Regulating Aversion

"This is a brilliant book. Wendy Brown has made the reader understand 'tolerance' in a new and more provocative way. Alerting us to its genealogy, she demonstrates the ambiguity of any politics that seeks to found itself on this much-touted liberal virtue. Regulating Aversion is a remarkable--and remarkably rigorous--contribution to the considerable literature on tolerance and the limits of the tolerable. Anyone wanting to think seriously about multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and democratic pluralism in our time must read it."--Talal Asad, CUNY Graduate Center "Wendy Brown's Regulating Aversion is clear, rigorous, and unusually bold in an academic atmosphere that is now far from sympathetic to its kind of radical critique. Brown has done a wonderful job of orchestrating her argument, and it has been articulated with wit. The book is a worthy successor to her best and most politically astute contributions. This is an important work."--Paul Gilroy, London School of Economics "In this fascinating and provocative book, Brown brings into sharp analytical focus a perplexing phenomenon: in political discourse since the late twentieth century, both the objects and content of tolerance have shifted. The sweep of Brown's analysis is impressive: she deftly weaves together critiques of contemporary politics with thoughtful explorations of the history of liberal thought on tolerance."--Melissa Williams, University of Toronto

Wendy Brown

Acknowledgments ix Chapter 1: Tolerance as a Discourse of Depoliticization 1 Chapter 2: Tolerance as a Discourse of Power 25 Chapter 3: Tolerance as Supplement The "Jewish Question" and the "Woman Question" 48 Chapter 4: Tolerance as Governmentality Faltering Universalism, State Legitimacy, and State Violence 78 Chapter 5: Tolerance as Museum Object The Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance 107 Chapter 6: Subjects of Tolerance Why We Are Civilized and They Are the Barbarians 149 Chapter 7: Tolerance as/in Civilizational Discourse 176 Notes 207 Index 259