Kevin Olson
Biographic Data
| ID | 4124267 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kevin Olson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kevin |
| FAMILY NAME | Olson |
| SIGNATURE | OLSON K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Irvine |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2073-0353 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 64 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Nightmare Remains: The Politics of Mourning and Epistemologies of Disappearance
Archival Silence: How Do We Write the History of the Subaltern Who Cannot Speak
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Insurgent multiplicities
My discussion of Massimiliano Tomba's Insurgent Universality focuses on intertwined themes of historicism, normativity, and revolution that I find particularly generative. By drawing them together I hope to trace out important parts of the book's conceptual infrastructure, especially the way it uses insurgent moments of the past to conceptualize alternative modernities. My particular focus is the sense in which Tomba hopes to “reactivate” importa…
Response to Stephen White’s review of Imagined Sovereignties: The Power of the People and Other Myths of the Modern Age
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Populism in the Socialist Imagination
Socialism is typically portrayed as a deeply populist doctrine, yet it often has difficulties reconciling populism with more centrally socialist ideals. As a result, populism is both a consistent preoccupation and a recurring problem for socialists. This chapter traces these shifting tensions through three episodes in socialism’s development: the works of Karl Marx, Auguste Blanqui, and Eduard Bernstein. Each manifests the tensions in complex and…
Epistemologies of Rebellion: The Tricolor Cockade and the Problem of Subaltern Speech
This essay follows Michel Foucault’s inspiration to develop an archaeology of subaltern politics. In the archives left from the Haitian Revolution, we find occasional references to slaves wearing the tricolor cockade, the famous symbol of French republicanism. The archives are silent on what wearing the cockade “meant,” however, or why whites found it so threatening. Rich layers of meaning are packed into these silences. They reveal a great deal …
Genealogy, Cryptonormativity, Interpretation
Michel Foucault pioneered a fertile approach to social criticism whose full potential is still being discovered. Of all the Paris '68 generation of French theorists, Foucault best managed to navigate a path that yielded rich empirical insights while still maintaining a sharp normative bite. Without advertising the move in so many words, he turned away from critical modalities that depend on a privileged standpoint or fixed normative standard, tow…
Jürgen Habermas: Key Concepts
The significance of Kant s thought is matched by its complexity. His revolutionary ideas are systematically interconnected and he presents them using a forbidding technical vocabulary. A careful investigation of the key concepts that structure Kant s work is essential to the comprehension of his philosophical project. This book provides an accessible introduction to Kant by explaining each of the key concepts of his philosophy. The book is organi…
Legitimate Speech and Hegemonic Idiom: The Limits of Deliberative Democracy in the Diversity of its Voices
This article locates tensions at the heart of deliberative democracy by contrasting insights of Pierre Bourdieu and Jürgen Habermas. It argues that deliberation contains implicit presuppositions of two opposing sorts. Universalising presuppositions lead people to treat one another as equals. Differentiating ones lead people to treat one another as of greater or lesser worth in political dialogue. They undercut deliberative democracy by rendering …
Constructing Citizens
This essay arbitrates a dispute over the senses in which citizens are "constructed." The liberal-democratic view theorizes citizenship as a legal status guaranteeing political equality. It thereby ignores the extent to which conceptions of citizenship are variable social constructs. The governmental view insightfully characterizes the social origins of various conceptions of citizenship, but fails to account for citizens' unique capacities for co…
Paradoxes of Constitutional Democracy
Drawing on the work of Frank Michelman and Jürgen Habermas, I outline two interconnected paradoxes of constitutional democracy. The paradox of the founding prevents a purely democratic constitution from being founded, because the procedures needed to secure its legitimacy cannot be spontaneously self‐generated. It displays an infinite regression of procedures presupposing procedures. The paradox of dynamic indeterminacy heads off any attempt to r…
Do Rights Have a Formal Basis? Habermas’ Legal Theory and the Normative Foundations of the Law
Recognizing Gender, Redistributing Labor
