{"id":1171,"date":"2021-09-03T18:21:31","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T22:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/?page_id=1171"},"modified":"2023-06-21T16:28:31","modified_gmt":"2023-06-21T20:28:31","slug":"11-13","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/11-13\/","title":{"rendered":"11\/13 | Utopier le Pr\u00e9sent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qRbwxMjseYE\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">[Click on CC for subtitles in French and English (credit: Lea Honorat)]<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/laetitia-riss\/\">\u00a0La\u00ebtitia Riss<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/etienne-balibar\/\">\u00c9tienne Balibar<\/a><\/span>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/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;\">\u00ab <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/files\/2022\/11\/Utopier-le-pre\u0301sent-Le-re\u0302ve-historique-des-utopies.pdf\">Utopier le pr\u00e9sent : le r\u00eave historique des utopies<\/a> \u00bb by La\u00ebtitia Riss<\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0Extract from <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/files\/2023\/03\/G.-Anders-\u2013-Extrait-Utopie-Molussie.pdf\"><em>La Catacombe de Molussie<\/em><\/a> by G\u00fcnther Anders<\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><\/h2>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">March 17, 2023<\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">EHESS Campus Condorcet, Paris<\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The relation between utopian thinking and history has\u00a0accompanied us throughout this Utopia 13\/13 series. In this seminar, with La\u00ebtitia Riss\u2019s article \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/files\/2022\/11\/Utopier-le-pr%C3%A9sent-Le-r%C3%AAve-historique-des-utopies.pdf\">Utopier le pr\u00e9sent<\/a>\u201d (in English here, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/laetitia-riss-to-utopize-the-present-the-historical-dream-of-utopias\/\">To Utopize the Present<\/a>\u201d), we address head on the temporal nature of modern understandings of utopia.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a detailed analysis that spans seven centuries and takes us from Thomas More to contemporary thinkers such as Fredric Jameson, Miguel Abensour, Jean-Paul Eng\u00e9libert and current forms of apocalyptic fiction, La\u00ebtitia Riss recounts the centuries-long history of writing on utopia and the transformation of its relationship to the past, the present, and the future. Through a meticulous analysis, Riss demonstrates how we moderns are still, today, captured by a historicist understanding of utopia.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This presents a problem, Riss argues, given the tendency for history to overshadow utopian thinking, and to subordinate it, especially during times of apocalyptic thinking such as ours\u2014with the global climate crisis promising the end of history. The modern historicization of utopia inverses the proper relation to history by focusing us on the future, rather than on our present. It also masks the contingent nature of our present and thereby erodes our will to transform society.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By contrast, La\u00ebtitia Riss proposes to anchor utopian thought in the present. That alone, she argues, will allow utopian thought to \u201cparticipate in making the present sensitive to its historicity, revealing it to be the result of a contingent social practice, and in making it, consequently, available as a place for political intervention.\u201d\u00a0The task, then, is to liberate utopian thought from the grip of the future, in order to focus us back on transforming the present; or, in Riss\u2019s words, to pursue \u201cthe dream of a present awakened to itself so that History finds a human face again, freed from the weight of destiny.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are delighted to welcome La\u00ebtitia Riss to Utopia 13\/13 to present her work and equally delighted to welcome back our dear friend and colleague \u00c9tienne Balibar to comment on her proposal. \u00c9tienne Balibar opened our seminar this year on the theme of \u201ccritical theoretic foundations for concrete utopias.\u201d It is an honor to have \u00c9tienne Balibar back to continue the conversation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Welcome to Utopia 11\/13!<a href=\"applewebdata:\/\/663404F5-77FC-42B1-98FC-EEBFC4E41AEE#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click on CC for subtitles in French and English (credit: Lea Honorat)] \u00a0La\u00ebtitia Riss, \u00c9tienne Balibar, and Bernard E. Harcourt read and discuss \u00ab Utopier le pr\u00e9sent : le r\u00eave historique des utopies \u00bb by La\u00ebtitia Riss \u00a0Extract from La&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/11-13\/\" 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-1171","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}