Tag Archives: French Revolution

Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall: “Thoroughly Modern Maxie: Robespierre’s Relevance for Democracy Today”

Posted on August 8, 2022 by

“But Robespierre’s challenge remains relevant today: what can we do now, in the face of furious backlash from those who oppose #BlackLivesMatter, feminism, and other social movements, to confront those who would rather deform democracy than see society become more just and egalitarian?”

Posted in governance, justice, Nota Bene, revolution, terror, violence

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Christine Adams: “4 Cautionary Tales from the French Revolution for Today”

Posted on February 28, 2021 by

“The unsettled era of the French Revolution (1789–1799) offers insight to our current historical moment as the former U.S. president still refuses to accept recent election results as legitimate, firing up an already potent and dangerous White nationalist movement that feeds on social media-fueled fever dreams.”

Posted in crisis, governance, Nota Bene, revolution

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Beatrice de Graaf: “Red, White, and Blood: White Terror and Great Fear, 1789-2021”

Posted on February 28, 2021 by

““White terror” has always been the twin brother of “revolutionary” or “red terror.” Modern history since the French Revolution has witnessed an effervescent parade of rebellions, insurrections, insurgencies, and proper coups – but they almost always came in pairs, as, for example, with revolutionary terror (against sitting feudal, authoritarian regimes) and white terror, counter-revolutionary violence, directed against the alleged revolutionary (or socialist, after 1917) activists and dissidents. Applying this dichotomy of terror to the current wave of insurrection (in the United States and elsewhere) helps us to put its dynamics in a broader historical context.”

Posted in defeat, Nota Bene, revolution, terror, violence

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Kevin Duong: “Flash Mob: Revolution, Lightning, and the People’s Will”

Posted on February 28, 2021 by

“Leading French revolutionaries, in need of an image to represent the all important “will of the people”, turned to the thunderbolt — a natural symbol of power and illumination that also signalled the scientific ideals so key to their project.”

Posted in Nota Bene, power, revolution

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Tyson Leuchter: “Les Aristocrates, Mangeurs de Peuple: On Zombies, Revolution, and Netflix’s La Révolution”

Posted on November 13, 2020 by

“La Révolution is a new original series from Netflix, released on 16 October 2020. The first season runs eight episodes. It purports to be an “alternative” telling of the French Revolution of 1789, though apart from the cold open, the vast majority of the action takes place in pre-revolutionary 1787.”

Posted in film, fraternity, revolution

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Chris Horner: “Hannah Arendt And The Lost Treasure Of The American Revolution”

Posted on January 28, 2020 by

“The public space of freedom was not preserved by either of the two revolutions mainly discussed in On Revolution, and we should include their failure alongside that of the Bolsheviks when we read Arendt’s appreciation of the fact that Rosa Luxemburg ‘was far more afraid of a deformed revolution than an unsuccessful one’”.

Posted in agonism, Arendt, democracy, founding, freedom, governance, Nota Bene, revolution, tragic politics

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Jeremy Popkin: “Vive la révolution!”

Posted on January 20, 2020 by

“Must radical political change generate uncontainable violence?  The French Revolution is both a cautionary and inspiring tale.”

Posted in defeat, gender, governance, Nota Bene, revolution, rights, terror, tragic politics, violence

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Blake Smith: “The Sacred French Revolution: Emile Durkheim, Lynn Hunt, and Historians”

Posted on December 5, 2019 by

“The French Revolution was a spiritual phenomenon, a manifestation of the sacred. Its legacy and commemoration have become a religion with rituals, festivals, and idols. This was the provocative thesis of Émile Durkheim.”

Posted in Blog, revolution, the common

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Joseph Nechvatal: “How Artists of the French Revolution Embraced Neoclassical Revivalism”

Posted on April 22, 2019 by

“The exhibition Revolutionary Generation: French Drawings (1770-1815) from the Fabre Museum illustrates how, as the Rococo movement went out of fashion, France’s insurrectionist artists drew on ancient Greek and Roman art for inspiration.”

Posted in fine arts, revolution

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Temps Critiques: “The envy of the French Revolution of the Yellow Vests”

Posted on February 18, 2019 by

“Spontaneously, the reference to the French Revolution constituted for the Yellow Vests the only historical reference, because only it carries the collective memory of a social and political upheaval with which they can identify.”

Posted in agonism, emergency, Nota Bene, power, revolt, the common, the Left

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