Jacques Rancière’s Left-wing Literary Theory and Mao Zedong’s Thought on Literature and Art

Abstract

The publication of French translations of Mao’s canonical works in the 1950s and 1960s sparked interest among French-left intellectuals. This paper investigates Rancière’s appropriation and reinvention of Mao’s thinking as an illustration of the exchange between Maoism and contemporary French left-wing theories on literature and art. First, drawing on Mao’s “mass line,” Rancière values the autonomy of the people rather than the leadership of the Althusserian intellectual elites. Second, Rancière’s “part of those that have no part” differs from Mao’s “the people” in the concept’s scope and in how they are transformed into political subjects. Third, deeply indebted to Mao’s “the people’s literature and art” that underscores the centrality of ordinary people and their lives, Rancière’s theory of politics of literature unleashes the liberating force of art and literature for the sensible of ordinary people, and calls for overthrowing the hierarchy of class politics.

Keywords:

• Rancière
• Maoism
• mass line
• the people
• part of those that have no part
• politics of literature

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This paragraph is translated by the author from the Chinese version of the interview with Rancière by Lu Xinghua. See Rancière, Jacques, and Lu Xinghua 雅克·朗西埃, 陆兴华. 2013. “Jiang shenghuo dang yishou shi laixie—yake langxiai fangtanlu” 自我解放: 将生活当—首诗来写—雅克·朗西埃访谈录 [Self-liberation: Writing Life as a Poem—An Interview with Jacques Rancière]. In Literature and Art Studies, no.9 (September): 72.

Additional information

Funding

This article is supported by the Major Project of National Social Sciences Fund (20&ZD290); the Key Project of National Social Sciences Fund (18AZW002).

Notes on contributors

Zhenjiang Han

Zhenjiang Han is Professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research interests include contemporary literary and art theory, contemporary foreign Marxist philosophical aesthetics, and Western aesthetics studies. His articles appeared in journals such as Philosophical Research, Foreign Theoretical Trends, and Comparative Literature in China.