ABSTRACT
In 1969, Jacques Ranciere joined the radical experimental university Centre Universitaire Experimental de Vincennes, which became Paris VIII in 1971. After 1968, Ranciere associated with left critics of the Parti Communiste Français who were inspired by Maoism and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. “The emancipation of the workers,” is, for Ranciere: an undivided time without off seasons entailing an activity in which service — without servitude— to others is rewarded with the pleasure of being one’s own master instead of having to sell oneself. The role of the radical intellectual is reinterpreted by Ranciere as a disrupting “other” who can reveal to workers that there is a possibility for something other than a life of exploitation, i.e. a life of freedom. Ranciere’s provocations have great resonance in the contemporary context. Both Ranciere and Mohammad Ali El Hammi’s theoretical focus is on the ideological foundations of the experiences of labor.
