Reading Room catalogue

“[Mythologies] illustrates the beautiful generosity of Barthes’s progressive interest in the meaning (his word is signification) of practically everything around him, not only the books and paintings of high art, but also the slogans, trivia, toys, food, and popular rituals (cruises, striptease, eating, wrestling matches) of contemporary life… For Barthes, words and objects have in common the organized capacity to say something; at the same time, since they are signs, words and objects have the bad faith always to appear natural to their consumer, as if what they say is eternal, true, necessary, instead of arbitrary, made, contingent. Mythologies finds Barthes revealing the fashioned systems of ideas that make it possible, for example, for ‘Einstein’s brain’ to stand for, be the myth of, ‘a genius so lacking in magic that one speaks about his thought as a functional labor analogous to the mechanical making of sausages.’ Each of the little essays in this book wrenches a definition out of a common but constructed object, making the object speak its hidden, but ever-so-present, reservoir of”—Edward W. Said

Is there any such thing as revolutionary literature? Can literature, in fact, be political at all? These are the questions Roland Barthes addresses in Writing Degree Zero, his first published book and a landmark in his oeuvre. The debate had engaged the European literary community since the 1930s; with this fierce manifesto, Barthes challenged the notion of literature’s obligation to be socially committed. Yes, Barthes allows, the writer has a political and ethical responsibility. But the history of French literature shows that the writer has often failed to meet it—and from Barthes’s perspective, literature is committed to little more than the myth of itself. Expert and uncompromising, Writing Degree Zero introduced the themes that would soon establish Barthes as one of the leading voices in literary criticism.

Roland Barthes, the French critic and semiotician, was one of the most important critics and essayists of this century. His work continues to influence contemporary literary theory and cultural studies. Image-Music-Text collects Barthes’s best writings on photography and the cinema, as well as fascinating articles on the relationship between images and sound. Two of Barthes’s most important essays, “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative” and “The Death of the Author” are also included in this fine anthology, an excellent introduction to his thought. These essays, as selected and translated by Stephen Heath, are among the finest writings Barthes ever published on film and photography, and on the phenomena of sound and image. The classic pieces “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative” and “The Death of the Author” are also included.

With the utmost economy and skill, the haiku poet paints a vast mural on a narrow canvas. Working within the strict 17-syllable limits of the traditional Japanese form, Matsuo Basho (1644–1694) and other masters evoke elements of the natural world to conjure up timeless moods and emotions. This volume features dozens of Basho’s poems as well as works by his predecessors and ten of his disciples — Kikaku, Ransetsu, Joso, and Kyoroku among them. Intended principally for readers with no knowledge of Japanese literature, this treasury includes the original Japanese text, a transliteration, and English translations for each verse; most poems also include a brief explication.

(2nd edition)

Samuelis Beckettas – žymiausias absurdo teatro atstovas, rašęs anglų ir prancūzų kalbomis, jo dramos, romanai išversti į daugybę pasaulio kalbų. 1969-aisiais Beckettas pelnė Nobelio premiją, o drama „Belaukiant Godo“ (1953) laikoma absoliučia absurdo teatro klasika.

Be jos rinkinyje „Teatras“ esama ir Lietuvos spaudoje publikuotų, ir dar niekur neskelbtų pjesių.

Ar kritika žudo literatūrą? – klausiama knygos pratarmėje, ir tuoj pat atsakoma – juk ji būtina literatūrai – literatūros kūriniui reikia jį aiškinančio ir nušviečiančio diskurso, literatūra pati provokuoja jo atsiradimą. Knygoje patariama, kaip subjektyvų asmeninį literatūros vertinimą paremti akademine kritika, naujais supratimo būdais, kuriuos suteikia istorija, sociologija, psichoanalizė ir kalbotyra. Kiekvieną skyrių rašė šios srities specialistas savo pasirinktu metodu ir stiliumi. Vertė Rūta Kisielytė, Akvilė Melkūnaitė, Genovaitė Dručkutė, Jūratė Skersytė, Saulius Repečka.

