Modern life is steeped in images, image-making, and attempts to control the world through vision. Mastery of images has been advanced by technologies that expand and reshape vision and enable us to create, store, transmit, and display images. The three essays in Image, written by leading philosophers of religion Mark C. Taylor, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, and Thomas A. Carlson, explore the power of the visual at the intersection of the human and the technological. Building on Heidegger’s notion that modern humanity aims to master the world by picturing or representing the real, they investigate the contemporary culture of the image in its philosophical, religious, economic, political, imperial, and military dimensions, challenging the abstraction, anonymity, and dangerous disconnection of contemporary images.
Taylor traces a history of capitalism, focusing on its lack of humility, particularly in the face of mortality, and he considers art as a possible way to reconnect us to the earth. Through a genealogy of iconic views from space, Rubenstein exposes the delusions of conquest associated with extraterrestrial travel. Starting with the pressing issues of surveillance capitalism and facial recognition technology, Carlson extends Heidegger’s analysis through a meditation on the telematic elimination of the individual brought about by totalizing technologies. Together, these essays call for a consideration of how we can act responsibly toward the past in a way that preserves the earth for future generations. Attending to the fragility of material things and to our own mortality, they propose new practices of imagination grounded in love and humility.
Modern life is steeped in images, image-making, and attempts to control the world through vision. Mastery of images has been advanced by technologies that expand and reshape vision and enable us to create, store, transmit, and display images. The three essays in Image, written by leading philosophers of religion Mark C. Taylor, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, and Thomas A. Carlson, explore the power of the visual at the intersection of the human and the technological. Building on Heidegger’s notion that modern humanity aims to master the world by picturing or representing the real, they investigate the contemporary culture of the image in its philosophical, religious, economic, political, imperial, and military dimensions, challenging the abstraction, anonymity, and dangerous disconnection of contemporary images.
Taylor traces a history of capitalism, focusing on its lack of humility, particularly in the face of mortality, and he considers art as a possible way to reconnect us to the earth. Through a genealogy of iconic views from space, Rubenstein exposes the delusions of conquest associated with extraterrestrial travel. Starting with the pressing issues of surveillance capitalism and facial recognition technology, Carlson extends Heidegger’s analysis through a meditation on the telematic elimination of the individual brought about by totalizing technologies. Together, these essays call for a consideration of how we can act responsibly toward the past in a way that preserves the earth for future generations. Attending to the fragility of material things and to our own mortality, they propose new practices of imagination grounded in love and humility.
Mark C. Taylor is professor of religion at Columbia
University and the Cluett Professor of Humanities emeritus at
Williams College. His books include Seeing Silence and Abiding
Grace: Time, Modernity, Death, both published by the University of
Chicago Press. Mary-Jane Rubenstein is professor of religion
and science in society at Wesleyan University. Her books
include Pantheologies: Gods, Worlds,
Monsters and Worlds Without End: The Many Lives of the
Multiverse. Thomas A. Carlson is professor in the Department
of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, where he is also the founding director of the Humanities
and Social Change Center at UCSB. His books include The
Indiscrete Image: Infinitude and Creation of the Human; and With
the World at Heart: Studies in the Secular Today, all published by
the University of Chicago Press.
"[Image's essays] exemplify what philosophy of religion can do.
They demonstrate that philosophy of religion means something
different now. It is not, or no longer, an insular, abstracted
subspecialty. What we call philosophy of religion is, now, away of
engagement: with the material realities we inhabit, with pressing
questions we have about them, and with possible futures they—and so
we—might live into."
*Journal of Religion*
“Image is a gorgeous volume of ideas from three of the most
significant philosophers of religion and culture. Deep fakes. Love
and death. Sun Ra and the absurdity of Silicon Valley futurists—all
come together in a way that is accessible and unexpected. This will
be essential reading for years to come.”
*John Lardas Modern, author of Neuromatic; or, A Particular History
of Religion and the Brain*
“In Image, three distinguished scholars draw inspiration from
a host of innovative thinkers to address our contemporary
preoccupation with what can only be called the ‘posthuman.’ It is a
small masterpiece. Specialists in religion, philosophy, technology
studies, feminist studies, aesthetics, and phenomenology will
delight in this book.”
*Nancy K. Frankenberry, John Phillips Professor in Religion
Emerita, Dartmouth College*
"In this coauthored book, Taylor, Rubenstein, and Carlson deliver
richly conceived interpretations of images in modern cultural
history... The book combines a sophisticated understanding of
specific cases and historical events with analyses of timeless
questions that will surely haunt and inspire the human imagination
for generations to come... Highly recommended."
*Choice*
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