This is a book about the public display of death in contemporary culture. It consists of a series of essays on specific cases in which death is displayed in museums and in photography. The essays focus mainly on representations of violence and death in events in recent Israeli history, including the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian Intifada, and on the visual presence of traumatic events in Israeli culture throughout the twentieth century. They show how images of these events both shape and aestheticize the viewer's experience of death.The book offers a new reading of the work of Walter Benjamin, particularly his essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Engaging the disciplinary perspectives of philosophy, art history, cultural studies, and photographic theory, the book also draws upon the work of such writers as Jean Baudrillard, Pierre Bourdieu, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jean-Luc Nancy.

Death's Showcase: The Power of Image in Contemporary Democracy

Literature & Fiction

Azoulay, Ariella

Essays & Correspondence

Mit Pr

An interdisciplinary exploration of the visual presence of death in contemporary culture.
This is a book about the public display of death in contemporary culture. It consists of a series of essays on specific cases in which death is displayed in museums and in photography. The essays focus mainly on representations of violence and death in events in recent Israeli history, including the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian Intifada, and on the visual presence of traumatic events in Israeli culture throughout the twentieth century. They show how images of these events both shape and aestheticize the viewer's experience of death.
The book offers a new reading of the work of Walter Benjamin, particularly his essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.' Engaging the disciplinary perspectives of philosophy, art history, cultural studies, and photographic theory, the book also draws upon the work of such writers as Jean Baudrillard, Pierre Bourdieu, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jean-Luc Nancy.

From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950

In this carefully curated and beautifully presented photobook, Ariella Azoulay offers a new perspective on four crucial years in the history of Palestine/Israel. The book reconstructs the processes by which the Palestinian majority in Mandatory Palestine became a minority in Israel, while the Jewish minority established a new political entity in which it became a majority ruling a minority Palestinian population. By reading over 200 photographs from that period, most of which were previously confined to Israeli state archives, Azoulay recounts the events and the stories that for years have been ignored or only partially acknowledged in Israel and the West. Including substantial analytical text, this book will give activists, scholars and journalists a new perspective on the origins of the Palestine-Israel conflict.

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Pluto Press

In this carefully curated and beautifully presented photobook, Ariella Azoulay offers a new perspective on four crucial years in the history of Palestine/Israel.The book reconstructs the processes by which the Palestinian majority in Mandatory Palestine became a minority in Israel, while the Jewish minority established a new political entity in which it became a majority ruling a minority Palestinian population. By reading over 200 photographs from that period, most of which were previously confined to Israeli state archives, Azoulay recounts the events and the stories that for years have been ignored or only partially acknowledged in Israel and the West.Including substantial analytical text, this book will give activists, scholars and journalists a new perspective on the origins of the Palestine-Israel conflict.

The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine (Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures)

Since the start of the occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, Israel's domination of the Palestinians has deprived an entire population of any political status or protection. But even decades on, most people speak of this rule―both in everyday political discussion and in legal and academic debates―as temporary, as a state of affairs incidental and external to the Israeli regime. In The One-State Condition, Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir directly challenge this belief. Looking closely at the history and contemporary formation of the ruling apparatus―the technologies and operations of the Israeli army, the General Security Services, and the legal system imposed in the Occupied Territories―Azoulay and Ophir outline the one-state condition of Israel/Palestine: the grounding principle of Israeli governance is the perpetuation of differential rule over populations of differing status. Israeli citizenship is shaped through the active denial of Palestinian citizenship and civil rights. Though many Israelis, on both political right and left, agree that the occupation constitutes a problem for Israeli democracy, few ultimately admit that Israel is no democracy or question the very structure of the Israeli regime itself. Too frequently ignored are the lasting effects of the deceptive denial of the events of 1948 and 1967, and the ways in which the resulting occupation has reinforced the sweeping militarization and recent racialization of Israeli society. Azoulay and Ophir show that acknowledgment of the one-state condition is not only a prerequisite for considering a one- or two-state solution; it is a prerequisite for advancing new ideas to move beyond the trap of this false dilemma.

