The Politics and Ethics of Literature in French Thought
The guiding thread of this panel develops around a curious remark by Jacques Rancière that would seem to amend a classically Aristotelian thesis: “man is a political animal because he is a literary animal,” the fundamental condition of which is the “excess of words” constitutive of the human animal’s politicalness. Literature (or poetry) has long been placed in close proximity to politics, as we find in Plato’s Republic, where philosophy and literature—and, more generally, philosophy and politics—turn out to be perennial adversaries.
