Art and Essence Book

I read this on the plane home primarily with the idea that it might be a good text to use in an undergrad class. If you've read Mouffe's work with Laclau or any of her other books, you certainly won't find anything new here: adversary over enemy, agonism over antagonism, democratic conflict over lazy Habermasian consensual discussion, and so on. She takes on the cosmopolites here and makes good arguments. This part of the book suffers because she chooses rather weak opponents. Someone like Pheng Cheah would have been more formidable. What is really interesting is her assertion that Hardt and Negri's "Empire" is also part of larger liberal, cosmopolitan visions of a post-political world. That should raise some eyebrows.

Pedagogically, Mouffe would be useful because she so clearly stakes out her arguments and oppositions. It is hard to imagine that an undergrad incapable of reconstructing her arguments and her political investments.