{"product_id":"9780228024491-illegitimate-age","title":"The Illegitimate Age","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAesthetics and Political Theology\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough an analysis of the katechon myth – a withholding power that contains the very evil it restrains – The Illegitimate Age reveals an aesthetic lens through which to interpret the legitimacy of political power, the appeal of populism, and the role of the image in current society.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eOur age – saturated with media images and ever-present political crises – traces back to the beginning of Christianity and its messianic vision of the world. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, our sense of time and history has become apocalyptic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe Illegitimate Age\u003c\/em\u003e Federico Vercellone explains contemporary affinities for both apocalypse and media imagery from the perspective of political theology, drawing from St Paul’s mysterious figure of the \u003cem\u003ekatechon\u003c\/em\u003e – the withholding power that prevents the arrival of the Antichrist and the end of times while also delaying the Messiah, therefore containing the very evil it restrains. Vercellone highlights representation as a crucial aspect of the katechon myth, finding within it the roots of current political and aesthetic forms. In the context of contemporary populism, charismatic leaders build their power on presumed prestige, mimicry of sacred figures, and pandering invocations of kitsch, all recurrent aspects of the katechon and Antichrist trope in Western art and history. Political power, Vercellone argues, has been deeply aestheticized, and the path that led us here was laid long before mass media, mass consumption, and our society of the spectacle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA new interpretation of the political and aesthetic categories first suggested by Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, and Jean Baudrillard, \u003cem\u003eThe Illegitimate Age\u003c\/em\u003e turns a fresh lens on the legitimacy of political power, the appeal of populism, and the role of the image in our society.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55862373548406,"sku":"9780228024491","price":24.06,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/stand_38939500_81856849-1d48-4f36-b0b5-06b494befe99.jpg?v=1764844377","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780228024491-illegitimate-age","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}