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by Bart Zantvoort (Editor), Rebecca Comay (Editor)
The concept of resistance has always been central to the reception of Hegel's philosophy. The prevalent image of Hegel's system, which continues to influence the scholarship to this day, is that of an absolutist, monist metaphysics which overcomes all resistance, sublating or assimilating all differences into a single organic 'Whole'. For that reason, the reception of Hegel has always been marked by the question of how to resist Hegel: how to think that which remains outside of or other to the totalizing system of dialectics.
In recent years the work of scholars such as Catherine Malabou, Slavoj Zizek, Rebecca Comay and Frank Ruda has brought considerable nuance to this debate. A new reading of Hegel has emerged which challenges the idea that there is no place for difference, otherness or resistance in Hegel, both by refusing to reduce Hegel's complex philosophy to a straightforward systematic narrative and by highlighting particular moments within Hegel's philosophy which seem to counteract the traditional understanding of dialectics.
This book brings together established and new voices in this field in order to show that the notion of resistance is central to this revaluation of Hegel.
Author Biography
Rebecca Comay is Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Mourning Sickness: Hegel and the French Revolution (2011), as well as many articles on Hegel, Benjamin and Adorno, psychoanalysis and aesthetics.
Bart Zantvoort is Lecturer at the Institute of Philosophy, Leiden University, the Netherlands. His research focuses on the relation between social change and resistance to change in individuals, institutions and social structures more generally. He has published articles on Hegel, political inertia, Critical Theory and on Quentin Meillassoux.
