Elegy for Theory PDF
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elegy for theory ELEGY FOR THEORY D. N. Rodowick HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts London, En gland 2014 Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Rodowick, David Norman. Elegy for theory / D.N. Rodowick. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-04669-6 1. Motion pictures—Philosophy. I. Title. PN1995.R6193 2013 791.4301—dc23 2013012601 For Dudley Andrew, who guided my thought at the beginning . . . Contents In Place of Beginning . . . xi 1 A Compass in a Moving World 1 2 Many Lines of Descent 5 3 Th eoria as Practical Philosophy 7 4 Th e Sage Is Wise Only in Th eory 13 5 Variations and Discontinuities: Aesthetic 18 6 How Art Found Th eory 27 7 Philosophy before the Arts 37 8 Th e Rarity of Th eory 54 9 On the History of Film Th eory 66 10 Genres of Th eory 72 11 Excursus: Ricciotto Canudo and the Aesthetic Discourse 80 12 On the Way to Language 89 13 Th e Travels of Formalism 96 14 An Uncertain and Irrational Art 112 15 A Small History of Structuralism 131 16 Aft er the Long Eclipse 152 17 An Object, a Method, a Domain 160 18 A Care for the Claims of Th eory 168 19 Th e Sense of an Ending 200 20 “Suddenly, an Age of Th eory” 207 21 Th e Fift h Element 214 22 “A Struggle without End, Exterior and Interior” 232 23 Becoming a Subject in Th eory 246 Ac know ledg ments 267 Index 271 Ein philosophisches Problem hat die Form: “Ich kenne mich nicht aus.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations Mark Tansey, West Face, 2004 © Mark Tansey. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Robert McKeever.
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