Securing the ship of democracy is no easy feat. In Between Past and Future Hannah Arendt writes o... more Securing the ship of democracy is no easy feat. In Between Past and Future Hannah Arendt writes of her essays, ‘these are exercises in political thought as it arises out of the actuality of political incidents (though such incidents are mentioned only occasionally), and my assumption is that thought itself arises out of incidents of living experience and must remain bound to them as the only guideposts by which to take its bearings’ (1993: 14). That political thinking ought to be tied to experiences in the world, and that the experiences in the world we ought to notice revolve around loss of freedom, is the springboard for two new books in political philosophy: Kei Hiruta’s Hannah Arendt & Isaiah Berlin (2021) and Adriana Cavarero’s Surging Democracy: Notes on Hannah Arendt’s Political Thought (2021). Both texts are richly rewarding, highly readable and important interventions in contemporary political philosophy. They are valuable in revealing the challenges of securing democracy understood as a way of life, as a set of values and institutions, and as under threat.
This is a review essay on the topic of nonviolence in Judith Butler and Adriana Cavarero.
Volume ... more This is a review essay on the topic of nonviolence in Judith Butler and Adriana Cavarero. Volume 43, Number 1,
We often think of “cool” as an imperative of youth. But what does it mean to think of “cool” in r... more We often think of “cool” as an imperative of youth. But what does it mean to think of “cool” in relation to the aging body? This essay engages the shifting aesthetics of aging bodies asking what this view of the self and identity signals and in what contexts? In philosophy and political theory aging is rarely studied in terms of views of the self, experience, or aesthetics; more frequently we see aging in terms of demographics, workers past their prime, or in a framework of decline. I argue that there is an emerging “cool” aesthetics of aging bodies that is not simply about chasing youth. These aesthetics revolve in particular around what aging bodies wear, or do not wear. That is, fashion in terms of clothing, accessories, dress, and ways to augment assisting tools (canes for example) has an outsized role in the aesthetics of the aging body. Although who ages well and how, and who can dress well and how, are shaped by nation, gender, class, religion, and other social identity cate...
As Claudia Leeb says in her rigorous and thoughtful new book, "For the feminist movement to invit... more As Claudia Leeb says in her rigorous and thoughtful new book, "For the feminist movement to invite different women (and men) in, which is necessary to strengthen itself, we must opt for a politics beyond identification" (165). Leeb argues that neither a fantasy of agentic wholeness nor a poststructural view of a fluid self can adequately provide a conceptual ground for social transformation of a feminist, intersectional, and materialist nature. However, Leeb suggests that "political and feminist theorists cannot give up theorizing the political subject, because without a political subject there is no agent of sociopolitical transformation" (72). In Power and Feminist Agency in Capitalism, Leeb reanimates the relationship among psychoanalysis, critical theory, and feminist theory. She moves readily among thinkers such as Jacques Lacan, Theodor Adorno, Karl Marx, Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, and others. Leeb's work is rightly characterized as feminist critical theory and one that is attuned to the debates within feminism and intersectionality theory. Leeb characterizes two dominant threads of feminist criticism in this way: on the one hand are thinkers who reject the idea that the task of feminist theorizing is to get the subject of feminism right to address the exclusionary characteristics of much of feminist theory and practice. On the other hand are 767818P TXXXX10.
Kwame Anthony Appiah was born in London and raised in Ghana. He is currently Laurence S. Rockefel... more Kwame Anthony Appiah was born in London and raised in Ghana. He is currently Laurence S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and a professor in the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University. He is a wide-ranging thinker whose writings encompass philosophy of language debates in an analytic philosophical tradition; significant contributions to discussions of race, culture, and African philosophy; and essays about patriotism and cosmopolitanism, literature, social identity, honor, as well as several novels. An elegant and thoughtful writer, Appiah's contributions to political theory are in his defense of a democratic liberalism attuned to diversity. In the spirit of John Stuart Mill's ethical philosophy of liberalism he argues that respect for diversity is central to the liberal tradition in terms of identity, beliefs, ideas, aesthetics, and argument. This attunement is essential for individual thriving and our collective good as beings entitled to equal dignity within political communities. To have the chance to develop ethically (living a good life) and morally (in relation to others) for Appiah means that we ought not to be “too tightly scripted” by narratives about who we are or should be. Essential to Appiah's liberalism is a defense of autonomy for individuals who negotiate their identity in relation to family life, local communities, religious, national, and human rights aspirations. Keywords: Africa; cosmopolitanism; identity; liberal theory; race
Identity politics is a form of politics grounded in and organized by a shared identity that has b... more Identity politics is a form of politics grounded in and organized by a shared identity that has been the target of unjust practices. Identity politics emerged in the second half of the twentieth century as a way of organizing political claims on behalf of oppressed social groups typically, but not exclusively, within liberal democracies. Such shared identity may be ethnic, racial, religious, sexual, organized around disabilities, or gender-based. However, the claim that group identity is relevant to politics has spurred much anxiety and many criticisms about the political dangers of identity politics within nation-states. Such dangers include charges of separatism or “balkanization,” intragroup policing of the “proper” or “authentic” identity at the cost of individual freedom, and reductions of identity politics to narrowly defined interests that hinder broader political movements. In philosophical terms identity politics has been criticized for restricting the flourishing of the self by focusing on a specific difference as “authentic,” and for reinforcing injurious identities rather than transforming their structural situation in a more fundamental way. Keywords: difference; egalitarianism; feminism; gender; identity
An exploration of the critical purchase of Cornelius Castoriadis's imaginary in relation ... more An exploration of the critical purchase of Cornelius Castoriadis's imaginary in relation to Jaques Lacan and feminist theory.
