Rancière Interview

As mentioned in yesterday’s Innovation-based Reading Group discussion, Ranciere – Politics-Aesthetics Interview (Angelaki) conducted between Peter Hallward (until a few days ago a European Philosophy Prof at Middlesex, until the whole department was effectively shut down…) and Rancière which appeared a few years ago in one of my favourite journals, Angelaki.

It is a readable introduction to the evolution of Rancière’s thought, from the 1968ers (those heady Marxist revolutionary days) to his novel articulation of an ‘aesthetic revolution’, part of which we read in The Politics of Aesthetics.

Personally, while I am increasingly detached from ‘trends’ in general and trendy theory in particular, I do appreciate Rancière’s acknowledgement of the historicity of the concepts he’s speaking about. There is a frankness to his thought about the pervasive influence of ‘modernity’ (and after) within philosophy and art which doesn’t simply negate a whole tradition of thinking, which some trendy theorists are wont to do.