Columbia University Press Praxis and Revolution: A Theory of Social Transformation: 71 (New Directions in Critical Theory)

The concept of revolution marks the ultimate horizon of modern politics. It is instantiated by sites of both hope and horror. Within progressive thought, “revolution” often perpetuates entrenched philosophical problems: a teleological philosophy of history, economic reductionism, and normative paternalism. At a time of resurgent uprisings, how can revolution be reconceptualized to grasp the dynamics of social transformation and disentangle revolutionary practice from authoritarian usurpation? Eva von Redecker reconsiders critical theory’s understanding of radical change in order to offer a bold new account of how revolution occurs. She argues that revolutions are not singular events but extended processes: beginning from the interstices of society, they succeed by gradually rearticulating social structures toward a new paradigm. Developing a theoretical account of social transformation, Praxis and Revolution incorporates a wide range of insights, from the Frankfurt School to queer theory and intersectionality. Its revised materialism furnishes prefigurative politics with their social conditions and performative critique with its collective force. Von Redecker revisits the French Revolution to show how change arises from struggle in everyday social practice. She illustrates the argument through rich literary examples―a ménage à trois inside a prison, a radical knitting circle, a queer affinity group, and petitioners pleading with the executioner―that forge a feminist, open-ended model of revolution. Praxis and Revolution urges readers not only to understand revolutions differently but also to situate them elsewhere: in collective contexts that aim to storm manifold Bastilles―but from within. Review Praxis and Revolution revisits and rearticulates the fundamental conceptual vocabulary of revolution for our times. A brilliant tour de force, this work draws upon philosophy, political sociology, history, rhetoric, science studies, and feminist and queer theory to orchestrate a new understanding of revolution, rupture, performative change, structure, event, practice and transformation. Few works provide as capacious and careful examination of the language we have for radical social transformation, drawing on theories that have registered historical shifts and the emergence of new fields of possible action to formulate for the present a knowing and urgent demand for revolutionary change. Singular in its interdisciplinary richness and capacity to translate among political vocabularies, von Redecker's book unleashes from the resources of the past a set of vocabularies that allow us to rethink time, history, and praxis. Ambitious and incisive, this work stands out as thoughtful and capacious, refusing reductive slogans and polemics in favor of attentive readings and the rigors of imagining the world anew.--Judith Butler, author of The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind Eva von Redecker's Praxis and Revolution is a brilliant investigation that brings together conceptual analysis and literary reading. In a political and theoretical situation in which only either a mere continuation of the present condition or an empty gesture of rupture seems possible, she points a way out of the aporias that block our thought and action. The book works itself on the transformation it is about.--Christoph Menke, author of Critique of Rights A wild dinner party of a political theory book! Through an extraordinary crossing of thinkers and genres, and careful work with the political potential of metalepsis and interstices, this book wrests revolution from its high modern formation to make it a lived and practical work for our times. Erudite, rigorous, playful, and readable, at once in the world and floating above it, Von Redecker is a brilliant and wondrous intellectual, driven by the philosophical question of how we can open a better future from what we do now.--Wendy Brown, author of In the Ruins of Neoliberalism