Social and political philosophy Books

Book SynopsisThe book is a detailed introduction to Post-Blackness as a literary aesthetic, tracing its emergence to the philosophical movement that defined itself in the visual arts towards the end of the twentieth century. Aiming to redefine African American identity in a postethnic era, it highlights the gaps in the metanarrative of history through a reformulation of visual images in the memory as signifiers with their related associations to historical trauma. Stating that the reformulation of identity needs a decentering of race, the study follows Rita Dove as she traces the path to this reformulation in her volumes of poetry to initiate a Hegelian progression towards a post-racial freedom to expand contours to redefine Blackness. Pointing out that poetry is perhaps the best vehicle to initiate this transition of the philosophy from the visual arts to the sphere of the literary, the book follows Dove’s reformulation of race as a spatio-temporal domain of existence, and language as lived space. Isolating signifiers to reformulate their associations with sites of historical trauma in the memory, Roy traces how Dove deconstructs history, myth, and music to arrive at a moment that is both post-racial and post-historical. This book can be useful to students of African American literature at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as to doctoral scholars working on race studies and contemporary African American literature.Trade ReviewTowards Post-Blackness is a valuable book that reinterprets the sensibility of a significant living Black American poet, Rita Dove, from a universal point of view. Any good poet must speak to readers everywhere; they cannot be pigeonholed to a particular place, race or identity as they transcend all identity barriers to speak to the human race. Lekha Roy argues this point in her book by approaching Dove’s poetry from the Hegelian view of the relationship between self and other. I recommend the book to scholars of American poetry, world literature and minority literature in South Asia and beyond. —Prof. Mohammad A. Quayum, Professor, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia Author of Saul Bellow and American Transcendentalism (Twentieth Century American-Jewish Writers)Towards Post-Blackness: A Critical Study of Rita Dove’s Poetry is a much-needed revisiting of Black aesthetics in the twenty-first century. I believe that this study on Post-Blackness and on Rita Dove as a Post-Black poet will be of great use to scholars of African-American literature and race studies. I would definitely recommend it as a valuable addition to the body of critical work available on the subject. —Dr. Ishrat Bashir, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Central University of Kashmir, Ganderbal, Kashmir Author of The Naked Truth and Other StoriesTowards Post-Blackness: A Critical Study of Rita Dove’s Poetry is a major contribution to literary-cultural studies on the philosophy of race. In interpreting the poet’s creative and liberative journey towards self-knowledge in Hegelian terms, Roy reignites the ontological questions that permeate concepts of race, identity, and the role of language in defining ideas of the Self and the Other. This book bridges the gap between poetry and visual art to define Post-Blackness as a philosophy of life for a people straining to break away from the labels that define them. —Prof. Bijoy H. Boruah, Visiting Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Jammu, India Author of Fiction and Emotion: A Study in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of MindTable of ContentsForeword – Acknowledgments – Introduction – Transcultural Space in The Yellow House on the Corner and Museum – History and Historicity in Thomas and Beulah and On the Bus with Rosa Parks – Deconstructing Myths in Grace Notes and Mother Love – Redefining Black Aesthetics in American Smooth and Sonata Mulattica – Jouissance: The Philosopher’s Playlist for the Apocalypse – Conclusion – Index.

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Book SynopsisThe book is a detailed introduction to Post-Blackness as a literary aesthetic, tracing its emergence to the philosophical movement that defined itself in the visual arts towards the end of the twentieth century. Aiming to redefine African American identity in a postethnic era, it highlights the gaps in the metanarrative of history through a reformulation of visual images in the memory as signifiers with their related associations to historical trauma. Stating that the reformulation of identity needs a decentering of race, the study follows Rita Dove as she traces the path to this reformulation in her volumes of poetry to initiate a Hegelian progression towards a post-racial freedom to expand contours to redefine Blackness. Pointing out that poetry is perhaps the best vehicle to initiate this transition of the philosophy from the visual arts to the sphere of the literary, the book follows Dove’s reformulation of race as a spatio-temporal domain of existence, and language as lived space. Isolating signifiers to reformulate their associations with sites of historical trauma in the memory, Roy traces how Dove deconstructs history, myth, and music to arrive at a moment that is both post-racial and post-historical. This book can be useful to students of African American literature at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as to doctoral scholars working on race studies and contemporary African American literature.Trade ReviewTowards Post-Blackness: A Critical Study of Rita Dove’s Poetry is a major contribution to literary-cultural studies on the philosophy of race. In interpreting the poet’s creative and liberative journey towards self-knowledge in Hegelian terms, Roy reignites the ontological questions that permeate concepts of race, identity, and the role of language in defining ideas of the Self and the Other. This book bridges the gap between poetry and visual art to define Post-Blackness as a philosophy of life for a people straining to break away from the labels that define them. —Prof. Bijoy H. Boruah, Visiting Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Jammu, India Author of Fiction and Emotion: A Study in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of MindTowards Post-Blackness: A Critical Study of Rita Dove’s Poetry is a much-needed revisiting of Black aesthetics in the twenty-first century. I believe that this study on Post-Blackness and on Rita Dove as a Post-Black poet will be of great use to scholars of African-American literature and race studies. I would definitely recommend it as a valuable addition to the body of critical work available on the subject. —Dr. Ishrat Bashir, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Central University of Kashmir, Ganderbal, Kashmir Author of The Naked Truth and Other StoriesTowards Post-Blackness is a valuable book that reinterprets the sensibility of a significant living Black American poet, Rita Dove, from a universal point of view. Any good poet must speak to readers everywhere; they cannot be pigeonholed to a particular place, race or identity as they transcend all identity barriers to speak to the human race. Lekha Roy argues this point in her book by approaching Dove’s poetry from the Hegelian view of the relationship between self and other. I recommend the book to scholars of American poetry, world literature and minority literature in South Asia and beyond. —Prof. Mohammad A. Quayum, Professor, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia Author of Saul Bellow and American Transcendentalism (Twentieth Century American-Jewish Writers)Table of ContentsForeword – Acknowledgments – Introduction – Transcultural Space in The Yellow House on the Corner and Museum – History and Historicity in Thomas and Beulah and On the Bus with Rosa Parks – Deconstructing Myths in Grace Notes and Mother Love – Redefining Black Aesthetics in American Smooth and Sonata Mulattica – Jouissance: The Philosopher’s Playlist for the Apocalypse – Conclusion – Index.

