Lucy Steeds is an editor of the Exhibition Histories series for Afterall Books and pathway leader in Exhibition Studies at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London.

MIT Press Direct is a distinctive collection of influential MIT Press books curated for scholars and libraries worldwide. Antony Hudek is Senior Lecturer at Liverpool School of Art and Design, Liverpool John Moores University. He is a translator of works by Jean-François Lyotard, a writer on contemporary art, independent curator and co-publisher of Occasional Papers.

Writers include Glenn Adamson, Elissa Auther, Reyner Banham, Jean Baudrillard, John Berger, Walter Benjamin, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Joan Key, Ulrich Lehmann, Sarat Maharaj, Karl Marx, Sadie Plant, Rainer Maria Rilke, John Roberts, Jenni Sorkin. Dan Byrne-Smith is a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art Theory at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts, London. His published work includes Traces of Modernity (2012).

Part of the Documents of Contemporary Art series of anthologies which collect writing on major themes and ideas in contemporary art. With newly commissioned texts by artist Anna Zett, artist David Steans, and writer Mark Pilkington.Established in 1962, the MIT Press is one of the largest and most distinguished university presses in the world and a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, art, social science, and design. Julian Stallabrass teaches Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. His books include Gargantua: Manufactured Mass Culture (1996), High Art Lite: The Rise and Fall of Young British Art (1999) Internet Art: The Online Clash Between Culture and Commerce (2003) and Art Incorporated (2004). Part of the acclaimed Documents of Contemporary Art series of anthologies which collect writing on major themes and ideas in contemporary art. In a world where technology, spectacle and excess seem to eclipse former concepts of nature, the individual and society, what might be the characteristics of a contemporary sublime? If there is any consensus it is in the notion that the sublime represents a taking to the limits, to the point at which fixities begin to fragment. This anthology examines how ideas of the sublime are explored in the work of contemporary artists and theorists, in relation to the unpresentable, transcendence, terror, nature, technology, the uncanny and altered states. From the hexing of presidents to a renewed interest in herbalism and atavistic forms of self-care, magic has furnished the contemporary imagination with mysterious and often disorienting bodies of arcane thought and practice. This volume brings together writings by artists, magicians, historians and theorists, that illuminate the vibrant correspondences animating contemporary art’s varied encounters with magical culture, inspiring a reconsideration of the relationship between the symbolic and the pragmatic.

In the past two decades, artists and writers have increasingly adopted the idea that science fiction can be understood as a lens through which to search for fragments of truth emerging from the past or the future, and the proliferation of science fiction in contemporary art practice and discourse reflects an increased understanding of how this narrative field continues to grow in relevance. Split into four distinct approaches (Cognitive Estrangement, Futures, Posthumanism and Ecologies), this unique collection gathers key examples of the influence of science fiction in recent cultural development: from the integration and acceleration of technological change to global urbanisation and concepts of futurity; from the boundaries of social structures and non-human life to the threatening self-evidence of climate change. The volume also includes a brand new essay by David Musgrave on Kobo Abe's novel Inter Ice Age 4. Documentary has undergone a marked revival in recent art, following a long period in which it was a denigrated and unfashionable practice. This has in part been led by the exhibition of photographic and video work on political issues at Documenta and numerous biennials and, since the turn of the century, issues of injustice, violence and trauma in increasing zones of conflict. Aesthetically, documentary is now one of the most prominent modes of art-making, in part assisted by the linked transformation and recuperation of photography and video by the gallery and museum world. Unsurprisingly, this development, along with the close attention paid to photojournalism and mainstream documentary-making in a time of crisis, has been accompanied by a rich strain of theoretical and historical writing on documentary.Writers include James Agee, Ariella Azoulay, Walter Benjamin, Adam Broomberg, Judith Butler, Oliver Chanarin, Georges Didi-Huberman, John Grierson, David Levi Strauss, Elizabeth McCausland, Carl Plantinga, Jacques Rancière, Martha Rosler, Jean-Paul Sartre, Allan Sekula, Susan Sontag, Hito Steyerl and Trinh T. Minh-ha.

Tanya Harrod is our leading scholarly voice on craft. [This] invaluable anthology...is an ideal introduction to the intellectual landscape of craft, and an essential tool for those already invested in the topic." A definitive guide to the rising status of sound in art, through original critical writings and artists' statements. Terry R. Myers is a Chicago and Los Angeles-based writer, educator and independent curator. A regular contributor since 1988 to numerous international journals, including The Brooklyn Rail, Art Review, Parkett, and Modern Painters, he is the author of Mary Heilmann: Save the Last Dance for Me (Afterall Books, 2007). He is Associate Professor of Painting & Drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Artists surveyed include Rasheed Araeen, Art & Language, AA Bronson, Daniel Buren, Graciela Carnevale, Andrea Fraser, Piero Gilardi, Group Material, Richard Hamilton, Huang Rui, Laboratoire Agit-Art, Louise Lawler, Glenn Ligon, Konrad Lueg, Matsuzawa Yutaka, Palle Nielsen, OHO (Marko Pogagnik), Hélio Oiticica, Philippe Parreno, Victor Pasmore, Raqs Media Collective, Gerhard Richter, Ruangrupa, Situationist International, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Andy Warhol and Katsuhiro Yamaguchi. For this collection, Dan Byrne-Smith brings together his acute aesthetic sense, his extensive knowledge of science fiction, and his engaged utopian hermeneutic to present this compelling array of artists and writers who break open the cage of neoliberal entrapment and engage in a revolutionary response to the dark times that immerse us all." Writers include Daniel Birnbaum, Norman Bryson, Douglas Crimp, Gilles Deleuze, Sebastian Egenhofer, Hal Foster, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Isabelle Graw, David Joselit, Shirley Kaneda, Geeta Kapur, Thomas Lawson, Midori Matsui, Lane Relyea, Rene Ricard, Jerry Saltz, Mira Schor, Barry Schwabsky and Adrian Searle. Part of the acclaimed Documents of Contemporary Art series of anthologies which collect writing on major themes and ideas in contemporary art.