Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Notes on Totalitarianism
A Critique of Dominant Understandings of “Totalitarianism”
Classical vs. Advanced Totalitarianism
Totalitarian Mechanization and Standardization
Closing

2. The Production of Space
Space as Production
Lefebvre’s Spatial Dialectic
Dominated Space

3. Spatial Technologies of Power
Transparency
“Enlightenment Is Totalitarian”
Panopticism
The Gaze
Heterotopia or the Poetics of Spatial Aura

4. Conceptualizing Aura
The Indefinability of Aura
Aura as a Negative Notion
Aura as Trace
Returning the Gaze
Lost Trace
Aura as Veil
Aura as Distance
Conclusion

5. The Destruction of Aura and Its Political Implications
Auralessness and New Absolutism
Fetish vs. Aura
Renavigation

6. Images and the Production of Totalitarian Space
Images as Means of Creating Hyperreality
Images as Means of Panopticism
Images as Means of Producing and Maintaining the Omnipresent Cult
Images as Repetitive Patterns Simulating Spatial Sameness
The Commodity and the Spectacle

7. In the Absence of Aura: Spatial Dialectics of Despair and Hope
Auratic Negativity and Space

Notes
References
Index

About the Author

Saladdin Ahmed is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Siena College.

Reviews

"This is a clear and important contribution to the existing literature and contemporary political thought in general. It expounds upon Benjamin's analysis of the aura in his famous essay, 'Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,' and, importantly, illustrates how this concept is incredibly pertinent to our society today." — Mary Caputi, author of Feminism and Power: The Need for Critical Theory