Moments Politiques
How do we define politics?  What is our role in the unfolding of the political?

Moments Politiques finds Jacques Rancière, the legendary French philosopher, addressing these questions in essays and interviews drawn from thirty years of passionate public discourse. Reflecting on events from the Paris uprisings of May 1968 to the near present, and on his contemporaries including Michel Foucault, Guy Debord, and Roland Barthes, Rancière interrogates our understanding of equality, democracy, and the shifting definition of communism today.

In these short, provocative, accessible pieces, we are asked to imagine a society where the “anarchic bedrock of the political” is precisely “the power of anyone.” This is a world of radical equality. It is a place where the student or factory worker’s opinion is equal to that of any banker or politician. To support these ideas, key concepts of Rancière’s political thought are introduced, such as his notions of dissensus and political performance, and his special definition of “police.” Moments Politiques stages unflinching confrontations with immigration law, new waves of racism, and contemporary forms of intervention. As ever, Rancière leads by example and breathes life into his argument that “dissent is what makes society liveable.”
1116930134
Moments Politiques
How do we define politics?  What is our role in the unfolding of the political?

Moments Politiques finds Jacques Rancière, the legendary French philosopher, addressing these questions in essays and interviews drawn from thirty years of passionate public discourse. Reflecting on events from the Paris uprisings of May 1968 to the near present, and on his contemporaries including Michel Foucault, Guy Debord, and Roland Barthes, Rancière interrogates our understanding of equality, democracy, and the shifting definition of communism today.

In these short, provocative, accessible pieces, we are asked to imagine a society where the “anarchic bedrock of the political” is precisely “the power of anyone.” This is a world of radical equality. It is a place where the student or factory worker’s opinion is equal to that of any banker or politician. To support these ideas, key concepts of Rancière’s political thought are introduced, such as his notions of dissensus and political performance, and his special definition of “police.” Moments Politiques stages unflinching confrontations with immigration law, new waves of racism, and contemporary forms of intervention. As ever, Rancière leads by example and breathes life into his argument that “dissent is what makes society liveable.”
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Moments Politiques

Moments Politiques

Moments Politiques

Moments Politiques

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Overview

How do we define politics?  What is our role in the unfolding of the political?

Moments Politiques finds Jacques Rancière, the legendary French philosopher, addressing these questions in essays and interviews drawn from thirty years of passionate public discourse. Reflecting on events from the Paris uprisings of May 1968 to the near present, and on his contemporaries including Michel Foucault, Guy Debord, and Roland Barthes, Rancière interrogates our understanding of equality, democracy, and the shifting definition of communism today.

In these short, provocative, accessible pieces, we are asked to imagine a society where the “anarchic bedrock of the political” is precisely “the power of anyone.” This is a world of radical equality. It is a place where the student or factory worker’s opinion is equal to that of any banker or politician. To support these ideas, key concepts of Rancière’s political thought are introduced, such as his notions of dissensus and political performance, and his special definition of “police.” Moments Politiques stages unflinching confrontations with immigration law, new waves of racism, and contemporary forms of intervention. As ever, Rancière leads by example and breathes life into his argument that “dissent is what makes society liveable.”

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781609805333
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Publication date: 11/11/2014
Pages: 208
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.23(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Born in 1940 in Algiers, JACQUES RANCIÉRE is one of the most important figures in contemporary philosophy. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris under the tutelage of philosopher Louis Althusser, but broke with his mentor after the May 1968 uprisings. It was during this time that Ranciére began to formulate his theory of radical equality, and his critiques of elitism in the Western philosophical tradition. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII and conducts a summer seminar at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. His many books include The Politics of Aesthetics, The Future of the Image, Hatred of Democracy, and The Emancipated Spectator. As our universities more and more come to resemble corporations, with our “public intellectuals” as sentries lined up to defend the status quo, Ranciére stands out for his belief that intelligence and resistance are inextricably linked.

MARY FOSTER's previous translation for Seven Stories Press was Order Without Power, a collection of essays by Normand Baillergeon.


Table of Contents

Preface vii

Portrait of the Old Intellectual as a Young Dissident 1

Are There Events in Intellectual Life? 9

Overlegitimation 13

The Immigrant and the Law of Consensus 23

Feigned Suffering 31

Sour Grapes 35

Division of the Arche 41

Society of the Spectacle or Society of the Billboard? 49

Seven Ways to Spread Racist Ideas in France 55

The Law and Its Ghost 59

What Intellectual Might Mean 65

No Crisis in the Crisis 69

Politics and Identity 71

Intersecting Reasons 79

September 11 and After: A Rupture in the Symbolic Order? 91

On War as the Supreme Form of Advanced Plutocratic Consensus 101

An Immaterial Communism? 109

Advanced Science and its Backward Aims 113

The State and the Heat Wave 119

On the Islamic Headscarf: One Universal Can Conceal Another 123

Democracy, A Necessary Scandal 127

The Philosopher Without a Megaphone 133

Political Impurity 137

Election and Democratic Reason 149

The Politics of Disagreement 153

May '68 Reviewed and Corrected 167

The Pleasure of Political Metamorphosis 171

"The Worst of Evils is Power Falling into the Hands of Those Who Desire It" 183

Communists Without Communism? 189

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