| Description |
1 online resource (401 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Contents |
Theory of the gimmick -- Transparency and magic in the gimmick as technique -- Readymade ideas -- It follows, or financial imps -- Visceral abstractions -- Rødland's gimmick -- The color of value: Stan Douglas's Suspiria -- Henry James's "same secret principle" |
| Summary |
"The gimmick lies latent in every made thing in capitalism, from the banana slicer to the cryptocurrency derivative to the readymade artwork that interprets itself. It includes both the painstakingly devised and the gratuitously disposable. It is what we call things when uncertain if they are over- or underperforming, if they are historically backward or just as problematically advanced, if they are wonders or tricks. With its promises about the saving of time; the reduction of labor; and the expansion of value, the gimmick gives us tantalizing glimpses of a world in which social life will no longer be organized by labor, but also of one regenerating the conditions that keep labor's social necessity in place. As Ngai takes us from the hoaxes of Edgar Allen Poe to artist Stan Douglas's interest in outmoded special effects, we begin to see how the aesthetic manipulation of the gimmick points to a much deeper exploitation. Against academic claims about Marx's value-labor theory's obsolescence, the gimmick reveals it as vibrantly alive in the realm of aesthetics"-- Provided by publisher |
| Language |
In English. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Aesthetics, Modern -- 20th century.
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Aesthetics, Modern -- 21st century.
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Aesthetics, Modern -- Philosophy.
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Hoaxes.
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Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
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Capitalism.
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PHILOSOPHY / Aesthetics |
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Aesthetics, Modern |
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Capitalism |
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Hoaxes |
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Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.) |
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Literary theory. |
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Philosophy: aesthetics. |
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Popular philosophy. |
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Literature. |
| Chronological Term |
1900-2099 |
| Other Form: |
Print version: Ngai, Sianne Theory of the gimmick Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2020 9780674984547 (DLC) 2019038757 (OCoLC)1111393809 |
| ISBN |
0674245369 electronic book |
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9780674245365 electronic book |
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9780674245341 MOBI |
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0674245342 MOBI |
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9780674245310 EPUB |
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0674245318 EPUB |
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9780674984547 hardcover |
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0674984544 hardcover |
| Standard No. |
10.4159/9780674245365 |
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