Difference between revisions of "What is a People?"

From No Subject - Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis
Jump to: navigation, search
(Created page with "==Book Description==")
 
(The LinkTitles extension automatically added links to existing pages (<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://github.com/bovender/LinkTitles">https://github.com/bovender/LinkTitles</a>).)
 
(3 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
 +
{{BBAB}}
 +
[[File:What is a People?.jpg|thumb]]
 
==Book Description==
 
==Book Description==
 +
''What Is a [[People]]?'' seeks to reclaim “people” as an effective [[political]] [[concept]] by revisiting its uses and abuses over [[time]]. [[Alain]] [[Badiou]] surveys the [[idea]] of a people as a productive force of [[solidarity]] and emancipation and as a [[negative]] tool of categorization and [[suppression]]. Pierre Bourdieu follows with a sociolinguistic [[analysis]] of “popular” and its transformation of [[democracy]], beliefs, songs, and even soups into phenomena with outsized importance. [[Judith]] [[Butler]] calls out those who use [[freedom]] of assembly to create an exclusionary “we,” while Georges Didi-Huberman addresses the problem of summing up a people with totalizing narratives. Sadri Khiari applies an activist’s perspective to the racial hierarchies inherent in ethnic and national [[categories]], and Jacques Rancière comments on the futility of isolating theories of [[populism]] when, as these thinkers have shown, the idea of a “people” is too diffuse to support [[them]]. By engaging this topic [[linguistically]], ethnically, culturally, and ontologically, the voices in this volume [[help]] [[separate]] “people” from its fraught [[associations]] to pursue more vital formulations.

Latest revision as of 03:24, 21 May 2019

Books by Alain Badiou

What is a People?.jpg

Book Description

What Is a People? seeks to reclaim “people” as an effective political concept by revisiting its uses and abuses over time. Alain Badiou surveys the idea of a people as a productive force of solidarity and emancipation and as a negative tool of categorization and suppression. Pierre Bourdieu follows with a sociolinguistic analysis of “popular” and its transformation of democracy, beliefs, songs, and even soups into phenomena with outsized importance. Judith Butler calls out those who use freedom of assembly to create an exclusionary “we,” while Georges Didi-Huberman addresses the problem of summing up a people with totalizing narratives. Sadri Khiari applies an activist’s perspective to the racial hierarchies inherent in ethnic and national categories, and Jacques Rancière comments on the futility of isolating theories of populism when, as these thinkers have shown, the idea of a “people” is too diffuse to support them. By engaging this topic linguistically, ethnically, culturally, and ontologically, the voices in this volume help separate “people” from its fraught associations to pursue more vital formulations.