Elegy for Theory

298 Pages·2014·2.187 MB·English

by  D. N. Rodowick

elegy for theory

ELEGY FOR THEORY
D. N. Rodowick
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, En gland
2014
Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Rodowick, David Norman.
Elegy for theory / D.N. Rodowick.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-04669-6
1. Motion pictures—Philosophy. I. Title.
PN1995.R6193 2013
791.4301—dc23
2013012601
For Dudley Andrew, who guided my thought at the beginning . . .

Contents
In Place of Beginning . . . xi
1 A Compass in a Moving World 1
2 Many Lines of Descent 5
3 Th eoria as Practical Philosophy 7
4 Th e Sage Is Wise Only in Th eory 13
5 Variations and Discontinuities: Aesthetic 18
6 How Art Found Th eory 27
7 Philosophy before the Arts 37
8 Th e Rarity of Th eory 54
9 On the History of Film Th eory 66
10 Genres of Th eory 72
11 Excursus: Ricciotto Canudo and the Aesthetic Discourse 80
12 On the Way to Language 89
13 Th e Travels of Formalism 96
14 An Uncertain and Irrational Art 112
15 A Small History of Structuralism 131
16 Aft er the Long Eclipse 152
17 An Object, a Method, a Domain 160
18 A Care for the Claims of Th eory 168
19 Th e Sense of an Ending 200
20 “Suddenly, an Age of Th eory” 207
21 Th e Fift h Element 214
22 “A Struggle without End, Exterior and Interior” 232
23 Becoming a Subject in Th eory 246
Ac know ledg ments 267
Index 271

Ein philosophisches Problem hat die Form: “Ich kenne mich nicht aus.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Mark Tansey, West Face, 2004 © Mark Tansey. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Robert McKeever.