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Book SynopsisMake Life Good is an engaging parable that goes on an inward journey, exploring the true basis of meaning and fulfillment in life. Set against the backdrop of a chance encounter with a homeless man, the story invites individuals to explore topics such as purpose, generosity, priorities, legacy, and even eternity. While walking with Joe on this journey, eyes will be opened, minds will be stirred, and hearts will be touched as the reader is challenged to truly embrace the best that life has to offer.In this fast-paced, self-focused world where success is often defined by accomplishment, acquisitions, and accumulation, Make Life Good prompts people to adopt a different worldview. In the process, it becomes clear that happiness pursued eludes, while happiness given returns. This tale is a reminder that all the good that one desires in life is a by-product of creating value for others. 

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Book SynopsisIn the midst of unprecedented material wealth and technological advancement, a paradoxical crisis looms large - the crisis of meaning. Lost and Found, by Dr. Mark D’Souza, ventures deep into this quandary, addressing the poignant disconnects of our modern era. As workplaces remain trapped in a cacophony of disagreements, the world witnesses an opioid crisis showing no signs of remission.Drawing upon his extensive experience in medical practice and rich insights from philosophy, psychology, and literature, Dr. D’Souza traces this descent into chaos, marking Nietzsche’s assertion of the “death of God” as a pivotal moment in the annals of philosophical and societal thought. As the world grapples with the void left behind, emergent replacement religions—from climate alarmism to victimhood—attempt to fill the chasm, often adding to the turmoil.However, Lost and Found is not merely an analysis of our past mistakes and present predicaments. It is a guiding light, illuminating a path forward. With compelling arguments for the embrace of free speech, a return to the grounding principles of traditional religions, and an appeal for personal responsibility, Dr. D’Souza provides actionable solutions for the individual and society at large. For those weary of today’s cultural malaise and eager to mend our world, this book is an essential compass, guiding its readers toward a more cohesive and meaningful tomorrow.

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Book SynopsisThe country is in chaos. Everywhere you look, it seems America has lost its collective mind. This mass formation psychosis has disconnected the public from the truth and each other. Anxiety is a pandemic, and few have little faith in any of our institutions, not knowing what to believe. Our constitutional protections as citizens are under attack. The situation we find ourselves in is not a result of a miscalculation but a planned deconstruction of the country by our enemies. This attack has been largely carried out with weapons of misinformation and disinformation from the media, our government, social media, and nongovernmental organizations. The citizenry of this country must regain a natural skepticism and question everything, resisting the temptation to trust the government to do everything for us. We must restore our mental autonomy and ability to think for ourselves instead of being told what to think. America’s Systemic Psychosis provides the diagnosis of our problem, explains how the current psychosis and disconnect from the truth has come to pass, and the steps we all need to take to get our minds back, finding sanity and stability once again.

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Book SynopsisThis book is a lively intellectual history of a small circle of thinkers, especially, but not solely, Harry Jaffa and Walter Berns, who challenged the "mainstream" liberal consensus of political science and history about how the American Founding should be understood. Along the way they changed the course of the conservative movement and had a significant impact on shaping contemporary political debates from constitutional interpretation, civil rights, to the corruption of government today. Most importantly, these thinkers explain the deep reasons for patriotism, why we should love America not simply because it is our country, but because it is a free and just country.

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Book SynopsisUntil very recently, no society had seen marriage as anything other than a conjugal partnership: a male–female union. What Is Marriage? identifies and defends the reasons for this historic consensus and shows why redefining civil marriage as something other than the conjugal union of husband and wife is a mistake. Originally published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, this book’s core argument quickly became the year’s most widely read essay on the most prominent scholarly network in the social sciences. Since then, it has been cited and debated by scholars and activists throughout the world as the most formidable defense of the tradition ever written. Now revamped, expanded, and vastly enhanced, What Is Marriage? stands poised to meet its moment as few books of this generation have. Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George offer a devastating critique of the idea that equality requires redefining marriage. They show why both sides must first answer the question of what marriage really is. They defend the principle that marriage, as a comprehensive union of mind and body ordered to family life, unites a man and a woman as husband and wife, and they document the social value of applying this principle in law. Most compellingly, they show that those who embrace same-sex civil marriage leave no firm ground—none—for not recognizing every relationship describable in polite English, including polyamorous sexual unions, and that enshrining their view would further erode the norms of marriage, and hence the common good. Finally, What Is Marriage? decisively answers common objections: that the historic view is rooted in bigotry, like laws forbidding interracial marriage; that it is callous to people’s needs; that it can’t show the harm of recognizing same-sex couplings or the point of recognizing infertile ones; and that it treats a mere “social construct” as if it were natural or an unreasoned religious view as if it were rational.Trade Review“What Is Marriage? There is the question. Thanks to these three eloquent authors for so cogently reminding us of that, and for showing us how reflective reason answers it.” —Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York< “What Is Marriage? is the most insightful, eloquent, and influential defense of marriage as it has been historically and rightly understood. People of all traditions—and everyone who cares about the future of this central and sacred social institution—owe Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George an extraordinary debt.” —Meir Soloveichik, Associate Rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and Director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University “With many countries on the verge of redefining a basic social institution, What Is Marriage? issues an urgent call for full deliberation of what is at stake. The authors make a compelling secular case for marriage as a partnership between a man and a woman, whose special status is based on society’s interest in the nurture and education of children.” —Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University “What a joy to see this book by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George, which presents the most philosophically astute and historically accurate defense of traditional marriage to date. It exposes the incoherence of attempts to radically redefine marriage by showing the inherent wisdom in what is our oldest social institution.” —David Novak, J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair in Jewish Studies, University of Toronto “Before we even consider fundamentally altering an institution that has been the foundation for all of our family laws, we should understand why marriage has been defined as a conjugal union across centuries and cultures. A lot more is at stake than the definition of a word, and this book reveals just how much is at stake. Its defense of marriage is philosophical and sociological, not theological, but people of all faiths will find it illuminating and edifying.” —Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Zaytuna College “This book brilliantly explains why the definition of marriage is so critical and why the strengthening of marriages is absolutely essential to our freedom and our future.” —Dr. Rick Warren, Author of The Purpose Driven Life and Pastor of Saddleback Church

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Book SynopsisThis pamphlet exposes how the Democratic Party has changed beyond recognition. Once the party of anti-communism and tax-cutting under President Kennedy, it is now dominated by a surging socialist movement and led by a presidential candidate who vows to “transform” America. On a near-daily basis, the Democrats are issuing radical proposals to socialize medicine, industry, and higher education. So how can the Democrats win elections when their agenda is so far to the left of the American people? That’s easy—it’s because the means of public debate are being manipulated. In this explosive Encounter Broadside, Congressman Devin Nunes exposes the nexus between the Democratic Party, the mainstream media, and the social media corporations. These three entities cooperate to blast out the Democrats’ message and downplay their extremism while suppressing and censoring conservative points of view. Tens of millions of Americans are only seeing one side of the debate. The information they get from newspapers and social media is not “news”—it’s contrived content designed to help one political party and punish its opponents. In the run-up to the most consequential election of our lifetime, read this book to learn how your information is being skewed and regulated to force America onto the path to socialism. About Encounter Broadsides: In the late eighteenth century, pamphlets electrified the colonies and helped to forge American democracy as we know it. Encounter Broadsides seek to revive this medium to make the case for ordered liberty and democratic capitalism in our time. Read them in a sitting and come away knowing the best we can hope for and the worst we must fear.