Šį romaną „Jeigu keleivis žiemos naktį“ sudaro dešimties romanų pradžios, tiksliau – dešimt mikroromanų, kuriuos įrėmina dar vienas – Skaitytojo ir Skaitytojos romanas. Šio intriga nesudėtinga, primenanti detektyvą: Skaitytojas nusiperka brokuotą egzempliorių ir eina į knygyną apkeisti, čia sutinka Skaitytoją. Beieškodamas vieno romano pabaigos, jis susiduria su vis naujais romanais, kurie galiausiai pasirodo irgi neturį pabaigų. Galiausiai Skaitytojas išsiaiškina, kad dėl visko kaltas paslaptingas veikėjas Hermis Marana, kuris smaginasi užviręs šią košę. (..)

Italų literatūros klasiku Italo Calvino (1923-1985) žavisi daugelis pasaulio skaitytojų, juos pavergia neįtikėtina rašytojo išmonė, pasakotojo talentas, savitos, apgaulingai paprastos, pasakas primenančios istorijos. Poetiškos prozos knyga „Nematomi miestai“ (1972), paties autoriaus vadinta romanu, priskiriama prie geriausių jo kūrinių. Garsusis keliautojas Markas Polas totorių didžiajam chanui pasakoja apie fantastiškus miestus. Pasak rašytojo, ši knyga – tai sapnas, užgimstąs miestų, nebeišgalinčių būti savimi, širdyse.

194… Orano mieste Alžyre ima siautėti maras. Daktaras Bernaras Rijė pirmas pastebi ligos ženklus ir skatina miesto valdžią kuo skubiau imtis priemonių. Kol Rijė fiksuoja įvykius mieste, valdžia delsia. Ilgainiui miestui paskelbiamas karantinas. Negalima nei iš jo išvykti, nei į jį atvykti. Maras įsigali ir mirties akivaizdoje išbando žmonių vienybę, tikėjimą ir būties prasmingumą.

Prancūzų rašytojo Albert’o Camus (1913–1960) karta brendo dviejų pasaulinių karų kanonados, atominės bombos apokalipsės ir Holokausto košmaro laiku. A. Camus tapo vienu svarbiausių savo kartos kultūros mokytojų, intelektualinių vadovų, moraline sąžine. Savo kūryba jis išreiškė naujosios epochos dvasią ir galią, o jo jaunatviškas entuziazmas, neabejotinas intelektualinis autoritetas ir meninis principingumas pradėjo ligi šiol tebesitęsiančią draugystę su skaitytojais. Absurdas, maištas, istorija ir mirtis – svarbiausios temos, plėtojamos visame A. Camus kūrybiniame palikime, o romanas „Maras“ laikomas vienu brandžiausių rašytojo kūrinių. 1957 m. rašytojas buvo apdovanotas Nobelio literatūros premija.

Modern art has come to be defined by its styles, schools and movements. The more than three hundred collected here provide an indispensable introduction to the major developments in Western painting, sculpture, architecture and design during one of the most dynamic and exciting periods in art history.

“The four essays in this volume constitute Derrida’s most explicit and sustained reflection on the art work as pictorial artifact, a reflection partly by way of philosophical aesthetics (Kant, Heidegger), partly by way of a commentary on art works and art scholarship (Van Gogh, Adami, Titus-Carmel). The illustrations are excellent, and the translators, who clearly see their work as both a rendering and a transformation, add yet another dimension to this richly layered composition. Indispensable to collections emphasizing art criticism and aesthetics.”—Alexander Gelley, Library Journal

This unique and engaging text traces aesthetics from its ancient beginnings through the changes it underwent in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and the first half of the twentieth century. The first part of the book traces the history of the two organized notions of aesthetics-the theory of beauty and the imitation theory of art-and describes the transformations they went through from ancient Greek times until the 1950s. The responses of the cultural theories in the 1960s to these earlier developments are then discussed in detail. Four additional topics–intentionalistic criticism, symbolism, metaphor, and expression–are also addressed. Finally, five traditional art evaluational theories are presented, and the author constructs an evaluational theory of his own by building on ideas drawn from the work of Monroe Beardsley and Nelson Goodman.

