Promotional Information

A work of political theory arguing that sensation--the taste of chocolate, the noise of a crowd, the visual impressions of film images--plays a crucial role of political life

Table of Contents

Illustrations xi
Acknowledgments: Grazie xiii
Prologue: Narratocracy and the Contours of Political Life 1
1. From Nomos to Nomad: Kant, Deleuze, and Rancière on Sensation 21
2. The Piazza, the Edicola, and the Noise of the Utterance 45
3. Machiavelli's Theory of Sensation and Florence's Vita Festiva 74
4. The Viewing Subject: Caravaggio, Bacon, and The Ring 96
5. "You're Eating Too Fast!" Slow Food's Ethos of Convivium 123
Epilogue: "The Photograph's Tell It All": On an Ethics of Appearance 149
Notes 155
Bibliography 189
Index 201

About the Author

Davide Panagia is Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. He is the author of The Poetics of Political Thinking, also published by Duke University Press.

Reviews

"With this remarkable book, Davide Panagia chops off the head of political theory's ruling narratocracy. The challenge he thereby raises is nothing less than a call for reconfiguring democracy as a realm of the senses."--Jodi Dean, author of Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics "'The first political act is also an aesthetic one.' From this provocative postulate The Political Life of Sensation develops a refreshingly innovative theory of the image for which the force of sensation figures as a force for democracy. As interruptive as it is instaurational, both dissensual and convivial, the power of the image is brought by Davide Panagia to a new and original theoretical expression. The book weaves seamlessly between penetrating analyses of key political and philosophical thinkers and of cultural formations from the piazzas of Italy to the Thanksgiving table. A forceful and convincing apologia for an 'ethics of appearance.'"--Brian Massumi, author of Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation