In the wake of Communism's collapse in Eastern Europe, one of today's foremost interpreters of Marx's texts and ideas offers postmodern readings of canonical texts to discover what Marx has to say to our postmodern condition. Terrell Carver takes advantage of the ideological release of Marxism from its association with Soviet Communism to explore how Marx's writings can be reread in the spirit in which they were written: as a critique of capitalist society. Employing textual and narrative analysis developed within (...) postmodernism, Carver carefully examines Marx's language—and the language around Marx—to arrive at a reassessment that is free from the restraints of past dogma. He addresses ways in which Marx is changing: which texts are read, how hermeneutics and deconstruction have altered our reading of them, and trends toward viewing Marx not simply as a revolutionary or an economist but as a political thinker whose insights are relevant to current debates over free markets and mixed economies. Carver first leads readers through a new, detailed examination of _Capital_. He then explores Marx's relationship with the socialism of his contemporaries, critiques translations of Marx, examines works written with Engels, considers Marx's relationship to Hegel, and applies Marx's thought to issues of gender. These re-readings convey the importance of continuing to engage Marx's thought and show that there is more to Marx than we might ever hope to discover. It is a lucid and provocative work that liberates Marx's ideas for what they can contribute to a fresh evaluation of our present political milieu. (shrink)
Judith Butler has been arguably the most important gender theorist of the past twenty years. This edited volume draws leading international political theorists into dialogue with her political theory. Each chapter is written by an acclaimed political theorist and concentrates on a particular aspect of Butler's work. The book is divided into five sections which reflect the interdisciplinary nature of Butler's work and activism: Butler and Philosophy: explores Butler’s unique relationship to the discipline of philosophy, considering her work in light (...) of its philosophical contributions Butler and Subjectivity: covers the vexed question of subjectivity with which Butler has engaged throughout her published history Butler and Gender: considers the most problematic area, gender, taken by many to be primary to Butler’s work Butler and Democracy: engages with Butler’s significant contribution to the literature of radical democracy and to thecentral political issues faced by our post-cold war Butler and Action: focuses directly on the question of political agency and political action in Butler’s work. Along with its companion volume, Political Theory of Judith Butler, it marks an intellectual event for political theory, with major implications for feminism, women’s studies, gender studies, cultural studies, lesbian and gay studies, queer theory and anyone with a critical interest in contemporary American ‘great power’ politics. (shrink)
The German Ideology as a 'book' dates only from the early 1920s and 1930s. The opening 'chapter' 'I. Feuerbach' was factitiously constructed to solve the problem posed by Marx's engimatic reference in 1859 to 'self-clarification'. This was in autobiographical passages detailing his 'outlook', termed by Engels the 'materialist interpretation of history'. Factual evidence presented here makes this framing untenable. 'The German ideology' manuscript materials of 1845-6 are best studied -- not as a 'smooth text' of the 'last hand' -- but (...) as a 'variant-rich' text that allows access to a 'laboratory' where Marx and Engels were learning to think as they did. (shrink)
Marx was a highly original and polymathic thinker, unhampered by disciplinary boundaries, whose intellectual influence has been enormous. Yet in the wake of the collapse of Marxism-Leninism in Eastern Europe the question arises as to how important his work really is for us now. An important dimension of this volume is to place Marx's writings in their historical context and to separate what he actually said from what others interpreted him as saying. Informed by current debates and new perspectives, the (...) volume provides a comprehensive coverage of all the major areas to which Marx made significant contributions. (shrink)
In the wake of Communism's collapse in Eastern Europe, one of today's foremost interpreters of Marx's texts and ideas offers postmodern readings of canonical texts to discover what Marx has to say to our postmodern condition. Terrell Carver takes advantage of the ideological release of Marxism from its association with Soviet Communism to explore how Marx's writings can be reread in the spirit in which they were written: as a critique of capitalist society. Employing textual and narrative analysis developed within (...) postmodernism, Carver carefully examines Marx's language—and the language around Marx—to arrive at a reassessment that is free from the restraints of past dogma. He addresses ways in which Marx is changing: which texts are read, how hermeneutics and deconstruction have altered our reading of them, and trends toward viewing Marx not simply as a revolutionary or an economist but as a political thinker whose insights are relevant to current debates over free markets and mixed economies. Carver first leads readers through a new, detailed examination of _Capital_. He then explores Marx's relationship with the socialism of his contemporaries, critiques translations of Marx, examines works written with Engels, considers Marx's relationship to Hegel, and applies Marx's thought to issues of gender. These re-readings convey the importance of continuing to engage Marx's thought and show that there is more to Marx than we might ever hope to discover. It is a lucid and provocative work that liberates Marx's ideas for what they can contribute to a fresh evaluation of our present political milieu. (shrink)
A collection of essays which considers how the personal is political. The intertwining of gender with class and ethinicity is examined along with a technological theory of gender and parenting. Emphasis is placed upon the gendered perspective in political theory in this text.
