Book Section
‘Dante’s Modernity’ pursues ambitions that go far beyond its ostensible editorial function as a preface to the medieval author’s early 14th-century political treatise. The text exemplifies Lefort’s signature method of taking political philosophy in new directions by drawing on the fundamental indeterminacy and openness of key works from the history of political philosophy. The result is as much an interpretation of the Monarchia as it is of political modernity itself.
Keywords: dialogical thought; reading; history; modernity; indeterminacy; universal empire; challenge to prevalent modes of historicization
Title
Preface
Author(s)
Christiane Frey
Identifier
Description
‘Dante’s Modernity’ pursues ambitions that go far beyond its ostensible editorial function as a preface to the medieval author’s early 14th-century political treatise. The text exemplifies Lefort’s signature method of taking political philosophy in new directions by drawing on the fundamental indeterminacy and openness of key works from the history of political philosophy. The result is as much an interpretation of the Monarchia as it is of political modernity itself.
Is Part Of
Place
Berlin
Publisher
ICI Berlin Press
Date
4 February 2020
Subject
dialogical thought
reading
history
modernity
indeterminacy
universal empire
challenge to prevalent modes of historicization
Rights
© by Christiane Frey
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Language
en-GB
page start
vii
page end
xiii
Source
Claude Lefort, Dante’s Modernity: An Introduction to the ‘Monarchia’. With an Essay by Judith Revel, ed. by Christiane Frey, Manuele Gragnolati, Christoph F. E. Holzhey, and Arnd Wedemeyer, trans. by Jennifer Rushworth, Cultural Inquiry, 16 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2020), pp. vii–xiii

References

  • Alighieri, Dante, Monarchy, ed. and trans. by Prue Shaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), text also available online, <https://www.danteonline.it/monarchia> [accessed 5 December 2019]
  • Alighieri, Dante, Monarchia, ed. by Prue Shaw, Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Dante Alighieri a cura della Società Dantesca Italiana, V (Florence: Le Lettere, 2009), Latin text also available online, <http://www.danteonline.it/monarchia> [accessed 5 December 2019]
  • Ascoli, Albert Russell, Dante and the Making of a Modern Author (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) <https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511485718>
  • Howard, Dick, The Specter of Democracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002)
  • Lefort, Claude, Éléments d’une critique de la bureaucratie (Geneva: Droz, 1971), a small selection of essays translated into English as part of Claude Lefort, The Political Forms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism, ed. and intro. by John B. Thompson, trans. by Alan Sheridan, Terry Karten, and John B. Thompson (Cambridge: Polity, 1986), pp. 29–136
  • Lefort, Claude, Le Travail de l’œuvre Machiavel (Paris: Gallimard, 1972), partially translated into English as Machiavelli in the Making, trans. by Michael B. Smith (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2012)
  • Lefort, Claude, ‘Le Nom d’Un’, in Étienne de La Boétie, Le Discours de la servitude volontaire, ed. by Pierre Léonard, intro. by Miguel Abensour and Marcel Gauchet, accompanying essays by Pierre Clastres and Claude Lefort, with additional texts by Félicité Lamennais, Pierre Leroux, Auguste Vermorel, Gustav Landauer, and Simone Weil (Paris: Payot, 1976), pp. 247–307
  • Lefort, Claude, Essais sur le politique, XIXe–XXe siècles (Paris: Seuil, 1986), English as Democracy and Political Theory, trans. by David Macey (Cambridge: Polity, 1988)
  • Lefort, Claude, ‘La Modernité de Dante’, in Dante, La Monarchie, trans. by Michèle Gally (Paris: Belin, 1993), pp. 6 76
  • Lefort, Claude, ‘La Nation élue et le rêve de l’empire universel’, in L’Idée d’humanité. Données et Débats, actes du XXXIVe Colloque des intellectuels juifs de la langue française, ed. by Jean Halpérin and Georges Lévitte (Paris: Albin Michel, 1995), pp. 97–112
  • Lefort, Claude, ‘Préface’, in Alexis de Tocqueville, Souvenirs, ed. by Luc Monnier, with notes by J. P. Mayer and B. M. Wicks-Boisson (Paris: Gallimard, 1999), pp. i–l
  • Lefort, Claude, ‘La Cité des vivants et des morts’, in Jules Michelet, La Cité des vivants et des morts. Préfaces et Introductions (Paris: Belin, 2002), pp. 5–65
  • Lefort, Claude, ‘Dante’s Modernity’, in Claude Lefort, Dante’s Modernity: An Introduction to the Monarchia and Its Political Thought. With an Essay by Judith Revel, ed. by Christiane Frey, Manuele Gragnolati, Christoph F. E. Holzhey, and Arnd Wedemeyer, trans. by Jennifer Rushworth, Cultural Inquiry, 16 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2020), pp. 1–85 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-16_03>
  • Lefort, Claude, Écrire. À l’épreuve du politique (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1992), English as Writing: The Political Test, trans. and ed. by David Ames Curtis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000)

Cite as: Christiane Frey, ‘Preface’, in Claude Lefort, Dante’s Modernity: An Introduction to the Monarchia, ed. by Christiane Frey, Manuele Gragnolati, Christoph F. E. Holzhey, and Arnd Wedemeyer, Cultural Inquiry, 16 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2020), p. vii-xiii <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-16_01>