Renunciation: Acts of Abandonment by Writers, Philosophers, and Artists

by Ross Posnock

Renunciation as a creative force in the careers of writers, philosophers, and artists is the animating idea behind Ross Posnock’s new book. Taking up acts of abandonment, rejection, and refusal that have long baffled critics, he shows how renunciation has reframed the relationship of artists and intellectuals to society in productive and unpredictable ways.In a work of remarkable synthesis that includes traditions and genres from antiquity to postmodernity, Posnock discovers connections among disparate figures ranging from Lao Tzu to Dave Chappelle and Bob Dylan. The thread running through these acts of renunciation, he argues, is an aesthetic and ethical resistance to the demand that one’s words and actions be straightforward and immediately comprehensible. Modern art in particular valorizes the nonconceptual and the intuitive, seeking to make silence articulate and incompletion fertile.Renouncers reject not only artistic and scholarly conventions but also the public roles that attend them. Wittgenstein, Rimbaud, and Glenn Gould brazenly flouted professional and popular expectations, demanding that philosophy, poetry, music play by new rules. Emerson and Nietzsche severed all institutional ties, while William James waged a guerrilla campaign from his post at Harvard against what all three considered to be the the pernicious philosophical insistence on rationality. Posnock also examines renunciations in light of World War II—the veterans J. D. Salinger and George Oppen, and the Holocaust survivor Paul Celan—while a fourth cluster includes the mystic Thomas Merton and the abstract painters Ad Reinhardt and Agnes Martin.

Genres: Biography, Philosophy

414 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 4, 2016

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a pretty challenging and scholarly read for me, but I thought it was extremely well composed and fascinating, and I learned a ton.....both in a more general conceptual sense as well as specifics about a variety of disciplines.....philosophy, theology, music, film, painting, etc. An emphatic recommend if you're feeling contemplative.

[Matt Mackane | Books & Walking · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary cultural, artistic, and intellectual history which examines in depth the works of (among others): Ludwig Wittgenstein, William James, Friedrich Nietzsche, J. D. Salinger, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, John Cage, Susan Sontag, Bob Dylan, William James, Paul Celan, Thomas Merton, and Martin Heidegger. Renunciation in the works of these artists, philosophers, and writers acts as a rejection of the need to be a "success" in the world's terms but rather a re-orientation to one's work and vocation as satisfying in itself. Posnock's writing on the artist, Agnes Martin, serves as an excellent example of this idea, as Martin says: "I created my works with my back turned to the world." A unique and inspiring read which weaves together a brilliant telling of intellectual and cultural history. Much recommended!

[teo · Rating 4 out of 5]

General walk through of different creatives and the different ways they reject or avoid conventions of their mediums. The flowing nature of it lends to a casual read, but some sections (part 7 specifically) feel like a drag. Great for finding other creatives who looked for something outside of the status quo.

[Mills College Library]

128 P8559 2016