Reading Images in the End Times

Abstract

This review essay engages Desmond Manderson’s latest book Danse Macabre: Temporalities of Law in the Visual Arts, as an exercise in reading images in the disciplinary field of law and humanities. It situates Manderson’s methodology within his broader work in law and aesthetics, discusses its politics in terms of a commitment to Derridean immanent critique, and inquires into the limitations of its scope and approach. It then attempts to use Manderson’s book as inspiration to think through the temporal predicament of the climate crisis and the political requirements of climate justice by employing his critical tools in the reading of an artwork.