: Demo cratic Enlightenment
and Reconciliation 4 7
2 Whitman’s Discovery: Aesthetic Education
through the Visual Image 7 9
FIRST BRIDGE
Thinking with Adorno against Adorno 119
PART II THE RECONCILIATION IMAGE IN ADORNO
3 Aesthetic Reason and Reflexivity, Twin Economies
and Demo cratic Effects 1 45
4 Aesthetic Analogues: Art and Film 1 66
SECOND BRIDGE
The Reconciliation Image versus the Narrative
Structure of Film 1 99
PART III THE RECONCILIATION IMAGE IN FILM
5 The Help: Entangled in a Becoming 2 31
6 Gentleman’s Agreement: Beyond Tolerance 2 49
7 The Reconciliation Image in Film as Universal
Art Form 2 73
Notes 281
Bibliography 3 01
Index 309
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ACKNOWL EDGMENTS
On this occasion I am in the enviable though also awkward position of
belonging to a remarkable community of po liti cal theorists whose work has
been so sustaining, instructive, and inspiring I can hardly begin to thank them
all for their contributions to A Demo cratic Enlightenment. To recall Whitman,
then, who in one of his most eloquent attempts to appreciate the demo cratic
world that nurtured his great work, sang in “Salut Au Monde!” to “you each
and everywhere whom I specify not, but include just the same!” I am indeed
more grateful than I can say for your contributions and support.
Of those whom I can properly thank in the short space allotted for such
acknowl edgments, I want to begin with my editor at Duke University Press,
Courtney Berger, whose involvement in this book and intellectual and profes-
sional guidance have been indispensable to enabling me to develop its poten-
tial. It has been a privilege as well as a plea sure to work with her, and I could
not be more grateful for her time, energy, and patient support of my work.
I am equally grateful to three theorists, all dear friends and colleagues, who in
words both spoken and written generously provided invaluable commentary
on nearly every thought in this work. My never- to- be- forgotten conversations
with Jane Bennett, animated by our mutual love for the poetry and prose of
Whitman and by our recognition of the po litic al, philosophical, and aesthetic
significance of his work for our time, the stunning insights into the complexi-
ties of identity and difference offered by Lori Marso’s growing collection of
influential studies of avant- garde films, and my discussions with Davide Pan-
agia about theoretical issues multiplying with the steady growth of the field
of politics and aesthetics to which he has made such original contributions,
have been ever-p resent voices to which I have closely listened even when not
in their presence. For more than four de cades I have im mensely enjoyed and
immeasurably benefited from the friendship and intellectual companionship
of Bill Connolly and George Kateb, whose thought has impressed itself ir-
resistibly into the foreground of e very proj ect I have undertaken and, to my
great good fortune, to an even greater extent in the pre sent work.
For some time arguments throughout A Demo cratic Enlightenment have
been aired and tested in more academic venues than I can list, though I espe-
cially benefited from speaking invitations at the University of Essex extended
by Aletta Norval, the University of Southampton by David Owen, the Center
for Cultural Analys is at Rutgers University by William Galperin, the Univer-
sity of Mary land by James Glass, Trent University by Davide Panagia, the Uni-
versity of Regina by Shadia Drury, a Fulbright Lectureship in St. Petersburg ex-
tended by Tatiana Venediktova of Moscow State University, and of course by
our now decade- old Po liti cal Theory Workshop at the University at Albany.
A Demo cratic Enlightenment has been greatly improved by a large collec-
tion of anonymous reviewers, in par tic u lar by those solicited by Duke Uni-
versity Press for their critical commentary on the entirety of my manuscript,
though also by reviewers solicited by Polity, the Journal for Cultural Research,
and Theory & Event, where earlier versions of chapters of this book were pub-
lished. And I am grateful to Ian Verstegen and Roger Rothman for including
a se lection from one of my chapters in their fascinating The Art of the Real:
Visual Studies and New Materialisms, and to John Seery, whose inclusion of my
work in his outstanding collection, A Po liti cal Companion to Walt Whitman,
drew a review by Betsy Erkkila focusing my attention more intently on an
impor tant theoretical prob lem in Whitman’s work to which I have responded
in my introduction. And while each of the scholarly contributions to A Po liti­
cal Companion to Walt Whitman added to its distinction, the essays by Cris-
tina Beltran, Jason Frank, Jack Turner, and of course Jane Bennett and George
Kateb were indispensable to my efforts to think about Whitman in new ways.
I am also grateful to many friends, colleagues, and students who read and
commented on chapters of A Demo cratic Enlightenment as its arguments were
evolving. Elizabeth Anker, Emily Beausoleil, Stephanie Erev, James Glass,
Sharon Krause, and Torrey Shanks were all extremely thoughtful in ways that
pushed my work forward, and I am very grateful to Martin Jay for a challeng-
x • Acknowl edgments