Camera Obscura Camera Lucida - Essays in Honor of Annette Michelson

Annette Michelson’s contributions to art and film criticism over the last three decades have been unparalleled. This volume honors her unique legacy with original essays by some of the many scholars who have been influenced by her work. Some continue her efforts to develop theoretical frameworks for understanding modernist art, while others practice her form of interdisciplinary criticism in relation to avant-garde and modernist art works and artists. Still others investigate and evaluate Michelson’s work itself. All in some way pay homage to her extraordinary contribution.

As the 19th century drew to a close, the age-old quest to understand the physical world appeared to be complete except for a few minor details. "It seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established," said Albert Michelson, the first American scientist to win a Nobel Prize. But when Michelson made that prediction, he never dreamed that one of the "details"would soon be explained by a revolutionary theory that redefined the very concepts of space, time, matter, and energy.