This essay engages the work of Italian feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero and her concept of t... more This essay engages the work of Italian feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero and her concept of the narratable self. Her relational humanism, rooted in our exposure to others, offers an ontology of uniqueness whose critique of abstraction, masculinism, and identity politics still resonates today where the meaning of a unique “you” is negotiated in embodied exchanges that may offer care or wounds. Cavarero develops an altruistic ethics that culti- vates this humanism. I argue that her work should be extended to better capture the political purchase of the narratable self that interacts dynamically and often ambiguously with the “we” of collective politics. Putting her work into conversation with the nineteenth-century abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth, I suggest that Cavarero’s work illuminates Truth as a philosopher of the narratable self. Moreover, Truth’s work extends Cavarero’s concerns with exposure that may do violence or offer care by making explicit the challenges of narration in the context of inequality, especially in terms of race and class. Exposure as an ontological and phenomenological condition then needs to take account of a broader publicity of textual, individual, and collective exposure to others to develop the critical, ethical, and political purchase it offers.
Securing the ship of democracy is no easy feat. In Between Past and Future Hannah Arendt writes o... more Securing the ship of democracy is no easy feat. In Between Past and Future Hannah Arendt writes of her essays, ‘these are exercises in political thought as it arises out of the actuality of political incidents (though such incidents are mentioned only occasionally), and my assumption is that thought itself arises out of incidents of living experience and must remain bound to them as the only guideposts by which to take its bearings’ (1993: 14). That political thinking ought to be tied to experiences in the world, and that the experiences in the world we ought to notice revolve around loss of freedom, is the springboard for two new books in political philosophy: Kei Hiruta’s Hannah Arendt & Isaiah Berlin (2021) and Adriana Cavarero’s Surging Democracy: Notes on Hannah Arendt’s Political Thought (2021). Both texts are richly rewarding, highly readable and important interventions in contemporary political philosophy. They are valuable in revealing the challenges of securing democracy understood as a way of life, as a set of values and institutions, and as under threat.
This is a review essay on the topic of nonviolence in Judith Butler and Adriana Cavarero.
Volume ... more This is a review essay on the topic of nonviolence in Judith Butler and Adriana Cavarero. Volume 43, Number 1,
We often think of “cool” as an imperative of youth. But what does it mean to think of “cool” in r... more We often think of “cool” as an imperative of youth. But what does it mean to think of “cool” in relation to the aging body? This essay engages the shifting aesthetics of aging bodies asking what this view of the self and identity signals and in what contexts? In philosophy and political theory aging is rarely studied in terms of views of the self, experience, or aesthetics; more frequently we see aging in terms of demographics, workers past their prime, or in a framework of decline. I argue that there is an emerging “cool” aesthetics of aging bodies that is not simply about chasing youth. These aesthetics revolve in particular around what aging bodies wear, or do not wear. That is, fashion in terms of clothing, accessories, dress, and ways to augment assisting tools (canes for example) has an outsized role in the aesthetics of the aging body. Although who ages well and how, and who can dress well and how, are shaped by nation, gender, class, religion, and other social identity cate...
