The Politics of Aesthetics rethinks the relationship between art and politics, reclaiming "aesthetics" from the narrow confines it is often reduced to. Jacques Ranciere reveals its intrinsic link to politics by analysing what they both have in common: the delimitation of the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, the thinkable and the unthinkable, the possible and the impossible. Presented as a set of inter-linked interviews, The Politics of Aesthetics provides the most comprehensive introduction to Ranciere's work to date, ranging across the history of art and politics from the Greek polis to the aesthetic revolution of the modern age. Already translated into five languages, this English edition of The Politics of Aesthetics includes a new afterword by Slavoj Zizek, an interview for the English edition, a glossary of technical terms and an extensive bibliography.

Table of Contents

Translator's preface: The Reconfiguration of Meaning; Translator's Introduction: Jacques Ranciere's Politics of Perception; THE POLITICS OF AESTHETICS; Foreword; The Distribution of the Sensible: Politics and Aesthetics; Artistic Regimes and the Shortcomings of the Notion of Modernity; Mechanical Arts and the Promotion of the Anonymous; Is History a Form of Fiction?; On Art and Work; A New Interview with Jacques Ranciere for the English Edition: The Janus-Face of Politicized Art; Historical and Hermeneutic Methodology; Universality, Historicity, Equality; Positive Contradiction; Politicized Art; Afterword by Slavoj Zizek: The Lesson of Ranciere; Appendix I: Glossary of Technical Terms; Appendix II: Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources; Index.

Author Biography

Jacques Ranciere is Professor of Aesthetics at the University of Paris VIII (St Denis) and a former student of Louis Althusser. His translated works include The Nights of Labour, The Ignorant Schoolmaster, The Names of History and Disagreement.