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Book SynopsisAmericans often use the words progressive, liberal, and radical more or less interchangeably without understanding their place in American history. Kevin Slack describes the distinct aims of the movements they represent and weighs their consequences for the American republic.Each of the three movements rejected older republican principles of governance in favor of an administrative state, but there were substantial differences between Teddy Roosevelt’s Anglo-Protestant progressive social gospelers, who battled trusts and curbed immigration; Franklin Roosevelt’s and Lyndon Johnson’s secular liberals, who forged a government-business partnership and promoted a civil rights agenda; and the 1960s radicals, who protested corporate influence in the Great Society, liberal hypocrisy on race and gender, and the war in Vietnam. Each sought to overturn what came before. Following the revolution of the 1960s, elites on both left and right turned against the industrial middle class to erect an oligarchy at home and advance globalization abroad. Each side claimed to serve the interests of disadvantaged or underrepresented groups. Radicals ensconced themselves in bureaucracy and academia to advance their vision of social justice for women and minorities, while neoliberal elites promoted monopoly finance, open borders, and the outsourcing of jobs to benefit consumers. The administrative state became a global American empire, but the neoliberals’ economic and military failures precipitated a crisis of legitimacy. In the “great awokening” that began under Barack Obama, neoliberal elites, including establishment conservatives, openly broke with the populist base of the Republican Party, embraced identity politics, and used COVID-19 and a myth of insurrection to strip away the rights of American citizens. Today, an incompetent kleptocracy is draining the wealthiest and most powerful people in history, thus eroding the foundations of its own empire. Trade Review“Kevin Slack’s War on the American Republic is outstanding. It blends strong moral seriousness with impressive scholarly analysis. Slack both explains and responds to the relentless attack on the manly, Christian republicanism of the older America by successive waves of liberalism, each one more radical than the last. This book is the best available panoptic view of the transformations in America’s moral-political orientation over the course of its history.”—Thomas G. West, professor at Hillsdale College, author of The Political Theory of the American Founding“This is a thoughtful and interesting book, to be read by scholars and students alike, that corrects the record of generations of popularized and fake concepts describing how America got to its rotten state, predicts where things may go from here, and shows how to correct our trajectory. This learned book should be read by people on both left and right.”—Arthur Milikh, executive director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life “Finally, a comprehensive treatment of the American left. A thoughtful, immensely well-researched, and spirited intellectual history of American decline.”—David Azerrad, assistant professor at Van Andel Graduate School of Government in Washington, D.C. “This is a powerful book, exhaustive without being exhausting. Kevin Slack offers a bold new history of American society and politics, ranging from the founding all the way to our current despotic kleptocracy and beyond. If you want clarity about what lies ahead, understanding the past is essential, and there is no better place to start than this book.”—Charles Haywood, editor of The Worthy House

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Book SynopsisWe live in the democratic age. So wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835, in his magisterial work, Democracy in America. Tocqueville thought this meant that as each nation left behind the vestiges of its aristocracy, life for its citizens or subjects would be increasingly isolated and lonely.In America, we know of our growing isolation and loneliness. What of the Middle East? In the Middle East today, citizens and subjects live amid a profound tension: Familial and tribal linkages hold them fast, and at the same time rapid modernization has left them as isolated and lonely as so many Americans are today. The looming question, anticipated so long ago by Tocqueville, is how they will respond to this isolation and loneliness.Joshua Mitchell has spent years teaching Tocqueville’s social theory, in America and the Arab Gulf, and with Tocqueville in Arabia, he offers a profound account of how the crisis of isolation and loneliness is playing out in similar and in different ways, in America and in the Middle East. We live in a time rife with mutual misunderstandings between America and the Middle East. Tocqueville in Arabia offers a guide to the present, troubled times, leavened by the author’s hopes about the future.

