Devin Penner – författare

Spectacle is usually considered a superficial form of politics, which tries to distract and deceive a passive audience. It is difficult to see how this type of politics could be reconciled with the democratic requirement of active and informed agency. Rethinking the Spectacle re-examines the tension between spectacle and political agency in our hyper-mediated digital society. Devin Penner uses the theories and practices of Guy Debord and the Situationist International as a point of departure, offering both a critical review of Situationist ideas and a way to develop their radical democratic potential in the current political climate. Emphasizing the importance of thinking about the connection between spectacle and broader democratic processes, Rethinking the Spectacle also looks at various models of social and political organization and includes an in-depth assessment of the 2011 Occupy movement. Ultimately, Rethinking the Spectacle concludes that properly conceived spectacle can in fact mobilize the public for egalitarian purposes.

Thinking Radical Democracy is an introduction to nine key political thinkers who contributed to the emergence of radical democratic thought in post-war French political theory: Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Pierre Clastres, Claude Lefort, Cornelius Castoriadis, Guy Debord, Jacques RanciÈre, Étienne Balibar, and Miguel Abensour.The essays in this collection connect these writers through their shared contribution to the idea that division and difference in politics can be perceived as productive, creative, and fundamentally democratic. The questions they raise regarding equality and emancipation in a democratic society will be of interest to those studying social and political thought or democratic activist movements like the Occupy movements and Idle No More.

Thinking Radical Democracy is an introduction to nine key political thinkers who contributed to the emergence of radical democratic thought in post-war French political theory: Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Pierre Clastres, Claude Lefort, Cornelius Castoriadis, Guy Debord, Jacques RanciÈre, Étienne Balibar, and Miguel Abensour.The essays in this collection connect these writers through their shared contribution to the idea that division and difference in politics can be perceived as productive, creative, and fundamentally democratic. The questions they raise regarding equality and emancipation in a democratic society will be of interest to those studying social and political thought or democratic activist movements like the Occupy movements and Idle No More.