The Centre as Margin: Eccentric Perspectives on Art

This fascinating book immerses us into the fertile ground of the ‘margin’ and its fluid and porous relation to the ‘centre’ across history. It cogently explores the seductive and transgressive nature of margins in art, literature, music, philosophy and other disciplines. In highlighting the reciprocal yet paradoxical relationship between norm and deviant, the manuscript reassesses our understanding of periphery. What lies in the margin? How does the centralisation of margins transform aesthetic, cultural and geographic boundaries? Do genius, imagination, innovation and originality impel marginality? The volume’s persuasive analyses of images, musical compositions, ornamental objects and architectural spaces, as well as its consideration of the monstrous and the anomalous, invite reflection and suggest possibilities for new investigations. The edited collection of 17 essays is a provocative and timely study into the historical relevance, the defiance, the power and the sheer wonder of the margin and its limitless potential.

Cristina S. Martinez

International Summer Institute for the Cultural Study of Law, University of Osnabrück, Germany