Missed revolutions and Revolutions to Come

Slought is pleased to announce "Missed revolutions and revolutions to come," an evening conversation with philosophers Rebecca Comay and Andrew Benjamin, moderated by Jean-Michel Rabaté, on Friday, October 21, 2011 from 6:30-8pm. The conversation, using Rebecca Comay's book Mourning Sickness (2010) as a starting point, will explore a new reading of Hegel in light of contemporary theories of historical trauma. Comay explores the ways in which major historical events are experienced vicariously, and the fantasies we use to make sense of them. Hegel is brought into relation with the most burning contemporary discussions around catastrophe, witness, memory, and the role of culture in shaping political experience.

Like many of his contemporaries, Hegel was struck by the seeming parallel between the political upheaval in France and the upheaval in German philosophy inaugurated by the Protestant Reformation and brought to a climax by German Idealism. Many thinkers reasoned that a political revolution would be unnecessary in Germany, because this intellectual "revolution" had preempted it. Having already been through its own cataclysm, Germany would be able to extract the energy of the Revolution and channel its radicalism into thought. Hegel comes close to making such an argument too. But he also offers a powerful analysis of how this kind of secondhand history gets generated in the first place, and shows what is stake. This is what makes him uniquely interesting among his contemporaries: he demonstrates how a fantasy can be simultaneously deconstructed and enjoyed.