Jodi Dean – Four Theses on the Comrade

2018 Phyllis Clarke Memorial Lecture presented by Jodi Dean:

Four Theses on the Comrade

Crucial to the global excitement generated by the October Revolution was the promise and possibility of new forms of relationship, new ways of being human. The Revolution heralded an end to relations of hierarchy and domination and the beginning of new relations of comradeship and solidarity. This lecture focuses on the comrade as a term of address, figure of political relation, and carrier of expectations for action. It presents four theses on the comrade, emphasizing the genericity and interchangeability of the comrade. It argues that this genericity, the sameness of those on the same side, provides a way through the impasse of systems and survivors prominent on the contemporary left.

Jodi Dean is the Donald R. Harter ’39 Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. Her latest publication is Crowds and Party (Verso 2016).

Moderated by Bryan Evans. Introduction by Leo Panitch.

The Phyllis Clarke Memorial Lecture is held annually to honour the memory of Phyllis Clarke, a member of the Ryerson University faculty from 1977 until her death in 1988. The lecture series is organized by Bryan Evans, and co-sponsored and supported by Ryerson’s CUPE Locals 233, 1281, 3904, and the Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University.