Erotikon. Essays on Eros, Ancient and Modern

Erotikon brings together leading contemporary intellectuals from a variety of fields for an expansive debate on the full meaning of eros. Renowned scholars of philosophy, literature, classics, psychoanalysis, theology, and art history join poets and a novelist to offer fresh insights into a topic that is at once ancient and forever young. Restricted neither by historical period nor by genre, these contributions explore manifestations of eros throughout Western culture, in subjects ranging from ancient philosophy and baroque architecture to modern literature and Hollywood cinema. An idea charged with paradox, eros has always defied categorization, and yet it cannot--it will not--be ignored. Erotikon aims to raise the difficult question of what, if anything, unifies the erotic manifold. How is eros in a sculpture like eros in a poem? Does the ancient story of Cupid and Psyche still speak meaningfully to modern readers, and if so, why? Is Plato´s eros the same as Freud´s? Or Proust´s? And what is the erotic dimension in Nietzsche´s thought? While each essay takes on a specific issue, together they constitute a wide-ranging conversation in which these broader questions are at play. A compilation of the latest, best efforts to reckon with eros, Erotikon will appeal not just to scholars and educators, but also to artists and critics, to the curious and the disillusioned, to the prurient and the prudent. TABLE OF CONTENTS Shadi Bartsch & Thomas Bartscherer - What Silent Love Hath Writ: An Introduction to Erotikon Susan Mitchell - Erotikon Glenn W. Most - Six Remarks on Platonic Eros David M. Halperin - Love´s Irony: Six Remarks on Platonic Eros Shadi Bartsch - Eros and the Roman Philosopher Catharine Edwards - Response to Shadi Bartsch David Tracy - The Divided Consciousness of Augustine on Eros Valentina Izmirlieva - Augustine Divided: A Response to David Tracy James I. Porter - Love of Life: Lucretius to Freud Richard Wollheim - Response to James I. Porter Ingrid D. Rowland - The Architecture of Love in Baroque Rome Anthony Grafton - Architectures of Love and Strife Mark Strand - Selection of Poems Read at the Erotikon Symposium Robert B. Pippin - The Erotic Nietzsche: Philosophers without Philosophy Eric L. Santner Was will der Philosoph? Jonathan Lear - Give Dora a Break! A Tale of Eros and Emotional Disruption Slavoj Žižek - The Swerve of the Real Jonathan Lear - On the Wish to Burn My Work Martha C. Nussbaum - People as Fictions: Proust and the Ladder of Love Peter Brooks - Proust´s Epistemophilia Philippe Roger - All Love Told: Barthes and the Novel Eric Marty - Response to Philippe Roger Tom Gunning - The Desire and Pursuit of the Hole: Cinema´s Obscure Object of Desire Robert B. Pippin - Vertigo: A Response to Tom Gunning A Gallery of Images from Vertigo Epilogue J. M. Coetzee - Eros and Psyche Acknowledgments Bibliography List of Contributors Index