{"id":1154,"date":"2021-09-03T18:18:27","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T22:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/?page_id=1154"},"modified":"2021-10-29T13:31:52","modified_gmt":"2021-10-29T17:31:52","slug":"3-13","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/3-13\/","title":{"rendered":"3\/13 Antonio Gramsci, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the \u201cEngaged\u201d Philosopher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-7z-6UKiURc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/etienne-balibar\/\">\u00c9tienne Balibar<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-host\/\">Bernard E. Harcourt<\/a><\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">read and discuss<\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Antonio Gramsci&#8217;s <em>Prison Notebooks <\/em>and Jean-Paul Sartre&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.massreview.org\/sites\/default\/files\/Sartre.pdf\"><em>Black Orpheus<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/files\/2021\/10\/Sartre-Pre\u0301sentation-des-temps-modernes.pdf\"><em>Presentation des <\/em>Temps Modernes<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.weber.edu\/ccall2\/images\/interests\/WorldLit\/WhatIsLiterature.pdf\"><em>Situations II<\/em><\/a><\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">in conversation with<\/h2>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newschool.edu\/nssr\/faculty\/ann-stoler\/\">Ann Stoler<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/biodun-jeyifo\/\">Biodun Jeyifo<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/swip-philosophinnen.org\/sarah-bianchi\/\">Sarah Bianchi<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gc.cuny.edu\/Page-Elements\/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives\/Doctoral-Programs\/Comparative-Literature\/Student-Bios\/Giacomo-Bianchino-(1)\">Giacomo Bianchino<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carmendege.com\/\">Carmen Dege<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/french.columbia.edu\/content\/souleymane-bachir-diagne\">Souleymane Bachir Diagne<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/warwick.ac.uk\/fac\/soc\/pais\/people\/elden\/\">Stuart Elden<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/cccct.law.columbia.edu\/people\/che-gossett\">Che Gossett<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stonybrook.edu\/commcms\/philosophy\/people\/_faculty\/harvey.php\">Robert Harvey<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/justiceineducation.columbia.edu\/people\/profiles\/neni-panourgia\/\">Neni Panourgia<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/warwick.ac.uk\/fac\/soc\/philosophy\/people\/testa\/\">Federico Testa<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/polisci.columbia.edu\/content\/nadia-urbinati\">Nadia Urbinati<\/a><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Wednesday, October 27, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Columbia University<\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/h2>\n<p>With Jean-Paul Sartre, we come face-to-face with the \u201cengaged\u201d philosopher. The term \u201c<em>engag\u00e9 <\/em>\u201d is one that Sartre used ubiquitously to describe the proper way to act and think.\u00a0<a href=\"applewebdata:\/\/9164FD84-5227-4570-A33F-D62E91D9D0CF#_edn4\" name=\"_ednref4\"><\/a>For Sartre, the writer is inevitably implicated. They must take sides.\u00a0Their failure to call out repression makes them responsible for the oppression\u2014Flaubert and Goncourt were themselves responsible for the repression of the Communards \u201cbecause they did not write a single line to prevent it.\u201d\u00a0To write with purpose, to transform society, that is what Sartre admired in the work of the Negritude movement\u2014in the work, for instance of Aim\u00e9 C\u00e9saire, who, Sartre notes in \u201cBlack Orpheus,\u201d wrote with conviction, \u201clike a rocket,\u201d to transform society. \u00a0The project of the engaged writer, of the engaged intellectual, or more simply, of the engaged person must be to transform society, to work toward a just society.<\/p>\n<p>The Gramscian notion of cultural hegemony is what breathes life into that ideal of the \u201cengaged philosopher.\u201d It is the condition of possibility for there to be engaged philosophers\u2014or, more precisely, for engaged philosophers to play a central role in social transformation, rather than to take a second seat to revolutionary political actors or even revolutionary philosophers (what we are calling in this seminar \u201cworldly philosophers,\u201d such as Fanon or Nkrumah). Insofar as the engaged philosopher (such as Sartre), who starts from the same deep training in humanities and social studies as the worldly philosopher, aims to revolutionize fields such as literature, poetry, theatre, or philosophy, their ambition depends on culture having a primary or important role in transformations of society.<\/p>\n<p>In this sense, the notion of cultural hegemony, of \u201ccultural Marxism\u201d\u2014or at least, the interpretation we commonly give to the Gramscian notion of \u201chegemony\u201d\u2014is what allows critical theorists and philosophers, especially in the academy, to believe that they have a distinct role in social and political transformation. It is what makes possible, or productive, for instance, the turn to subjectivity and practices of the self, or the linking of ethics and politics, or the study of governmentality, or the archeology of epistemological layers of thought: it is only when those ways of being, worldviews, and cultural formations are at the core of human behavior that they acquire a potentially revolutionary dimension.<\/p>\n<p>But what if this cultural work only has traction <em>after<\/em>\u00a0a political struggle? What if the cultural engagement cannot serve as the groundwork for social transformation until there has been a genuine political revolution? What if, in fact, all the engaged cultural work is likely to be coopted if the political conditions are not yet right, if the relations of class or race are still trapped in forms of domination?\u00a0The writings of Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, especially\u00a0<em>The New Spirit of Capitalism,<\/em> may exemplify the pitfalls of cultural change in a time of reigning capitalism and class struggle. They demonstrate brilliantly how the cultural revolution of the 1960s\u2014in terms of liberation movements and practices of the self\u2014was coopted and ultimately fed into a new Silicon Valley kind of hipster work environment that has strengthened American capitalism.\u00a0How then can we engage in cultural transformation that does not bolster existing class and racial structures?<\/p>\n<p>These are some of the questions we will address in conversation with the engaged philosopher <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/etienne-balibar\/\">\u00c9tienne Balibar<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to Revolution 3\/13!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00c9tienne Balibar and Bernard E. Harcourt read and discuss Antonio Gramsci&#8217;s Prison Notebooks and Jean-Paul Sartre&#8217;s\u00a0Black Orpheus,\u00a0Presentation des Temps Modernes,\u00a0and\u00a0Situations II in conversation with Ann Stoler,\u00a0Biodun Jeyifo,\u00a0Sarah Bianchi, Giacomo Bianchino, Carmen Dege, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Stuart Elden, Che Gossett, Robert&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/3-13\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1603,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1154","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}