The revoked community

Maurice Blanchot’s The Unavowable Community (1983) to explore the philosophical foundations of the (im)possiblity and the need for a ‘communism’ to come.

Thirty years after his now-classic The Inoperative Community (1983), Jean-Luc Nancy turns his attention back to the community and to the ‘communal’ nature of life. We do not exist as discrete entities but through relations. Nancy argues that the ‘common’ is the fundamental, irreducible element of equality that predates any differentiation, but also the indiscernible, that which is shared and only exists in relation to other elements. As such, it transcends political questions (communitarianism or nationalism) and is rooted in an ontology of ‘we’.

Lecture followed by a discussion with Felip Martí and Joana Masó.