Rousseau's Republican Romance

Rousseau's Republican Romance PDF Author: Elizabeth Rose Wingrove
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400823544
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
In Rousseau's Republican Romance, Elizabeth Wingrove combines political theory and narrative analysis to argue that Rousseau's stories of sex and sexuality offer important insights into the paradoxes of democratic consent. She suggests that despite Rousseau's own protestations, "man" and "citizen" are not rival or contradictory ideals. Instead, they are deeply interdependent. Her provocative reconfiguration of republicanism introduces the concept of consensual nonconsensuality--a condition in which one wills the circumstances of one's own domination. This apparently paradoxical possibility appears at the center of Rousseau's republican polity and his romantic dyad: in both instances, the expression and satisfaction of desire entail a twin experience of domination and submission. Drawing on a wide variety of Rousseau's political and literary writings, Wingrove shows how consensual nonconsensuality organizes his representations of desire and identity. She demonstrates the inseparability of republicanism and accounts of heterosexuality in an analysis that emphasizes the sentimental and somatic aspects of citizenship. In Rousseau's texts, a politics of consent coincides with a performative politics of desire and of emotion. Wingrove concludes that understanding his strategies of democratic governance requires attending to his strategies of symbolization. Further, she suggests that any understanding of political practice requires attending to bodily practices.

Rousseau's Republican Romance

Rousseau's Republican Romance PDF Author: Elizabeth Rose Wingrove
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400823544
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
In Rousseau's Republican Romance, Elizabeth Wingrove combines political theory and narrative analysis to argue that Rousseau's stories of sex and sexuality offer important insights into the paradoxes of democratic consent. She suggests that despite Rousseau's own protestations, "man" and "citizen" are not rival or contradictory ideals. Instead, they are deeply interdependent. Her provocative reconfiguration of republicanism introduces the concept of consensual nonconsensuality--a condition in which one wills the circumstances of one's own domination. This apparently paradoxical possibility appears at the center of Rousseau's republican polity and his romantic dyad: in both instances, the expression and satisfaction of desire entail a twin experience of domination and submission. Drawing on a wide variety of Rousseau's political and literary writings, Wingrove shows how consensual nonconsensuality organizes his representations of desire and identity. She demonstrates the inseparability of republicanism and accounts of heterosexuality in an analysis that emphasizes the sentimental and somatic aspects of citizenship. In Rousseau's texts, a politics of consent coincides with a performative politics of desire and of emotion. Wingrove concludes that understanding his strategies of democratic governance requires attending to his strategies of symbolization. Further, she suggests that any understanding of political practice requires attending to bodily practices.

Rousseau’s Republicanism

Rousseau’s Republicanism PDF Author: Megan K. Dyer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666918385
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Reading Rousseau as a republican thinker might seem almost too obvious a proposition. All the same, the Genevan is often struck from accounts of modern republicanism given by those associated with the revival of republican thought. At the root of this omission is perhaps the greatest puzzle of Rousseau’s republicanism is that it demands his readers untangle the omission. In bringing the republic’s sovereign power into the Enlightenment, Rousseau pairs it both with the premise of natural liberty and equality and also with an account of man singularly unsuited to realizing the rightful consequences of this shared nature. Looking to both major works and lesser-known writings, this book demonstrates that, in the face of human finitude and the formidable demands of right, Rousseau crafts a robust yet judicious account of the republic. Through comparison with various republican lineages, its chapters explore Rousseau’s engagement with leading moral and political problems that have defined and redefined republicanism: attaining virtue, preserving liberty, sustaining the social order, orienting persons toward the common good, and having the law rule over men. The goods of civil association are always precarious, yet Rousseau nonetheless recognizes in human community an answer to the great problems of his thought—those of inequality, unhappiness, and unfreedom.

On Civic Republicanism

On Civic Republicanism PDF Author: Geoffrey C. Kellow
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442637498
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
On Civic Republicanism explores the enduring relevance of the ancient concepts of republicanism and civic virtue to modern questions about political engagement and identity."

