Rancière's Lesson: October 1917, May 1968, October 2017

What is it about?

October ’17 and May ’68, two of the three events Marxists around the world celebrate today in their quest for new prophecies, also delineate le Siècle as Alain Badiou sees it in 2005, with Rancière constituting, according to Badiou, a rare echo of that century in the next one. When it then comes to thinking the future of Marxist thought by way of analyzing its history, the trajectory of Jacques Rancière may very well offer a productive starting point.

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Why is it important?

Rancière’s work on art and politics, and the way this work has been read in terms of speech and the act, seems to provide a relevant backdrop against which we can approach Marxism today, when, a hundred years after the Left seized power, and fifty years after it seized speech instead of power, the US shows the global Right how to seize, if not power, then at least power-as-speech. Power-as-hate-speech, to be precise.