The Lessons of Rancière - Hardcover

Chambers, Samuel A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199927219 ISBN 13: 9780199927210

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2012

Synopsis

"Liberal democracy" is the name given to a regime that much of the world lives in or aspires to, and both liberal and deliberative theorists focus much of their intellectual energy on working to reshape and perfect this regime. But what if "liberal democracy" were a contradiction in terms?

Taking up Jacques Rancière's polemical claim that democracy is not a regime, Samuel A. Chambers argues that liberalism and democracy are not complementary, but competing forces. By way of the most in-depth and rigorous treatment of Rancière's writings to date, The Lessons of Rancière seeks to disentangle democracy from liberalism. Liberalism is a logic of order and hierarchy, of the proper distribution of responsibilities and rights, whereas democratic politics follows a logic of disordering that challenges and disrupts any claims that the allocation of roles could be complete. This book mobilizes a Rancièrean understanding of politics as leverage against the tendency to collapse democracy into the broader terms of liberalism. Chambers defends a vision of "impure" politics, showing that there is no sphere proper to politics, no protected political domain. The job of political theory is therefore not to say what is required in order for politics to occur, not to develop ideal "normative" models of politics, and not even to create new political ontologies. Instead, political theory is itself an enactment of politics in Rancière's sense of dissensus: politics thwarts any social order of domination. Chambers shows that the logic of politics depends on the same principle as Rancière's radical pedagogy: the presupposition of equality. Like traditional critical theory, traditional pedagogy relies on a model of explanation in which the student is presumed to be blind. But what if anyone can understand without additional explanation from a master? The Lessons of Rancière uses this pedagogy as a guide to envision a critical theory beyond blindness and to explore a democratic politics beyond liberalism.

About this title

About the Author

Samuel A. Chambers is Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University.

Review

"Jacques Rancière's work circulates widely these days, but it is rarely well-understood. Sam Chambers' The Lessons of Rancière will change that. Distinguishing Rancière's project from the anarchism and Arendtianism with which it is often associated, Chambers gives pride of place to Rancière's historically-situated emancipatory politics of equality and argues that contemporary queer activism is its best exemplar now. Tracking the contingencies of Rancière's (mis-)translation into English, the stakes of different approaches to his work, and the debates to which Rancière is a key contributor (humanism, critical theory, subjectivation, and more), Chambers offers a thoroughgoing analysis of the contribution Rancière stands to make to political and critical theory now. GPS-like, this book will help all readers of Rancière get their bearings in the space and time of contemporary political theory." --Bonnie Honig, Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor, Political Science, Northwestern University

"This is a remarkably deft engagement with Rancière and his interpreters. Chambers persistently refuses to let the latter capture Rancière for their particular projects, stressing rather his distinctiveness and radicality. In fact, we discover that there are no enumerable 'lessons' to be learned; only a set of unruly challenges to established positions in contemporary political theory. This book sparkles with insights." --Stephen White, James Hart Professor of Politics, University of Virginia

"Chambers's book is the best secondary text on Ranciere in English, and should become the standard text for anyone wanting to explore Ranciere's thought further... Meticulously researched and clearly written, The Lessons of Ranciere helps readers understand the radicality of Ranciere's arguments and mobilizes these arguments as polemic interventions into ongoing democratic struggles... Highly recommended." --CHOICE

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0199927219
• ISBN 13: 9780199927210
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240