Politics of Experience: Aesthetics as a Promise of Emancipation in Jacques Rancière’s Theory

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show that the prevalence of the topic of aesthetics and art in the mature theory of Jacques Rancière is a result of consequent development of his conceptualization of politics in the Ten Thesis on Politics and Disagreement: politics and philosophy. Evoking key notions developed by this French philosopher — such as the distribution of the sensible, regime of arts, subjectivization — I will argue that the issue of the aesthetic experience and the promise of political emancipation inherent in it has a pivotal meaning for the Rancièrean relation between aesthetics and politics.