{"product_id":"turning-away-benjamin-a-saltzman-9780226847221","title":"Turning Away: The Poetics of an Ancient Gesture","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA sweeping account of how we are at our most human when we turn away from the pains of the world.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhy do we look away from the suffering of others? Why do we cover our faces in shame? Why do we lower our heads in grief? Few gestures are as universal as the averted gaze. Fewer still are as ambivalent and inscrutable. In this incisive study, Benjamin A. Saltzman reveals how the kaleidoscopic appearance of these gestures in art, poetry, and philosophy has turned them into an essential language for our uncomfortable engagements with the world, challenging us to reflect on the ways we fundamentally relate to others. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eInto the horizon of contemporary discourse, \u003ci\u003eTurning Away\u003c\/i\u003e sets out from five influential scenes in which figures avert their gaze: Timanthes's \u003ci\u003eSacrifice of Iphigenia\u003c\/i\u003e, Plato's \u003ci\u003eRepublic\u003c\/i\u003e, Augustine's \u003ci\u003eConfessions\u003c\/i\u003e, Christ's Crucifixion, and the Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve. The gestures of aversion in these scenes refract across visual media, through philosophy and politics, into modernity and the present day, having been reimagined along the way by thinkers like Hannah Arendt, artists like Marc Chagall and Salvador Dalí, poets like Langston Hughes, and many others. Saltzman offers a timely critique of the privilege of turning away and of the too-easy condemnation of our tendencies to do so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Benjamin A. Saltzman\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0226847225\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226847221\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/06\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback","brand":"Benjamin A. Saltzman","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48089400180991,"sku":"9780226847221","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_338ac219-9293-4133-9024-a40b655ed02f.jpg?v=1769110016","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/turning-away-benjamin-a-saltzman-9780226847221","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}