Aesthetics of Equality

Presuming that the problem of political equality, as it bears on both persons and assemblages, is about being accorded access to the material and symbolic resources needed to manage an effective civic presence, Michael J. Shapiro's critical interventions engage the way aesthetic genres illustrate this problem. Addressing literary, cinematic, photographic, musical, art historical, and architectural compositions, Shapiro's inquiries encounter the way a wide variety of texts elevate voices, bodies, and life dramas that have existed below thresholds of recognition. In Aesthetics of Equality, Shapiro offers a guide to aesthetic methods that emphasize the way writing strategies engage diverse artistic genres to articulate political problems. Emphasizing relationships between compositional form and ideational commitment, while focusing on the texts' protagonists (aesthetic subjects), the analyses cover a wide variety of spaces and historical moments in scenes ranging from ancient Israel and Egypt in the Old Testament's Genesis to the ethno-histories of California and Texas, with attention on the right to urban space in such megacities as Paris, New York, Los Angeles, and Istanbul.

Michael J. Shapiro is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is the author of several books, including War Crimes, Atrocity and Justice; Politics and Time; The Political Sublime; Punctuations: How the Arts Think the Political; The Cinematic Political: Film Composition as Political Theory; and Writing Politics: Studies in Compositional Method.