Lyotard. Philosophy, Politics and the Sublime

Jean-Francois Lyotard, the highly influential 20th-century philosopher of the postmodern, has had an enormous impact on the course and commitment of contemporary philosophy. "Lyotard: Philosophy, Politics, and the Sublime" is a reassessment of his extraordinary legacy and contribution to contemporary cultural, political, ethical, and aesthetic theory and a useful guide to key issues in his philosophy. Fifteen distinguished scholars have contributed new, original essays examining the main themes in Lyotard´s work with a focus on the special intersections of philosophy, psycholanalysis, politics and the experience of the sublime in art. The volume includes an up-to-date bibliography of works by and about Lyotard, previously unpublished photographs of Lyotard and an incisive essay by Lyotard himself on the philosophical significance of Freud´s case of Emma.
Contents: Jean-Francois Lyotard - between politics and aesthetics. Part I (Ex)citing philosophy: Emma - between philosophy and psychoanalysis. Part II Conversations and differends - conversations in postmodern hermeneutics; Lyotard, Bakhtin, and radical heterogeneity; Lyotard, Levinas, and the phrasing of the ethical; Lyotard, Gadamer and the relation between ethics and aesthetics; Lyotard, Nancy, and the myth of interruption; Lyotard, Frank, and the limits of understanding. Part III After politics: interrupting Lyotard - whither the we?; Lyotard, Heidegger, and "the Jews"; Lyotard and history without witnesses; Lyotard and "the forgotten". Part IV Before aesthetics: postmodern thinking of transcendence; Lyotard - before and after the sublime; Lyotard, Kant and the in-finite; the suspense; Lyotard and the events of the postmodern sublime.