JACQUES RANCIÈRE: an INTRODUCTION Also Available from Continuum

JACQUES RANCIÈRE: AN INTRODUCTION Also available from Continuum: Chronicles, Jacques Rancière Dissensus, Jacques Rancière The Politics of Aesthetics, Jacques Rancière Jacques Rancière: Education, Truth, Emancipation, edited by Gert Biesta and Charles Bingham Forthcoming: Althusser’s Lesson, Jacques Rancière Mallarmé, Jacques Rancière Jacques Rancière and the Contemporary Scene, edited by Jean-Philippe Deranty and Alison Ross Reading Rancière, edited by Paul Bowman and Richard Stamp JACQUES RANCIÈRE: AN INTRODUCTION JOSEPH J. TANKE Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com © Joseph J. Tanke, 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tanke, Joseph J. Jacques Rancière : an introduction / Joseph J. Tanke. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4411-6770-5 – ISBN 978-1-4411-5208-4 1. Rancière, Jacques. I. Title. B2430.R27T36 2011 194–dc22 2010038361 Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in India For My Grandparents, Frank and Wilma Szomoru CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1: For a Critique of Philosophy 7 Introduction 7 1.1 The Lesson of Althusser 10 1.2 The Lessons of May 15 1.3 Lessons from the Archives 22 1.4 Lessons on Philosopher-Kings 27 1.5 Lessons from Equality 35 Conclusion 40 Chapter 2: Politics by Process of Elimination 43 Introduction 43 2.1 On the Terrain of Policed Consensus 45 2.2 The Aesthetics of Counting 48 2.3 Supposing, Verifying, and Demonstrating Equality 55 2.4 Disputing Subjects and Litigious Objects: Politics as Dissensus 61 2.5 The Subjective Process of Politics 65 Conclusion 70 Chapter 3: Retrieving the Politics of Aesthetics 73 Introduction 73 3.1 Analyzing the Part of Art 74 vii CONTENTS 3.2 Three Regimes of Art 77 3.3 Equality in Art 85 3.4 In Place of Modernity 93 3.5 Against Postmodernity 99 3.6 Art as Dissensus 103 Conclusion 108 Chapter 4: Regimes of Cinema 110 Introduction 110 4.1 A Historical Poetics of Cinema 112 4.2 Cinema, the Dream of the Aesthetic Age 115 4.3 The Logic of the Thwarted Fable 121 4.4 Allegories of Modernity: Deleuze and the Use of Hitchcock 128 4.5 Cinema and Its Century: Godard and the Abuse of Hitchcock 136 Conclusion 139 Chapter 5: Beyond Rancière 142 Introduction 142 5.1 Sensing Equality? 143 5.2 The Centrality of the Imagination 148 5.3 Inventing the Trans-Subjective Imagination 155 Conclusion 160 Notes 163 Bibliography 178 Index 183 viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Books rarely have simple origins. They emerge from multiple contexts, respond to various conversations, and bespeak numerous relationships only too fleetingly hinted at in their pages. This book is no exception. It was undertaken with the support of the Chalsty Initia- tive in Aesthetics and Philosophy, the Provost’s Office, and the Division of Humanities and Sciences at California College of the Arts. While working on this study, I profited greatly from conversations with colleagues, students, and friends, many of whom were generous enough to read and discuss portions of what I wrote. In particular, I would like to thank Jim Bernauer, Ignacio Valero, Fred Dolan, Brenda Wirkus, David Rasmussen, Emiliano Battista, Marie-Eve Morin, Jon Meyer, Tzuchien Tho, Doug Hall, Mat Foust, Dan Russell, Tirza Latimer, Tina Takemoto, Anthony Marcellini, Elyse Mallouk, Lynne McCabe, Rob Marks, Matthew Rana, and Paola Santoscoy. Cody Hennesy’s time and talents greatly facilitated the research conducted for this book. An extra expression of grat- itude is owed to Colin McQuillan. During the book’s final stages, he played for me the part of the ignorant schoolmaster. His careful readings forced me to improve my arguments and to refine my forms of expression. I am grateful as well to the editorial staff at Continuum for their enthusiasm for this project, especially Sarah Campbell, Tom Crick, and David Avital. Finally, I would like to thank Professor Rancière for his encouragement, time in conversation, and responses to questions regarding his position. My work would not have been possible without the support of my parents, Jim and Claire Blanca, and my partner, Molly Slota. This book is dedicated to my grandparents, Frank and Wilma Szomoru, who have been an inspiration for as long as I can remember. ix INTRODUCTION What follows is an introduction to the thought of Jacques Rancière. While introductory studies of philosophers often proceed by means of commentary, it would be perhaps the height of irony to offer readers good enough to expend energy on the pages I have composed an exegesis of texts. Rancière is quite critical of explication and the assumptions it makes regarding the intelligences