Many feminists have theorized welfare regimes designed to degender labor and encourage men to share caregiving responsibilities. I claim that such policies are problematic to the extent that they do not account for the joint effects of choice and enculturation in people's use of welfare benefits. In a patriarchal society and a democratic state, people's choices will reflect and reproduce the gender norms of their own socialization. To foil this p…
Democratic Inequalities: The Problem of Equal Citizenship in Habermas's Democratic Theory
Habitus and body language: Towards a critical theory of symbolic power
L'A. compare les theories respectives de l'incarnation du pouvoir de P. Bourdieu et M. Foucault. La premiere, fondee sur le concept analytique de pouvoir symbolique, repond aux problemes poses par la seconde, fondee sur le concept historique de langage du corps. En vue d'une theorie critique du pouvoir, il s'agit d'inscrire les travaux de Bourdieu dans la perspective historique tracee par Foucault et de developper ses capacites analytiques
Paradoxes of Constitutional Democracy
Drawing on the work of Frank Michelman and Jürgen Habermas, I outline two interconnected paradoxes of constitutional democracy. The paradox of the founding prevents a purely democratic constitution from being founded, because the procedures needed to secure its legitimacy cannot be spontaneously self‐generated. It displays an infinite regression of procedures presupposing procedures. The paradox of dynamic indeterminacy heads off any attempt to r…
Legitimate Speech and Hegemonic Idiom: The Limits of Deliberative Democracy in the Diversity of its Voices
This article locates tensions at the heart of deliberative democracy by contrasting insights of Pierre Bourdieu and Jürgen Habermas. It argues that deliberation contains implicit presuppositions of two opposing sorts. Universalising presuppositions lead people to treat one another as equals. Differentiating ones lead people to treat one another as of greater or lesser worth in political dialogue. They undercut deliberative democracy by rendering …
Constructing Citizens
This essay arbitrates a dispute over the senses in which citizens are "constructed." The liberal-democratic view theorizes citizenship as a legal status guaranteeing political equality. It thereby ignores the extent to which conceptions of citizenship are variable social constructs. The governmental view insightfully characterizes the social origins of various conceptions of citizenship, but fails to account for citizens' unique capacities for co…
Recognizing Gender, Redistributing Labor
Many feminists have theorized welfare regimes designed to degender labor and encourage men to share caregiving responsibilities. I claim that such policies are problematic to the extent that they do not account for the joint effects of choice and enculturation in people's use of welfare benefits. In a patriarchal society and a democratic state, people's choices will reflect and reproduce the gender norms of their own socialization. To foil this p…
Do Rights Have a Formal Basis? Habermas’ Legal Theory and the Normative Foundations of the Law
Democratic Inequalities: The Problem of Equal Citizenship in Habermas's Democratic Theory
Habitus and body language: Towards a critical theory of symbolic power
L'A. compare les theories respectives de l'incarnation du pouvoir de P. Bourdieu et M. Foucault. La premiere, fondee sur le concept analytique de pouvoir symbolique, repond aux problemes poses par la seconde, fondee sur le concept historique de langage du corps. En vue d'une theorie critique du pouvoir, il s'agit d'inscrire les travaux de Bourdieu dans la perspective historique tracee par Foucault et de developper ses capacites analytiques
Epistemologies of Rebellion: The Tricolor Cockade and the Problem of Subaltern Speech
This essay follows Michel Foucault’s inspiration to develop an archaeology of subaltern politics. In the archives left from the Haitian Revolution, we find occasional references to slaves wearing the tricolor cockade, the famous symbol of French republicanism. The archives are silent on what wearing the cockade “meant,” however, or why whites found it so threatening. Rich layers of meaning are packed into these silences. They reveal a great deal …
Genealogy, Cryptonormativity, Interpretation
Michel Foucault pioneered a fertile approach to social criticism whose full potential is still being discovered. Of all the Paris '68 generation of French theorists, Foucault best managed to navigate a path that yielded rich empirical insights while still maintaining a sharp normative bite. Without advertising the move in so many words, he turned away from critical modalities that depend on a privileged standpoint or fixed normative standard, tow…
Habitus and body language: Towards a critical theory of symbolic power
L'A. compare les theories respectives de l'incarnation du pouvoir de P. Bourdieu et M. Foucault. La premiere, fondee sur le concept analytique de pouvoir symbolique, repond aux problemes poses par la seconde, fondee sur le concept historique de langage du corps. En vue d'une theorie critique du pouvoir, il s'agit d'inscrire les travaux de Bourdieu dans la perspective historique tracee par Foucault et de developper ses capacites analytiques