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Book SynopsisThe Sociogony re-examines the social ontology of what Durkheim calls 'social facts' in the light of critical and progressive hostilities to the facticity of facts and the necessity of moral absolutes in the shift from bourgeois liberalism to a neoliberal global order. The introduction offers a wide-ranging rumination on the concept of the absolute after its apparent downfall; the chapter on facts turns the problem of external authority on its head and the chapter dealing with the sociogony situates facts in a process of generation, rule, and decay. Drawing heavily on the works of Hegel, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, the resulting synthesis is what the author refers to as a Marxheimian Social Theory that offers a new map and a stable ontology for the homeless mind.Table of ContentsTable of Contents PrefaceAcknowledgementsList of Abbreviations Introduction: Towards a "Marxheimian" Sociology Authority and Authoritarianism Reason and Mediation The Concept The Absolute Ersatz Absolutes Critical and Ordinary Sociology Circle the Invisible The Negative Absolute Networks and Sideways Glances at Jittery Totalities Marxist Association The Facticity of the Social Social Facts The Impersonality of Facts Collective Conduct Collective Consciousness Collective Emotions and Sentiments Currents and Crystallizations Externality Coercion and Authority Irreducibility The Sociogony LARD (Lack, Assemblage, Repression, and Desideration, or, Weird Nature) Ebullience Projection and Externalization Objectification and Internalization Estrangement, Fetishisitc Reversals and Inversions, or, the Problem with Straw Hats Reification and Sublation Alienation and Domination Derealization and Desublimation, or, Treitschke in Narnia A Formal Intermezzo Hyper-Praxis The Dynamistic Circle The Inhuman Equivalent BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisIn Becoming Marxist Ted Stolze offers a series of studies that take up the importance of philosophy for the development of an open and critical Marxism. He argues that an adequate 'philosophy for Marxism' must be open to engagement with a diverse range of traditions, texts, and authors—from Paul of Tarsus, via Averroes, Spinoza, and Hobbes, to Althusser, Deleuze, Negri, Habermas, and Žižek. Stolze also explores such practical contemporary issues as the politics of self-emancipation, the nature of Islamophobia, and climate change.Trade Review"In this collection of essays, suggestively titled Becoming Marxist, Ted Stolze gives us a privileged view of the development of the conceptual machine of his philosophy, above all, around the virtuous circle of Marx-Spinoza, but also, at the same time, in relation to the gesture that most clearly characterizes his originality in the panorama of contemporary critical thought, which consists in thinking one into the other, and together, Deleuze, Negri and Althusser." —Vittorio Morfino, Senior Researcher in the History of Philosophy at the University of Milan-Bicocca "Ted Stolze's Becoming Marxist reveals at its core not only that Becoming Marxist is an ongoing process of transformation, a continual process of engaging with the conjunctures of history and philosophy—that it is inseparable from other becomings that are both theoretical and political. In terms of the former, Stolze's book engages with the thought initially of Deleuze, Spinoza, Negri, and Habermas, situating itself with respect to the major philosophical debates within Marxism, but it is with respect to the latter that Stolze 's book stands out. The book engages with some of the major practical challenges to Marxist politics, climate change and religious conflict and intolerance. The book is exemplary in its militant commitment to theoretical rigor and practical engagement, demonstrating that Marxism is less a totalizing theory than a continuing process of militant transformation."—Jason Read, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine "From Spinoza to Althusser and Deleuze with Paul of Tarsus as a constant interlocutor, Ted Stolze retraces the 'underground current' of materialism as a philosophical tendency, offering invaluable insights on the political significance of materialist philosophical interventions and reminding us of the many associations of materialism with resistance and the struggle for social justice and human emancipation."—Panagiotis Sotiris, member of Popular Unity, and writer and activist in GreeceTable of ContentsPrefatory Note Acknowledgements AbbreviationsPart 1 Marxism and the History of Philosophy 1 What is a Philosophical Tendency? 2 Paul of Tarsus, Thinker of the Conjuncture 3 Paul's Gift Economy: Wages, Debt, and Debt Cancellation 4 Althusser and the Problem of Historical Individuality 5 'The Roaring of the Sea': Hobbes on the Madness of the Multitude 6 Spinoza's Three Modes of Rebellion: Indignant, Glorious, and Serene 7 Alexandre Matheron on Militant Reason and the Intellectual Love of God Interlude: An Ethics for Marxism: Spinoza on FortitudePart 2 Marxism and Contemporary Philosophy 8 Death and Life in Marx's Capital: An Ethical Investigation 9 Hegel or Spinoza: Substance, Subject, and Critical Marxism 10 Contradictions of Hyperreality: Baudrillard, Žižek, and Virtual Dialectics 11 A Marxist Encounter with the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze 12 Deleuze and Althusser: Flirting with Structuralism 13 Marxist Wisdom: Antonio Negri on the Book of Job 14 A Displaced Transition: Jürgen Habermas on the Public SpherePart 3 Self-Emancipation, Then and Now 15 Self-Emancipation and Political Marxism 16 Islamophobia and Self-Emancipation 17 Climate Crisis, Ideology, and Collective Action Coda. Beatitude: Marx, Aristotle, Averroes, Spinoza Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn Acquiring Modernity, Paul B. Paolucci, updating classical theory, examines the nature of modern society. Investigated from a sociological perspective but written in accessible everyday language, this book provides a multifaceted account of what makes modern society what it is, from its historical roots to its current conditions. Neither traditional classroom text nor a work of detailed erudition for the specialist few, Acquiring Modernity draws on material from known historical events, scholarly research, and recent global developments to tell modernity’s story through topics such as the modern classes, religious practice, relations of gender and race, politics, environmental issues, and economic crises. Valuable reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary life and society.Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements List of Illustrations 1 No Rest Until Modernity is Acquired 2 Speculation Ends, Science Begins 3 Divesting Philosophy's Ultimate Word 4 The Concept of Society 5 History and Human Development 6 A History of Struggles 7 Mystical Consciousness 8 Illusions to this Day 9 An Inverted World 10 Educating the Educator 11 Windy Idealists and Frothy Youth 12 Middle Class Snobbism 13 Pauperism and Artificial Impoverishment 14 Social Scum 15 Of Souls, Sighs, and Opium 16 The Cult of Nature 17 World Literature 18 Modern Society's All-dominating Power 19 An Impulse Never Before Known 20 Head of the Movement 21 Absurd Epidemics 22 Swindling Joint-stock Companies 23 Machines 24 Rule of the Towns 25 Feverish Anxiety and Astonishment 26 Solids Melting into Air 27 Civilization and Barbarism 28 Celebrating Orgies, Blood, and Fire 29 Bureaucracy and the Bureaucrats 30 The Economic Existence of the State 31 Democracy for their Truth 32 Parliamentary Disease and the Holy Ghost 33 The Executive Committee 34 Modern Mythology and its Goddesses 35 Rolling Back the Wheel 36 The Goal of Popular Desire 37 National Egoism 38 Every Sect is Religious 39 Disgusting Despotism 40 The Sycophantic Babblers 41 Applying Chemistry to Industry and Agriculture 42 The Measure of Social Progress 43 Defiling Republics 44 A Fetish Dark and Mysterious 45 The World Market 46 The Political Chessboard 47 Throwing Dust in People's Eyes 48 Gravedigging Megalomaniacs 49 The Sorcerer 50 Prevailing Tendencies 51 Common Ruin 52 Chains, Riddles, Worlds 53 Socialist Sentimentalizing 54 Whether We Want it or Not 55 Afterword 56 Postmodernism?  References  Index

