Chiasmatic Encounters: Art, Ethics, Politics

The concept of chiasm has played major role in continental philosophy where it has referred to various phenomenological and hermeneutic structures of reversibility, intertwining, and encounter. In the book Chiasmatic Encounters: Art, Ethics, Politics, fourteen international authors representing various fields of expertise analyze this central concept and its significance for contemporary cultural theory. The authors discuss the work of major philosophers like Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir, Habermas, Levinas, Derrida, and Deleuze, adapting their ideas of chiasmatic relations to cultural analysis. As the internal and external horizons of perception and experience are intertwined and reversed, various cultural texts, like Vermeer’s painting, symphony of Sibelius, David Lynch movie, or young girl walking in her summer dress, are seen from new and unexpected angles. The book addresses also the chiasmatic crossing between ethics and politics – between the unconditional ethical responsibility and the always conditional political choices. Representing the cutting edge of contemporary cultural theory and interdisciplinary thinking, Chiasmatic Encounters is essential reading for everyone working in continental philosophy, aesthetics, and political theory.