The Time of Revolt

Donatella Di Cesare, David Broder

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781509548408
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

As capitalism triumphs on the ruins of utopias and faith in progress fades, revolts are breaking out everywhere. From London to Hong Kong and from Buenos Aires to Beirut, protests flare up, in some cases spreading like wildfire, in other cases petering out and reigniting elsewhere. Not even the pandemic has been able to stop them: as many were reflecting on the loss of public space, the fuse of a fresh explosion was lit in Minneapolis with the brutal murder of George Floyd. We are living in an age of revolt.

But what is revolt? It would be a mistake to think of it as simply an explosion of anger, a spontaneous and irrational outburst, as it is often portrayed in the media. Exploding anger is not a bolt from the blue but a symptom of a social order in which the sovereignty of the state has imposed itself as the sole condition of order. Revolt challenges the sovereignty of the state, whether it is democratic or despotic, exposing the violence that underpins it. Revolt upsets the agenda of power, interrupts time, throws history into disarray. The time of revolt, discontinuous and intermittent, is also a revolt of time, an anarchic transition to a space of time that disengages itself from the architecture of politics.

This brilliant reflection on the nature and significance of revolt will be of interest to students of politics and philosophy and to anyone concerned with the key questions of politics today.

Table of Contents

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Copyright Page
4. Quote
5. The Right to Breathe
6. The Constellation of Revolts
7. Between Politics and Police
8. Occupations: From the Factories to the Squares
9. Bella ciao: Notes of Resistance
10. A Spectral Era
11. In Search of the Lost Revolution
12. What Does Revolt Mean?
13. The Individual’s Cry – and the Wounds of History
14. Spartacus’s Day after Tomorrow
15. The Limits of Public Space
16. The Right to Appear
17. A Volte-Face on Power
18. Prefigurations
19. An Existential Tension
20. If Dissent is a Crime
21. The New Disobedients
22. Anon...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Quote
• The Right to Breathe
• The Constellation of Revolts
• Between Politics and Police
• Occupations: From the Factories to the Squares
• Bella ciao: Notes of Resistance
• A Spectral Era
• In Search of the Lost Revolution
• What Does Revolt Mean?
• The Individual’s Cry – and the Wounds of History
• Spartacus’s Day after Tomorrow
• The Limits of Public Space
• The Right to Appear
• A Volte-Face on Power
• Prefigurations
• An Existential Tension
• If Dissent is a Crime
• The New Disobedients
• Anonymous’s Grin
• On Invisibility: A Show of Self-Concealment
• Masks and Zones of Irresponsibility
• Leaks
• Resident Foreigners: The Anarchist Revolt
• Barricades in Time
• Bibliography
• End User License Agreement