Blog post

Revolution Is A Language

Ariella Azoulay31 May 2013




In this lecture, given the the "House of the People" in summer 2012, with the help off photos, Azoulay explains why the further she went into her research on revolution, the harder she found it to push aside unsettling questions regarding what is -- or is considered -- a revolution: why was the violence exerted in Palestine in 1948 perpetuated as independence and why were the feverish efforts of Jews and Arabs to create local peace alliances dropped out of this history and not considered a potential for revolution? Why was Algeria etched in consciousness as war while Hungary designated revolution?; why have revolutions in Haiti or South Africa been characterized as rebellions or coups d'état, while the struggle for civil rights or against rape in the US were each described as movements. And why did the latter not constitute the basis for a re-conceptualization of revolution, body politic, ruling power and regime?

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