of students, readers, and, in artistic contexts, spectators. In many instances, he views such procedures as hostile to what is the defining element of his thought, be it in a philosophical, political, or aesthetic context, that of equality. Rather than an exegetical introduction, I hope that my text will be viewed as a “reading.” It is no doubt one among many, and it recounts the course I have been tracking through Rancière’s works for a num- ber of years now. Throughout, I have analyzed and commented on portions of Rancière’s texts, not, I hope, to achieve the satisfaction of the one who knows, but to set in motion and clarify my intellectual adventure. In many places I have made arguments about how certain texts should be read, and how many concepts can prove useful for conversations on topics as diverse as the history of philosophy, critical pedagogy, politics, art, and cinema. These operations were necessary for me to find my way through the forest of signs Rancière has been scattering for over forty years, and they may prove useful to others. I do not view arguments or textual analysis as undermining the supposition of equality. On the contrary, most forms of expression want to be understood, and for this reason posit a community of equals. This study follows Rancière as he attempts to analyze what he calls the “distribution of the sensible” [le partage du sensible]. This is the key concept in our story, for it unites the discussions of philosophy, 1 JACQUES RANCIÈRE: AN INTRODUCTION politics, art, aesthetics, and cinema, all of which are conceived as practices of creating, distributing, contesting, and redistributing the sensible world. The French formulation, “partage,” has two senses that are easily lost in English, but which are nevertheless essential for the analysis Rancière conducts. In the first instance, it describes how partitions or divisions of the sensible structure what is seen and unseen, audible and inaudible, how certain objects and phenomena can be related or not, and also who, at the level of subjectivity, can appear in certain times and places. The distribution of the sensible is thus a general distribution of bodies and voices, as well as an implicit estimation of what they are capable of. In the second sense, “partage” indicates that these distributions are shared. The distribution of the sensible is a sharing of the sensible that refers itself to the principles and forms of relation that are part of a common world. To partage the sensible is thus to parcel out spaces and times, so as to create a shared or common world containing different allotments. Depending upon the context, and to avoid repetitiveness, I have employed a series of related words—distribution, division, partition, configura- tion, and so on—to refer to this idea. For Rancière, it is important to attend to the sensible, for its distinctions and divisions anticipate what becomes thinkable and possible. The sensible’s distribution pro- vides to thought its picture of the world, supplying the evidence of what can be conceived, discussed, and disputed. The conceivable in turn structures what presents itself to thought as a possibility for further thought and/or action. In its very givenness, it supplies possible courses of action, forms of relation, as well as new thoughts and sensible configurations. The distribution of the sensible thus ultimately defines, for Rancière, the field of possibility and imposs- ibility. One can unite these three domains quite simply by noting that in French “sens” means at once sense, meaning, and direction. Throughout, we are analyzing the sense that is made of sense, or the meanings that are made of what appears to our senses, with the aim of instituting breaches so that other possible meanings, configurations, and directions can be created. The key question with respect to any distribution of the sensible is to know whether it is founded upon equality or inequality. A division is always a division into parts, and it is essential for Rancière to determine the metric according to which this takes place. Whether it is the distribution of parts, objects, the arts, or the relationships between speech and visibility, these operations define worlds that are either 2 INTRODUCTION compatible or incompatible with equality. What is often at stake in educational, political, and even artistic discourses is the attempt to divide the world into two different types of intelligences, one deemed capable of difficult thought and the other not. The primary goal of any analysis of the sensible is thus to determine what type of world it defines, and whether or not equality is there present.

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