Hegel and the Art of Negation: Negativity, Creativity and Contemporary Thought

Exploring the recent Hegelian revival via the notion of 'negation' in Hegel's thought, and relating such negativity to sophisticated ideas about art and artistic creation, Andrew Hass argues that the notion of Hegelian negation moves us into an expansive territory where art, religion and philosophy may all be radically reconceived and broken open into new forms of philosophical expression.
Why is the philosopher Hegel returning as a potent force in contemporary thinking? Why, after a long period when Hegel and his dialectics of history have seemed less compelling than they were for previous generations of philosophers, is study of Hegel again becoming important? Fashionably contemporary theorists like Francis Fukuyama and Slavoj Žižek, as well as radical theologians like Thomas Altizer, have all recently been influenced by Hegel, the philosopher whose philosophy seems somehow perennial – or, to borrow an idea from Nietzsche, eternally returning.