Moments Politiques

Moments Politiques collects the short essays and interviews of Jacques Ranciere from a span of thirty years, 1977 to 2007. Sparked by specific events in European and world news as they were happening, these pieces seek to call into question the inevitability we see in the world and undermine the legitimacy of what we think is possible. By examining the issues in which political moments arise, such as 9/11, immigration laws, and even the philosophy of Foucault, Ranciere opens us up to the possibility of a different world, to reimagining, and re-charting, the map of what is possible.

To speak of political moments is to say, first and foremost, that politics is not the continuous unfolding of governmental acts and power struggles; rather, it exists in those moments that question what politics is, exactly, what kind of community it engages, what people are contained therein and of what those people are capable. Politics is the impulse that either sparks or stalls a movement.