The Aesthetico-Political

Reviews / Votes

Martin Plot's Latin American background, his experience teaching theory to American art school students, and his firm grasp of debates in contemporary political thought are brought together in this sweeping vision of an 'aesthetico-political' theory. Plot argues that normative political theory needs to learn what he calls 'theorizing from events.' Using theory to go beyond theory, his approach recalls what Richard Armstrong, the director of the Guggenheim museum, recently called for: 'not looking at but engaging with' our times. * Dick Howard, distinguished Professor Emeritus at Stony Brook University and author of The Primacy of the Political and The Specter of Democracy * The political dimension of Merleau-Ponty's aesthetic and its implications for contemporary democratic thought have been little understood. Not only does Plot's improvisation on Merleau-Ponty's radical notion of the flesh, as distinct from body, contribute to remedying that situation, it also explains its importance for radical thought that interrogates the relation between modernity, the political and democracy. Through a 'coherent deformation' Plot's book establishes the basis of the problematic of radical democracy and demonstrates its limits. * Jeremy Valentine, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, UK * Just when one begins to think that there is not much new that can be said of the democratic insights at work in the thinking of Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, Lefort, and Ranciere, along comes Plot's original, insightful, and nuanced reading of these thinkers. Critical of democracy, but not dismissive of it, Plot provides a provocative, thoughtful, and extensive argument for democracy's reliance on an aesthetic dimension. This is an indispensable book for anyone working on the question of democracy today. * Peg Birmingham, Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University, US *