Encountering tragedy : Rousseau and the project of democratic order
by
 
Johnston, Steven.

Title
Encountering tragedy : Rousseau and the project of democratic order

Author
Johnston, Steven.

ISBN
9780801435966

Personal Author
Johnston, Steven.

Publication Information
Ithaca, N.Y. ; London : Cornell University Press, 1999.

Physical Description
xii, 189 p. ; 24 cm.

Contents
1. On Tragedy. Rousseau's Legacy. Thinking Tragedy. The Ironic Road to Cruelty. Ontological Intimations. Virtue Wars. Political Incommensurabilities -- 2. On Nature. First Movement: Attunement. Second Movement: Ressentiment. Third Movement: Tragedy. Concluding with Hobbes. Eternal Returns -- 3. On Founding. Founding Paradoxes. Founding Violence. Founding Poetics. Founding Fictions. Founding Politics. Founding Futures -- 4. On Government. Governmentality. Government and Sovereignty. Government and Order. Government and Politics. The Government of Security and Liberty. The Government of Service and Signs. The Government of Life and Morality. The Government of Sexuality and Pleasure. The Government of Opinion and Culture. The Government of Sovereignty -- 5. On Enmity. Virtue and Enmity. Moral Enmity. Gender Enmity. Foreign Enmity. Civil Wars. On Cruelty. The Return of the Repressed.

Abstract
"Johnston draws on selected texts in Rousseau's corpus - including the underappreciated tracts on Poland and Corsica - to interpret Rousseau first and foremost as an anatomist and architect of order. Encountering Tragedy contests Rousseau's munificent ontological presumptions, probes the necessary and disturbing fictions of the Founding, reconfigures the relationship between the multifarious arts of government and the exercise of sovereignty, and delineates the constitutive role of enmity in his virtuous republic. Moreover, the book offers a critical reading of Rousseau's gender politics, and dissects the attractions and dangers of both his patriotic sensibility and his morality-based politics."--BOOK JACKET.

Personal Subject
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778-Contributions in political science.

Subject Term
Democracy.