The refusal of politics

Product Description


Denounces contemporary politics through an engagement with political theory, the arts and what it is to live well
Dubreuil provocatively proposes an extremist rethinking of the limits of politics – toward a break from politics, the political and policies. He calls for a refusal of politics, suggesting a form of apolitics that would make our lives more liveable.
The first chapter situates the refusal of politics in relation to different contemporary theoretical attempts to renew politics, and makes the case for a greater rupture. The second moment takes up what is liveable in life by way of apolitical experience, in contrast to appropriations of the collective, including a discussion of the arts. Finally, Laurent Dubreuil draws up an incomplete inventory of means, forms of existence – often frail and fleeting – that make an exit toward atopia.


Review


Laurent Dubreuil’s book is situated in an extreme polarity to other contemporary reflections on politics. Refusing every figure of the political, Dubreuil radically moves beyond all of the perspectives in the field today. Certainly his idea of absolute apoliticity remains highly problematic in a world lacking politics, such as our own. But this is precisely what makes his book of extreme interest. -- Roberto Esposito, University of Naples


From the Back Cover


A radical, elliptical essay in political theory This book belongs to a particular tradition of radical thought, at the crossroads of French leftism, Italian contemporary philosophy and English-speaking academic activism. Laurent Dubreuil develops a conceptual critique of today’s totalitarian democracy. He claims that while we need to elaborate a forceful and precise attack against present forms of domination, we may, at the same time, locate their roots within politics itself. In other words, if differences between regimes, societies, and subjective productions do exist, the deeds of all sorts of known politics ultimately derive from the very nature, structure, and destination of political order. Dubreuil provocatively proposes an extremist rethinking of the limits of politics – toward a break from politics, the political and policies. Rather than yet another re-articulation, he calls for a refusal of politics, suggesting a form of apolitics that would make our lives more livable. Laurent Dubreuil is Professor of French, Francophone and Comparative Literature at Cornell University. Cory Browning is Assistant Professor of French at the University of Oregon.


About the Author


Laurent Dubreuil is Professor of Comparative Literature, Romance Studies and Cognitive Science at Cornell University. He is the author of six books of philosophy and literary theory, including The Intellective Space (2015) and Empire of Language (2013). Since 2011, he has served as the Editor of diacritics.

Cory Browning is Assistant Professor of French at the University of Oregon. He completed his PhD at Cornell University under the direction of Laurent Dubreuil. He has translated articles by Etienne Balibar and Claire Fontaine for diacritics and two chapters in the forthcoming, Oxford Handbook of the History of Terrorism.