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.
Table of Content
Preface to the American Edition
Preface to the German Edition
Introduction: “It Is a Revolution”
Part I: Maria’s Ménage and the Transience of Heterotopian Praxis
1. The Rules of Praxis
2. The Materiality of Praxis
3. The Connections Between Practices
Part II: Jacobin Knitters and the Tracks of Structuration
4. The Duality of Social Structures
5. Recognition and Performative Structuration
6. Structures in Three States of Aggregate
Part III: Marta’s Invisible Affinity Group and Interstitial Upheavals
7. Disaggregation: Performative Critique and the Laughter of Mimesis
8. Constitution: Subcollective Association
9. Contamination: Overlaying Structures
Part IV: The Execution of the Marquise and Metaleptic Paradigm Shifts
10. Paradigm Shifts as a Gradual Replacement of Anchoring Practices
11. The Revolutionary Emergence of the Concept of Revolution
12. Metaleptic Dynamics
Conclusion: “The difficulties of the plains” and the Revolutionary Tradition
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Eva von Redecker is a German critical theorist and public philosopher, currently based at the University of Verona as the recipient of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship. She was previously a research associate at Humboldt University of Berlin and she has also taught at Goethe University Frankfurt and the New School.Lucy Duggan is a writer and translator. She is the author of the novel Tendrils (2014).
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