On the Animation of the Inorganic

On the Animation of the Inorganic is a major contribution to cultural studies, a lucidly written work of dazzling scholarship and theoretical brilliance. For Spyros Papapetros, the vicissitudes in the history of animation from the mid-nineteenth century to the present are exciting chapters in the history of the mind's incessant efforts to formulate the analogies and correspondences between the human subject and the spaces and objects of the world it inhabits. This ground-breaking study will be of great interest to students and specialists of several disciplines, including art history, architecture, psychoanalysis, and aesthetic theory. --Leo Bersani, University of California, Berkeley Things are not what they used to be, and perhaps they never were. The boundaries between inanimate objects and living organisms, so fundamental to norms of positive science and common sense, shimmer and shatter in this elegant history of animation in modernist art and architecture. You will never look at those annoying appliances and perverse pillars in quite the same way after reading this marvelous book, which should, by all rights, turn its own pages. --W. J. T. Mitchell, University of Chicago Spyros Papapetros is a most attentive reader and subtle interpreter, alert to nuance and innuendo, but equally weary of snap judgments and free of ideological blinkers. On the Animation of the Inorganic not only raises issues of enduring importance but also brings out many implications of their presumed significance, which leads to illuminating reconsiderations of the writings of Alois Riegl and Wilhelm Worringer and opens up new perspectives from familiar ideas expressed by Aby Warburg and Walter Benjamin. There are many nuggets of insight and numerous felicitous formulations in this book that will help secure a place for it in current debates. --Kurt Forster, Yale University On the Animation of the Inorganic is a major contribution to cultural studies, a lucidly written workof dazzling scholarship and theoretical brilliance. For Spyros Papapetros, the vicissitudes in the history of animationfrom the mid-nineteenth century to the present are exciting chapters in the history of the mind s incessant efforts to formulate the analogies and correspondences between the human subject and the spaces and objects of the world it inhabits.This ground-breakingstudy will be of great interest to students and specialists of several disciplines, including art history, architecture, psychoanalysis, and aesthetic theory. --Leo Bersani, University of California, Berkeley Things are not what they used to be, and perhaps they never were.The boundaries between inanimate objects and living organisms, so fundamental to norms of positive science and common sense, shimmer and shatter in this elegant history of animation in modernist art and architecture.You will never look at those annoying appliances and perverse pillars in quite the same way after reading this marvelous book, which should, by all rights, turn its own pages. --W. J. T. Mitchell, University of Chicago Spyros Papapetros is a most attentive reader and subtle interpreter, alert to nuance and innuendo, but equally weary of snap judgments and free of ideological blinkers. On the Animation of the Inorganic not only raises issues of enduring importance but also brings out many implications of their presumed significance, which leads to illuminating reconsiderations of the writings of Alois Riegl and Wilhelm Worringer and opens up new perspectives from familiar ideas expressed by Aby Warburg and Walter Benjamin. There are many nuggets of insight and numerous felicitous formulations in this book that will help secure a place for it in current debates. --Kurt Forster, Yale University