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Book SynopsisHegel for Social Movements by Andy Blunden is an introduction to the reading of Hegel intended for those already active in social movements. It introduces Hegel's ideas in a way which will be useful for those fighting for social change, and while some familiarity with philosophy would be an advantage for the reader, the main pre-requisite is a commitment to the practical pursuit of ideal aims. The book covers the whole sweep of Hegel's writing, but focuses particularly on the Logic and Hegel's social theory—the Philosophy of Right. Blunden brings to his exposition an original interpretation of Hegel's Logic as the logic of social change, utilizing his expertise in Vygotsky's cultural psychology and Soviet Activity Theory.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of FiguresPart 1: Introduction 1Why Hegel §1For Hegel, Ideas were Forms of Activity §2’Thought’ Means Norms of Human Activity §3Hegel’s Influence on Modern Philosophy is Immense §4Hegel is Very Difficult to Read §5Plan of this Book 2The Young Hegel and What Drove Him §1Germany was Fragmented, and Socially and Economically Backward §2Hegel was a Modernist Opponent of Liberalism §3The Main Difference between Hegel and Marx is the Times They Lived In §4The “Spirit of a People'; was Rooted in an Historical Form of Life §5 Zeitgeist Remains a Widely Accepted, if Problematic, Concept of Spirit §6In What Sense was Hegel an Idealist? §7Spirit and Material Culture 3Hegel’s Idea of Science and Philosophy §1The Subject Matter of Philosophy §2The Diversity of Philosophical Views are Parts of a Single Whole §3From Where to Begin? §4The Phenomenology and the Logic 4The Phenomenology and ‘Formations of Consciousness’ §1How can We Conceptualise a ‘Formation of Consciousness’? §2How do We Conceive of a Formation of Consciousness as a Whole? §3What can be Called a ‘Formation of Consciousness’? §4The Dynamics of ‘Formations of Consciousness’ is in the Logic §5The Importance of the Master-Servant Narrative is Exaggerated §6How the Phenomenology was ‘Rediscovered’ 5Hegel as Philosopher of Social Movements §1It is Hegel’s Logic which Makes Him the Philosopher of Social Movements §2Hegel Knew Emancipatory Social Movements, but No Labour Movement §3A Concept is a Form of Practice §4A Social Movement is Understood as an Entire Process of Social Change §5How to Read Hegel and What to ReadPart 2: The Logic 6The Subject Matter of the Logic §1The Logic is the Logic of Formations of Consciousness §2The Logic is the Foundation for a Presuppositionless Philosophy §3The Logic Studies the Inner Contradictions within Concepts §4The Problem of “Moving Concepts' §5The Logic Concerns Real Situations, Not Mathematical Abstractions 7The Three Divisions of the Logic: Being, Essence and Notion §1The Starting Point of the Logic: Being §2Being is the Concept In-Itself, Not yet Conscious of Itself §3Essence is Reflection §4The Notion is the Concept Conscious of Itself §5Being and Essence Constitute the Genesis of the Notion §6Each Division has a Distinct Form of Movement or Development 8The Doctrine of Being, or Ontology §1”Being is the Absolute" Marks the Beginning of Philosophy §2Being, Nothing and Determinate Being §3Quality, Quantity and Measure §4In the Sphere of Being it’s Just One Damn Thing After Another §5Social Movements Do Not Exist Until They Realise It 9The Doctrine of Essence: Mediation or the Truth of Being §1Identity, Difference, Diversity, Opposition, Contradiction and Ground §2The Thing: The Dialectic of Matter and Form §3Appearance: The Dialectic of Content and Form §4Actuality: The Dialectic of Cause and Effect, Reciprocity §5Development is the Struggle of Opposites Which do not Disappear 10The Subjective Notion: Universal, Individual and Particular §1The Whole is Reconstructed by Rising from the Abstract to Concrete §2The Subject is What is Active §3The Subject is the Truth of Being and Essence §4The Concept is the Identity of the Individual, Universal and Particular §5The Judgments are Logical Representations of Unmediated Actions §6Each Moment Mediates between the Other Two 11Subject, Object and Idea §1The Subject Develops from Abstract to Concrete §2The Three Phases of Objectification: Mechanism, Chemism and Organism §3The Idea is the Unity of Life and Cognition §4Hegel Overcomes the Individual/Society Dichotomy §5Spirit is Both Substance and Subject Hegel’s Theory of Action, Part 1: Teleology 12The Subject and Culture: Logic and Ontology §1Dichotomy is a Problem in the History of Philosophy §2Hegel has Overcome the Mind-Matter Dichotomy with Logic §3The Logic Offers a Basis for Interdisciplinary Research §4Everything is Both Immediate and Mediated §5Normativity, Attributes and the Idea §6Hegel and Deconstruction §7Is Hegel’s Logic a Monologue? §8Brief Outline of Philosophy of Nature §9Einstein Confirmed Hegel’s Approach to MechanicsPart 3: The Philosophy of Right 13Subjective Spirit §1Subjective Spirit, Objective Spirit and Absolute Spirit §2Psyche, Consciousness and Intellect §3The Forms of Movement in Subjective Spirit §4A Contradiction within Subjective Spirit Gives Rise to Objective Spirit 14Social Science as Hegel Saw It §1Hegel Unfolds Social Theory from the Concept of ‘Right’ §2Right may not be True to its Concept §3Concepts have an Inherent Tendency Towards ‘Perfecting Themselves’ §4What is Rational is Real and What is Real is Rational §5Philosophy cannot Teach the State What it should Be §6Here is the Rose in the Cross, Now Jump! §7The Owl of Minerva Takes Flight at Dusk Hegel’s Theory of Action, Part 2: The Free Will 15The Three Parts of The Philosophy of Right : Right, Morality and Ethical Life §1Right, Morality and Ethics §2Hegel Rejected the Individualism of Kant’s Moral Philosophy §3Hegel Rationalised the Paternalistic Family §4The Family, Civil Society and the State §5Hegel’s Critique of Rousseau on the State §6Logic and History §7The State in Germany and Europe in Hegel’s Times 16Abstract Right §1The Right to Property is Necessary to Being a Person §2Contract and Exchange §3The Form of Movement in Abstract Right Hegel’s Theory of Action, Part 3: Purpose, Intention and the Good 17Morality §1Conscience and Duty, Good and Evil §2Hegel’s Morality and Present-day Issues in Moral Philosophy §3Civil Disobedience §4Ends Justify the Means? §5The Right of Heroes 18Ethical Life §1Ethical Life is the Idea of Freedom in the Existing World §2The Family is the Unit of Ethical Life §3Civil Society is the Self-governing World of Particular Interests §4The System of Needs and Labour is the Essence of Ethical Life §5Hegel Debunks Successive Solutions to the Capitalist Crisis §6The Classes of Civil Society: the Rich ‘Lead’ the Poor §7The Public Authorities are Part of Civil Society, not the State §8The Corporations 19The State §1The State is the March of God on Earth §2The Crown §3The Executive, the Civil Service and the Public Authorities §4The Legislature, the Estates and the Classes of Civil Society §5The Young Marx vs. Hegel on the State 20Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right §1You, Marx and Hegel on the State §2Civil Disobedience is No Crime §3Human Rights, Abstract Right and Ethical Life §4Universal Suffrage and Participatory DemocracyPart 4: Conclusions 21Marx’s Capital and Hegel’s Logic §1Turning Hegel on His Head §2Goethe, Hegel and Marx §3Capital §4Summary 22Soviet Psychology §1Vygotsky, Concepts and Artefact-mediated Actions §2A.N. Leontyev on Activities 23Once Again: Hegel for Social Movements §1Collaborative Projects §2Solidarity References Index

