Aesthetic Turn in Political Thought

Nikolas Kompridis is Research Professor of Philosophy and Political Thought, and Foundation Director of the Institute for Social Justice, Australian Catholic University. He is the author of Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future (2006) and Philosophical Romanticism (2006).

• Turning and returning: the aesthetic turn in political thoughtNIKOLAS KOMPRIDISPart I – Aesthetic politics, judgment, and worldly things“Delightful horror”: Edmund Burke and the aesthetics of democratic revolutionJASON FRANKWe feel our freedom: Imagination and judgment in the thought of Hannah ArendtLINDA ZERILLIArendt, aesthetics, and “the crisis in culture”PATCHEN MARKELLPart II – Poetics, theory, and utopian politics Fanon’s decolonial aestheticLEWIS GORDONJourneys to farther shores: Intersecting movements of poetics, politics and theory beyond utopiaLIA HARO AND ROMAND COLESPart III – Receptivity, reinscription, affirmation Recognition and receptivity: Forms of normative response in the lives of the animals we areNIKOLAS KOMPRIDISFor the love of earthly life: Nietzsche and Winnicott between modernism and naturalismMELISSA A. ORLIEWriting a name in the sky: Ranciere, Cavell, and the possibility of egalitarian inscriptionALETTA NORVALPart IV – Aesthetic “seeing as”, politics of the “as if”Blankets, screens and projections: Or, the claim of filmDAVIDE PANAGIAThe aesthetic dimension: Aesthetics, politics, knowledgeJACQUES RANCIEREBibliographyIndex

This is an excellent and wide-ranging collection of essays on political theory through a broadly aesthetic approach; that is, an approach that seeks to reintegrate political thought and action with their accompanying senses, emotions and intuitions.