The whole of Marx's project confronts the narrow concerns of political philosophy by embedding it in social philosophy and a certain understanding of the aesthetic. From those of aesthetic production to the "poetry of the future" (as Marx writes in the Eighteenth Brumaire), from the radical modernism of bourgeois development to the very idea of association (which defined one of the main lines of tradition in the history of aesthetics), steady references to Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe, and the idea that (...) bourgeois politics is nothing but a theatrical stage: the aesthetic has a prominent place in the constellation of Marx's thought. This book offers an original and challenging study of both Marx in the aesthetic, and the aesthetic in Marx. It differs from previous discussions of Marxist aesthetic theory as it understands the works of Marx themselves as contributions to thinking the aesthetic. This is an engagement with Marx's aesthetic that takes into account Marx's broader sense of the aesthetic, as identified by Eagleton and Buck-Morss - as a question of sense perception and the body. (shrink)

This book explores the tradition, impact, and contemporary relevance of two key ideas from Western Marxism: Georg Lukács's concept of reification, in which social aspects of humanity are viewed in objectified terms, and Guy Debord's concept of the spectacle, where the world is packaged and presented to consumers in uniquely mediated ways. Bringing the original, yet now often forgotten, theoretical contexts for these terms back to the fore, Johan Hartle and Samir Gandesha offer a new look at the importance of (...) Western Marxism from its early days to the present moment-and reveal why Marxist cultural critique must continue to play a vital role in any serious sociological analysis of contemporary society. (shrink)

Aesthetic discourse has always openly or secretly been linked to political projects. According to some main strands of aesthetic discourse modern aesthetics mirrors the structure of social and political emancipation and key elements of aesthetic discourse coincide with the political ontology of the left. Marxist and Post-Marxist critics have emphasized that the struggle for emancipation is indirectly present in the historical constitution of aesthetics as a discipline – although in a merely imaginary and displaced form. Therefore, however, it is also (...) partly of the same structure as what is normally described as “aesthetic”. Against this background aesthetic attributes (‘beauty’) can be ascribed to forms of emancipatory politics as well. (shrink)