Political scientist Chantal Mouffe will show the importance of mobilizing public affection for the agonistic conception of politics and examine the role it plays in the field of artistic and cultural practices.
Chantal Mouffe (Charleroi, Belgium, 1943)
Is among the most renowned post-structuralist philosophers and contemporary political scientists.
She studied at several universities (Université Catholique de Louvain, Université de Paris and University of Essex) and currently teaches political theory at the University of Westminster. Together with Ernesto Laclau, she has been actively involved in the social struggles of the 1960s and both are considered as the founders of post-Marxism, a philosophical current that revisits and rethinks Marxist postulations in the light of post-structuralist contributions and the social pressure exerted during the second half of the twentieth century.
Mouffe and Laclau redefine “Marxist hegemony” in search of a new socialist project: radical democracy. Hegemonía y estrategia socialista: hacia una radicalización de la democracia (Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics) –a book publised in 1987 in which this reconceptualization is expressed– a classic of post-Marxist thought. Among Mouffe’s theoretical concerns there is a marked relevance of themes revolving around politics –such as political liberalism and the defense of democracy– and antagonisms as the key to the very existence of society and of that which is as social as it is political. She has also contributed towards feminism and the critique of rationalism.