Jacques Ranciere Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

In the wake of new museology and constructivist learning theories, the traditional unidirectional educational role of the museum has been contested and challenged. Museums have the potential to be progressive pedagogical sites and are an... more

In the wake of new museology and constructivist learning theories, the traditional unidirectional educational role of the museum has been contested and challenged. Museums have the potential to be progressive pedagogical sites and are an ideal terrain to explore educational theories and attitudes. Jacques Rancière, in his seminal book The Ignorant Schoolmaster (1987), proposed a different view of what education should look like. This article explores what an ‘ignorant art museum’ practice can look like beyond meaning-making, through analysis of key actions, such as observing, repeating, failing, trying and verifying. Theorising on literature (philosophy and educational theory) and taking international examples, it will explore the benefits and issues created by such practices. What are the tensions between the museum as the site of the expert and the space of the public? What can a new form of museum expertise look like? How can technology contribute to the development of the ‘ignorant museum’? What knowledge can be created in an ‘ignorant museum’ environment and how can this knowledge be displayed in the framework of the museum? By attempting to resolve these questions, this paper aims to look into the ‘ignorant museum’ as a strategy for change.

This article is an attempt at presenting Jacques Rancière’s literary theory. French philosopher proves that an aesthetic dimension is inherent to politics and that the arts have a political dimension: their forms propose new paradigms of... more

This article is an attempt at presenting Jacques Rancière’s literary theory. French philosopher proves that an aesthetic dimension is inherent to politics and that the arts have a political dimension: their forms propose new paradigms of the community. Both literature and politics propose new ways of articulating reality. His theory concerns especially the so
called “esthetic regime of art” which breaks down various hierarchies of other regimes (“ethical” and “representational”). Such an artistic egalitarianism is analogous to the breaking
down of real social and political hierarchies. The history of literature has to define in each case this correspondence between literary forms and forms of political action.

La monographie Image et pouvoir. Entretiens avec les penseurs français pré- sente sept entretiens avec les personnalités françaises reconnues en phi- losophie, sociologie et anthropologie. Menée par le désir de comprendre les différents... more

La monographie Image et pouvoir. Entretiens avec les penseurs français pré- sente sept entretiens avec les personnalités françaises reconnues en phi- losophie, sociologie et anthropologie. Menée par le désir de comprendre les différents aspects du rapport entre l’image et le pouvoir, l’auteur a sollicité les penseurs français choisis préoccupés systématiquement par ce problème.
L’ensemble est composé des sept entretiens: 1. Quelle poli­ tique des images? entretien avec théoricien de l’art plastique Georges Di- di-Huberman, 2. Les images ne représentent plus, entretien avec philosophe Jacques Rancière, 3. Image, sujet, pouvoir, entretien avec philosophe Ma- rie-José Mondzain, 4. L’imaginaire cybernétique, entretien avec philosophe Pierre Lévy, 5. L’ère d’images numériques, entretien avec sociologue Michel Maffesoli, 6. Globalisation de la vision, entretien avec anthropologue Marc Augé, 7. Construction du regard, entretien avec philosophe Monique Sicard.
Chaque entretien s’accompagne d’une caractéristique concentrée, censée présenter la spécialisation de l’auteur donné, les enjeux de sa conception et ses publications les plus importantes. Le livre est introduit par une étude d’auteur assez complexe, considérant le point de vue sur le rapport entre l’image et le pouvoir, tel qu’il est actuellement présenté en France dans les domaines de la philosophie et des sciences sociales.
L’enjeu de cette réflexion est de montrer que, malgré leurs différences considérables, les conceptions présentées ont un point commun: selon les auteurs, les images elles-mêmes ne disent rien, ni ne montrent jamais le tout. La seule chose qu’elles peuvent réellement faire, c’est faciliter notre partage du visible, en provoquant la parole à propos de ce qu’elles font voir et en nous incitant à construire nos représentations du monde. Telle est la limite implicite du travail de tout penseur cherchant a saisir le rapport entre l’image et le pouvoir: il n’est pas possible d’échapper à la pratique de la représentation, ni en la déniant, ni lorsqu’on la prend pour le sujet de notre réflexion. Cette pratique ambiguë ne peut pas être contournée, car on ne peut pas procéder autrement: tant qu’on choisit et utilise les images en tant qu’illustrations, on leur assigne une signification qui n’est pas la leur dans un sens absolu. Essentiellement politique, le travail de représentation ne cesse pas d’affronter le décalage insurmontable entre la nature de l’image et celle de la parole par laquelle nous la saisissons.

