Towards a Productive Aesthetics
Contemporary and Historical Interventions in Blake and Brecht
- Publisher
- Haymarket Books
- Initial publish date
- Dec 2022
- Category
- Aesthetics, Capitalism, Media Studies
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781642597868
- Publish Date
- Dec 2022
- List Price
- $46.5
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Description
In Towards a Productive Aesthetics: Contemporary and Historical Interventions in Blake and Brecht, Keith O'Regan mobilises a constellative approach to compare the political-aesthetic strategies of William Blake (1757-1827) and Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). O'Regan traces two similar trajectories in each author's work: an exploration of how capitalist domination defines conjunctures, and an investigation of how historical figures, themes, and terrains illustrate past failures or losses that can be cleaved open for radical possibilities in the present. Brecht and Blake posit an "oppositional aesthetics of the now" that articulates a theory of experience under capitalism, while counter-posing an oppositional form of existence.
About the author
Contributor Notes
Keith O'Regan teaches in the Writing and Humanities Departments of York University. His recent publications centre on comparative analyses of historical and contemporary film, and writing and graduate education.