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Book SynopsisGeorg Lukács 's philosophy of praxis, penned between 1918 and 1928, remains a revolutionary and apocryphal presence within Marxism. His History and Class Consciousness has inspired a century of rapture and reprobation, perhaps, as Gillian Rose suggested, because of its 'invitation to hermeneutic anarchy '. In Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute, Daniel Andrés López radicalises Lukács 's famous return to Hegel by reassembling his 1920s philosophy as a conceptual-historical totality. This speculative reading defends Lukács while proposing an unprecedented, immanent critique. While Lukács 's concept of praxis approaches the shape of Hegel 's Absolute, it tragically fails to bear its weight. However, as López argues, Lukács 's failure was productive: it raises crucial political, methodological and philosophical questions for Marxism, offering to redeem a lost century.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1 Prophet of Praxis: Lukács between 1918 and 1929 2 Lukács and Marxian Philosophy of Praxis 3 Reading Lukács Speculatively Part One -- Towards a Theory of Praxis Introduction to Part One 1 -- From Immediacy to Commodity Fetishism 1 Immediacy and Method 2 Form and content, Quantity and Quality, the Commodity 2 -- Reification and Totality 1 Subjective and Objective Reification; Society as Second Nature 2 The Controversy over Reification 3 Fragmentation and Crisis 3 -- The Standpoint of the Proletariat 1 The Principle of Labour and the Proletariat as Subject-Object of History 2 In defence of the standpoint of the proletariat 3 The self-consciousness of the commodity Conclusion to Part One Part Two -- From Theory to Praxis 4 -- Theory In Itself and for the Proletariat 1 The Contemplative Stance 2 The Ethical Idea of Praxis 3 The Critique of Naturalism 5 -- The Critique of Ideology 1 The Standpoint of the Bourgeoisie 2 Sectarian, Reformism and Vulgar Marxism 3 The Actuality of Revolution 6 -- The Party 1 The Party as Bearer of Imputed Consciousness 2 The Controversy over Lukács 's Leninism 3 Party and Class 7 -- Praxis 1 The Concept of the Proletariat in and for Itself 2 The Actuality of Praxis Part Three -- Praxis and Philosophy Introduction to Part Three 8 -- Lukács 's Critique of Philosophy 1 The Antinomies of Bourgeois Philosophy 2 Lukács on Hegel and the Absolute 3 Once More on Hegel, via the Young Hegelians 9 -- Praxis, the Absolute and Philosophy 1 The Philosophical Critiques of Lukács 1.1 Endless Mediation: Andrew Feenberg 1.2 Liberal Empiricism: Tom Rockmore 1.3 Shallow Immanent Critique: Richard Kilminster 1.4 Adorno as Alternative to Lukács: Timothy Hall (with Support from Gillian Rose) 2 The Critique from History 2.1 Praxis as Mediation: Trotsky and the New Left 2.2 Praxis as Logic: The Elder Lukács 2.3 Praxis as Genesis: The Baroque Melancholia of Benjamin 2.4 Praxis as Tragic Theology 3 The Critique from Philosophy 3.1 The Occluded Political Truth of Praxis 3.2 With what Should Philosophy of Praxis End? Conclusion -- Nihilism or the Virtuous Republic Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn this important new approach to his philosophy and politics, Cat Moir sets out to offer a fresh interpretation of Ernst Bloch's work. The reception of Bloch's work has seen him variously painted as a naïve realist, a romantic nature philosopher, a totalitarian thinker, and an irrationalist whose obscure literary style stands in for a lack of systematic rigour. Ernst Bloch's Speculative Materialism challenges these conceptions of Bloch by reconstructing the ontological, epistemological, and political dimensions of his speculative materialism. Through a close, historically contextualised reading of Bloch's major work of ontology, Das Materialismusproblem, seine Geschichte und Substanz (The Materialism Problem, its History and Substance), Moir presents Bloch as one of the twentieth century's most significant critical thinkers.Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction1. The materialism problem2. OntologyNature contra mechanismMatter as the subject of natureThe logic of matterReal possibilityTeleology without a telos3. EpistemologyThe structure of the conceptThe influence of neo-KantianismThe role of ironyRationalism, empiricism, and practice4. PoliticsThe German Philosopher of the October Revolution?For Stalin, against HitlerThe Politics of Speculative MaterialismSpeculation, totality, and immanent critiqueChapter 5: Relevance and critiqueThe speculative turn: Bloch and MeillassouxNew materialism: Bloch and BennettEcological materialisms: Bloch, Foster, and MooreEpilogue: The speculative expanseBibliography

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Book SynopsisNietzsche and Critical Social Theory: Affirmation, Animosity and Ambiguity brings together scholars from a variety of disciplinary background to assess the salience of Nietzsche for critical social theory today. In the context of global economic crises and the rise of authoritarian regimes across the U.S. and Europe, the question asked by these scholars is: why Nietzsche now? Containing several innovative interventions in the areas of queer theory, political economy, critical race theory, labour history, hip-hop aesthetics, sociology, the Frankfurt School, social movements studies, science and technology studies, pedagogy, and ludic studies, this volume pushes Nietzsche studies in new directions, seeking to broaden the appeal of Nietzsche beyond philosophy and political theory.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: Situating this Volume Part 1: Ressentiment and Redemption: Overcoming the Slave Revolt of Morals, Politics, and Aesthetics 1 Wounded Attachments?: Slave Morality, the Left, and the Future of Revolutionary Desire   C. Heike Schotten 2 The Trump Horror Show through Nietzschean Perspectives   Douglas Kellner 3 Nietzsche, Adorno, and the Musical Spirit of Ressentiment and Redemption   Nancy S. Love 4 Hip-Hop as Critical Tragic Realism: Cultural Analysis beyond Irony and Conflict   James Meeker and T.J. Berard 5 Nietzsche’s Economy: Revisiting the Slave Revolt in Morals   Allison Merrick Part 2: On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Nietzsche for Marxist Critique 6 Marx, Nietzsche, and the Contradictions of Capitalism   Ishay Landa 7 Labor’s Will to Power: Nietzsche, American Syndicalism, and the Politics of Liberation   Kristin Lawler 8 Marxism, Anarchism, and the Nietzschean Critique of Capitalism   Gary Yeritsian 9 Between Nietzsche and Marx: “Great Politics and What They Cost”   Babette Babich Part 3: Beyond Truth and Relativism: Nietzsche and the Question of Knowledge 10 Toward a Gay Social Science: A Nietzschean-Marxist Alternative to Conventional Sociological Theory   Michael Roberts 11 Resuscitating Sociological Theory: Nietzsche and Adorno on Error and Speculations   Jeremiah Morelock 12 The Science of the Last Man: Nietzsche and the Early Frankfurt School   Daniel Sullivan 13 The Death of Truth – Guilt, Anxiety, Dread, and Hope: Nietzschean Confessions   Christine Payne Part 4: All-Too-Human: The Question of the Human Condition in Light of Nietzsche 14 Nietzsche’s Genealogy as a Critique of Racial Narratives and the Loss of Solidarity   Jung Min Choi and John W. Murphy 15 Nietzsche’s “Anti-Darwinism”: A Deflationary Critique   Peter Atterton 16 Play as Watchword: Nietzsche and Foucault   Dawn Helphand 17 Critique of Subjectivity and Affirmation of Pleasure in Adorno and Nietzsche   Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi 18 Nietzsche and Happiness   Bryan S. Turner 19 Beyond Good and Evil: Nietzschean Pedagogy in the History Classroom   Eve Kornfeld Index

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Book SynopsisGramsci’s Laboratory provides a new reading of the relationship between philosophy and politics through an analysis of Gramsci’s famous Prison Notebooks. A milestone in the ever-evolving international reception of Gramsci, the volume argues that in order to understand the Gramscian unity of theory and practice, we must first appreciate the unity in his writings of philosophy, history, and politics. Bianchi argues that this unity was developed in the writing of the Prison Notebooks, written during Gramsci’s incarceration and thereby ‘determined in the last instance’ by politics. Reading Gramsci’s work through this lens, Bianchi argues that history and philosophy are constitutive elements of the political field.

