Brecht De Smet

A Dialectical Pedagogy of Revolt: Gramsci, Vygotsky, and the Egyptian Revolution

In A Dialectical Pedagogy of Revolt Brecht De Smet integrates the political thought of Antonio Gramsci with the cultural psychology of Lev Vygotsky into an original perspective on revolutionary subjectivity that is deployed to understand the Egyptian “Tahrir” Revolution.

Introduction: revolution and counter-revolution in Egypt

SUMMARY This introduction to the ROAPE debate reasserts the centrality of revolutionary theory to understand the dynamics of social and political struggles in contemporary Middle East and North Africa. Framed around the conceptual and political interventions brought about by Brecht De Smet’s Gramsci on Tahrir (2016), we discuss the utility of Gramscian concepts in explaining the trajectories of social mobilisations in the peripheries of global capitalism.

Rejoinder: reading Tahrir in Gramsci

SUMMARY De Smet’s rejoinder to the ROAPE debate addresses the conceptual, analytical and historical questions posed by the contributors.De Smet’s rejoinder to the ROAPE debate addresses the conceptual, analytical and historical questions posed by the contributors.

The Activity of Tahrir

Whereas the previous two chapters offered a detailed description of the 18 Days, the next two chapters investigate the developmental dynamic of the Republic of Tahrir, paying attention to the transformation of demonstration into occupation, the instructive role of the counterrevolution, spontaneity, division of labor, forms of instruction, the formation of new goals and activities, and the projection of the square.