John Randolph LeBlanc published a review of Radical History & the Politics of Art in Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History 45:2 (spring 2016): 234-238.
I will be presenting the keynote lecture at the conference on “Resistance, Radicalisms and Aesthetics,” which has been organized by the graduate students in the Department of French and Italian at Northwestern University. Click here for the full program. An abstract of my lecture is below.
The Political Plurivocity of Aesthetics:
Equality and Empire in Whitman’s Poetic Revolution
This lecture seeks to demonstrate the political plurivocity of aesthetic practice, meaning the extent to which artistic work is the site of multiple and often conflicting political investments, be it at the level of production, circulation or reception. This plurivocity calls into question the very widespread reduction of individual artists or their works to single political positions, an approach that tends to define the task of the critic as one of drawing up binary lists of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ political art. In critically dismantling this univocal politics of aesthetics—as well as the unidimensional hermeneutics and the moralizing dichotomies that it favors—it is not sufficient, however, to simply point to the complexities of aesthetic practices as multifaceted social phenomena. It is necessary to develop a multidimensional analysis of these practices that is capable of providing a nuanced map of their political plurivocity, precisely in order to be able to intervene more effectively in it.
As a specific instance of this struggle, the paper turns to the work of Walt Whitman and his proposed poetic revolution in New World literature. It elucidates his provocative account—which resonates strongly with the work of figures like Schiller, Hugo and the early Marx—of aesthetic revolution as the necessary cultural supplement to a purely political revolution, explicating how art and literature compose a people by simultaneously depicting and forging its culture, norms, affects and personalities. It then situates his project in the historical nexus it calls its own, detailing Whitman’s unique contribution to the revisionist historiography of democratic theodicy, and more specifically American manifest destiny. Finally, it explores the diverse ways in which the purportedly egalitarian poet of a new world literature, at least in certain of his writings, subjected other people—particularly the enslaved and the colonized—to a brutal, imperial process of decomposition. It thereby foregrounds the multiple dimensions of politics operative in his work and the extent to which the struggle over its reception and interpretation is part and parcel of its social politicity.
The provisory program for the Critical Theory Workshop / Atelier de Théorie Critique, which is an intensive research collaborative that I run in Paris over the summer, has been set. Click here to read in full. The list of invited guests includes Marielle Macé, Patrice Maniglier, Peter Skafish, Philippe Corcuff, Sophie Wahnich, Alice Canabate, Marie Goupy, Jennifer Ponce de León, Jean-François Bayart, Andrew Feenberg, Bernard Stiegler and Özgür Gürsoy. Participants in this year’s workshop come from approximately 12 different disciplines and 15 cultural backgrounds. Click here to read their profiles.
Click here to read the Turkish translation of the interview I did on Medyascope TV, entitled “CIA, French Theory and the Intelligentsia with Gabriel Rockhill.”
A special thanks to Rahman Bouzari and Shargh Newspaper for the Persian translation of my article “The CIA Reads French Theory: On the Intellectual Labor of Dismantling the Cultural Left.” Click here to read in Persian.
I am very pleased to announce the publication of my latest book, Counter-History of the Present: Untimely Interrogations into Globalization, Technology, Democracy (Duke University Press). This is an English version of Contre-histoire du temps présent: interrogations intempestives sur la mondialisation, la technologie, la démocratie (CNRS Editions), which was also just published. Emily Rockhill and John V. Garner gratiously prepared the English translations of chapter 1 and chapters 2 and 3 respectively, which I reviewed and slightly modified. The rest of the translations are my own. Please see below for Duke’s summary of the book, endorsements, and Duke’s coupon code for a 30% discount.
Back cover:
“In Counter-History of the Present Gabriel Rockhill contests, dismantles, and displaces one of the most widespread understandings of the contemporary world: that we are all living in a democratized and globalized era intimately connected by a single, overarching economic and technological network. Noting how such a narrative fails to account for the experiences of the billions of people who lack economic security, digital access, and real political power, Rockhill interrogates the ways in which this grand narrative has emerged in the same historical, economic, and cultural context as the fervid expansion of neoliberalism. He also critiques the concurrent valorization of democracy, which is often used to justify U.S. military interventions on the behalf of capital. Developing an alternative account of the current conjuncture that acknowledges the plurality of lived experiences around the globe and in different social strata, he shifts the foundations upon which debates about the contemporary world can be staged. Rockhill’s counter-history thereby offers a new grammar for historical narratives, creating space for the articulation of futures no longer engulfed in the perpetuation of the present.”
“In an era that, according to Lyotard, was supposed to have seen the end of the grand narratives, a grand narrative is spreading according to which globalization, technological development, and democracy are irresistibly marching forward in step. Gabriel Rockhill refutes this apologetic discourse not simply by appealing to growing social polarization, to shantytowns condemned to backwardness, to the toppling of democratically elected governments established by self-styled champions of democracy. Counter-History of the Present is also an occasion for critical reflection on a series of theoretical categories (beginning with that of history) that dominant contemporary thought employs in an apologetic and often Eurocentric sense. In this way, Rockhill’s book is thus an important reference point for understanding and transforming the present.” — Domenico Losurdo, author of War and Revolution: Rethinking the Twentieth Century
“A high level polemic attacking the current enthusiasm for the notion of globalization—which Gabriel Rockhill regards as a feature of the political imaginary of our time—Counter-History of the Present will be discussed alongside work by Jameson, Harvey, and Lyotard.” — Andrew Feenberg, author of The Philosophy of Praxis: Marx, Lukács, and the Frankfurt School
For more information, and to order the paperback edition at a 30% discount, please visit dukeupress.edu/counter-history-of-the-present and enter coupon code E17ROCKH during checkout.
A Turkish translation of my article “The CIA Reads French Theory” was just published in Medyascope.tv. Click here to read it.
Mediapart vient de publier la version française de mon article, “The CIA Reads French Theory“, sous le titre “Quand la CIA s’attelait à démanteler la gauche intellectuelle française“. Cliquez ici pour la lire.
Voici leur résumé: “Dans un rapport écrit en 1985 et qui vient d’être rendu public, on découvre que la CIA a suivi de près la vie intellectuelle française. Un Sartre sous surveillance, des « nouveaux philosophes » appréciés, Foucault et Derrida analysés… Des agents secrets se sont ainsi plongés dans l’étude de la French Theory. Objectif : aider aux fractures de la gauche intellectuelle et alimenter la guerre culturelle mondiale”.
Mediapart just republished, in their English version, my article on the CIA’s reading of French theory under the title “The CIA’s highbrow operation to dismantle France’s intellectual Left.” Click here to read it.
GABRIEL ROCKHILL 