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Survival of the Fireflies

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Survival of the Fireflies
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Georges Didi-Huberman
Translated by Lia Swope Mitchell
SeriesUnivocal
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:112
Dimensions(mm): Height 203,Width 127
Category/GenreLiterary studies - classical, early and medieval
Non-western philosophy
Social and political philosophy
ISBN/Barcode 9781517905743
ClassificationsDewey:155.925
Audience
General
Professional & Vocational
Illustrations 2

Publishing Details

Publisher University of Minnesota Press
Imprint University of Minnesota Press
Publication Date 4 September 2018
Publication Country United States

Description

Seeking out the minor lights of friendship in a time of fascism Dante once spoke, in his Divine Comedy, of the miniscule lights, in the twenty-sixth canto of the Inferno, who, contrary to the great lights that shined bright within the sublime circles of Paradise, frailly wandered in the somber pockets of glimmering light within the darkness. Pliny the Elder was once preoccupied by a type of fly named pyrallis or pyrotocon, which was only able to fly within fire: "as long as it remains in the fire, it can fly; when its flight takes it out too far a distance, it dies." Through his readings of Dante, Pasolini, Walter Benjamin, and others, Georges Didi-Huberman seeks again to understand this strange, minor light, the signals of small beings in search of love and friendship. Their flickering presence serves as a counterforce to the blinding sovereign power that Giorgio Agamben calls The Kingdom and the Glory, that artificial brilliance that once surrounded dictators and today emanates from every screen. In this timely reflection, much needed in our time of excessive light, Didi-Huberman's Survival of the Fireflies offers a humble yet powerful image of individual hope and desire: the firefly-image.

Author Biography

Georges Didi-Huberman is lecturer at the Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales in Paris. He has published more than twenty books on art history and philosophy and received the 2015 Theodor W. Adorno Prize. Lia Swope Mitchell is a writer and translator in Minneapolis.