Democratic Inequalities: The Problem of Equal Citizenship in Habermas's Democratic Theory
Recognizing Gender, Redistributing Labor
Many feminists have theorized welfare regimes designed to degender labor and encourage men to share caregiving responsibilities. I claim that such policies are problematic to the extent that they do not account for the joint effects of choice and enculturation in people's use of welfare benefits. In a patriarchal society and a democratic state, people's choices will reflect and reproduce the gender norms of their own socialization. To foil this p…
Do Rights Have a Formal Basis? Habermas’ Legal Theory and the Normative Foundations of the Law
Paradoxes of Constitutional Democracy
Drawing on the work of Frank Michelman and Jürgen Habermas, I outline two interconnected paradoxes of constitutional democracy. The paradox of the founding prevents a purely democratic constitution from being founded, because the procedures needed to secure its legitimacy cannot be spontaneously self‐generated. It displays an infinite regression of procedures presupposing procedures. The paradox of dynamic indeterminacy heads off any attempt to r…
Constructing Citizens
This essay arbitrates a dispute over the senses in which citizens are "constructed." The liberal-democratic view theorizes citizenship as a legal status guaranteeing political equality. It thereby ignores the extent to which conceptions of citizenship are variable social constructs. The governmental view insightfully characterizes the social origins of various conceptions of citizenship, but fails to account for citizens' unique capacities for co…
Jürgen Habermas: Key Concepts
The significance of Kant s thought is matched by its complexity. His revolutionary ideas are systematically interconnected and he presents them using a forbidding technical vocabulary. A careful investigation of the key concepts that structure Kant s work is essential to the comprehension of his philosophical project. This book provides an accessible introduction to Kant by explaining each of the key concepts of his philosophy. The book is organi…
Legitimate Speech and Hegemonic Idiom: The Limits of Deliberative Democracy in the Diversity of its Voices
This article locates tensions at the heart of deliberative democracy by contrasting insights of Pierre Bourdieu and Jürgen Habermas. It argues that deliberation contains implicit presuppositions of two opposing sorts. Universalising presuppositions lead people to treat one another as equals. Differentiating ones lead people to treat one another as of greater or lesser worth in political dialogue. They undercut deliberative democracy by rendering …
Genealogy, Cryptonormativity, Interpretation
Michel Foucault pioneered a fertile approach to social criticism whose full potential is still being discovered. Of all the Paris '68 generation of French theorists, Foucault best managed to navigate a path that yielded rich empirical insights while still maintaining a sharp normative bite. Without advertising the move in so many words, he turned away from critical modalities that depend on a privileged standpoint or fixed normative standard, tow…
Epistemologies of Rebellion: The Tricolor Cockade and the Problem of Subaltern Speech
This essay follows Michel Foucault’s inspiration to develop an archaeology of subaltern politics. In the archives left from the Haitian Revolution, we find occasional references to slaves wearing the tricolor cockade, the famous symbol of French republicanism. The archives are silent on what wearing the cockade “meant,” however, or why whites found it so threatening. Rich layers of meaning are packed into these silences. They reveal a great deal …
Populism in the Socialist Imagination
Socialism is typically portrayed as a deeply populist doctrine, yet it often has difficulties reconciling populism with more centrally socialist ideals. As a result, populism is both a consistent preoccupation and a recurring problem for socialists. This chapter traces these shifting tensions through three episodes in socialism’s development: the works of Karl Marx, Auguste Blanqui, and Eduard Bernstein. Each manifests the tensions in complex and…
Response to Stephen White’s review of Imagined Sovereignties: The Power of the People and Other Myths of the Modern Age
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Insurgent multiplicities
My discussion of Massimiliano Tomba's Insurgent Universality focuses on intertwined themes of historicism, normativity, and revolution that I find particularly generative. By drawing them together I hope to trace out important parts of the book's conceptual infrastructure, especially the way it uses insurgent moments of the past to conceptualize alternative modernities. My particular focus is the sense in which Tomba hopes to “reactivate” importa…
Archival Silence: How Do We Write the History of the Subaltern Who Cannot Speak
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Nightmare Remains: The Politics of Mourning and Epistemologies of Disappearance
Sociology (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Democracy (5 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (5 works)