Between Urban Topographies and Political Spaces
Beschreibung:
Between Urban Topographies and Political Spaces: Threshold Experiences uses the term "threshold" as a means to understand the relationship between Self and Other, as well as relationships between different cultures. The concept of "threshold" defines the relationship between inside and outside not in oppositional terms, but as complementaries. This book discusses the cultural and social "border areas" of modernity, which are to be understood not as "zones" in a territorial sense, but as "spaces in between" in which different languages and cultures operate. The essays in Between Urban Topographies and Political Spaces identify the dimension in urban topographies and political spaces where we are able to locate paradigmatic experiences of thresholds. Because these spaces are characterized by contradictions, conflicts, and aporias, we propose to rethink those hermeneutic categories that imply a sharp opposition between inside and outside. This means that the theoretical definition of threshold put forward in these essays-whether applied to history, philosophy, law, art, or cultural studies-embodies new juridical and political stances.
The term "threshold" captures the overlapping of inside and outside¿well beyond the logic of inclusion and exclusion that still prevails in Western civilization¿that can be decisive for the way we understand the relationship between Self and Other. This book discusses the cultural and social "border areas" of modernity, which are to be understood not so much as "zones" in a territorial sense, but rather as "spaces in between," where different languages and cultures operate.
Table of ContentsIntroductionPart I: Thresholds1. Bernhard Waldenfels, Threshold Experiences2. Alexis Nuselovici, Europe, from Threshold to Threshold3. Massimo Donà, The Singing of the Sirens4. Félix Duque, The European MembranePart II: Spaces in between5. Mauro Ponzi, Naples as Topography of Spaces in Between: Walter Benjamin and the Threshold between Old and New6. Pietro Montani, Feeling Obliged: Ethics and Aesthetics of Intermediate Spaces7. Fabio Vighi, Between the Two Deaths: the Real as Threshold8. Dario Gentili, Paris Topographies of Capitalism: the Nineteenth-Century Metropolis9. Gabriele Guerra, "But the Dioscuri": Between Labyrinth and Temple: Walter Benjamin's TopographiesPart III: Heterotopies10. Vittoria Borsò, On the Threshold between Visibility and Sayability: the Event of Visuality in the Materiality of the Image11. Elettra Stimilli, The Threshold between Debt and Guilt12. Irene Kajon, The Biblical Metaphor of the Threshold in Rosenzweig and Kafka13. Wolfgang Müller-Funk, The Sphinx as a Threshold Figure: about the Limits between the Sexes14. Elio Matassi, Trauerspiel and Opera in Walter BenjaminWorks CitedIndexAbout the contributors