Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics

Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics brings together some of Jacques Ranci¨re's most recent writings on art and politics to show the critical potential of two of his most important concepts: the aesthetics of politics and the politics of aesthetics.



In this fascinating collection, Ranci¨re engages in a radical critique of some of his major contemporaries on questions of art and politics: Gilles Deleuze, Antonio Negri, Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou and Jacques Derrida. The essays show how Ranci¨re's ideas can be used to analyse contemporary trends in both art and politics, including the events surrounding 9/11, war in the contemporary consensual age, and the ethical turn of aesthetics and politics. Ranci¨re elaborates new directions for the concepts of politics and communism, as well as the notion of what a 'politics of art' might be.



This important collection includes several essays that have never previously been published in English, as well as a brand new afterword. Together these essays serve as a superb introduction to the work of one of the world's most influential contemporary thinkers.