The Figure of This World

Abbott, Mathew

doi:10.1515/9780748684106

Cited by 21 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Therefore, a revitalized mode of civics education will take seriously an emerging domain of thought that Mathew Abbott calls "political ontology." 30 In Abbott's terms, by revealing that none of the proposed facts that we suppose might ensure our mutual belonging necessarily do so, we are "undermining the idea that we could find or establish an ontological foundation for human life." 31 But this should not be understood as destroying the possibility of belonging together.…”

Section: A Vital Civics Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Every Tool is a Weapon if You Hold It Right: Solidarity, Civics Education, and Use-Oriented Politics

Gottlieb¹,

Shuffelton²

2019

PES

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In the immediate aftermath of the November 2016 election, Mark Lilla argued in the New York Times that to win, the Democratic party would need to replace identity politics with a unifying vision of citizenship. Becoming aware of and celebrating our differences was "a splendid principle of moral pedagogy," Lilla claimed, "but disastrous as a foundation for democratic politics in our ideological age." We need, Lilla argued, "a post-identity liberalism." Education plays a prominent role in Lilla's challenge, as he calls on teachers to "refocus attention on their main political responsibility in a democracy: to form committed citizens aware of their system of government and the major forces and events in our history." He calls on the press to "begin educating itself about parts of the country that have been ignored" and "take seriously its responsibility to educate Americans about the major forces shaping world politics, especially their historical dimension." 1 Lilla's article and the book-length version of his argument, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, raise important questions about the means and ends of civic education and political strategy, the role of facts and imagination in citizens' self-understandings, and the fraught relationship between rhetoric and justice. This paper grapples with the promises and perils of educating for "solidarities of identity" and "solidarities of citizenship," the two poles of Lilla's critique.Lilla reminds readers that "identity politics" is a political technology. It is a rhetorical strategy that cultivates imaginaries of co-belonging, solidarities that can then be mobilized through collective action towards particular political ends. Furthermore, it is a technology susceptible to dual use. It has been used

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Section: A Vital Civics Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Every Tool is a Weapon if You Hold It Right: Solidarity, Civics Education, and Use-Oriented Politics

Gottlieb¹,

Shuffelton²

2019

PES

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

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2019

The Metacolonial State

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Rethinking Agamben: Ontology and the Coming Politics

McLoughlin

2014

Law Critique

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Giorgio Agamben's work has often been criticised for being bleak, pessimistic, and of little use for thinking about political action. This image of Agamben has, however, resulted from a narrow reading of the Homo Sacer project that isolates it from his early thought on language and ontology. This essay draws on new works by Mathew Abbott and Jessica Whyte to explore the ways that Agamben attempts to think the conditions for overcoming the political nihilism of the present. It argues that the two works diverge on the question of where Agamben locates the potential for political transformation, and that this results from their differing approaches to the relationship between ontology and politics.

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The Figure of This World

Cited by 21 publications

References 0 publications

Every Tool is a Weapon if You Hold It Right: Solidarity, Civics Education, and Use-Oriented Politics

Every Tool is a Weapon if You Hold It Right: Solidarity, Civics Education, and Use-Oriented Politics

References

Rethinking Agamben: Ontology and the Coming Politics

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