Rethinking Emancipation

Faced with growing inequalities and new forms of domination and exploitation, can the movement of emancipation take on a new life today, or has it been arrested by the powers of repression and normalization?

In order to address this question, Jacques Rancière pays close attention to the sociopolitical rhythms of our time, listening for the figures of trembling and oscillation that are often drowned out by the deafening hubbub of the media. He questions the relationship between democracies and the very concept of democracy, and questions what, in the social movements and protests taking place today, offers a possibility of emancipation. Emancipation means breaking out of the established hierarchies, proposing a ludic attitude of free-floating distance and bringing into it a space of equality to replace the dominant order of inequalities.

In five conversations on politics, art, literature, philosophy and cinema, Jacques Rancière and Aliocha Wald Lasowski consider the form, experience and collectives which characterise emancipation. In so doing, they imagine the world of tomorrow and the radical utopias that will bring it closer to us. Foreword by Aliocha Wald Lasowski

Chapter 1. Politics: The democratic paradox
Chapter 2. Aesthetics: Aesthetic democracy and social emancipation
Chapter 3. Literature: the politics of writers and the revolution in literature
Chapter 4. Philosophy: Althusser, the theoretical weapon of a revival of Marxism
Chapter 5. Cinema: the sensible fabric of the new life

Notes "Open-ended, informative, reflecting with acumen and care on the stakes of politics and aesthetics, Aliocha Wald Lasowski’s conversation with Jacques Rancière tells us how and why we need dialogue and dissensus to contend with the glaring social inequalities in our midst. Clear and concise on every page, Rethinking Emancipation mobilizes Rancière’s writing from Althusser’s Lesson (1974) to Aisthesis (2011) and beyond. A practical work of the highest ethical order."
Tom Conley, Harvard University Jacques Rancière is a leading French philosopher and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Paris-St. Denis. He is the author of many books on politics and aesthetics including Hatred of Democracy, The Emancipated Spectator, The Politics of Literature and The Edges of Fiction.