After a short introduction I will present some important concepts in the work of Jacques Rancière (part 2). After that I concentrate especially on his work "Politics, Identification, and Subjectivization" (1992) in order to understand the... more

After a short introduction I will present some important concepts in the work of Jacques Rancière (part 2). After that I concentrate especially on his work "Politics, Identification, and Subjectivization" (1992) in order to understand the logic of political subjectivization as a "heterology, a logic of the other" 1 , mainly for three reasons, as Rancière writes: "First, it is never the simple assertion of an identity; it is always, at the same time, the denial of an identity given by an other, given by the ruling order of policy. Policy is about 'right' names, names that pin people down to their place and work. Politics is about 'wrong' names-misnomers that articulate a gap and connect with a wrong. Second, it is a demonstration, and a demonstration always supposes an other, even if that other refuses evidence or argument. […] There is no consensus, no undamaged communication, no settlement of a wrong. But there is a polemical commonplace for the handling of a wrong and the demonstration of equality. Third, the logic of subjectivization always entails an impossible identification." 2 (part 3). Starting from these more theoretical points I would like to argue in my forth part that more recent social movements are thoroughly affectively attuned assemblages that are characterized nonetheless by their preliminarity and their unpredictability. Their members oscillate between moments of identification and dis-identification and expose themselves in their singularity. For example the idea of "urban communism" can function as a concrete materialization to the extent that in Occupy Wall Street questions of identity and alterity, and also issues of access and participation, are of central importance.

This introductory essay outlines some of the issues that surround contemporary engagements with the ‘‘popular’’ as a site of political struggle and change. This piece notes that in the 30 years since Stuart Hall published his seminal... more

This introductory essay outlines some of the issues that surround contemporary engagements with the ‘‘popular’’ as a site of political struggle and change. This piece notes that in the
30 years since Stuart Hall published his seminal essay, ‘‘Notes on Deconstructing the Popular,’’ the power relations that define the term as well as the way in which scholars study the popular have shifted in profound ways. The authors argue that, rather than simply
equating the popular with popular culture, it is necessary to recognize that the popular is a contingent term that marks the possibility of constituting forms of collective agency and the
potential for bringing about social and political change.

FROM THE BACK COVER: What is the essential nature of meaning? . . . . . This book answers by examining interpretive theories from the past and present. It finds that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the... more

