Portraits, this book suggests, unlock the paradoxes of subjectivity.
Nancy shows how the portrait, far from conveying a sitter's self-sameness, is suspended between proximity and distance, likeness and strangeness, representation and presentation, the faithful and the forceful.
A portrait can identify an individual, but it can also express a more complex double movement of approach and withdrawal.
Portrait comprises two extended essays in close conversation, written a decade apa.
Fordham University Press Portrait, paperback/jean-luc nancy
