Disappointed Utopia

Disappointed Utopia
About the project
Acknowledgements
A note on the PDF format
Contents

Preface
Utopias are impossible
Reflexivity by the throat
Where feminism is not at home
Men on pedestals
How I met "French Theory"
Un mot en français

Introduction: Utopia in a Shattered World
Radical philosophy in Saint-Denis
Utopia and disappointment
Emancipation and fire
The problem of left patriarchy
The problem of a banlieue university
A note on methods
The shape of the story

PART I: HISTORICAL FAILURES

Interlude — In the hallway, at the cafeteria

1. Radical Philosophy After 1968
The loss of the revolution
May 68: The revolution became immediate
Aimé Césaire on the street: Race and impossible identifications
Revolutionary philosophy at Vincennes
Michel Foucault and the birth of ambivalence
The making of a radical reputation
Precarious teachers on strike
Death and historicity
The revolution wrapped in cellophane

Interlude — How I was welcomed

2. Left Patriarchy
The reflexivity of patriarchy
Warmth among men
Sketch of a history of gender relations
Women on the margins
Our aggressors are already inside

Interlude — I tried to join a feminist collective

3. The Neocolonial Bargain
The spatial fix
A “xenophilic agora”
An earthquake in Haiti
Very happy, very scared
I had to take care of them somehow
Care labor and the love of the Department
Men aren't disposable
Bring your own precarity

PART II: UTOPIA IN THE PRESENT

Interlude — The Basilica and the Stade de France

4. A Banlieue University
The space of the masses
Securitarian leftism
A worn out walk through campus
A door towards a thing
Not an unmitigated success
A student who was trapped
Graffiti and recognition
A self-managed space and its demise

Interlude — Loneliness

5. Thought in Motion
Philosophers in the knowledge society
Thought goes beyond reality
Thinking and writing
Traveling by train
Thought against world
Writing after midnight
Laughter and recognition
Nomad thought

Interlude — The end of the day

6. Whose Utopia Is This?
The logics of utopianism
Philosophers on strike
A declaration of university independence
A citation from Socrates
Male students against hierarchy
Ultra-masculinist attitudes everywhere
The logics of disappointment

Afterward
Utopia is possible
Reading theory, reading the university
The reflexivity of the Other
Mourning and momentum

Miscellany
What is this miscellany?
Ten Disclaimers
Brief chronology of the Philosophy Department
Sociological sketch of the Philosophy Department
In the courtyard
A working class philosopher
Letter from Georges Navet
Le Doctrinal de Sapience
A subaltern seminar on the university
Marxism and the death of philosophy
How philosophers made a living
Philosophers on their workspaces
At a philosophy conference
An aging professor's narrative
The status of undocumented students
On the archival sources
Works Cited
Is ending possible?