FROM THE BACK COVER: What is the essential nature of meaning? . . . . . This book answers by examining interpretive theories from the past and present. It finds that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the Reformation, a struggle that reaches crisis proportions in the 20th century. On the one hand, this crisis is mollified by Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenology, which argues that we are always already in a meaningful relationship to the objects of the world. On the other hand, this crisis is exacerbated when phenomenology, structuralism, and aesthetic theory directly make meaning into an object of study. . . . . . . . . These historical developments culminate with the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, whose non-hermeneutical phenomenology delimits a cause of meaning said to be closely linked to the core of subjectivity. Intriguingly, Lacan's work reveals meaning to be sexual in nature. By integrating his notion of sexual difference with his work in discourse theory and topology, this book demonstrates how the subject's struggle with meaning can be suspended.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GENERAL DESCRIPTION: Broadly speaking, the majority of books on Jacques Lacan focus on the earlier periods of his career. They also tend to target the psychoanalytic clinical community, or else discuss his work in various political, social, and cultural contexts. But in almost all cases these books refrain from a detailed exegesis of his actual texts. They instead prefer to comment on his theoretical apparatus as a whole before turning to its practical implications. . . . . . This book positions itself against this grain. Firstly, it closely analyzes some half-dozen key Lacanian texts. This analysis is organized under a single thematic – the question of meaning – in order to advance the reader's understanding of the trajectory of Lacan's thought across his entire career, as well as to promote the book's thesis that the field of meaning can be suspended. Accordingly, an initial chapter takes up the hermeneutical tradition from Flacius onward. This is then supplemented by a chapter which surveys phenomenological, structuralist and aesthetic theories of meaning and their differing methods of textual analysis. Together these two chapters provide a unique context for the sustained analysis of Lacan's texts which begins in the third chapter, an analysis that forms the bulk of the book's content. This contextualization potentially widens the book's appeal to any scholar wishing to explore his relationship to those textual objects he interacts with on a daily basis. And because this book assumes the reader has little to no familiarity with Lacan, the reader will find patient explanations of the basics of his theories before slowly being led up to the more difficult theories of his late years. Again the argument is that Lacan has something to offer all scholars. His work is not just reserved for psychoanalysts. . . . . . It is with his late theories that the serious student of Lacan will find the book's most original contribution. For in the fourth chapter a detailed account is provided of how Lacan derived his infamous formulae of sexuation from Aristotelian logic. These formulae are then extensively discussed against the backdrop of interpretive theory and textual analysis, showing how these formulae capture much more than just the difference between the sexes. Strikingly, this difference is also found to run through meaning itself, something the final chapter aims to demonstrate. It does this by amalgamating three key components of late-Lacan: sexuation, discourse theory and his use of topological spaces. This amalgamation is a first in the literature. But this amalgamation is not just useful in demonstrating the book's thesis. It further suggests how seemingly divergent aspects of late-Lacanian theory can be made to work together.

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by... more

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by Marx in foregrounding neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology. This article seeks to shine some light on this division in an effort to open up new debates and recast existing ones in such a way that might lead to more flexible understandings of neoliberalism as a discourse. A discourse approach moves theorizations forward by recognizing neoliberalism is neither a ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ phenomena, but rather a circuitous process of socio-spatial transformation.

布爾迪厄對康德的美學進行了「通俗批判」，他以社會學方法駁斥了無關乎利害等美學思想，主張品味的形塑與社會的構成有高度關係，而個體透過「幻化－遊戲感」在社會場域中實踐。但在洪席耶看來，布爾迪厄的理論將主體的品味與自主性限縮在社會框架裡，忽視了人在事物前得以「懸置」，在「警治」內得以「政治」的「自由遊玩」的美學可能性。兩人看法的差異，涉及結構觀點與行動視角的多重辯證，也有哲學美學與社會學美學不同側重的角力。本文試圖釐清兩者的主張，並透過「幻化遊戲」及「懸置遊玩」這組概念，與三種層次... more

布爾迪厄對康德的美學進行了「通俗批判」，他以社會學方法駁斥了無關乎利害等美學思想，主張品味的形塑與社會的構成有高度關係，而個體透過「幻化－遊戲感」在社會場域中實踐。但在洪席耶看來，布爾迪厄的理論將主體的品味與自主性限縮在社會框架裡，忽視了人在事物前得以「懸置」，在「警治」內得以「政治」的「自由遊玩」的美學可能性。兩人看法的差異，涉及結構觀點與行動視角的多重辯證，也有哲學美學與社會學美學不同側重的角力。本文試圖釐清兩者的主張，並透過「幻化遊戲」及「懸置遊玩」這組概念，與三種層次的自主性去解釋他們進路的差異。

"ABSTRACT: This study assumes the subject's pursuit of meaning is generally incapacitating and should be suspended. It aims to demonstrate how such a suspension is theoretically accomplished by utilizing Lacan's formulae of... more

