- Offers a new way of understanding usury, idolatry and sodomy as the autonomous reproduction of signs
- Offers an ethical critique of performative representation and applies it to twenty-first century finance
- Lays the basis for a philosophical critique of modern materialism and identity politics by providing a wide range of historical precursors
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- About this book
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The concept of ‘performativity’ has risen to prominence throughout the humanities. The rise of financial derivatives reflects the power of the performative sign in the economic sphere. As recent debates about gender identity show, the concept of performativity is also profoundly influential on people’s personal lives. Although the autonomous power of representation has been studied in disciplines ranging from economics to poetics, however, it has not yet been evaluated in ethical terms. This book supplies that deficiency, providing an ethical critique of performative representation as it is manifested in semiotics, linguistics, philosophy, poetics, theology and economics. It constructs a moral criticism of the performative sign in two ways: first, by identifying its rise to power as a single phenomenon manifested in various different areas; and second, by locating efficacious representation in its historical context, thus connecting it to idolatry, magic, usury and similar performative signs. The book concludes by suggesting that earlier ethical critiques of efficacious representation might be revived in our own postmodern era.
- About the authors
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David Hawkes is a Professor in the Department of English, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA. He is the author of seven books and has published more than 100 articles and reviews. He reviews books regularly for the Times Literary Supplement and he has appeared on National Public Radio. Professor Hawkes has held visiting appointments in Turkey, India, Japan and China. He has received such awards as a year-long fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities at the Folger Shakespeare Library (2002-03), and the William Ringler Fellowship at the Huntington Library (2006).
- Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Usury, Sodomy and Idolatry
Pages 1-14
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Performativity in Postmodernity
Pages 15-40
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The Commodification of Rhetoric in Classical Athens
Pages 41-70
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Witchcraft and Representation in Early Modern England
Pages 71-103
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Commodification and the Performative Sign in Eucharistic Ethics
Pages 105-129
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- The Reign of Anti-logos
- Book Subtitle
- Performance in Postmodernity
- Authors
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- David Hawkes
- Series Title
- Palgrave Insights into Apocalypse Economics
- Copyright
- 2020
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-030-55940-3
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-030-55940-3
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-030-55939-7
- Series ISSN
- 2523-8108
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- X, 275
- Number of Illustrations
- 1 b/w illustrations
- Topics
