Praxis and Revolution

Eva von Redecker's Praxis and Revolution is a brilliant investigation that brings together conceptual analysis and literary reading. In a political and theoretical situation in which only either a mere continuation of the present condition or an empty gesture of rupture seems possible, she points a way out of the aporias that block our thought and action. The book works itself on the transformation it is about.

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Eva von Redecker reconsiders critical theory's understanding of radical change in order to offer a bold new account of how revolution occurs. She argues that revolutions are not singular events but extended processes: beginning from the interstices of society, they succeed by gradually rearticulating social structures toward a new paradigm.

Résumé
The concept of revolution marks the ultimate horizon of modern politics. It is instantiated by sites of both hope and horror. Within progressive thought, revolution often perpetuates entrenched philosophical problems: a teleological philosophy of history, economic reductionism, and normative paternalism. At a time of resurgent uprisings, how can revolution be reconceptualized to grasp the dynamics of social transformation and disentangle revolutionary practice from authoritarian usurpation?

Eva von Redecker reconsiders critical theory's understanding of radical change in order to offer a bold new account of how revolution occurs. She argues that revolutions are not singular events but extended processes: beginning from the interstices of society, they succeed by gradually rearticulating social structures toward a new paradigm. Developing a theoretical account of social transformation, Praxis and Revolution incorporates a wide range of insights, from the Frankfurt School to queer theory and intersectionality. Its revised materialism furnishes prefigurative politics with their social conditions and performative critique with its collective force.

Von Redecker revisits the French Revolution to show how change arises from struggle in everyday social practice. She illustrates the argument through rich literary examplesa ménage à trois inside a prison, a radical knitting circle, a queer affinity group, and petitioners pleading with the executionerthat forge a feminist, open-ended model of revolution.

Praxis and Revolution urges readers not only to understand revolutions differently but also to situate them elsewhere: in collective contexts that aim to storm manifold Bastillesbut from within.

Contenu
Preface to the American Edition
Preface to the German Edition
Introduction: It Is a Revolution
Part I: Maria's Ménage and the Transience of Heterotopian Praxis

1. The Rules of Praxis
2. The Materiality of Praxis
3. The Connections Between Practices
   Part II: Jacobin Knitters and the Tracks of Structuration
4. The Duality of Social Structures
5. Recognition and Performative Structuration
6. Structures in Three States of Aggregate
   Part III: Marta's Invisible Affinity Group and Interstitial Upheavals
7. Disaggregation: Performative Critique and the Laughter of Mimesis
8. Constitution: Subcollective Association
9. Contamination: Overlaying Structures
   Part IV: The Execution of the Marquise and Metaleptic Paradigm Shifts
10. Paradigm Shifts as a Gradual Replacement of Anchoring Practices
11. The Revolutionary Emergence of the Concept of Revolution
12. Metaleptic Dynamics
    Conclusion: The difficulties of the plains and the Revolutionary Tradition
    Notes
    Bibliography
    Index