"ABSTRACT:
This study assumes the subject's pursuit of meaning is generally incapacitating and should be suspended. It aims to demonstrate how such a suspension is theoretically accomplished by utilizing Lacan's formulae of sexuation integrated with his work in discourse theory and topology.
Part I places this study into context by examining scholarship from the established fields of hermeneutics, phenomenology, (post)structuralism, aesthetic theory and psychoanalysis in order to extract out their respective theory of meaning. These theories reveal that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the Reformation and reaches near crisis proportions in the 20th century. On the one hand this crisis is mollified by the rise of Heideggerian-Gadamerian hermeneutical phenomenology which questions traditional epistemological approaches to the text using a new ontological conceptualization of meaning and a conscious rejection of methodology. On the other hand this crisis is exacerbated when the ubiquitous nature of meaning is itself challenged by (post)structuralism's discovery of the signifier which inscribes a limit to meaning, and by the domains of sense and nonsense newly opened up by aesthetic theory. These historical developments culminate in the field of psychoanalysis which most consequentially delimits a cause of meaning said to be closely linked to the core of subjectivity.
Part II extends these findings by rigorously constructing out of the Lacanian sexuated formulae a decidedly non-hermeneutical phenomenological approach useful in demonstrating the sexual nature of meaning. Explicated in their static state by way of an account of their original derivation from the Aristotelian logical square, it is argued that these four formulae are relevant to basic concerns of textual theory inclusive of the hermeneutical circle of meaning. These formulae are then set into motion by integrating them with Lacan's four discourses to demonstrate the breakdown of meaning. Finally, the cuts and sutures of two-dimensional space that is topology as set down in L'étourdit are performed to confirm how the very field of meaning is ultimately suspended from a nonsensical singular point known in Lacanian psychoanalysis as objet a. The contention is that by occupying this point the subject frees himself from the debilitating grip of meaning."

Une réflexion autour des noms donnés à la dissidence religieuse étudiée aboutit à proposer l'emploi d'une nouvelle dénomination, celle d'"hérésie des bons hommes". Historiquement erronés, même s'ils reprennent parfois la terminologie... more

Une réflexion autour des noms donnés à la dissidence religieuse étudiée aboutit à proposer l'emploi d'une nouvelle dénomination, celle d'"hérésie des bons hommes". Historiquement erronés, même s'ils reprennent parfois la terminologie choisie à l'époque par l'Eglise, les noms couramment utilisés, en particulier "cathares" et "catharisme", devraient être abandonnés, car ils éludent la dimension de construction à des fins persécutrices qui est constitutive de l'hérésie. Cette dernière est d'abord une qualification juridique, qui transforma la dissidence en déviance par un effet d'"implantation perverse" (Michel Foucault) propre à l'efficacité du droit. Le nom de "bons hommes", issu de la pratique des hérétiques, rappelle que la contestation consistait d'abord à reconnaître des autorités concurrentes de l'Eglise et que son contenu concernait l'ordre théologico-politique du monde dans son ensemble. Les idées et pratiques dissidentes n'étaient ni stables, ni cohérentes, car elles n'étaient pas soutenues par des institutions. Avant d'être une erreur, l'hérésie était une errance.

Sympathetic readers of Arendt might be surprised by Rancière‟s claim that Arendt‟s political thought, in fact, represses politics in a way paradigmatic of the tradition she sought to escape from. On the contrary, it might appear that... more

Sympathetic readers of Arendt might be surprised by Rancière‟s claim that Arendt‟s political thought, in fact, represses politics in a way paradigmatic of the tradition she sought to escape from. On the contrary, it might appear that rather than offering a rival view of politics, Rancière actually amends and extends an Arendtian conception of politics. I want to caution against such an interpretation. It is true that Arendt is an important influence on Rancière, despite his polemic against her. Arendt's understanding of praxis seems to resonate within Rancière‟s work. However, those apparently Arendtian notions that Rancière make use of are fundamentally transformed when transposed within his broader thematization of dissensus. To develop this argument I first examine Arendt‟s own account of the tension between philosophy and politics in order to understand the phenomenological basis of the political theory that she sought to develop. I then consider how persuasive Rancière‟s characterization of Arendt as an archipolitical thinker is. In the final section, I discuss some key passages in Disagreement in which Rancière alludes to Arendt. These passages highlight how those Arendtian concepts that do seem to find their way into Rancière's thought are transformed when displaced from her ontology.