Written by one of the foremost philosophers of aesthetics, Introduction to Aesthetics is ideal for undergraduate courses in the philosophy of art and aesthetics, and is also suitable for graduate seminars and courses in these areas. It offers students both a historical introduction to and the latest work on theories of art, theories of the experience of art, and theories of art evaluation.

Clement Greenberg is widely recognized as the most influential and articulate champion of modernism during its American ascendency after World War II, the period largely covered by these highly acclaimed volumes of The Collected Essays and Criticism. Volume 3: Affirmations and Refusals presents Greenberg’s writings from the period between 1950 and 1956, while Volume 4: Modernism with a Vengeance gathers essays and criticism of the years 1957 to 1969. The 120 works range from little-known pieces originally appearing Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar to such celebrated essays as “The Plight of Our Culture” (1953), “Modernist Painting” (1960), and “Post Painterly Abstraction” (1964). Preserved in their original form, these writings allow readers to witness the development and direction of Greenberg’s criticism, from his advocacy of abstract expressionism to his enthusiasm for color-field painting.

With the inclusion of critical exchanges between Greenberg and F. R. Leavis, Fairfield Porter, Thomas B. Hess, Herbert Read, Max Kozloff, and Robert Goldwater, these volumes are essential sources in the ongoing debate over modern art. For each volume, John O’Brian has furnished an introduction, a selected bibliography, and a brief summary of events that places the criticism in its artistic and historical context.

This popular anthology of twentieth-century art theoretical texts has now been expanded to take account of new research, and to include significant contributions to art theory from the 1990s.

In this book, the first edition of which was published in 1971 by Oxford University Press, Ihab Hassan takes Orphic dismemberment and regeneration as his metaphor for a radical crisis in art and language, culture and consciousness, which prefigures postmodern literature. The modern Orpheus, he writes, “sings on a lyre without strings.” Thus, his sensitive critique traces a hypothetical line from Sade through four modern authors—Hemingway, Kafka, Genet, and Beckett—to a literature still to come. But the line also breaks into two Interludes, one concerning Pataphysics, Dada, and Surrealism, and the other concerning Existentialism and Aliterature.

Combining literary history, brief biography, and critical analysis, Hassan surrounds these authors with a complement of avant-garde writers whose works also foreshadow the postmodern temper. These include Jarry, Apollinaire, Tzara, Breton, Sartre, Camus, Nathalie Sarraute, Robbe-Grillet, and in America, Cage, Salinger, Ginsberg, Barth, and Burroughs. Hassan takes account also of related contemporary developments in art, music, and philosophy, and of many works of literary theory and criticism.

For this new edition, Hassan has added a new preface and postface on the developing character of postmodernism, a concept which has gained currency since the first edition of this work, and which he himself has done much to theorize.

What the Butler Saw contains essays and interviews by Stuart Morgan, one of Britain’s leading art critics. Opening with a group of essays on American artists such as Robert Smithson, Alice Aycock, Dennis Oppenheim and William Wegman, the collection moves on to European art of the eighties, with particular reference to art in Britain and the legacy of conceptual art. From interviews with figures as diverse as Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Christian Boltanski, Stephen Campbell and Richard Prince, the essays proceed to younger artists: Steven Pippin, Rachel Whiteread, Miroslaw Balka and, in a previously unpublished text, Damien Hirst. The selection also includes the performance art of Anthony Howell, the cartoons of Glen Baxter, and the self-exposure of Robert Mapplethorpe, Jeff Koons and Madonna.

Franzas Kafka (1883–1924) – žymus austrų rašytojas, vienas ryškiausių XX a. moderniosios prozos kūrėjų. Šį rinkinį sudaro: romanas „Procesas“ (1914), novelės „Nuosprendis“ (1913), „Metamorfozė“ (1915), „Pataisos darbų kolonijoje“ (1919), „Kaimo gydytojas“ (1919), „Pranešimas akademijai“ (1919), „Bado meistras“ (1924) ir kt.

