The Right to Resist - by Mario Wenning & Thomas Byrne (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

While the idea of total revolution seems anachronistic today, there is increasing consensus about the importance of new forms of political, ethical, and aesthetic resistance. In the past, resistance was often motivated as a form of protest against specific institutions. Increasingly, dissent has become integrated into the fabric of modern life. This volume addresses new forms of resistance at a level that combines a rootedness in the philosophical tradition and a sensitivity to rethinking the possibility of emancipation in today's age. The work focuses on contemporary social and political philosophy from a perspective informed by critical theory.

The text specifically addresses three challenges. (1) Critical theorists need to investigate in which ways resistance, conformism, and oppression oppose and constitute each other. (2) The relationship between the theory and the practice of resistance needs to be posed anew, given recent protest movements and media of protest. (3) It needs to be shown in which ways different areas of society such as the arts, religion and social media establish divergent practices of resistance.

The chapters are written by scholars from Asia, Europe and North America. These experts in resistance discourse focus on practices of dissent ranging from traditional forms of civil disobedience, to more recent practices such as guerrilla protest, art, and resistance in digital networks, including social media. What unites them is a shared concern for the dimensions of political acts of resistance in an age that is characterized by a tendency to integrate and thereby neutralize those very acts.

Review Quotes

"What counts as resistance and when resistance is justified remain strongly contested questions. This volume seeks to bring clarity to the debate by providing a very welcome expansion of the theoretical focus beyond narrowly defensive notions of resistance and beyond the Global North." --Robin Celikates, Professor of Social Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

"Are there rights and obligations to resist and even revolt against oppressive regimes and hegemonic social orders? What tactics can best promote social change? Drawing on a diverse array of sources from Continental and Intercultural philosophy and social theory, the twelve timely essays in this engaging volume offer provocative analyses and innovative strategies for addressing these and related questions in our contemporary situation." --Eric S. Nelson, Professor of Philosophy, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong

"This new volume sparkles with insight as a dozen scholars think about the meaning of resistance, contestation and revolt in our troubled present. Anyone seeking to understand how global modernity can provide us with new utopias and visions of a shared future should start here." --Kai Marchal, Associate Professor of Philosophy, National Chengchi University, Taiwan

About the Author

Mario Wenning is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Macau, China.

Thomas Byrne is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Husserl Archives at KU Leuven, Belgium.