Fugitive Rousseau: Slavery, Primitivism, and Political Freedom

By: Jimmy Casas Klausen

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis: Critics have claimed that Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a primitivist uncritically preoccupied with “noble savages” and that he remained oblivious to the African slave trade. Fugitive Rousseau presents the emancipatory possibilities of Rousseau’s thought and argues that a fresh, “fugitive” perspective on political freedom is bound up with Rousseau’s treatments of primitivism and slavery. Rather than trace Rousseau’s arguments primarily to the social contract tradition of Hobbes and Locke, Fugitive Rousseau places Rousseau squarely in two imperial contexts: European empire in his contemporary Atlantic world and Roman imperial philosophy. Anyone who aims to understand the implications of Rousseau’s famous sentence “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” or wants to know how Rousseauian arguments can support a radical democratic politics of diversity, discontinuity, and exodus will find Fugitive Rousseau indispensable.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:: 9780823257317
Related ISBNs:: 9780823257294, 9780823267477
Publisher:: Fordham University Press
Date of Addition:: 04/14/17
Copyrighted By:: Fordham University Press
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: History, Nonfiction, Social Studies, Philosophy, Politics and Government
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.