As Claudia Leeb says in her rigorous and thoughtful new book, "For the feminist movement to invit... more As Claudia Leeb says in her rigorous and thoughtful new book, "For the feminist movement to invite different women (and men) in, which is necessary to strengthen itself, we must opt for a politics beyond identification" (165). Leeb argues that neither a fantasy of agentic wholeness nor a poststructural view of a fluid self can adequately provide a conceptual ground for social transformation of a feminist, intersectional, and materialist nature. However, Leeb suggests that "political and feminist theorists cannot give up theorizing the political subject, because without a political subject there is no agent of sociopolitical transformation" (72). In Power and Feminist Agency in Capitalism, Leeb reanimates the relationship among psychoanalysis, critical theory, and feminist theory. She moves readily among thinkers such as Jacques Lacan, Theodor Adorno, Karl Marx, Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, and others. Leeb's work is rightly characterized as feminist critical theory and one that is attuned to the debates within feminism and intersectionality theory. Leeb characterizes two dominant threads of feminist criticism in this way: on the one hand are thinkers who reject the idea that the task of feminist theorizing is to get the subject of feminism right to address the exclusionary characteristics of much of feminist theory and practice. On the other hand are 767818P TXXXX10.
Kwame Anthony Appiah was born in London and raised in Ghana. He is currently Laurence S. Rockefel... more Kwame Anthony Appiah was born in London and raised in Ghana. He is currently Laurence S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and a professor in the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University. He is a wide-ranging thinker whose writings encompass philosophy of language debates in an analytic philosophical tradition; significant contributions to discussions of race, culture, and African philosophy; and essays about patriotism and cosmopolitanism, literature, social identity, honor, as well as several novels. An elegant and thoughtful writer, Appiah's contributions to political theory are in his defense of a democratic liberalism attuned to diversity. In the spirit of John Stuart Mill's ethical philosophy of liberalism he argues that respect for diversity is central to the liberal tradition in terms of identity, beliefs, ideas, aesthetics, and argument. This attunement is essential for individual thriving and our collective good as beings entitled to equal dignity within political communities. To have the chance to develop ethically (living a good life) and morally (in relation to others) for Appiah means that we ought not to be “too tightly scripted” by narratives about who we are or should be. Essential to Appiah's liberalism is a defense of autonomy for individuals who negotiate their identity in relation to family life, local communities, religious, national, and human rights aspirations. Keywords: Africa; cosmopolitanism; identity; liberal theory; race
Identity politics is a form of politics grounded in and organized by a shared identity that has b... more Identity politics is a form of politics grounded in and organized by a shared identity that has been the target of unjust practices. Identity politics emerged in the second half of the twentieth century as a way of organizing political claims on behalf of oppressed social groups typically, but not exclusively, within liberal democracies. Such shared identity may be ethnic, racial, religious, sexual, organized around disabilities, or gender-based. However, the claim that group identity is relevant to politics has spurred much anxiety and many criticisms about the political dangers of identity politics within nation-states. Such dangers include charges of separatism or “balkanization,” intragroup policing of the “proper” or “authentic” identity at the cost of individual freedom, and reductions of identity politics to narrowly defined interests that hinder broader political movements. In philosophical terms identity politics has been criticized for restricting the flourishing of the self by focusing on a specific difference as “authentic,” and for reinforcing injurious identities rather than transforming their structural situation in a more fundamental way. Keywords: difference; egalitarianism; feminism; gender; identity
An exploration of the critical purchase of Cornelius Castoriadis's imaginary in relation ... more An exploration of the critical purchase of Cornelius Castoriadis's imaginary in relation to Jaques Lacan and feminist theory.
This essay engages the work of Italian feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero and her concept of t... more This essay engages the work of Italian feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero and her concept of the narratable self. Her relational humanism, rooted in our exposure to others, offers an ontology of uniqueness whose critique of abstraction, masculinism, and identity politics still resonates today where the meaning of a unique “you” is negotiated in embodied exchanges that may offer care or wounds. Cavarero develops an altruistic ethics that culti- vates this humanism. I argue that her work should be extended to better capture the political purchase of the narratable self that interacts dynamically and often ambiguously with the “we” of collective politics. Putting her work into conversation with the nineteenth-century abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth, I suggest that Cavarero’s work illuminates Truth as a philosopher of the narratable self. Moreover, Truth’s work extends Cavarero’s concerns with exposure that may do violence or offer care by making explicit the challenges of narration in the context of inequality, especially in terms of race and class. Exposure as an ontological and phenomenological condition then needs to take account of a broader publicity of textual, individual, and collective exposure to others to develop the critical, ethical, and political purchase it offers.
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Volume 43, Number 1,
Volume 43, Number 1,