History

Ophir, Adi

Middle East

Stanford University Press

Since the start of the occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, Israel's domination of the Palestinians has deprived an entire population of any political status or protection. But even decades on, most people speak of this rule―both in everyday political discussion and in legal and academic debates―as temporary, as a state of affairs incidental and external to the Israeli regime. In The One-State Condition, Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir directly challenge this belief. Looking closely at the history and contemporary formation of the ruling apparatus―the technologies and operations of the Israeli army, the General Security Services, and the legal system imposed in the Occupied Territories―Azoulay and Ophir outline the one-state condition of Israel/Palestine: the grounding principle of Israeli governance is the perpetuation of differential rule over populations of differing status. Israeli citizenship is shaped through the active denial of Palestinian citizenship and civil rights. Though many Israelis, on both political right and left, agree that the occupation constitutes a problem for Israeli democracy, few ultimately admit that Israel is no democracy or question the very structure of the Israeli regime itself. Too frequently ignored are the lasting effects of the deceptive denial of the events of 1948 and 1967, and the ways in which the resulting occupation has reinforced the sweeping militarization and recent racialization of Israeli society. Azoulay and Ophir show that acknowledgment of the one-state condition is not only a prerequisite for considering a one- or two-state solution; it is a prerequisite for advancing new ideas to move beyond the trap of this false dilemma.

This volume is a collection of drawings and captions for “unshowable” photographs taken in Palestine in 1947–50, gathered from the International Committee of the Red Cross archives in Geneva by the well-known author and cultural critic Ariella Azoulay, author of The Political Ontology of Photography and The Civil Contract of Photography.

Ariella Azoulay: Different Ways Not to Say Deportation

Individual Artists

Fillip Editions

For the past four years, photographer Gillian Laub has worked in Israel and Palestine, producing portraits of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Nablus and other locations in the region. This volume contains 50 of her portraits of Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, displaced Lebanese families and Palestinians--each personally affected by the geopolitical context in which they live, and each unveiling one more essential element in the puzzle of peace for the Middle East. In some of Laub's photographs, the traces of conflict are immediately observable--teenage boys without limbs; a young woman enveloped in scar tissue and a burn-recovery suit. Others are seemingly free from the disfigurements of violence. Yet in the interviews that accompany each portrait, a common thread of survival is revealed. Resilience, pride, defiance, vulnerability--and most astonishing of all, optimism--emerge from one statement to the next. The esteemed author, journalist and policy analyst, David Rieff, has said of Laub's work, "To consider [these] images is to be reminded not just of human cruelty and human stupidity but also of human tenacity." Two essays, one by the Palestinian-Israeli civil rights lawyer Raef Zreik, and one by the distinguished Israeli author Ariella Azoulay, underline the complexity of the work and the dialogue that Laub intends it to spark.

Gillian Laub: Testimony

Zreik, Raef

Aperture

The Civil Contract of Photography (Zone Books)

The Civil Contract of Photography

Photography & Video

Zone Books

An argument that anyone can pursue political agency and resistance through photography, even those with flawed or nonexistent citizenship.
In this compelling work, Ariella Azoulay reconsiders the political and ethical status of photography. Describing the power relations that sustain and make possible photographic meanings, Azoulay argues that anyone―even a stateless person―who addresses others through photographs or is addressed by photographs can become a member of the citizenry of photography. The civil contract of photography enables anyone to pursue political agency and resistance through photography.
Photography, Azoulay insists, cannot be understood separately from the many catastrophes of recent history. The crucial arguments of her book concern two groups with flawed or nonexistent citizenship: the Palestinian noncitizens of Israel and women in Western societies. Azoulay analyzes Israeli press photographs of violent episodes in the Occupied Territories, and interprets various photographs of women―from famous images by stop-motion photographer Eadweard Muybridge to photographs from Abu Ghraib prison. Azoulay asks this question: under what legal, political, or cultural conditions does it become possible to see and to show disaster that befalls those who can claim only incomplete or nonexistent citizenship?
Drawing on such key texts in the history of modern citizenship as the Declaration of the Rights of Man together with relevant work by Giorgio Agamben, Jean-François Lyotard, Susan Sontag, and Roland Barthes, Azoulay explores the visual field of catastrophe, injustice, and suffering in our time. Her book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the disasters of recent history―and the consequences of how these events and their victims have been represented.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Azoulay, Ariella. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Azoulay, Ariella

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Azoulay, Ariella. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Death's Showcase: The Power of Image in Contemporary Democracy

Death's Showcase: The Power of Image in Contemporary Democracy

From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950

From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950

The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine (Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures)

The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine (Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures)

Ariella Azoulay: Different Ways Not to Say Deportation

Gillian Laub: Testimony

The Civil Contract of Photography

The Civil Contract of Photography (Zone Books)