From Studyplace

These collections of notes make up the "critical notebook" that I'm keeping as a participant in the Radical Politics: Jacques Ranciere seminar.

Contents 1 Session 1 2 Session 2 3 Comments 3.1 your last quote

[edit] Session 1

Our Ranciere seminar got off to a good start. The participants have interesting backgrounds, for me, as many of them are coming from a studio art background and are practicing artists. I heard about the EdD-CT program for the first time — a degree for artists who are studying art/creative pedagogy. It particularly piqued my interest in terms of teaching programming. Paul Graham's "Hackers and Painters" aligns programming with painting and other creative arts, over the traditional parallels of engineering and mathematics.

The afternoon discussion yesterday was particularly fruitful for me in finding an approach to some of Ranciere's key concepts, politics, aesthetics, the police, and partition of the sensible. Politics and aesthetics are linked, as I see them. I think that's Ranciere's definition of politics is actually quite accessible and straightforward. ;Politics: Anything that disrupts the "normal" workings of society. Politics always comes from the unknown, the part of the city that is not counted/the part left-over. In other words, new additions to the sensible result from the political.

The Sensible

The things that society (those who are counted) can "sense" and "understand" — make sense of.

Partition (of the sensible)

both to divide and to share/distribute the sensible. The police are responsible for this partitioning.

The police

I read the police to be an idea, or a mode of being. We, who have a voice, are the police. Not in the 1984 panopticon way, but rather we decide what is knowable, sensible, and we divide it. Hence we cannot know anything outside of the police. True political action results in introducing something knew to the police. They then re-apportion it and take it into their order.

Aesthetics

aesthetics are equated with political, aesthetics sheds light on something that was previously unknown and unknowable.

As we continue to work on Ranciere's work, I'll continue trying to understand these terms/ideas.

There was a slight debate yesterday regarding whether there is anything outside of the police. Are the people, the voiceless demos outside of the police or internal, but unknown. I think that there is strong support in the text to show that there is not anything outside of the police, but I'm not sure if or why this is significant. I wish I had asked our colleague from Montclair why he thinks this is such an important point to make. From my pov, if it's unknown until the political/aesthetic act, it doesn't matter (much) if it's internal or external — it's unknown either way (and always existed, either way).

In terms of longer-term thinking, I've been wondering how this relates to my work about politics,

[edit] Session 2

One of the things that really strikes me is the idea of how "universal teaching" can spread, the agenda that Ranciere appears to advocate. If you look at our notes, at the bottom, we have this quote:

Instead, universal teachings spreads locally, from parents to children, among friends. This viral, emergent manner is very powerful: once it reaches a certain mass, it is almost inevitable, because it will spread exponentially. The problem, though, is that it spreads slowly at the beginning of the movement. It can be crushed easily, die out, before it has many adherents. I think that Ranciere implies that this is what happened with Jacatot's death.

During our larger group discussion, we were talking about Ranciere, truth, veracity, et al. I think that an important clue on truth is bound up in language. Ranciere quotes Jacatot, "Truth exists by itself; it is that which is and not that which is said. Saying depends on man, but the truth does not (p 58)." Truth can be known but not expressed, it does not "submit to our piecemeal sentences". Once we try to express ourselevs, we need to be like poets. We can only ever express part of what we know. The moment we speak, our truth is being verified by an equal intelligence.

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[edit] Comments

Please feel free to add any and all comments to this page.

Matt 14:13, 12 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] your last quote

Hi Matt,

I think the text in your last quote is that universal teaching "wouldn't perish" - but i don't want to make the change without the book on hand. Jacotot's point is that universal teaching didn't catch on since it wasn't programmatic or systematic, but neither could it perish for the same reason, since it is too diffuse to eradicate. Eric Strome 17:39, 20 May 2008 (EDT)

Yes, mis-typed it. The problem with paper, no copy and paste. Thanks, I fixed it. Matt 21:40, 20 May 2008 (EDT)

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