ÍNDICE: La ruptura epistemológica, de Bachelard a Balibar y Pêcheux, Pedro Karczmarczyk La ruptura epistemológica según Bachelard, Althusser y Badiou, Carlos Gassmann Visitaciones Derrideanas, Jazmín Anahí Acosta Epistemología sin... more

ÍNDICE:
La ruptura epistemológica, de Bachelard a Balibar y Pêcheux, Pedro Karczmarczyk
La ruptura epistemológica según Bachelard, Althusser y Badiou, Carlos Gassmann
Visitaciones Derrideanas, Jazmín Anahí Acosta
Epistemología sin sujeto cognoscente. Superación, disolución o sujeción de la subjetividad en Popper, Wittgenstein y Foucault, Silvia Rivera
La torsión política del concepto de verdad en Michel Foucault, Manuel Cuervo Sola
Canguilhem y Foucault. De la norma biológica a la norma política, Andrea Torrano
Psicología e ideología: Foucault, Canguilhem y Althusser, Matías Abeijón

In her influential discussion of the plight of stateless people, Hannah Arendt invokes the ‘right to have rights’ as the one true human right. In doing so she establishes an aporia. If statelessness corresponds not only to a situation of... more

In her influential discussion of the plight of stateless people, Hannah Arendt invokes the ‘right to have rights’ as the one true human right. In doing so she establishes an aporia. If statelessness corresponds not only to a situation of rightlessness but also to a life deprived of public appearance, how could those excluded from politics possibly claim the right to have rights? In this article I examine Jacques Rancie`re’s response to Arendt’s aporetic account of human rights, situating this in relation to his wider criticism of Arendt’s conception of the political. According to Rancie`re, Arendt depoliticizes human rights in identifying the human with mere life (zoe ̈) and the citizen with the good life (bios politikos). For, in doing so, she takes the distinction between zoe ̈ and the bios politikos to be ontologically given whereas politics is typically about contesting how that distinction is drawn. For Rancie`re ‘the human’ in human rights does not refer to a life deprived of politics. Rather, the human is a litigious name that politicizes the distinction between those who are qualified to participate in politics and those who are not. In contrast to Arendt, Rancie`re’s approach enables us to recognize contests over human rights, such as that of the sans papiers, as part and parcel of social struggles that are the core of political life.

Kapitola predstavuje tvorbu Jacquesa Rancièra, výraznej postavy súčasnej francúzskej politickej filozofie, ktorá je dosiaľ u nás len málo známa. V českom preklade mu zatiaľ vyšla len kniha Nezhoda. Politika a filosofie. Do slovenského... more

Kapitola predstavuje tvorbu Jacquesa Rancièra, výraznej postavy súčasnej francúzskej politickej filozofie, ktorá je dosiaľ u nás len málo známa. V českom preklade mu zatiaľ vyšla len kniha Nezhoda. Politika a filosofie. Do slovenského jazyka nebola preložená žiadna z jeho početných monografií. Tento komplexný prierez Rancièrovou tvorbou by mal túto absenciu čiastočne kompenzovať.

Contemporary geographical thought is constrained by a political economic imagination rooted in binarism, which is exemplified in debates surrounding neoliberalism. Neoliberal proponents call for decentralization and increased capital... more

Contemporary geographical thought is constrained by a political economic imagination rooted in binarism, which is exemplified in debates surrounding neoliberalism. Neoliberal proponents call for decentralization and increased capital flows, while Marxists respond by pairing centralization with capitalism’s abrogation. The latter view considers hierarchy necessary, a position that promotes authority and regards horizontal politics as propitious to neoliberalism. Anarchism’s coupling of decentralization with anti-capitalism is dismissed because Marxism cannot accommodate the processuality of prefigurative politics. Marxism demands a revolution with a masterplan, considering horizontality a future objective. Such a temporality ignores the insurrectionary possibilities of the present and implies a politics of waiting. The spatial implications of centralized hierarchy are also questionable, employing a vertical ontology, wherein horizontal organization is deemed inappropriate when ‘jumping scales’. Yet scale represents both a theoretical dis-traction from grounded everyday particularities and a ‘master-signifier’ by providing a point de capiton, or anchoring point, that rests on the exclusion of unconsciousness–the knowledge that is not known¬. Thus the point de capiton is the (Archimedean) point at which an essentialist illusion of fixed meaning is created, as scale is unconscious of geography’s ‘hidden enfolded immensities’. The discourse of scale accordingly dismisses the openness of rhizomic politics by predetermining the political as an arborescent register. Yet the inevitable terra incognita that scalar hierarchies produce becomes a powerful resource for the oppressed, which is why anarchist direct action often proceeds outside of authority’s view. A flat ontology has significant resonance with anarchism, imparting that politics should operate horizontally rather than vertically. This ontological shift suggests that we need not wait for the emergence of a ‘greater’ class-consciousness, as one can immediately disengage capitalism by reorienting economic landscapes in alternative ways. Consequently, a human geography without hierarchy gains significant traction when we reject scale and embrace an anarchist flat ontology.

