On Political Subjectivation: Althusser/Rancière/Foucault/Arendt/Deleuze

With a need for conceptual clarification as a starting point, this text proposes a genealogy of the notion of political subjectivation, taking into account the manner in which it has been conceived and developed in French philosophy, beginning with Foucault. This article first traces the concepts at stake in the controversy between Jacques Rancière and Louis Althusser; it then pits the Rancerian concept against Foucault’s, to point out the similarities and differences with Arendt’s idea of singularization. To conclude, the author suggests placing Arendt´s understanding of political singularization in close dialogue with the analysis proposed by Deleuze on forms of subjectivation.