Time-Images: Alternative Temporalities in Twentieth Century Theory, Literature, and Art

The concept of time-image, this book argues, holds broad potential for the historical interpretation of cultural and aesthetic works. Many works that would not ordinarily be thought to be historical artifacts reveal their intrinsic historical character in light of this innovative interpretative concept. The books first section, Time-Images as Theory and Historiography, considers alternative temporalities underlying historicizing theories and specific practices of history. Examples treated here include the notion of retro-avantgardism, works by the Frankfurt School on the interrelations of images and history, and Mass Observations dream documentation project. The second section, Time-Images in Modernist and Postmodernist Literature, considers literary instances in which alternative notions of historical time are engaged. These include discussions of Wyndham Lewis and cultural revolution, Theodor Adornos reading of Samuel Becketts Endgame, and Pier Paolo Pasolinis use of Antonio Gramsci in the practice of poetry and philology. The third section, Moving Images of Time, discusses questions of cinema including childrens experience in films depicting traumatic historical events, the Quay Brothers animated adaptation of Bruno Schulzs Street of Crocodiles, and Sergei Eisensteins and Charles Olsons engagements in Mexico with pictographic representation, etymology, and archeological time.