Penser l'image: A Multidisciplinary Anthology on Contemporary Visual Culture

Edited by Emmanuel Alloa, 'Penser l'image' is one of the inaugural volumes of the new 'Perceptions' collection published in 2010 by Presses du Réel. The book gathers a dozen texts from philosophers, theorists, and art historians, all centered on the position of images in the contemporary world. Originating from a seminar held at the Collège international de philosophie in 2007 and 2008, the collection was significantly expanded with key contributions, including those by Hans Belting and Horst Bredekamp, and a critical exchange between Tom Mitchell and Jacques Rancière through two interresponsive texts. Structured into four sections—The Place of Images, Historical Perspective, The Life of Images, and Restitution—the anthology brings together heterogeneous approaches from American visual studies to German Bildwissenschaften. Notable analyses include Anne-Marie Mondzain's examination of negative handprints as a gesture of withdrawal, Alloa's revival of the forgotten science of 'idolology', and Belting's interpretation of the moucharabieh as a symbolic form of transparency and opacity. The volume features previously untranslated texts (Mitchell, Belting) and offers a comprehensive overview of transformations in the visual field within contemporary knowledge.