Marx's 'production theory' of society and social change is unique in social science and functions as a powerful hypothesis. It is not a casual law. The author assesses the central difficulties encountered by the theory, and shows that it sprang from a desire not simply to interpret the world, but to change it.
Marx's work in the first chapters of Capital is sometimes taken to be ?metaphysical?, since his remarks do not lend themselves to ?scientific? testing against quantitative data. I argue that Marx aimed to re?present the economic theory of his day in order to reveal the characteristic presuppositions of capitalist society, and ? in the first instance ? to rid the theory of logical confusions. Though his distinctions are ingenious and his arguments consistent, the enterprise fails in certain respects, because he (...) relies on Ricardian propositions about value and labour, and because his use of certain methods and distinctions of nineteenth?century logic is no longer convincing. Hence he reaches conclusions about the meaning of value, and the nature of commodities and labour, that are wrong in principle. These conclusions were the logical basis for his most sweeping predictions about capitalist society. (shrink)
Who writes? For whom is the writing being done? In what circumstances? These, it seems to me, are the questions whose answers provide us with the ingredients making for a politics of interpretation. E. Said.
Billy Wilder's classic film ‘Some Like It Hot’ prefigures Judith Butler's concept of performativity in relation to sex, gender and sexuality. Butler introduced this in Gender Trouble , demonstrating that sex, gender and sexuality are naturalized effects of citation and repetition. In that text she explains that denaturalization is visibly demonstrated by drag. Later in Bodies that Matter she argues that drag in ‘Some Like It Hot’ does not denaturalize heterosexuality, but rather fortifies it. What then for Butler divides denaturalizing (...) drag from non-denaturalizing drag? Butler locates denaturalizing drag in the film ‘Female Trouble’ , where Divine's drag-queen persona satirizes gender in a hyperbolic performance. However, Butler misconstrues the cross-dressing performances in ‘Some Like It Hot’ as drag, which are better understood as instances of theatrical disguise. Narrative analysis reveals that all the characters in ‘Some Like It Hot’ function within a dystopian critique of heteronormativity. Because the film takes a performative view of sex, gender and sexuality, it can validate three queer couples who defy the strictures of heterosexual romance. Butler thus overlooks a discourse of critique and destabilization alternative to gay perspectives. Current developments in sexual politics, broadly conceived, track both Butlerian concepts of performativity and dystopian critiques of heteronormativity. (shrink)
Billy Wilder's classic film ‘Some Like It Hot’ prefigures Judith Butler's concept of performativity in relation to sex, gender and sexuality. Butler introduced this in Gender Trouble, demonstrating that sex, gender and sexuality are naturalized effects of citation and repetition. In that text she explains that denaturalization is visibly demonstrated by drag. Later in Bodies that Matter she argues that drag in ‘Some Like It Hot’ does not denaturalize heterosexuality, but rather fortifies it. What then for Butler divides denaturalizing drag (...) from non-denaturalizing drag? Butler locates denaturalizing drag in the film ‘Female Trouble’, where Divine's drag-queen persona satirizes gender in a hyperbolic performance. However, Butler misconstrues the cross-dressing performances in ‘Some Like It Hot’ as drag, which are better understood as instances of theatrical disguise. Narrative analysis reveals that all the characters in ‘Some Like It Hot’ function within a dystopian critique of heteronormativity. Because the film takes a performative view of sex, gender and sexuality, it can validate three queer couples who defy the strictures of heterosexual romance. Butler thus overlooks a discourse of critique and destabilization alternative to gay perspectives. Current developments in sexual politics, broadly conceived, track both Butlerian concepts of performativity and dystopian critiques of heteronormativity. (shrink)
This concise dictionary by a noted Marxian scholar offers authoritative descriptions of the basic concepts that appear in Marx's writings, together with bibliographic sources that will enable the reader to locate the contexts where they appeared. An indispensable guide for the study of Marx.
