Review of Iconoclasm: The Breaking and Making of Images edited by Rachel F. Stapleton and Antonio Viselli (McGill-Queen University Press)

Abstract

Using an eclectic mix of artifacts (e.g. romance novels, historical sites, religious texts, literary texts), Iconoclasm highlights the cyclical nature of iconoclastic gestures and iconolatry. For the authors in this edited collection, iconoclasts re-energize iconophiles’ investments in a particular object through its shattering. In taking a Nietzschean perspective on destruction, they also gesture toward the ways in which iconoclastic acts contain the seeds of a new form of idol worship. Highlighting what they call the Taussigian principle, this text compels the reader to consider whether iconoclasm unwittingly reproduces the dialectical relationships it attempts to escape.