Jacques Rancière / Key Contemporary Thinkers (PDF)

This book is a critical introduction to contemporary Frenchphilosopher Jacques Rancière. It is the first introduction inany language to cover all of his major work and offers anaccessible presentation and searching evaluation of his significantcontributions to the fields of politics, pedagogy, history,literature, film theory and aesthetics.

This book traces the emergence of Rancière's thoughtover the last forty-five years and situates it in the diverseintellectual contexts in which it intervenes. Beginning with hisegalitarian critique of his former teacher Louis Althusser, thebook tracks the subsequent elaboration of Rancière'shighly original conception of equality. This approach reveals thata grasp of his early archival and historiographical work is vitalfor a full understanding both of his later politics and his ongoinginvestigation of art and aesthetics.

Along the way, this book explains and analyses key terms inRancière's very distinctive philosophical lexicon,including the 'police' order,'disagreement', 'political subjectivation','literarity', the 'part which has no part',the 'regimes of art' and 'the distribution of thesensory'.

This book argues that Rancière's work sets a newstandard in contestatory critique and concludes by reflecting onthe philosophical and policy implications of his singular project.