the miracle of analogy is the first of a two-volume reconceptualization of photography. it argues that photography originates in what is seen, rather than in the human eye or the camera lens, and that it is the world's primary way of revealing itself to us. neither an index, representation, nor copy, as conventional studies would have it, the photographic image is an analogy. this principle obtains at every level of its being: a photograph analogizes its referent, the negative from which it is generated, every other print that is struck from that negative, and all of its digital "offspring."

photography is also unstoppably developmental, both at the level of the individual image and of medium. the photograph moves through time, in search of other "kin," some of which may be visual, but others of which may be literary, architectural, philosophical, or literary. finally, photography develops with us, and in response to us. it assumes historically legible forms, but when we divest them of their saving power, as we always seem to do, it goes elsewhere.

the present volume focuses on the nineteenth century and some of its contemporary progeny. it begins with the camera obscura, which morphed into chemical photography and lives on in digital form, and ends with walter benjamin. key figures discussed along the way include nic phore ni pce, louis daguerre, william fox-talbot, jeff wall, and joan fontcuberta.

in this book, jaime rodr guez matos proposes the "formless" as a point of departure in thinking through the relationship between politics and time. thinking through both literary and political writings around the cuban revolution, rodr guez matos explores the link between abstract symbolic procedures and various political experiments that have sought to give form to a principle of sovereignty based on the category of representation. in doing so, he proposes the formless as the limit of modern and contemporary reflections on the meaning of politics while exploring the philosophical consequences of a formless concept of temporality for the critique of metaphysics.

rodr guez matos takes the writing and thought of jos lezama lima as the guiding thread in exploring the possibility of a politicity in which time is imagined beyond the disciplining functions it has had throughout the metaphysical tradition--a time of the absence of time, in which the absence of time no longer means eternity.

in this fascinating reappraisal of the non-literary drama of the late 19th - early 20th century, christopher fitz-simon discloses a unique world of plays, players and producers in metropolitan theatres in ireland and other countries where ireland was viewed as a source of extraordinary topics at once contemporary and comfortably remote: revolution, eviction, famine, agrarian agitation, political assassination.

the form was the fashionable one of melodrama, yet irish melodrama was of a particular kind replete with hidden messages, and the language was far more allusive, colourful and entertaining than that of its english equivalent. there was much diversity, as shown in plays as different as murray & shine's an irish gentleman, hubert o'grady's the priest hunter, j.w.whitbread's the victoria cross and edward selden's mckenna's flirtation.