Ethical Militancy

In recent years, much research has been dedicated to the relationship between politics and aesthetics and, in particular, to the political power of aesthetics. This book makes a claim for what comes before any political decision is made and action taken; for what precedes the need for the subject to take a specific stance and adopt a particular (political) attitude. It interprets the "in-between space of aesthetics" (Erika Fischer-Lichte), where production and reception have traditionally met, as a topos within which "action itself is called into question" (Joseph Vogl). This is a space where aesthetics and ethics converge to trouble affirmations and beliefs, and to challenge the subject. By looking at recent theatrical performances and workshops put on mainly in Athens, Greece, and/or created by Greek artists (Nova Melancholia, Rimini Protokoll, Michael Marmarinos, Theodoros Terzopoulos etc.), this book explores the conditions in which it is possible or necessary for the ethical to emerge in aesthetic contexts. It tracks down the metamorphoses of the ethical and its manifestations in situations of aesthetic unsettling, and reveals hidden ethical paradigms in aesthetic articulations. Furthermore, it focuses on the specific way in which the position of the (ethico-political) subject is articulated within those conditions, arguing that it is impossible for the subject to remain intact once it has entered the ethico-aesthetic space. It asserts that a catastrophe is required, the loss and the vanishing of the subject, in order to reinstate responsibility, to respect the ethicality of time, and to obtain justice; and advocates for the rise of the object, allowing for an unfamiliar political discourse to take the stage.

What are the motives behind Osama bin Laden's and Al-Qaeda's jihad against America and the West? Innumerable attempts have been made in recent years to explain that mysterious worldview. In Landscapes of the Jihad, Faisal Devji focuses on the ethical content of this jihad as opposed to its purported political intent. Al-Qaeda differs radically from such groups as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiyah, which aim to establish fundamentalist Islamic states. In fact, Devji contends, Al-Qaeda, with its decentralized structure and emphasis on moral rather than political action, actually has more in common with multinational corporations, antiglobalization activists, and environmentalist and social justice organizations. Bin Laden and his lieutenants view their cause as a response to the oppressive conditions faced by the Muslim world rather than an Islamist attempt to build states. Al-Qaeda culls diverse symbols and fragments from Islam's past in order to legitimize its global war against the "metaphysical evil" emanating from the West. The most salient example of this assemblage, Devji argues, is the concept of jihad itself, which Al-Qaeda defines as an "individual duty" incumbent on all Muslims, like prayer. Although medieval Islamic thought provides precedent for this interpretation, Al-Qaeda has deftly separated the stipulation from its institutional moorings and turned jihad into a weapon of spiritual conflict. Al-Qaeda and its jihad, Devji suggests, are only the most visible manifestations of wider changes in the Muslim world. Such changes include the fragmentation of traditional as well as fundamentalist forms of authority. In the author's view, Al-Qaeda represents a new way of organizing Muslim belief and practice within a global landscape and does not require ideological or institutional unity. Offering a compelling explanation for the central purpose of Al-Qaeda's jihad against the West, the meaning of its strategies and tactics, and its moral and aesthetic dimensions, Landscapes of the Jihad is at once a sophisticated work of historical and cultural analysis and an invaluable guide to the world's most prominent terrorist movement.

How should pro-democratic forces safeguard representative government from anti-democratic forces? By granting rights of participation to groups that do not share democratic values, democracies may endanger the very rights they have granted; but denying these rights may also undermine democratic values. Alexander Kirshner offers a set of principles for determining when one may reasonably refuse rights of participation, and he defends this theory through real-world examples, ranging from the far-right British Nationalist Party to Turkey’s Islamist Welfare Party to America’s Democratic Party during Reconstruction.

In 2008 an Iraqi artist was waterboarded as performance art. In 2010 artists upturned police cars in Russia. But what exactly do we mean by militant art and aesthetics? Bringing together the philosophy of art and politics, Martin Lang provides a comprehensive examination of militant art activism: its history, its advocates and the aesthetic theory behind it. Protest art is not a new concept and yet this book argues that after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 distinctly 21st-century forms of art activism emerged. On the one hand these became militant as artists retained belief in the possibility of radical political change through art. On the other hand, this belief developed in a hostile environment, when anti-terror legislations reclassified activists and artists as terrorists. Through first-hand interviews and experiences, Militant Aesthetics sheds light on numerous international case studies of modern art activism and the different ways they can be classified as militant. Many artists and collectives, including Grupo Etcétera in Buenos Aries, are prepared to break the law and risk arrest for their art. Others like Thomas Bresolin's Militant Training Camp utilise military uniforms in violent performances that connect with public anger, and artists such as Zthoven in the Czech Republic occupy, hack, antagonise and disrupt in increasingly militant ways. Combining these examples with the pioneering thought of Badiou, Žižek, Rancière and Mouffe, as well as up-to-date scholarship from Bishop, Léger and others, Lang investigates the instances, attributes and rules of militant art in order to introduce a new overall theory of 21st-century militant aesthetics.

What we must see, Martin Luther King once insisted, is that a riot is the language of the unheard. In this new era of global protest and popular revolt, Languages of the Unheard draws on King's insight to address a timely and controversial topic: the ethics and politics of militant resistance. Using vivid examples from the history of militancy including—armed actions by Weatherman and the Red Brigades, the LA Riots, the Zapatista uprising, the Mohawk land defence at Kanesatake, the Black Blocs at summit protests, the occupations of Tahrir Square and Zuccotti Park, the Indigenous occupation of Alcatraz, the Quebec Student Strike, and many more—this book will be of interest to democratic theorists and moral philosophers, and practically useful for protest militants attempting to grapple with the moral ambiguities and political dilemmas unique to their distinctive position.

Sproxton examines a recurring theme in history: the tension between religious faith and political and militant action, studies texts written during two periods of major political upheaval, by such figures as Calvin, D'Aubigne, Cromwell, Winstanley

Faisal Devji argues that new forms of militancy, such as the actions of al-Qaeda, are informed by the same desire for agency and equality that animates other humanitarian interventions, such as environmentalism and pacifism. To the militant, victimized Muslims are more than just symbols of ethnic and religious persecution-they represent humanity's centuries-long struggle for legitimacy and agency. Acts of terror, therefore, are fueled by the militant's desire to become a historical actor on the global stage. Though they have yet to build concrete political institutions, militant movements have formed a kind of global society, and as Devji makes clear, this society pursues the same humanitarian objectives that drive more benevolent groups.

When lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside "favela". Bringing her readers to the impoverished slopes above the modern plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata, where she has worked on and off for 25 years, Nancy Scheper-Hughes follows three generations of shantytown women as they struggle to survive through hard work, cunning and triage. It is a story of class relations told at the most basic level of bodies, emotions, desires and needs. Most disturbing - and controversial - is her finding that mother love, as conventionally understood, is something of a bourgeois myth, a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as these women cannot, that their infants will live.