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Coda

Eusynoptos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

John Hoffmann
Affiliation:
Chapman University, California
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Summary

“Eusynoptos” takes its title from the Aristotelian notion of εσύνοπτος: “easily taken in at a glance.” In the Politics, Aristotle maintains that the size of a city is strictly delimited by the number of citizens that can be visually comprehended at a glance. But what if a machine were to augment the sensory capacities of humans? Could a political entity then be expanded beyond its natural limits? Confronting these questions in his film theory, Walter Benjamin modernizes eusynoptos by showing how the movie camera records large masses of individuals in a manner impossible for the naked eye. Informed by Benjamin’s idiosyncratic Marxism, the coda examines the reception of Nazi propaganda films in the United States in order to develop a critical theory of collective spectatorship that promotes a rational politics, thereby pressing back on an irrationalist tradition in aesthetics leading from Schelling and Schopenhauer through Nietzsche to fascism.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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  • Coda
  • John Hoffmann, Chapman University, California
  • Book: Modernism, Aesthetics and Anthropology
  • Online publication: 09 January 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009474498.010
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  • Coda
  • John Hoffmann, Chapman University, California
  • Book: Modernism, Aesthetics and Anthropology
  • Online publication: 09 January 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009474498.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Coda
  • John Hoffmann, Chapman University, California
  • Book: Modernism, Aesthetics and Anthropology
  • Online publication: 09 January 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009474498.010
Available formats
×