L'imaginaire politique


Book Description

Parmi les domaines du politique, l'imaginaire est un champ trop souvent négligé, alors qu'il est un élément essentiel de la construction des identités politiques et de la formation des consciences politiques. Cet ouvrage propose une analyse de l'imaginaire, considéré comme un principe d'explication du monde exprimé en particulier par les mythes et les idéologies. Les différentes significations de l'imaginaire politique s'inscrivent dans des engagements et dans des pratiques de pouvoir dont les spécificités historiques et culturelles contribuent à structurer les espaces publics. Pour tenter de comprendre l'imaginaire et de lui donner du sens, L'imaginaire politique présente des méthodes d'approche fondées sur la sémiotique et sur l'analyse des discours et des images des acteurs politiques et des médias. Il expose la place qu'occupent dans le débat public et dans les pratiques politiques l'utopie, la peur et les autres formes de l'imaginaire politique.




A Critical Theory for the Anthropocene


Book Description

This volume, which is rooted in biogeophysical studies, addresses conceptions of political action in the Anthropocene and the tension between a desire to accomplish the Promethean project of modernity and a post-Promethean approach. This work explores the idea of ​​an anthropological mutation of political consolidation from a “post-Promethean togetherness”, to creating the capacity to act together. The political thinking of the human condition developed by Hannah Arendt is important here as a resource for thinking about humanity in terms of human adventure. This has three dimensions: hubris, the world and coexistence referring respectively to the logic of profit of the homo oeconomicus, the logic of responsibility of the homo collectivus and the logic of the hospitality of the homo religatus. The intellectual and political attitude outlined in this book is an extension of critical theory: the work also puts forward a critique of what poses a problem in our relationship to the world and suggests how to overcome it, the ultimate goal being social transformation. The author propose an uprising and an anthropological consolidation of politics based on the revitalization that is brought about by the sharing of a conviviality both between humans and with what is non-human. The identification of conviviality as an educational paradigm to survive the Anthropocene gives us the much needed reason for hope despite this heritage of the Anthropocene. In addition to Arendtian thinking, this critical theory for the Anthropocene draws on the political thinking of several contemporary authors including Maurice Bellet, Hartmut Rosa, Andreas Weber, Dominique Bourg, and Christian Arnsperger. This volume is of interest to researchers in the Anthropocene.




Before Imagination


Book Description

A study of the practice of vivid, self-directed imagination in the optimistic spirit of the early-modern French writers.




In the Name of Social Democracy


Book Description

Following the locust years of the neo-liberal revolution, social democracy was the great victor at the fin-de-siècle elections. Today, parties descended from the Second International hold office throughout the European Union, while the Right appears widely disorientated by the dramatic “modernisation” of a political tradition dating back to the nineteenth century. The focal point of Gerassimos Moschonas’s study is the emergent “new social democracy” of the twenty-first century. As Moschonas demonstrates, change has been a constant of social-democratic history: the core dominant reformist tendency of working-class politic notwithstanding, capitalism has transformed social democracy more than it has succeeded in transforming capitalism. Now, in the “great transformation” of recent years, a process of “de-social-democratization” has been set in train, affecting every aspect of the social-democratic phenomenon, from ideology and programs to organization and electorates. Analytically incisive and empirically meticulous, In the Name of Social Democracy will establish itself as the standard reference work on the logic and dynamics of a major mutation in European politics.




Imaginaires du politique


Book Description

La sphère du politique (avec ses références au peuple, à la société civile, à la souveraineté, au gouvernement, à la nation, aux utopies, aux idéaux historiques, etc.) se réduit-elle à des représentations et à des normes rationnelles liées au seul modèle contractualiste des institutions ? Et si l'on doit faire place à des composantes non rationnelles, dans quelle mesure images, symboles, fictions et mythes viennent-ils fonder, médiatiser, valoriser les formes fonctions du politique ? On se propose ici de restituer un panorama de faits, d'hypothèses et de théories (souvent dans des disciplines qui s'ignorent) qui permettent de mieux prendre conscience de la complexité anthropologique des phénomènes politiques tout en jetant les bases d'une véritable " mythanalyse " du politique. L'imaginaire du politique, qui se révèle tantôt comme consubstantiel ou créateur, tantôt comme parasite voire mystificateur, apparaît en tout cas comme une dimension irréductible dont la connaissance est indispensable autant au travail spéculatif du philosophe qu'aux savoirs de l'homme d'action.





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Mytho-politiques


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The Discovery of the Third World


Book Description

An innovative account of how the concept of the 'Third World' emerged in France from the mid-1950s through to the mid-1970s alongside a new leftist movement. The book reveals how, in an age of Cold War, decolonization and development thinking, French activists rose to prominence within the political Left, established transnational contacts, and developed a new global consciousness. Using the 'Third World' concept to reinvigorate anticolonial solidarity, they supported the Algerian FLN, the Cuban Revolution, and the liberation movements in Vietnam and Portuguese Africa. Insisting on the postcolonial character of France after the end of empire, they promoted new forms of cooperation with developing countries and immigrant workers. Examining the work of French leftists in publications such as Partisans, parties such as the PSU, and associations like the CEDETIM, Kalter sheds new light on a crucial moment in France's history, the global contexts that prompted it, and its worldwide ramifications.




Picturing Casablanca


Book Description

In Picturing Casablanca, Susan Ossman probes the shape and texture of mass images in Casablanca, from posters, films, and videotapes to elections, staged political spectacles, and changing rituals. In a fluid style that blends ethnographic narrative, cultural reportage, and the author's firsthand experiences, Ossman sketches a radically new vision of Casablanca as a place where social practices, traditions, and structures of power are in flux. Ossman guides the reader through the labyrinthine byways of the city, where state bureaucracy and state power, the media and its portrayal of the outside world, and people's everyday lives are all on view. She demonstrates how images not only reflect but inform and alter daily experience. In the Arab League Park, teenagers use fashion and flirting to attract potential mates, defying traditional rules of conduct. Wedding ceremonies are transformed by the ubiquitous video camera, which becomes the event's most important spectator. Political leaders are molded by the state's adept manipulation of visual media. From Madonna videos and the TV's transformation of social time, to changing gender roles and new ways of producing and disseminating information, the Morocco that Ossman reveals is a telling commentary on the consequences of colonial planning, the influence of modern media, and the rituals of power and representation enacted by the state.