What is Radical?

Abstract

What does it mean to think and act radically, and how does this relate to forms of radicalism connected to earlier moments, for example, in the 20th century? What can be the role of radical art and scholarship under the conditions of late capitalism? More generally, how can art and artists serve the ongoing struggle for social justice and the agendas of emancipatory social change? Finally, what kinds of art criticism and art historical scholarship are necessary to address the great challenges of our uncertain future?

‘Words have a charge’: six moments from a dialogue

“…JE: You have written brilliantly about the complex histories and practices of systemic racism as they traverse all aspects of our lives. In the light of recent traumatic acts of racism and state-abetted violence, which you have written about with real urgency and insight as violent, iterative, interruptive, and erratic, you have posited a concept of ‘vividness’ (see Bhabha, 2021a, 2021b). A concept that pivots on both a Fanonian ‘violence of vividness’ as well as modes of resistance to this violence that the arts (‘the vivid urgency of the arts’ in your words above) can render visible, interrogate, and perhaps supplement with other possibilities.…”

“…For both the figures of transition and ourselves as ethical readers of them, patience is required. There is no voice to guide us, but we can sense the chimes (as in Bob Dylan’s song ‘The Chimes of Freedom’) and our own unpreparedness (see Bhabha, 2021a) to respond to them, which is precisely what causes us to act, to resist.…”