The Optical Unconscious is a pointed protest against the official story of modernism and against the critical tradition that attempted to define modern art according to certain sacred commandments and self-fulfilling truths. The account of modernism presented here challenges the vaunted principle of “vision itself.” And it is a very different story than we have ever read, not only because its insurgent plot and characters rise from below the calm surface of the known and law-like field of modernist painting, but because the voice is unlike anything we have heard before. Just as the artists of the optical unconscious assaulted the idea of autonomy and visual mastery, Rosalind Krauss abandons the historian’s voice of objective detachment and forges a new style of writing in this book: art history that insinuates diary and art theory, and that has the gait and tone of fiction.

The Optical Unconscious will be deeply vexing to modernism’s standard-bearers, and to readers who have accepted the foundational principles on which their aesthetic is based. Krauss also gives us the story that Alfred Barr, Meyer Shapiro, and Clement Greenberg repressed, the story of a small, disparate group of artists who defied modernism’s most cherished self-descriptions, giving rise to an unruly, disruptive force that persistently haunted the field of modernism from the 1920s to the 1950s and continues to disrupt it today.

In order to understand why modernism had to repress the optical unconscious, Krauss eavesdrops on Roger Fry in the salons of Bloomsbury, and spies on the toddler John Ruskin as he amuses himself with the patterns of a rug; we find her in the living room of Clement Greenberg as he complains about “smart Jewish girls with their typewriters” in the 1960s, and in colloquy with Michael Fried about Frank Stella’s love of baseball. Along the way, there are also narrative encounters with Freud, Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, Roger Caillois, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-François Lyotard.

To embody this optical unconscious, Krauss turns to the pages of Max Ernst’s collage novels, to Marcel Duchamp’s hypnotic Rotoreliefs, to Eva Hesse’s luminous sculptures, and to Cy Twombly’s, Andy Warhol’s, and Robert Morris’s scandalous decoding of Jackson Pollock’s drip pictures as “Anti-Form.” These artists introduced a new set of values into the field of twentieth-century art, offering ready-made images of obsessional fantasy in place of modernism’s intentionality and unexamined compulsions.

Signs of Psyche in Modern and Post-Modern Art examines the psychological dimension of visual culture in the twentieth century. Analysing the ways in which psychoanalysis can be used to understand art and culture, Donald Kuspit argues that modern art affirms subjectivity, whereas postmodern art, which is characterised as cynical and glamorous, denies it while, paradoxically, being unable to escape it. Assessing the depth-psychological implications of works by, among others, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, André Breton, Anselm Kiefer, and Gerhard Richter, this study persuasively demonstrates how the methods of psychoanalysis can be used to probe art works created at critical junctures of this century.

Chrestomatinio pobūdžio leidinys, skirtas XX a. užsienio šalių estetikai. Jame spausdinamos žymiausių estetikos atstovų B. Brechto, S. Moravskio, A. Natevo ir kt. veikalų ištraukos, pateikiama ir šiuolaikinės estetikos, kuriai atstovauja Z. Froidas, K. Jungas, E. Kasireris, Dž. Santajana, M. Heidegeris, pavyzdžių.

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (g. 1940) — žymus prancūzų rašytojas, jau pirmuoju romanu „Protokolas“ (1963) atkreipęs skaitytojų ir literatūros kritikų dėmesį. (Romanas apdovanotas Renaudot premija.) Visą jo kūrybą galima apibūdinti kaip maištą prieš vartotojų civilizaciją, žlugdančią žmogaus dvasią. 2008 m. rašytojui buvo paskirta Nobelio literatūros premija.