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Book SynopsisTogether again for the first time, Marx and Durkheim join forces in the pages of Disintegration: Bad Love, Collective Suicide, and the Idols of Imperial Twilight for a dialectical exploration of the moral economy of neoliberalism, animated, as it is not only by the capitalist chase for surplus value, but also by an immortal vortex of sacred powers. Classical sociology and psychoanalysis are reconstituted within Hegelian social ontology and dialectical method that differentiates between the ephemeral and free and the eternal and fixed aspects of modern life.Table of ContentsPreface  Acknowledgements  List of Figures  Abbreviations  Introduction 1 Marxheimianism and the Return of the Repressed 2 Freedom and Anomie 3 Dynamism, Alienation and Reification 4 Masters and Slaves 5 Authoritarianism, Character, and Resonance 6 Disobedience and Necessity  1 Reflective Determinations 1 The Lifeless Universal 2 The Judgement 3 The Syllogism 4 Telos 5 The Idea 6 Necessity Versus Necessity 7 The Commodity 8 The Dialectic  2 Bad Love 1 The House of the Absolute 2 The New Economy and the Reign of Tyche 3 The Nightmare of Collective Unconsciousness 4 Suicide  3The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 1 Egoism 2 Altruism 3 Anomie 4 Fatalism 5 Composite Forces 6 Positive Hell and Heavenly Negativities  Bibliography  Index

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Book SynopsisIn A Companion to Antonio Gramsci some of the most important Italian scholars of Antonio Gramsci's thought combine their efforts to present an insightful and original intellectual portrait of one of the 20th century's most influential Marxist thinkers. Thematically organized into five parts, the volume focuses on the Sardinian's most important contributions. The first section offers readers a biographical sketch of Gramsci's life and work, the second presents his theories of history, the third and fourth examine his contributions to political theory, and the last deals with Gramsci's legacy and enduring influence.Contributors include: Alberto Burgio, Davide Cadeddu, Giuseppe Cospito, Angelo d'Orsi, Michele Filippini, Guido Liguori, Marcello Montanari, Vittorio Morfino, Stefano Petrucciani, Michele Prospero, Leonardo Rapone, Giuseppe Vacca, and Marzio Zanantoni. Table of ContentsPreface  Acknowledgements  Notes on ContributorsPart 1: History 1 Gramsci: From Socialism to Communism    Leonardo Rapone 2 Antonio Gramsci: The Prison Years    Angelo d’OrsiPart 2: Theories of History 3 The Crisis of European Civilization in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci    Giuseppe Vacca 4 Notes on Gramsci’s Theory of History    Marcello Montanari 5 The Layers of History and Politics in Gramsci    Vittorio MorfinoPart 3: Communism 6 Gramsci and Marx: Notes and Reflections    Stefano Petrucciani 7 Gramsci, the October Revolution and Its “Translation” in the West    Guido Liguori 8 On the Transition to Communism    Alberto BurgioPart 4: Hegemony 9 Gramsci: Political Scientis    Michele Prospero 10 The “Prison Notebooks”: Hegemony and Civil Society    Giuseppe Cospito 11 On the Productive Use of Hegemony (Laclau, Hall, Chatterjee)    Michele FilippiniPart 5: Historiography 12 The Influence and Legacy of Antonio Gramsci in Twentieth-Century Italy    Marzio Zanantoni 13 The International Historiography on Gramsci in the Twenty-First Century    Davide Cadeddu  Bibliographic Abbreviations  Index

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Book SynopsisIn a seemingly offhand, often overlooked comment, Karl Marx deemed 'human corporeal organisation' the 'first fact of human history'. Following Marx's corporeal turn and pursuing the radical implications of his corporeal insight, this book undertakes a reconstruction of the corporeal foundations of historical materialism. Part I exposes the corporeal roots of Marx's materialist conception of history and historical-materialist Wissenschaft. Part II attempts a historical-materialist mapping of human corporeal organisation. Suggesting how to approach human histories up from their corporeal foundations. Part III elaborates historical-materialism as 'corporeal semiotics'. And Part IV, a case study of Marx's critique of capitalist socio-economic and cultural forms, reveals the corporeal foundations of that critique and the corporeal depth of his vision of human freedom and dignity.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Notes on Notes Introduction: Exposing the Corporeal Roots of Historical Materialism and Moving toward a Corporeal Semiotics Part 1 Reconstructing Historical Materialism 'Up from the Body': The Corporeal Foundations of a Materialist Conception of History and the Guiding Threads of a Historical-Materialist Wissenschaft Introduction to Part 1 1 An Aufhebung of Philosophy and the Genesis of a Materialist Conception of History: Objectification and Marx's Corporeal Turn 2 From the First Corporeal Fact of Human Being to the Moments of History: Corporeality, Modes of Objectification, and Ways of Worldmaking 3 The Dimensions and Methodological Leitfaden of a Historical-Materialist Wissenschaft Part 2 Mapping Human Corporeal Organisation Introduction to Part 2. Toward a Historical-Materialist Cartography of Human Corporeal Organisation 4 The Body Is Not a Tabula Rasa: Clearing a Path toward a 'Hidden Bodily Problematic' 5 Toward a Corporeal Cartography: Methodological Preliminaries 6 Toward a Historical-Materialist Cartography of Human Corporeal Organisation (in Outline): On the Corporeal Constitution of Patterns of Human Experience, Behaviour, and Realities 7 On the Corporeal Constitutions of Cognition and Subjecthood Conclusion to Part 2: What It Is Like To Be a Human: Corporeally-Constituted Patterns of Human Experience and Subjecthood Part 3 Toward a Corporeal Semiotics Introduction to Part 3 8 The 'Linguistic Turn' and Its Discontents: A Critique of Disembodied Semiotics 9 The 'Cultural Turn' and Its Discontents: A Critique of Disembodied Cultural Studies 10 Artefacts as Corporeal Signs; toward a Corporeal Semiotics Conclusion to Part 3: Corporeal Semiotics as Measure of Social Wealth and Socio-cultural Form: On Artefactual Beneficence and Mendacity Part 4 Corporeal Categories and the Critique of Sociocultural Form: Capital and Its Culture of Quantity Introduction to Part 4 11 Methodological Reflections on Forms of Social Objectivity and Subjectivity: Class, Class Consciousness, and the Critique of Capitalist Cultural Form 12 A 'Great Transformation': A Genealogy of Capital's Culture of Quantity 13 The Commodity Form, Quantification, and the Standpoint of Capital: An Archaeology of Capital's Culture of Quantity 14 The Capitalist Labour-Process and the Body in Pain: The Corporeal Depths of Marx's Concept of Immiseration Conclusion to Part 4: The Mendacity of the Vast Capitalist Artefact Anticipatory Notes in Conclusion: A Time to Pause, a Time to Reflect, a Time to Wish, a Time to Hope: Toward a Corporeally-Grounded Vision of Human Freedom and Dignity Appendices References Index