Every politics is an aesthetic. If necropolitics is the (accelerated) politics of what is usually referred to as the ‘apolitical age’, what are its manoeuvres, temporalities, intensities, textures, and tipping points? Bypassing... more

Every politics is an aesthetic. If necropolitics is the (accelerated) politics of what is usually referred to as the ‘apolitical age’, what are its manoeuvres, temporalities, intensities, textures, and tipping points? Bypassing revelatory and reconstructionist approaches – the tendency of which is to show that a particular site or practice is necropolitical by bringing its genealogy into evidence – this collection of essays by artist-philosophers and theorists-curators articulates the pre-perceptual working of necropolitics through a focus on the senses, assignments of energy, attitudes, cognitive processes, and discursive frameworks.

This article examines conceptual obstacles to emancipation which have emerged historically within Left theory on both sides of the Atlantic, concerned primarily with “class versus race” debates spanning from the post-war Hegelian moment... more

This article examines conceptual obstacles to emancipation which have emerged historically within Left theory on both sides of the Atlantic, concerned primarily with “class versus race” debates spanning from the post-war Hegelian moment to the post-structural present. While the “cultural turn” promised to give voice against structuralist silencing, the critical subject of emancipation has been defaced, eradicated such that we currently have no theoretical place from where to build an emancipatory project. We must clear an analytical space through which a renewed subject of liberation can be founded. In drawing out theoretical continuity and change across varied temporal and spatial locations—Fanon/Sartre and the French-Algerian encounter; Gilroy/Miles and British urban unrest—the article explores how the Left imaginary has lost its theoretical integrity, especially in its Foucauldian gaze, and is currently unable to provide a robust vision, beyond self-other interplay, of emancipatory change.

Recent histories of human rights have shown that the turn to human rights as a form of politics occurred as a placeholder for utopian energies at the end of history, coinciding with a retreat of the organised left, the abandonment of the... more

Recent histories of human rights have shown that the turn to human rights as a form of politics occurred as a placeholder for utopian energies at the end of history, coinciding with a retreat of the organised left, the abandonment of the theme of revolution, and the pluralisation of political struggles. This essay examines the way that radical continental theory has responded to the political hegemony of human rights by focusing on ‘post-Marxist’ thought. Examining the work of four influential critics of human rights – Claude Lefort, Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben, and Jacques Rancière – I argue that post-Marxist thought offers two very different approaches to the political possibilities offered by human rights. The first retains a fidelity to the anti-nomian spirit of the revolutionary tradition and rejects the language and conceptuality of rights as being too deeply implicated in the liberal political order that needs to be resisted. The second acknowledges the limitations of human rights while arguing that they also offer important tools for democratic political struggle. The essay draws upon these analyses to consider the contemporary political meaning of human rights. It argues that the latter of these strategies is problematic because we now face a radically different political conjuncture to the one in which the politics of human rights first emerged: human rights have played an important role in the project of post-historical reaction; the political space in which the politics of rights once made sense has collapsed; and we have seen a return of revolution in the wake of the crisis of capitalism.

Petite histoire politique et poétique de l'anarchie en France dans les années 1890

Not published yet. It is argued that agonistic democracy fails to fully distinguish itself from delibertive democracy and so it shares similar shortcomings. basically, agonistic democracy is unable to think about conflict as radical... more

Not published yet.
It is argued that agonistic democracy fails to fully distinguish itself from delibertive democracy and so it shares similar shortcomings. basically, agonistic democracy is unable to think about conflict as radical contestation of power.