What is it about?
What comes first: oppressive power or people's resistance to oppression? Does power emerge and begin to oppress people because people resist, or do people resist in response to the oppression of power? This chapter deals with this historical and logical problem. It looks at the way two important contemporary critical thinkers have engaged with these questions. Those thinkers are Fred Moten and Judith Butler. This chapter looks particularly closely at Moten's poetry in order to understand his claim that 'resistance is primary', meaning that people's resistance comes before it is oppressed by authorities, both historically and logically.
Featured Image
Photo by BP Miller on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This is the first work to closely study Fred Moten's poetry as a crucial part of his very influential theoretical work. It stages his historical and logical claim that 'resistance is primary' in conversation with another important philosopher who understands the historical staging of power and resistance differently. That philosopher is Judith Butler.
Perspectives
Fred Moten's poetry is wonderfully playful and inventive, making it a lot of fun to write about, as well as being a crucial part of the radical antiracist political project his work is involved in.
Elliot Mason
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Fred Moten and the Primary Antagonism, September 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004746480_009.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
