This book is a critical introduction to contemporary Frenchphilosopher Jacques Rancière. It is the first introduction inany language to cover all of his major work and offers anaccessible presentation and searching evaluation of his significantcontributions to the fields of politics, pedagogy, history,literature, film theory and aesthetics.This book traces the emergence of Rancière's thoughtover the last forty-five years and situates it in the diverseintellectual contexts in which it intervenes. Beginning with hisegalitarian critique of his former teacher Louis Althusser, thebook tracks the subsequent elaboration of Rancière'shighly original conception of equality. This approach reveals thata grasp of his early archival and historiographical work is vitalfor a full understanding both of his later politics and his ongoinginvestigation of art and aesthetics.Along the way, this book explains and analyses key terms inRancière's very distinctive philosophical lexicon,including the 'police' order,'disagreement', 'political subjectivation','literarity', the 'part which has no part',the 'regimes of art' and 'the distribution of thesensory'.This book argues that Rancière's work sets a newstandard in contestatory critique and concludes by reflecting onthe philosophical and policy implications of his singular project.

Preface viiAcknowledgements xiii1 The Early Politics: From Pedagogy to Equality 1Althusser's lesson 2Platonic inequality in Marx, Sartre and Bourdieu 15Jacotot and radical equality 252 History and Historiography 36Les Révoltes Logiques (1975-81) 36The Nights of Labor: The Workers' Dream in Nineteenth-CenturyFrance [1981] 52The Names of History: On the Poetics of Knowledge [1992]57Conclusion 723 The Mature Politics: From Policing to Democracy 74Politics and 'the police' 76Rancière's structural account of democracy: the 'wrong' andthe miscount 80Political 'subjectivation' 84The aesthetic dimension of politics: the 'division' or'distribution' of 'the sensory' (le partage du sensible) 90Overall assessment of Rancière's account of politics 924 Literature 101'What is literature?' 102Writing, literarity . . . and literature 107Rancière as reader 1155 Art and Aesthetics 126Aesthetic experience and equality: with Kant and Gauny, againstBourdieu 128The regimes of art 134Film and film theory 138Contemporary art, politics and community 152Afterword 160Notes 162References 191Index 207