Dissenting Words: Interviews with Jacques Ranciere

Description

Dissenting Words is a lively and engaging collection of interviews that span the length of Jacques Ranciere's trajectory, from the critique of Althusserian Marxism and the work on proletarian thinking in the nineteenth century to the more recent reflections on politics and aesthetics. Across these pages, Ranciere discusses the figures, concepts and arguments he has introduced to the theoretical landscape over the past forty years, the themes and concerns that have animated his thinking, the positions he has defended and the wide range of objects and discourses that have attracted his attention and through which his thought has unfolded: history, pedagogy, literature, art, cinema. But more than reflecting on the continuities, turns, ruptures and deviations in his thought, Ranciere recasts his work in a different discursive register. And the pleasure we experience in reading these interviews - with their asides, displacements and reconstructions - stems from the way Ranciere transforms the voice of the thinker commenting on his texts and elucidating his concepts into another, and equally rich, manifestation of his thought. Core sections of this edition are translated from the french publication Et tant pis pour le gens fatigues, by Jacques Ranciere, (c) Editions Amsterdam 2009, published by arrangement Agence litteraire Pierre Astier & Associes

Jacques Ranciere taught at the University of Paris VIII, France, from 1969 to 2000, occupying the Chair of Aesthetics and Politics from 1990 until his retirement. Emiliano Battista is the translator of Jacques Ranciere's Althusser's Lesson (2011) and Film Fables (2006).

Jacques Ranciere has spent a career crossing disciplinary boundaries. In this collection of interviews he reflects on the interplay between cinema, politics, literature, history, and education in his work. These interviews are an excellent introduction to his thought; they will also offer new insights to those already familiar with his work. -- Todd May, Professor of Philosophy, Clemson University, USA Most of the material here is available in English for the first time. This is a crucial book, full of fascinating insights into Ranciere's thought, and expertly edited and introduced. -- Nick Hewlett, Professor of French Studies, University of Warwick, UK.