Romanas „Dykuma“, 1980 m. pelnęs Didžiąją Prancūzijos akademijos premiją, nukelia skaitytoją į smėlynų kraštą, kuris tik iš pirmo žvilgsnio atrodo nykus, tuščias ir atšiaurus. O išties ten visas oras pulsuoja gyvybe, saulės ir praėjusių kartų sukaupta energija. Dykumos gyventojai visa siela ir širdimi jaučia ryšį su gamta ir protėvių dvasia. Deja, jie neįstengia pasipriešinti geriau ginkluotiems „civilizacijos nešėjams“ ir turi pasitraukti. Bet jų palikuonys — paskutiniai laisvi žmonės — tebegirdi nenumaldomą dykumos šauksmą…

„Penkiasdešimt pagrindinių šiuolaikinių mąstytojų“ apžvelgia pačias reikšmingiausias asmenybes, turėjusias įtakos XX a. pokario minčiai. Skaitytojas vedamas per struktūralizmą, semiotiką, poststruktūralizmą ir analų istoriją iki pat modernizmo ir postmodernizmo. Dėl išsamios biografinės ir bibliografinės informacijos ši knyga yra puikus žinynas visiems tiems, kurie nori suprasti intelektualinę pastarųjų penkiasdešimt metų istoriją.

John Lechte – Julios Kristevos mokinys. Jis dėsto socialinę teoriją ir atstovavimo sociologiją Macquarie universitete Australijoje. Be to, jis yra dirbęs istorijos, semiotikos ir politikos srityse ir nuolat domisi psichoanalize. Yra plačiai aptarinėjęs ir rašęs daugeliu modernios minties aspektų.

The Primacy of Perception brings together a number of important studies by Maurice Merleau-Ponty that appeared in various publications from 1947 to 1961. The title essay, which is in essence a presentation of the underlying thesis of his Phenomenology of Perception, is followed by two courses given by Merleau-Ponty at the Sorbonne on phenomenological psychology. “Eye and Mind” and the concluding chapters present applications of Merleau-Ponty’s ideas to the realms of art, philosophy of history, and politics. Taken together, the studies in this volume provide a systematic introduction to the major themes of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy.

Ši nedidelė knygelė – paskutinis Maurice’o Merleau-Ponty tekstas, pasirodęs jam gyvam esant. 1960 metų vasarą apsistojęs Provanse ir turbūt daugiausia galvodamas apie Cézanne’ą, kadaise atkakliai tapiusį netoliese plytinčius gamtovaizdžius, filosofas dar kartą sugrįžta prie regėjimo ir tapybos temų, kurias ne kartą ir ne du buvo svarstęs savo veikaluose anksčiau. Tačiau jis nesiekia glaustai apžvelgti savo ankstesnių minčių ar pateikti įvado į jas. Merleau-Ponty tarsi dar kartą pradeda iš pradžių, apmąstydamas kelis esminius tapybos kaip tylaus, bežodžio mąstymo bruožus ir mėgindamas tuo pagrindu nubrėžti žmogaus – reginčios, regimos ir reginius kuriančios būtybės – egzistencijos pasaulyje profilį. […]. [Iš straipsnio, p. 7]

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the art critic Roger Fry introduced English-speaking audiences to modern French art and formalist aesthetic theory. A Roger Fry Reader, edited by Christopher Reed, brings together for the first time a comprehensive selection of Fry’s essays. Most appear here for the first time since their original publication in scholarly journals and art magazines, while some have never been published before. Representing 40 years of engagement with the arts, the essays cover a broad spectrum of topics, from Fry’s influential promotion of Post-Impressionism to art education, museums, architecture, decorative art, and the implications of literature and dance for the visual arts. Reed also provides valuable historical background and considers Fry’s legacy for the present. A Roger Fry Reader affords an opportunity to examine both the foundations of modern art criticism from the point of view of one of its foremost practitioners and current debates about the nature of art and aesthetic experience.

The anthology includes the most important writings on the theory of art in the Western tradition, including selections from Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche; the most important philosophical writings of the last hundred years on the theory of art, including selections from Collingwood, Langer, Goodman, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty; contemporary Continental writings on art and interpretation, including selections from Gadamer, Ricoeur, Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault; also writings on the psychology of art by Freud and Jung, from the Frankfurt School by Benjamin, Adorno, and Marcuse, in feminist theory, multiculturalism, and postmodernism. The anthology also includes twentieth-century writings by artists including discussions of futurism, suprematism, and conceptual art.