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the 'Well-Ordered Society'

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the 'Well-Ordered Society' PDF Author: Maurizio Viroli
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521531382
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This book studies a central but hitherto neglected aspect of Rousseau's political thought: the concept of social order and its implications for the ideal society which he envisages. The antithesis between order and disorder is a fundamental theme in Rousseau's work, and the author takes it as the basis for this study. In contrast with a widely held interpretation of Rousseau's philosophy, Professor Viroli argues that natural and political order are by no means the same for Rousseau. He explores the differences and interrelations between the different types of order which Rousseau describes, and shows how the philosopher constructed his final doctrine of the just society, which can be based only on every citizen's voluntary and knowing acceptance of the social contract and on the promotion of virtue above ambition. The author also shows the extent of Rousseau's debt to the republican tradition, and above all to Machiavelli, and revises the image of Rousseau as a disciple of the natural-law school.

Republicanism and the Future of Democracy

Republicanism and the Future of Democracy PDF Author: Geneviève Rousselière
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316517551
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Explores how republican political thought can make a constructive and distinctive contribution to our understanding of democracy and the challenges it faces.

Rousseau's Social Contract

Rousseau's Social Contract PDF Author: David Lay Williams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107511607
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
If the greatness of a philosophical work can be measured by the volume and vehemence of the public response, there is little question that Rousseau's Social Contract stands out as a masterpiece. Within a week of its publication in 1762 it was banished from France. Soon thereafter, Rousseau fled to Geneva, where he saw the book burned in public. At the same time, many of his contemporaries, such as Kant, considered Rousseau to be 'the Newton of the moral world', as he was the first philosopher to draw attention to the basic dignity of human nature. The Social Contract has never ceased to be read and debated in the 250 years since its publication. Rousseau's Social Contract: An Introduction offers a thorough and systematic tour of this notoriously paradoxical and challenging text. David Lay Williams offers readers a chapter-by-chapter reading of the Social Contract, squarely confronting these interpretive obstacles. The book also features a special extended appendix dedicated to outlining Rousseau's famous conception of the general will, which has been the object of controversy since the Social Contract's publication in 1762.

The Terror of Natural Right

The Terror of Natural Right PDF Author: Dan Edelstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226184404
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
Natural right—the idea that there is a collection of laws and rights based not on custom or belief but that are “natural” in origin—is typically associated with liberal politics and freedom. In The Terror of Natural Right, Dan Edelstein argues that the revolutionaries used the natural right concept of the “enemy of the human race”—an individual who has transgressed the laws of nature and must be executed without judicial formalities—to authorize three-quarters of the deaths during the Terror. Edelstein further contends that the Jacobins shared a political philosophy that he calls “natural republicanism,” which assumed that the natural state of society was a republic and that natural right provided its only acceptable laws. Ultimately, he proves that what we call the Terror was in fact only one facet of the republican theory that prevailed from Louis’s trial until the fall of Robespierre. A highly original work of historical analysis, political theory, literary criticism, and intellectual history, The Terror of Natural Right challenges prevailing assumptions of the Terror to offer a new perspective on the Revolutionary period.

Thinking with Rousseau

Thinking with Rousseau PDF Author: Helena Rosenblatt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107105765
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
Rousseau's relation to the Western intellectual tradition is re-examined through a series of 'conversations' between Rousseau and other 'great thinkers'.

Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republics

Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republics PDF Author: Melissa M. Matthes
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271039343
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Matthes (U. of Maryland) stages a conversation between feminism and republicanism to analyze the linkage between "founding stories" of republics, sexual violence, and gender hierarchy. While pointing out the differences in the retellings of Lucretia's rape by Livy, Machiavelli, and Rousseau, she argues that their commonality is in appropriating the classical tale to support the view that the alternative to violence is citizenship and politics infused with common good notions of agency, action, and community. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Republican Democracy

Republican Democracy PDF Author: Andreas Niederberger
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748677615
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
This book explores the relationship between democracy and republicanism, and its consequences, and articulates new theoretical insights into connections between liberty, law and democratic politics. Contributors include Philip Pettit, John Ferejohn, Raine