Literature, Politics, and Aesthetics after the Paris Commune

In 1871, the workers and soldiers of Paris raised the flag of the Universal Republic to formally establish the Paris Commune—a radical experiment in direct democracy, collective government, and social and cultural transformation. Just over two months later, the Commune was crushed by the military might of the national government. Why, 150 years later, does such a fleeting event continue to resonate? How did the Commune speak to visions of political, social, and cultural life in its moment, and how does it continue to shape radical thought and practice today? The sixteen original chapters brought together in Literature, Politics, and Aesthetics after the Paris Commune suggest that answers lie in the Commune's extraordinary symbolic dimension. The contributors to this volume come from a range of different disciplines, including literary studies, history, political theory, film studies, and musicology. Together they explore the rich literary, artistic, and political afterlives of the Paris Commune in order to reinvigorate wider cross-disciplinary debate about the generative logic of insurrectionary events as well as about the formation of radical traditions. In doing so, this richly illustrated volume adds substantially to our understanding of this world-historical event by treating the history of its cultural documents and monuments with foremost attention to questions of political form, subjectivity, and culture.