Can Ressentiment Be Revolutionary? (feat. Zahi Zalloua)

I am joined by philosopher and scholar Zahi Zalloua to discuss the politics of resentment, and how to theorize the problematic concept of "ressentiment" and whether this concept can be applied to emancipatory ends. Is ressentiment a political affect that can be harnessed for revolutionary action? We discuss Zalloua's recent works: Fanon, Žižek, and Violence of Resistance and The Politics of the Wretched: Race, Reason, and Ressentiment.

Zahi Zalloua is Cushing Eells Professor of Philosophy and Literature and a professor of Indigeneity, Race, and Ethnicity Studies at Whitman College and Editor of The Comparatist. His most recent work includes Fanon, Žižek, and Violence of Resistance (2025), The Politics of the Wretched: Race, Reason, and Ressentiment (2024), Solidarity and the Palestinian Cause: Indigeneity, Blackness, and the Promise of Universality (2023), Being Posthuman: Ontologies of the Future (2021), Žižek on Race: Toward an Anti-Racist Future (2020), Theory’s Autoimmunity: Skepticism, Literature, and Philosophy (2018), and Continental Philosophy and the Palestinian Question: Beyond the Jew and the Greek (2017).