What Is a People?

Alain Badiou; Judith Butler; Georges Didi-Huberman; Sadri Khiari; Jacques Rancière; Pierre Bourdieu

Published by Columbia University Press 2016

What Is a People?

Alain Badiou , Judith Butler , Georges Didi-Huberman , Sadri Khiari , Jacques Rancière and Pierre Bourdieu
With contributions by: Bruno Bosteels
Translated by: Jody Gladding
Afterword by: Kevin Olson

Volume 50 in the series New Directions in Critical Theory

https://doi.org/10.7312/badi16876

Overview
Contents

About this book

These outspoken intellectuals seek to reclaim "people" as an effective political concept by revisiting its uses and abuses over time. By engaging this topic linguistically, ethnically, culturally, and ontologically, these scholars help separate "people" from its fraught associations to pursue more vital formulations.

Rethinking the terms we use to define a people.

Author / Editor information

Badiou Alain :

Alain Badiou (PhD, Philosophy, Ecole Normale Superieure) holds the Rene Descartes Chair at the European Graduate School; he also teaches at the Ecole Normale Superieure and the College International de Philosophie in Paris. He is the author of several successful novels and plays as well as more than a dozen philosophical works, including his masterwork, Being and Event (Continuum, 2007), and several Columbia titles, includng Plato's Republic (2013) and Jacques Lacan Past and Present (2016).Alain Badiou (PhD, Philosophy, Ecole Normale Superieure) holds the Rene Descartes Chair at the European Graduate School; he also teaches at the Ecole Normale Superieure and the College International de Philosophie in Paris. He is the author of several successful novels and plays as well as more than a dozen philosophical works, including his masterwork, Being and Event (Continuum, 2007), and several Columbia titles, includng Plato's Republic (2013) and Jacques Lacan Past and Present (2016).

Reviews

A critical arsenal with which to think the tensions embedded in popular politics

Gabriel Rockhill, Villanova University, author of Radical History and the Politics of Art:
The central ambition of this powerful book is to leverage the term 'people' away from its conservative recuperations to maintain it in the lexical war chest of the politics of emancipation. All of the authors address, in this regard, the same central issue of the problematic status of this category, though their perspectives and approaches diverge significantly, ranging from linguistic and conceptual analysis to a concern with implicit racial and nationalist politics. The book as a whole therefore makes a significant contribution to the critical debate on the category of the people in all of its conceptual extensions: popular sovereignty, populism, popularity, and ambiguous expressions like 'we the people.'

Amy Allen, Pennsylvania State University, author of The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory:
This exciting and provocative collection of essays reflects on the exclusionary perils and emancipatory potentialities of the concept of 'people' and its myriad cognates: popular, peoples, populism, and so forth. With contributions from leading philosophers and social theorists from France, Tunisia, and the United States, What is a People? is a must-read for anyone interested in cutting-edge work in the tradition of French and Francophone critical theory.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Introduction: This People Which Is Not One Bruno Bosteels Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Twenty-Four Notes on the Uses of the Word “People” Alain Badiou Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2. You Said “Popular”? Pierre Bourdieu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	32
3. “We, the People”: Thoughts on Freedom of Assembly Judith Butler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
4. To Render Sensible Georges Didi-Huberman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
5. The People and the Third People Sadri Khiari Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
6. The Populism That Is Not to Be Found Jacques Rancière Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Conclusion: Fragile Collectivities, Imagined Sovereignties Kevin Olson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 176

eBook

Published: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 9780231541718