Politics out of the History of Politics

Abstract

Wendy Brown’s approach in Politics out of History is characterized by an attempt to analyze the presence of the past which can be read not only under the light of Nietzsche’s legacy, but also through a comparison with Hannah Arendt’s conception of the gap between the past and the future. Like Arendt, Brown aims to look at the present as the site of politics and freedom, even though the former conceives the break with tradition as the unavoidable starting point, while the latter assumes that that break is not fully accomplished because it was not recognized. Rather, it produces Wounded Attachments whose effect is that of limiting the possibility of left criticism. Moving from this parallel, Brown’s analysis is compared to the Italian philosophy of sexual difference, stressing their common interest in thinking freedom beyond a female identity built on a presumed common oppression.