Gift and Visual Culture

The gift represents one of the most complex issues incultural relations. It defines and pervades individual and social interaction; it forms the basis of our everyday life; it is embedded in power, subjectivity, pleasure, and meaning. The Giftand Visual Culture explores the relationship between the image andsystems of exchange. It explores the constructions of the gift in psychoanalysis, cultural theory, and philosophy. Key theorists examined include Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, D.W. Winnicott, Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, and Julia Kristeva. It draws on awide range of visual sources, in particular cinema, photography,and painting to examine the relationship of the image to the gift. Key themes and concepts explored include the double, exchange,spatial and temporal constructions, transference, the viral, andthe spectral. The book problematises the act of giving and thestatus of giftness. In doing so it addresses one of the fundamentalissues of exchange: is the gift possible? The interdiscplinarynature of this book makes it an invaluable resource for anyonestudying visual culture, critical theory and culturalstudies.