Todd McGowan, "Universality and Identity Politics" (Columbia UP, 2020)

29 snips

Jan 4, 2025

Todd McGowan, a Professor of Film Studies at the University of Vermont, delves into the complexities of universality and identity politics. He argues that universal values like equality and freedom arise from our experiences of their absence. McGowan critically examines the history of Nazism and Stalinism, offering a nuanced view that transcends typical totalitarian narratives. He also discusses how contemporary movements, such as Black Lives Matter, navigate the tension between universality and particularism, urging a reevaluation of identity's role in social struggles.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Universality as Absence

Universality as absence prevents its imposition as a form of mastery.
Making universality present, as Stalinism and British imperialism did, leads to authoritarian violence.

ANECDOTE

Gay Marriage Movement

McGowan views the gay marriage movement as potentially highlighting non-belonging within marriage.
He acknowledges differing perspectives on whether it's a leftist project.

INSIGHT

The Struggle for Universality

The struggle for universality is the endpoint, not the means to an end.
Engaging in this struggle constitutes universality itself.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

The great political ideas and movements of the modern world were founded on a promise of universal emancipation. But in recent decades, much of the Left has grown suspicious of such aspirations. Critics see the invocation of universality as a form of domination or a way of speaking for others, and have come to favor a politics of particularism—often derided as “identity politics.” Others, both centrists and conservatives, associate universalism with twentieth-century totalitarianism and hold that it is bound to lead to catastrophe.

This book develops a new conception of universality that helps us rethink political thought and action. Todd McGowan argues that universals such as equality and freedom are not imposed on us. They emerge from our shared experience of their absence and our struggle to attain them. McGowan reconsiders the history of Nazism and Stalinism and reclaims the universalism of movements fighting racism, sexism, and homophobia. He demonstrates that the divide between Right and Left comes down to particularity versus universality. Despite the accusation of identity politics directed against leftists, every emancipatory political project is fundamentally a universal one—and the real proponents of identity politics are the right wing. Through a wide range of examples in contemporary politics, film, and history, Universality and Identity Politics (Columbia UP, 2020) offers an antidote to the impasses of identity and an inspiring vision of twenty-first-century collective struggle.

Todd McGowan is professor of film studies at the University of Vermont. His previous Columbia University Press books are The Impossible David Lynch (2007), Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets (2016), and Emancipation After Hegel: Achieving a Contradictory Revolution (2019). He is the coeditor of the Diaeresis series at Northwestern University Press with Slavoj Žižek and Adrian Johnston. He is also cohost of the Why Theory podcast, which brings continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory together to examine cultural phenomena.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory