A Politics of Emancipation: The Miguel Abensour Reader (Suny Contemporary French Thought)

Contents Acknowledgments Note on Translations Introduction: The Legacy of Miguel Abensour An Intimate Encounter with a Tragic Century Which Return? Challenging the Tradition of Political Philosophy Political Things and the Critique of Totalitarianism Towards a Critical-Utopian Political Philosophy A Politics of Emancipation: Democracy and Utopia Abensour Today: The Project of a Critical-Utopian Political Philosophy Part I: The Return of Political Things Chapter 1 Manifesto for the “Critique de la Politique” Book Series, Éditions Payot (1974) Chapter 2 New Manifesto for the “Critique de la Politique” Book Series, Éditions Klincksieck (2016) Chapter 3 Modern Political Philosophy and Emancipation (1983; republished 2009) Chapter 4 What Kind of Return? (1994; republished 2009) Part II: The Critique of Totalitarianism Chapter 5 On a Misinterpretation of Totalitarianism and Its Effects (1996; republished 2009) Totalitarianism as an Excess of the Political, Its Effects Totalitarianism: Total Domination and the Destruction of Politics Chapter 6 On Compactness: Architecture and Totalitarian Regimes (1996; republished 1997) I. The Strategy of Disjunction: Five Propositions II. The Three Critical Demands 1. Research Hypothesis 2. Philosophical Interpretations of Totalitarianism: Unity and Diversity 3. Political Intelligence III. Grand Position 1. No Univocal Relation: The Necessity of Displacement a. The Question of the Status of Architecture b. The Question of the Threshold? 2. Totalitarian Regimes, Architecture and Social Bonds a. Totalitarian Regimes and New Politics; or Architecture and the Mobilization of the Masses b. Totalitarian Regimes and Charismatic Domination Architecture and the Direction of the Daemonic Time and Politics: Architecture and Entrapping Charisma c. Totalitarian Logic, Architecture and Space The Depoliticization and Aestheticization of The political: Monumental Art Inclusion/Exclusion: The Cathedral of Light/Night and Fog Part III: Critical-Utopian Political Philosophy Chapter 7 Hannah Arendt against Political Philosophy? (2001; republished 2009) I. Philosophers and the Denial of Action II. The Connection of Philosophy to Death and the Political Question III. The Kantian Reversal and the Question of Equality Conclusion Chapter 8 For a Critical Political Philosophy? (2002; republished 2009) Critical Theory as Political Philosophy? The Articulation of the Two Paradigms or the Creation of a Critical Political Philosophy The Paradigm of the Critique of Domination The Political Paradigm The Option of Articulation Conclusion Part IV: Utopia, Democracy, and Emancipation Chapter 9 E. P. Thompson’s Passion (1988; republished 2012) Chapter 10 The New Utopian Spirit (1991; republished 2013) The Plurality of Utopian Traditions The Dialectic of Emancipation and Utopia The New Utopian Spirit and the Issue of Repetition Chapter 11 The Utopian Conversion: Utopia and Awakening (2013) Chapter 12 Letter from a “Revoltist” to Marcel Gauchet, Convert to “Normal Politics” (2004; republished 2008) Notes Bibliography Index