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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Revolutionary Pessimism: Simone Weil's Antifascist Politics

Revolutionary Pessimism: Simone Weil's Antifascist Politics

Ritner, Scott

Hardcover

Series: Square One: First-Order Questions in the Humanities

PhilosophyGeneral Political ScienceWomen's Studies

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1503645592
ISBN13: 9781503645592
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: Nov 24 2026
Pages: 206
Weight: 0.90
Height: 0.70 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

Scott B. Ritner argues that the antifascist philosopher and mystic Simone Weil's critical writings about the social crises of the mid-twentieth century, especially fascism, are particularly instructive for today. Now, as then, liberal democratic capitalist states are under threat from authoritarian leaders and fascist movements. Situating Weil and her work in the tradition of pessimistic critical theory, Ritner reveals how Weil's work can be understood as participating in an ongoing project critique of capitalist and liberal, neoliberal, and fascist modes of domination. This novel interpretation of Weil's work argues for reading her combined anarchist, Marxian, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and Platonic approaches to political thought holistically alongside her mystical Christianity and Judaism as a singular antifascist project in which pessimism is given political prominence. Taking up Weil's critiques of the State, the organization of labor, the use and effects of violence, and the ideology of revolution, Ritner mobilizes Weil's idiosyncratic antifascist politics towards a conceptual framework he calls revolutionary pessimism--defined as root-and-branch political action without expectation. As Ritner persuades, the revolutionary pessimism perceivable in Weil's writing can reorient antifascism from a defensive political posture to an offensive posture of generative permanent revolt.

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