A Brief History of the Masses

Autorentext
Stefan Jonsson is a writer and critic based in Stockholm, Sweden. He is associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of Linköping and has been a fellow at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and visiting professor at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Subject Without Nation: Robert Musil and the History of Modern Identity.

Klappentext
Through a close reading of three monumental works of art& mdash;Jacques-Louis David's The Tennis Court Oath (1791), James Ensor's Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889 (1888), and Alfredo Jaar's They Loved It So Much, the Revolution (1989)& mdash;Stefan Jonsson launches a unique investigation into an age-old dilemma: How do artists fashion a truthful representation of "the people"? Addressing, respectively, The French Revolution of 1789, Belgium's proletarian messianism in the 1880s, and Eastern Europe's Velvet Revolutions of 1989, these works depict not only an alternative view of history, Jonsson argues, but capture the very essence of democracy.Drawing on examples from literature, politics, philosophy, and additional pieces of art, Jonsson's research reveals surprising parallels between the people's political representation (in government) and their aesthetic representation (in painting). Both essentially "frame" the people, defining them as elites or masses, responsible citizens or angry mobs. Yet in the aesthetic fantasies of David, Ensor, and Jaar, Jonsson finds a different understanding of democracy-one in which human collectives are able to break the frame and enter the picture. A Brief History of the Masses is at once a cultural history and a contemporary discussion about the fate of democracy in our globalized world. Jonsson connects the achievements and failures of past revolutions to current political issues and situates our present moment in a long historical drama of popular unrest.

Zusammenfassung
Drawing on examples from literature, politics, philosophy, and additional pieces of art, this book reveals surprising parallels between the people's political representation and their aesthetic representation.

Inhalt
List of Illustrations
1789: Jacques-Louis David, The Tennis Court Oath
1. Seizing the Floor
2. The Shadow of Democracy
3. The Number of People
4. The Swinish Multitude
5. Social Depths
6. The Hydra
7. Marianne
8. Les Misérables
9. The Barricade
10. Making Monkey
11. Smokescreens
12. Mass Grave
1889: James Ensor, Christ's Entry Into Brussels in 1889
13. The Crucified
14. The Belgian's Glory
15. Divorce
16. Hallucinations
17. Society Degree Zero
18. The Nigger
19. The Modern Breakthrough
20. Songs of the Fool
21. Homo Sacer
1989: Alfredo Jaar, They Loved It So Much, the Revolution
22. The Beloved
23. The Backside of the State
24. The Empty Throne
25. Political Violence
26. With Nails of Gold
27. Of Men and Beasts
28. Desperados
29. Autoimmunity
30. Saints
31. Complaints
32. The Baggage of the Barbarians
33. Departure
Afterword
Notes
Index

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