Description
Book SynopsisPolitics as Radical Creation examines the meaning of democratic practice through the critical social theory of the Frankfurt School.
Trade Review'Politics as Radical Creation consists of rigorous interpretations of texts by Marcuse and Arendt, that bring out the richness of these texts and suggest promising possibilities for further connections between critical theory and Arendt's political thinking.' -- Michiel Bot Political Theory June 2016 'Holman's is a compelling and important project... with its timely rich analysis of the parallels between Arendt and Marcuse, Holman's book is well positioned to inspire and propel forward such work.' -- Jennie Han Theory and Event vol 17:03:2014
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Marcuse, Arendt, and the Idea of Politics Chapter One: Marcuse's Critique and Reformulation of the Philosophical Concept of Essence * Culture and Bourgeois Freedom * Critical Theory and the Ethical Imperative: Happiness-Reason-Freedom * Hegel and the Dialectic of Negativity * Essence and the Dialectic of Labour Chapter Two: The Dialectic of Instinctual Liberation: Essence and Non-Repressive Sublimation * The Problem of Repression: Individual and Social, Basic and Surplus * The Affirmation of Sensuousness: Primary Narcissism and Non-Repressive Sublimation * Non-Repressive Sublimation and Non-Alienated Labour Chapter Three: The Problem of Politics * Marx's Political Ambiguity * The Limits of Western Marxism * Marcuse's Reproduction of the Marxian Anti-Politics * Administration as Domination and Liberation Chapter Four: Hannah Arendt's Theory of Public Freedom * Performativity and Essence: The Need for Radical Creation * The Subject of Radical Creation: Politics and the We * Agonism, Democracy, and Political Objectification * Arendt and Revolutionary History * The Institutionalization of the Revolutionary Impulse: The Council Tradition Chapter Five: Marcuse Contra Arendt: Dialectics, Destiny, Distinction * Questioning Distinction: the Vita Activa and Marx's Ontology of Labour * Arendt's Critique of the Dialectic: On the Need for Distinction * Marcuse's Critique of Non-Dialectical Dialectics Chapter Six: Marcuse: Reconsidering the Political * The Theory of the Radical Act * The Affirmation of Socialist Nature * Politics and the New Left * Spontaneity and the Council Tradition Conclusion: From the New Left to Global Justice and from the Councils to Cochabamba Works Cited
