Anticipations of Freedom

Abstract These chapters describe and defend Cavell’s philosophical anthropology and critical-aesthetic practice. They situate that practice as both a response to and a furthering of an image of America as a site of futural freedom always to be achieved, and they extend Cavell’s practice into new readings of works of poetry, film, and music. In doing so, they show us how we might live with our shared modern condition more productively, through engagement with the affordances of art. Cavell’s own writing in turn both describes and re-enacts this achievement, thus itself manifesting the powers of art in response to modern life and serving as a model of ‘knowing how to go on’ within its ambit.