Although relatively unknown a decade ago, the work of Jacques Ranciere is fast becoming a central reference in the humanities and social sciences. His thinking brings a fresh, innovative approach to many fields, notably the study of work, education, politics, literature, film, art, as well as philosophy. This is the first, full-length introduction to Ranciere's work and covers the full range of his contribution to contemporary thought, presenting in clear, succinct chapters the key concepts Ranciere has developed in his writings over the last forty years. Students new to Ranciere will find this work accessible and comprehensive, an ideal introduction to this major thinker. For readers already familiar with Ranciere, the in-depth analysis of each key concept, written by leading scholars, should provide an ideal reference.

"Unlocking the World "proposes hospitality as a guiding ethic for education. Based on the work of Jacques Derrida, it suggests that giving place to children and newcomers is at the heart of education. The primary responsibility of the host is not to assimilate newcomers into tradition but rather to create or leave a place where they may arrive. Hospitality as a guiding ethic for education is discussed in its many facets, including the decentered conception of subjectivity on which it relies, the way it casts the relation between teacher and student, and its conception of curriculum as an inheritance that asks for a critical reception. The book examines the relation between an ethic of hospitality and the educational contexts in which it would guide practice. Since these contexts are marked by gender, culture, and language, it asks how such differences affect enactments of hospitality. Since hospitality typically involves a power difference between host and guest, the book addresses how an ethic of hospitality accounts for power, whether it is appropriate for educational contexts marked by colonialism, and how it might guide education aimed at social justice."

Twelve medieval scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including law, literature, and religion address the question: What did it mean to possess a voice - or to be without one - during the Middle Ages? This collection reveals how the philosophy, theology, and aesthetics of the voice inhabit some of the most canonical texts of the Middle Ages.

This book engages with recent philosophical interventions into democracy, equality, and human rights to demonstrate their relevance to the field of Francophone Postcolonial Studies. The book explores the relationship between aesthetics and politics in the postcolonial Algerian novel.

The essays in this collection address the relation between education and politics in new ways. Rather than understanding education simply as the object of political decision-making, or as preparation for politics, the authors of this volume see education as implicated in social conflicts and in the political processes that produce and change social structures. Education, then, is a practice that reconfigures the relations between subjectivities and the political. The collection focuses on several critical cases and theoretical debates where the relation between education and politics demands new articulations. It explores the potential of theoretical languages proposed by Rancière, Laclau, Derrida, Mouffe, Bakhtin, and other thinkers whose work has not yet been fully recognized in its pedagogical meaning.

Restrictive border protection policies directed toward managing the flow of refugees coming into neoliberal democracies (and out of failing nation-states) are a defining feature of contemporary politics. In this book, Verónica Tello analyses how contemporary artists-such as Tania Bruguera, Isaac Julien, Rosemary Laing, Dinh Q. Lé, Dierk Schmidt, Hito Steyerl, Lyndell Brown and Charles Green-negotiate their diverse subject positions while addressing and taking part in the production of images associated with refugee experiences and histories. Tello argues that their practices, which manifest across a range of contexts including Cuba, the United States, Australia and Europe, represent an emergent, global paradigm of contemporary art, 'counter-memorial aesthetics'. Counter-Memorial Aesthetics, Tello argues, is characterized by its conjunction of heterogeneous signifiers and voices of many times and places, generating an experimental, non-teleological approach to the construction of contemporary history, which also takes into account the complex, disorienting spatial affects of globalization. Spanning performance art, experimental 'history painting', aftermath photography and video installation, counter-memorial aesthetics bring to the fore, Tello argues, how contemporary refugee flows and related traumatic events critically challenge and conflict with many existing, tired if not also stubborn notions of national identity, borders, history and memory. Building on the writings of such thinkers as Michel Foucault and Jacques Rancière, this book offers a useful concept of 'counter-memory' for the twenty-first century. It shows how counter-memorial aesthetics is not only central to the nexus of contemporary art and refugee histories but also how it can offer a way of being critically present with many other, often interrelated, global crises in the contemporary era.

This volume seeks to address a number of broad questions, including: what is the role and limit of urban space in the expression of group and individual rights and desires?; do democratic social relations require spatial propinquity?; and what are the characteristics of

Both in opera studies and in most operatic works, the singing body is often taken for granted. In Postopera: Reinventing the Voice-Body, Jelena Novak reintroduces an awareness of the physicality of the singing body to opera studies. Arguing that the voice-body relationship itself is a producer of meaning, she furthermore posits this relationship as one of the major driving forces in recent opera. She takes as her focus six contemporary operas - La Belle et la Bête (Philip Glass), Writing to Vermeer (Louis Andriessen, Peter Greenaway), Three Tales (Steve Reich, Beryl Korot), One (Michel van der Aa), Homeland (Laurie Anderson), and La Commedia (Louis Andriessen, Hal Hartley) - which she terms 'postoperas'. These pieces are sites for creative exploration, where the boundaries of the opera world are stretched. Central to this is the impact of new media, a de-synchronization between image and sound, or a redefinition of body-voice-gender relationships. Novak dissects the singing body as a set of rules, protocols, effects, and strategies. That dissection shows how the singing body acts within the world of opera, what interventions it makes, and how it constitutes opera’s meanings.

Celebrity advocacy is a curious phenomenon. It occupies a significant proportion of the public domain, but does so without engaging particularly well with much of the public. Yet this may not matter very much. Many people at the core of advocacy, and in political and business elites, simply do not notice any lack of engagement. In these circles celebrity advocacy can be remarkably effective. Celebrity Advocacy and International Development examines the work of celebrity advocacy and lobbying in international development. Its purpose is to understand the alliances resulting, their history, consequences, wider contexts and implications. It argues that celebrity advocacy signals a new aspect of elite rule. For populist celebrity advocacy can mark, ironically, a disengagement between the public and politics, and particularly the public and civil society. Recognising this poses new challenges, but also presents new opportunities, for the development movement. This book gives students and researchers in development studies and media studies a wealth of original empirical data, including interviews across the NGO sector, media and celebrity industries, newspaper analysis, large surveys of public opinion, and focus group research.

Kevin Costner: America's Teacher examines the role of Costner in educational settings domestically and abroad. Costner’s career over the past 35 years has seen ups and downs: his movies grossed 2 billion dollars in ticket sales worldwide and he has he won/been nominated for several Academy Awards but he also experienced critical and box office failures. Through the films in his oeuvre, Costner has been teaching audiences around the world about the United States--its history, people and culture. Some viewers and scholars recognize this as positive, others as problematic. This book serves as a place for teachers and scholars to explore ways in which Costner may be tapped for research and teaching purposes at all levels of education. It is organized around three large themes: Costner’s baseball films and their connection to Americana; Costner’s films through the more critical lenses of gender and new western scholarship; and Costner’s teaching of teachers, the pedagogical possibilities of his work.