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Book SynopsisAvailable for the first time in English, Wataru Hiromatsu''s Schema of the Theory of Reification argues that the change from Marx''s theory of self-alienation to the concept of reification is crucial in establishing a new relational worldview which is still relevant today. Amongst other topics, his discussion of the understanding of society sees such things as a relational dynamic wherein the individual is constantly composed and composing in relation to others, including nature. This understanding is, he argues, the single science of history of Marx and Engels. This innovation offers a way to overcome the hypostasizing subject - object relation still so prevalent today.Originally published in Japanese as Busshokaron no kozu by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo, 1983, 1994. © By Kuniko Hiromatsu.

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Book SynopsisIn a seemingly offhand, often overlooked comment, Karl Marx deemed 'human corporeal organisation' the 'first fact of human history'. Following Marx's corporeal turn and pursuing the radical implications of his corporeal insight, this book undertakes a reconstruction of the corporeal foundations of historical materialism. Part I exposes the corporeal roots of Marx's materialist conception of history and historical-materialist Wissenschaft. Part II attempts a historical-materialist mapping of human corporeal organisation. Suggesting how to approach human histories up from their corporeal foundations. Part III elaborates historical-materialism as 'corporeal semiotics'. And Part IV, a case study of Marx's critique of capitalist socio-economic and cultural forms, reveals the corporeal foundations of that critique and the corporeal depth of his vision of human freedom and dignity.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Notes on Notes Introduction: Exposing the Corporeal Roots of Historical Materialism and Moving toward a Corporeal Semiotics Part 1 Reconstructing Historical Materialism 'Up from the Body': The Corporeal Foundations of a Materialist Conception of History and the Guiding Threads of a Historical-Materialist Wissenschaft Introduction to Part 1 1 An Aufhebung of Philosophy and the Genesis of a Materialist Conception of History: Objectification and Marx's Corporeal Turn 2 From the First Corporeal Fact of Human Being to the Moments of History: Corporeality, Modes of Objectification, and Ways of Worldmaking 3 The Dimensions and Methodological Leitfaden of a Historical-Materialist Wissenschaft Part 2 Mapping Human Corporeal Organisation Introduction to Part 2. Toward a Historical-Materialist Cartography of Human Corporeal Organisation 4 The Body Is Not a Tabula Rasa: Clearing a Path toward a 'Hidden Bodily Problematic' 5 Toward a Corporeal Cartography: Methodological Preliminaries 6 Toward a Historical-Materialist Cartography of Human Corporeal Organisation (in Outline): On the Corporeal Constitution of Patterns of Human Experience, Behaviour, and Realities 7 On the Corporeal Constitutions of Cognition and Subjecthood Conclusion to Part 2: What It Is Like To Be a Human: Corporeally-Constituted Patterns of Human Experience and Subjecthood Part 3 Toward a Corporeal Semiotics Introduction to Part 3 8 The 'Linguistic Turn' and Its Discontents: A Critique of Disembodied Semiotics 9 The 'Cultural Turn' and Its Discontents: A Critique of Disembodied Cultural Studies 10 Artefacts as Corporeal Signs; toward a Corporeal Semiotics Conclusion to Part 3: Corporeal Semiotics as Measure of Social Wealth and Socio-cultural Form: On Artefactual Beneficence and Mendacity Part 4 Corporeal Categories and the Critique of Sociocultural Form: Capital and Its Culture of Quantity Introduction to Part 4 11 Methodological Reflections on Forms of Social Objectivity and Subjectivity: Class, Class Consciousness, and the Critique of Capitalist Cultural Form 12 A 'Great Transformation': A Genealogy of Capital's Culture of Quantity 13 The Commodity Form, Quantification, and the Standpoint of Capital: An Archaeology of Capital's Culture of Quantity 14 The Capitalist Labour-Process and the Body in Pain: The Corporeal Depths of Marx's Concept of Immiseration Conclusion to Part 4: The Mendacity of the Vast Capitalist Artefact Anticipatory Notes in Conclusion: A Time to Pause, a Time to Reflect, a Time to Wish, a Time to Hope: Toward a Corporeally-Grounded Vision of Human Freedom and Dignity Appendices References Index

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Book SynopsisIt is human nature to want to fit in. The lengths people have gone to do so have provided creative minds with material for centuries. This book explores the consequences of being marked an outsider in the Russian-speaking world through a close study of several seminal works of Russian literature. The author combines the fields of literary studies, linguistics, and sociology to illuminate what prompted Christof Ruhl, an economist at the World Bank, to comment, about Russia, “On a very broad scale, it’s a country where people care about their family and friends. Their clan. But not their society.”Trade Review“Don’t be a Stranger is an important and extremely relevant contribution to Russian literary studies. While the book focuses on two literary works, Galie also reflects on the relevance of ‘свой-чужой’ to contemporary Russian society more broadly, and on the ways in which leading figures of the Putin regime and media have utilized their pejorative associations. Indeed, scholars of ethnicity, gender and sexuality studies in Russia will find this book particularly useful and stimulating in the broad discussion surrounding identity and belonging in Putin’s Russia.” — Thomas Reid, University of St. Andrews, Forum For Modern Language StudiesTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsNote on TransliterationIntroduction: Fitting in Russian Style1. The Crux of the Svoj/Chuzhoj Opposition2. Making Svoj/Chuzhoj Divisive in Alexander Griboedov’s “Woe from Wit”3. “Woe from Wit” as Social Gospel4. The Demons are SocialDemonsThe SettingThe PlotThe Audience and the StageThe OppositionVerkhovenskyA Stranger’s SinsThe First ArgumentThe Second ArgumentThe DuelAt Our People’sThe Murder of ShatovIn Place of a ConclusionBibliographyPrimary SourcesSecondary Sources

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