Description
Book SynopsisEva von Redecker reconsiders critical theory’s understanding of radical change in order to offer a bold new account of how revolution occurs. She argues that revolutions are not singular events but extended processes: beginning from the interstices of society, they succeed by gradually rearticulating social structures toward a new paradigm.
Trade ReviewPraxis and Revolution seeks nothing less than to offer a comprehensive theoretical vocabulary to describe social stability and change, at multiple scales, and from a ‘practice-first’ or ‘praxeological’ point of view. It is an expansive book, sometimes unwieldy, often maddening, and occasionally brilliant. -- Kevin Duong * Contemporary Political Theory *
A wild dinner party of a political theory book! Through an extraordinary crossing of thinkers and genres, and careful work with the political potential of metalepsis and interstices, this book wrests revolution from its high modern formation to make it a lived and practical work for our times. Erudite, rigorous, playful, and readable, at once in the world and floating above it, Von Redecker is a brilliant and wondrous intellectual, driven by the philosophical question of how we can open a better future from what we do now. -- Wendy Brown, author of
In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the WestPraxis and Revolution revisits and rearticulates the fundamental conceptual vocabulary of revolution for our times. A brilliant tour de force, this work draws upon philosophy, political sociology, history, rhetoric, science studies, and feminist and queer theory to orchestrate a new understanding of revolution, rupture, performative change, structure, event, practice and transformation. Few works provide as capacious and careful examination of the language we have for radical social transformation, drawing on theories that have registered historical shifts and the emergence of new fields of possible action to formulate for the present a knowing and urgent demand for revolutionary change. Singular in its interdisciplinary richness and capacity to translate among political vocabularies, von Redecker's book unleashes from the resources of the past a set of vocabularies that allow us to rethink time, history, and praxis. Ambitious and incisive, this work stands out as thoughtful and capacious, refusing reductive slogans and polemics in favor of attentive readings and the rigors of imagining the world anew. -- Judith Butler, author of
The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political BindThis is an original philosophical treatment of the problem of radical social change: how it comes about, to what extent it can be initiated voluntarily, within what limits it might be controllable, how it ought to be evaluated. I am impressed by the seriousness of purpose, the ambition, and the rigor of the treatment. -- Raymond Geuss, author of
Who Needs a World View?Eva von Redecker‘s
Praxis and Revolution is a brilliant investigation that brings together conceptual analysis and literary reading. In a political and theoretical situation in which only either a mere continuation of the present condition or an empty gesture of rupture seems possible, she points a way out of the aporias that block our thought and action. The book works itself on the transformation it is about. -- Christoph Menke, author of
Critique of RightsTable of ContentsPreface to the American Edition
Preface to the German Edition
Introduction: “It Is a Revolution”
Part I: Maria’s Ménage and the Transience of Heterotopian Praxis1. The Rules of Praxis
2. The Materiality of Praxis
3. The Connections Between Practices
Part II: Jacobin Knitters and the Tracks of Structuration4. The Duality of Social Structures
5. Recognition and Performative Structuration
6. Structures in Three States of Aggregate
Part III: Marta’s Invisible Affinity Group and Interstitial Upheavals7. Disaggregation: Performative Critique and the Laughter of Mimesis
8. Constitution: Subcollective Association
9. Contamination: Overlaying Structures
Part IV: The Execution of the Marquise and Metaleptic Paradigm Shifts10. Paradigm Shifts as a Gradual Replacement of Anchoring Practices
11. The Revolutionary Emergence of the Concept of Revolution
12. Metaleptic Dynamics
Conclusion: “The difficulties of the plains” and the Revolutionary Tradition
Notes
Bibliography
Index
