Critique of Authenticity

Thomas Claviez · Kornelia Imesch · Britta Sweers

Jan 2020 · Vernon Press

About this ebook

The volume provides a critical assessment of the concept of authenticity and gauges its role, significance and shortcomings in a variety of disciplinary contexts. Many of the contributions communicate with each other and thus acknowledge the enormous significance of this politically, morally, philosophically and economically-charged concept that at the same time harbors dangerous implications and has been critically deconstructed. The volume shows that the alleged need or desire for authenticity is alive and kicking but oftentimes comes at a high price, connected to a culture of experts, authority and exclusionary strategies.

About the author

Thomas Claviez holds the chair for Literary Theory at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He has published widely on issues of community, recognition, literary theory and moral philosophy. He is the author of several books and is currently working on a monograph with the title The Metonymic Community: Towards a Poetics of Contingency.

Kornelia Imesch is Professor for Modern and Contemporary Art and Architecture at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She focuses her research on national, international and non-Western art and architecture; the art system; the relationship between art, architecture, and branding; art and film; and art and gender.

Britta Sweers is Professor of Cultural Anthropology of Music at the Institute of Musicology and Director of the Center for Global Studies (since 2015) at the University of Bern (Switzerland). Since 2015 she has also been President of the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology (ESEM). Sweers is co-editor of the European Journal of Musicology and of the Equinox book series Transcultural Music Studies.