The Misinterpellated Subject
Published on 24. February 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
344 pages
978-0-8223-6296-8 (ISBN)
Description
Although Haitian revolutionaries were not the intended audience for the Declaration of the Rights of Man, they heeded its call, demanding rights that were not meant for them. This failure of the French state to address only its desired subjects is an example of the phenomenon James R. Martel labels "misinterpellation." Complicating Althusser's famous theory, Martel explores the ways that such failures hold the potential for radical and anarchist action. In addition to the Haitian Revolution, Martel shows how the revolutionary responses by activists and anticolonial leaders to Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points speech and the Arab Spring sprang from misinterpellation. He also takes up misinterpellated subjects in philosophy, film, literature, and nonfiction, analyzing works by Nietzsche, Kafka, Woolf, Fanon, Ellison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and others to demonstrate how characters who exist on the margins offer a generally unrecognized anarchist form of power and resistance. Timely and broad in scope, The Misinterpellated Subject reveals how calls by authority are inherently vulnerable to radical possibilities, thereby suggesting that all people at all times are filled with revolutionary potential.
Reviews / Votes
"In this brilliant new theory of political agency, James R. Martel pushes a politics for the failed, flawed, and damaged people we actually are. Rejecting the heroism that binds us to authority, he looks to the ones who show up, unexpected and unwanted. Through original readings of Althusser, Fanon, and others, Martel strips politics of all guarantees. Freedom is possible, if we want it." - Jodi Dean author of (Crowds and Party) "With its rich and provocative readings of diverse events and texts, Martel's book would deserve wide-ranging praise simply for being a master-class in literary interpretation, but it goes much further in introducing and carefully developing a convincing theory of misinterpellation." - Smita A. Rahman (Theory & Event) "James Martel has given us a fine, well-written, and inspiring book, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in subjectivity, ideology, recognition, representation, and resistance." - Lasse Thomassen (Political Theory) "A work of great interest. . . . Althusser taught us to judge books by their theoretical and practical effects. The effect of James Martel's The Misinterpellated Subject is to show that confronting the problem of subjection, and Althusser's reflections on it, remains an unavoidable, even urgent, task." - Warren Montag (Postmodern Culture)More details
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
496 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8223-6296-8 (9780822362968)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
James R. Martel
The Misinterpellated Subject
E-Book
02/2017
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€208.99
Available for download
Person
James R. Martel is Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University and the author of several books, most recently, The One and Only Law: Walter Benjamin and the Second Commandment.
Content
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction. Unsummoned! When the Call Is Not Meant for You 1
Part I. Subjects of the Call
1. From "Hey, You There!" to "Wait Up!": The Workings (and Unworkings) of Interpellation 35
2. "Men Are Born Free and Equal in Rights": Historical Examples of Interpellation aend Misinterpellation 58
3. "Tiens, un NEgre": Fanon and the Refusal of Colonial Subjectivity 96
Part II. The One(s) Who Showed Up
4. "[A Person] Is Something That Shall Be Overcome": The Misinterpellated Messiah, or How Nietzsche Saves Us from Salvation 133
5. "Come, Come!": Bartleby and Lily Briscoe as Nietzschean Subjects 163
6. "Consent to Not Be a Single Being": Resisting Identity, Confronting the Law in Kafka's Amerika, Ellison's Invisible Man, and Coates's Between the World and Me 198
7. "I Can Believe": Breaking the Circuits of Interpellation in von Trier's Breaking the Waves 243
Conclusion. The Misinterpellated Subject: Anarchist All the Way Down 266
Notes 275
Bibliography 309
Index 317
Introduction. Unsummoned! When the Call Is Not Meant for You 1
Part I. Subjects of the Call
1. From "Hey, You There!" to "Wait Up!": The Workings (and Unworkings) of Interpellation 35
2. "Men Are Born Free and Equal in Rights": Historical Examples of Interpellation aend Misinterpellation 58
3. "Tiens, un NEgre": Fanon and the Refusal of Colonial Subjectivity 96
Part II. The One(s) Who Showed Up
4. "[A Person] Is Something That Shall Be Overcome": The Misinterpellated Messiah, or How Nietzsche Saves Us from Salvation 133
5. "Come, Come!": Bartleby and Lily Briscoe as Nietzschean Subjects 163
6. "Consent to Not Be a Single Being": Resisting Identity, Confronting the Law in Kafka's Amerika, Ellison's Invisible Man, and Coates's Between the World and Me 198
7. "I Can Believe": Breaking the Circuits of Interpellation in von Trier's Breaking the Waves 243
Conclusion. The Misinterpellated Subject: Anarchist All the Way Down 266
Notes 275
Bibliography 309
Index 317