Colloque - Socialisme et égalitarisme libéral : un dialogue nécessaire - Gabriel Wollner : Revolutionary Redemption and the Socialist Afterlife

Colloque - Socialisme et égalitarisme libéral : un dialogue nécessaire - Gabriel Wollner : Revolutionary Redemption and the Socialist Afterlife

From Colloques du Collège de France - Collège de France by Collège de France

May 15, 2026 · 26 min

About this episode

Gabriel Wollner discusses the concept of revolutionary redemption and its implications for socialist thought.

Lea Ypi L'invention de l'Europe par les langues et les cultures (2025-2026) Collège de France Année 2025-2026 Colloque : Socialisme et égalitarisme libéral : un dialogue nécessaire Revolutionary Redemption and the Socialist Afterlife Gabriel Wollner Professor, University of Bremen Résumé In his famous and difficult essay "On the Concept of History," Walter Benjamin introduces the idea of revolutionary redemption. Through their actions, revolutionaries of the present can redeem those whose struggles for liberation failed in the past. According to Benjamin, class struggle is a redemptive intervention into the past. This idea raises a fundamental question: How can present events and actions have an impact on the past and redeem people who are no longer alive? I attempt to answer this question with a conception of emancipation as a temporally extended collective action. On this conception, we are struggling for the past's socialist afterlife. Gabriel Wollner Gabriel Wollner studied philosophy, political science, and economics at the universities of Oxford and Harvard. He completed his doctorate in philosophy at University College London and has taught as an assistant professor at the…

People in this episode

Host: Collège de France

Guest: Gabriel Wollner

Topics covered

  • socialism
  • liberal egalitarianism
  • revolutionary redemption
  • class struggle
  • emancipation
  • political philosophy

Keywords

  • revolutionary redemption
  • socialist afterlife
  • class struggle
  • political philosophy
  • emancipation
  • Walter Benjamin

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Bremen

Books & works: On the Concept of History

Places: Europe, London, Berlin, Bayreuth

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