Description
Book Synopsis* Ranciere is one of the most interesting and original philosophers in France today, well-known for his work on aesthetics, politics and the philosophy of literature.
Trade Review"An absolute model of explanatory clarity, with a level of critical distance made all the more impressive by this being the first monograph on Ranciere in any language."
French Studies "A solid introduction to Ranciere's thought that should help facilitate the reception of his work in the English-speaking world."
Choice "Well written and accessible ... the chapters are clear and capture the full extent of Rancière's thinking, yet they remain remarkably critical."
Ethical Perspectives
"Davis has thought through how best to introduce Rancière's philosophy and he does it convincingly and compellingly. His book will deservedly become the standard introduction and companion to Rancière for first time readers at every level."
Jay Bernstein, New School for Social Research
"Oliver Davis's Jacques Rancière is an overview of force and beauty. Working through the whole of Rancière's reflections on philosophy, politics, historiography and aesthetics, Davis offers a clear and coherent account of work that has changed the way we think about the emergence, the condition and the future of democracy."
Tom Conley, Harvard University
Table of ContentsPreface vii
Acknowledgements xiii
1 The Early Politics: From Pedagogy to Equality 1
Althusser's lesson 2
Platonic inequality in Marx, Sartre and Bourdieu 15
Jacotot and radical equality 25
2 History and Historiography 36
Les Révoltes Logiques (1975–81) 36
The Nights of Labor: The Workers' Dream in Nineteenth-Century France [1981] 52
The Names of History: On the Poetics of Knowledge [1992] 57
Conclusion 72
3 The Mature Politics: From Policing to Democracy 74
Politics and 'the police' 76
Rancière's structural account of democracy: the 'wrong' and the miscount 80
Political 'subjectivation' 84
The aesthetic dimension of politics: the 'division' or 'distribution' of 'the sensory' (le partage du sensible) 90
Overall assessment of Rancière's account of politics 92
4 Literature 101
'What is literature?' 102
Writing, literarity . . . and literature 107
Rancière as reader 115
5 Art and Aesthetics 126
Aesthetic experience and equality: with Kant and Gauny, against Bourdieu 128
The regimes of art 134
Film and film theory 138
Contemporary art, politics and community 152
Afterword 160
Notes 162
References 191
Index 207