Salingeris tęsia Glasų šeimos istoriją ir šįkart pasakojama apie Simorą – pasakotojo Badžio Glaso brolį, poetą ir literatūros dėstytoją. Pirmoje, kone įtempto veiksmo, apysakoje Badis Glasas išsiprašo iš armijos ir vyksta į Simoro vestuves, jose susirinkę visi, išskyrus patį Simorą.

Badis geriau pažinti savo brolį pradeda įsėdęs į automobilį kartu su įpykusiais nuotakos giminaičiais ir pasikvietęs juos į svečius brolio bute… Antroje apysakoje Badis kuria 1948 metais nusižudžiusio Simoro literatūrinį portretą, papildo jį dzenbudizmo, haiku ir Vedų išmintimi.

Antikos tyrinėtojai linkę manyti, kad Lucilijus buvo Senekos amžininkas, galbūt globotinis, geras bičiulis, ėjęs Romos imperatoriaus vietininko pareigas Sicilijoje.

„Laiškai Lucilijui“ – tai stoišką moralinio tobulinimosi programą dėstantis veikalas. Manydamas, kad doros ir valstybės reikalai priklauso visų pirma nuo dvasinio kiekvieno žmogaus atsparumo, Seneka rūpinasi Lucilijaus „pažadinimu filosofijai“, pagrindinių stoicizmo postulatų išaiškinimu, visapusišku jų aptarimu ir įtvirtinimu.

Ne tik šiais laiškais, bet ir mažesniais traktatais bei dramomis Seneka siekė vieno: kuo adekvačiau perteikti gyvenimo pokyčių jautimą, padėti žmogui atsispirti negandoms. Seneka žavi žmogaus dvasios nuopuolio suvokimo drąsa ir bandymu išsaugoti žmonijos užgyventas vertybes aiškiausios jų žūties akivaizdoje.

A Barthes Reader gives one the image of Barthes as one of the great public teachers of our time, someone who thought out, argued for, and made available several steps in a penetrating reflection on language sign systems, texts and what they have to tell us about the concept of being human. Susan Sontag’s prefatory essay is one of her finest acts of criticism, informed by intellectual sympathy and a sure sense of the contours of the mind she is describing.

1985 metais į vokiečių literatūrą įžengė išgama žudikas Žanas Batistas Grenujis, neregėtas Patricko Süskindo romano „Kvepalai“ herojus. Rašytojas pasakoja genialaus parfumerio istoriją, įvykusią XVIII a. Prancūzijoje. Negailėdamas spalvų, kvapų ir detalių vaizduoja ano meto tikrovę ir reto, įdomaus amato subtilybes. Tačiau tei ne istorinis romanas. Tai netikėtas, pasakiškas, be galo įtaigus ir todėl juo labiau bauginantis pasakojimas apie neapykantą, meilės priešybę, – kupinas fantazijos ir sąmojo, parašytas su tiesiog šiurpą keliančiu įkvėpimu.

Knyga pristatoma, kaip knyga apie semiotinę dailėtyrą. Kaip susidaro paveikslo reikšmė? Analizuodamas septynis skirtingų epochų dailės kūrinius, autorius ieško atsakymo į šį klausimą.

This full-color, one-volume dictionary provides a guide through the maze of twentieth-century art. Including artists, movements, photographers, techniques, styles, and turn-of-the-century precursors, The Prestel Dictionary of Art and Artists in the 20th Century draws on the expertise of over sixty art historians to give a comprehensive description and interpretation of the last artistic century. Concise entries, all specially commissioned for this book, and many illustrated with works in color, cover the questions raised by encounters with modern art. Cross-references provide links between artists, concepts, and techniques, and a selected bibliography gives the latest and best books for further reading.