Carole Patemanâe(tm)s writings have been innovatory precisely for their qualities of engagement, pursued at the height of intellectual rigour. This book draws from her vast output of articles, chapters, books and speeches to provide a thematic yet integrated account of her innovations in political theory and contributions to the politics of policy-making. The editors have focused on work in three key areas: Democracy Patemanâe(tm)s perspective is rooted in a practical perspective, enquiring into and speculating about forms of participation over and (...) above the âe~traditionalâe(tm) exclusions through which representative systems have been variously constructed over time. Her work pushes hard on theorists and politicians who make easy assumptions about apathy and public opinion, who bracket off the workplace and the home, and who see politics only in partisan activity, voter behaviour and governmental policy. Women Patemanâe(tm)s innovatory and still-cited work on participation antedates the feminist revolution in political theory and many of the practical struggles that developed through the later 1970s. While woman-centred, her concerns were always worked through larger conceptions of social class, economic advantage, power differentials, âe~liberalâe(tm) individualism and contracts including marriage. Her feminism was innovative in political theory, and within feminism itself. As a feminist Pateman defies categorization, and her concepts of âe~the sexual contractâe(tm) and âe~Wollstonecraftâe(tm)s dilemmaâe(tm) are canonical. Welfare Patemanâe(tm)s innovation here is an integration of welfare issues âe" in particular the proposals for a âe~basic incomeâe(tm) or for a âe~capital stakeâe(tm) âe" into her broad but always rigorous conception of democracy. This is argued through in terms of citizenship, taken as the result of a social contract. In that way Pateman puts liberalism itself through an imminent critique, drawing in the practicalities and risks of life in late capitalist societies. Her theory as always is political, taking in neo-liberal attacks on âe~welfare statesâe(tm) and the stark realities of international inequalities. Patemanâe(tm)s career achievements in democratic and feminist theory are brought productively to bear on debates that would otherwise occur in more limited, and less provocative, academic and political contexts. (shrink)
William E. Connolly’s writings have pushed the leading edge of political theory, first in North America and then in Europe as well, for more than two decades now. This book draws on his numerous influential books and articles to provide a coherent and comprehensive overview of his significant contribution to the field of political theory. The book focuses in particular on three key areas of his thinking: Democracy: his work in democratic theory – through his critical challenges to the traditions (...) of Rawlsian theories of justice and Habermasian theories of deliberative democracy – has spurred the creation of a fertile and powerful new literature Pluralism: Connolly's work utterly transformed the terrain of the field by helping to resignify pluralism: from a conservative theory of order based on the status quo into a radical theory of democratic contestation based on a progressive political vision The Terms of Political Theory: Connolly has changed the language in which Anglo-American political theory is spoken, and entirely shuffled the pack with which political theorists work. (shrink)
Four women have been conventionally framed as wives and/or mistresses and/or sexual partners in the biographical reception of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as heterosexual men. These women were Jenny Marx, Helene Demuth, Mary Burns, and Lydia Burns. How exactly they appear in the few contemporary texts and rare images that survive is less interesting than the determination of subsequent biographers of the two “great men” to make these women fit a familiar genre, namely intellectual biography. An analysis of Marx–Engels (...) biographies shows how this masculinized genre enforces an incuriosity that makes gendered political partnerships unthinkable and therefore invisible. By contrast, a positive interest in these women, which rethinks what a gendered political partnership is or could be, results in a significantly different view of the two men. As historical figures, they shift from being individualized or paired‐with‐each‐other “great thinkers” to communist/socialist activists working in and through everyday spaces and material practices. Their pamphlets, articles, and books thus appear more as immediate political interventions and less as timeless theorizing or as the raw material for such intellectualizing reconstructions. (shrink)
Ulrich Steinvorth ('Marx's Analysis of Commodity Exchange?, Inquiry, Vol. 19 [1976]) and C. J. Arthur ('Labour: Marx's Concrete Universal?, Inquiry, Vol. 21 [1978]) rely on the two?fold character of labour in arguing that the mysteries of money and profit have been correctly interpreted by Marx. However, Marx's own arguments for his distinction between abstract and concrete labour are faulty, as is his identification of labour and material products. They also claim that the exchange of commodities and distribution of resources in (...) capitalist society validate Marx's theory that the determination of value by labour?time is the ?secret? behind capitalist crises. These claims are insufficiently justified, and provide no additional reason for accepting the two?fold character of labour. (shrink)
_ Source: _Volume 28, Issue 1, pp 64 - 73 In his own time Hobbes became a public intellectual even if at times a banned author. Political theorists of today will in some cases recognise similar pressures and dilemmas. As a classic author, however, Hobbes has become a trope in political theory through an overt process of anachronism. The authors in this special issue – Browning, Jaede, Boyd, Prozorov – proceed from this common and canonical content, as does Prokhovnik in (...) her Introduction. The scholarly template, presumed in this discussion, focuses on the first two books of Leviathan, and on the life-and-death dilemmas posed there in relation to political power and obligation. The four articles thoroughly explore the concepts of nature and artifice within that reading strategy. The conclusion of this critical review of their work is that within broader commentary in political theory nature and artifice are themselves tropes, and that the natural life of humans is inherently artificial. (shrink)
Liberals and Marxists alike have had a stake in making Marx non?liberal in theory and anti?liberal in practice. My re?reading of his work and life emphasizes the considerable overlaps and continuity between his views and activities and the liberalism of his day and ours. Marx?s critique of liberalism thus becomes subtler and less easily dismissed by liberals, who would do well to confront the violence and class struggle inherent in the success of the liberal project, rather than to erase this (...) in favour of an idealized doctrine and sanitized history. I identify an irony in that Marx politicized reason and reasonableness long before anti?foundational ?post?Marxists? developed their ?political? critique of traditional Marxist conceptions of truth and science. (shrink)
Men in Political Theory builds on feminist re-readings of the traditional canon of male writers in political philosophy by turning the "gender lens" on to the representation of men in widely studied texts. It explains the distinction between "man" as an apparently de-gendered "individual" or "citizen" and "man" as an overtly gendered being in human society. The ten chapters on Plato, Aristotle, Jesus, Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx and Engels show the operation of the "gender lens" in different ways, (...) depending on how each philosopher deploys concepts of men and masculinity to pose and solve classic problems. (shrink)
