Paper on Judith Butler's _Psychic Life of Power_ by Pierre Macherey might be
of interest to some
DM
RETHINKING MARXISM
Vol. 16 No. 1 (Jan 2004)
(http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/08935696.asp to learn more about RM)
IN THIS ISSUE:
Editors' introduction
Edward Said, 1935-2003
by Joseph A. Buttigieg
This tribute to Edward W. Said draws attention to the salient features of
his life and his exemplary work as a critical intellectual and as one of the
leading literary scholars of his generation.
Out of melancholia: notes on Judith Butler's The Psychic Life of Power:
Theories in Subjection
by Pierre Macherey
This review of Judith Butler"s The Psychic Life of Power was first written
as a presentation of Butler's ideas to the study group on "La Philosophie au
sens large" that Macherey sponsors at the University of Lille 3. The review
focuses on Butler"s critique of the modern conception of power, the logic of
"subjection," and the "tropic subject"; the Althusserian theory of
ideological interpellation and the psychic dimensions of power; and the role
of mourning and melancholia in constituting subjected subjects.
Social origins of Appalachian poverty: markets, cultural strategies, and the
state in an Appalachian Kentucky community, 1804-1940
by Dwight B. Billings & Kathleen M. Blee
Appalachian poverty has typically been interpreted as the result of either
persistent economic isolation or, conversely, absentee corporate capitalist
exploitation. Instead, by stressing the interplay of slave-based
manufacturing and commerce, and the self-exploitation and exploitation of
family labor in subsistence farming, we locate the social origins of
Appalachian poverty in the indigenous development of the mountain economy
prior to the advent of capitalist industrialization. By examining the
interplay of markets, cultural norms, and the local state in
nineteenth-century Clay County, Kentucky, we picture the diversity and
complexity of non-capitalist class processes in Appalachia prior to the
modern era of coal mining and show how these contributed to the pattern of
dependent capitalist development and poverty for which the region is
well-known.
All the Catalogs (A-Z)
by Penelope Umbrico
Blame Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck. Or credit them if, like many of us,
you enjoy the experience of shopping from mail-order catalogs. In etiher
case, tracking down and listing all 15,194 catalogs that, as of 2002, were
available on the Internet must have been a painstaking task for artist
Penelope Umbrico. First produced as a Web piece, All the Catalogs (A to Z)
is printed for the first time in our pages.
>From Documenta to Documenta 11: a German return to truth and reconciliation
by Charity Scribner
Documenta 11, the international platform of contemporary art and ideas, was
held in Kassel, Germany in 2002. Following its aim to "activate the space of
public art as a site for the reconciliation of current political conflicts,"
the curators designated "Truth and Reconciliation" as one of the platform
themes. This essay evaluates Documenta's success at staging this theme, and
addresses the criticism that the curators' emphasis on public discourse
diminished the aesthetic effects of the art shown.
Subjectless aesthetics
by Gary Tedman
In "Ideology, the State and the Aesthetic Level of Practice" (RM, 1999), I
proposed the existence of an aesthetic level of human practice, which
contributes to the social reproduction of the relations of production. Here,
I defend the idea that, despite being founded on the almost taboo concept of
instincts, my approach remains immune to humanism because of its connection
to an "aesthetic dialectic." To demonstrate this, I analyze the scientific
legacy of Darwin and Freud, finding a crucial missing link for Marxism in
the work of Ewald Hering.
Critical Observations on Economics, Taxonomy, and Dynamism
by Andrea Micocci
Veblen's evolutionary attitude can be taken to mean dynamism in general. A
Marxist criticism of the lack of dynamism of economics is possible if we
take an anti-Hegelian stance. This way, we resolve the questions left open
by Veblen, laying the bases for a dynamic account of economic facts open to
historical "ruptures." A dynamic economics in this sense constitutes a
genealogy of the present, which presupposes a taxonomy. A taxonomy in an
anti-Hegelian framework grants dynamism to economic descriptions and forms
the bases of a truly historical materialism.
REMARX
The Burden of Marx minus Capital
by Robert S. Tanner
By means of a thought experiment concerning political consciousness, Tanner
rebuts the arguments of Alan Megill in Karl Marx: The Burden of Reason (Why
Marx Rejected Politics and the Market) that Marx remained indentured to his
early theoretical training as a rationalist philosopher. Tanner shows that
Marx conceives political consciousness differently in 1865 than he did in
the 1840s, the period during which Mr.Megill argues that Marx's theoretical
development stopped; and this despite the work of Althusser and others.
Globalization Goes for Therapy
by Richard McIntyre
Orthodox critics of globalization argue that globalization potentially
benefits all, but that the International Monetary Fund and other
multilateral institutions have mishandled it. If these institutions were
reformed, and in particular if their economic models were brought up to date
by incorporating the "economics of information," the discontent with
globalization could be overcome. But it may be more useful to think of this
discontent as part of the uneasiness that civilization produces as it
disciplines the instincts. Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents is
offered as a supplement to recent critics of globalization.
REVIEWS
Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a
Notion, by Slavoj Zizek
Reviewed by Richard Wolff
Dying in America, by Richard Licthman
Reviewed by Harriet Fraad
A project of the Association for Economic and Social Analysis (AESA),
Rethinking Marxism (RM) has become recognized as one of the premier
interdisciplinary journals on the Left. Now in its sixteenth year of
publication, RM aims to stimulate interest in and debate over the
explanatory power and social consequences of Marxian economic, cultural, and
social analysis. For information regarding subscription, article submission,
contents of back issues, etc. please click here.
To learn more about AESA and RM, please visit
http://www.rethinkingmarxism.org
If you would like to receive the New Issue Alert of the journal regularly,
please send an e-mail to Kenan Ercel (ercel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx).
of interest to some
DM
RETHINKING MARXISM
Vol. 16 No. 1 (Jan 2004)
(http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/08935696.asp to learn more about RM)
IN THIS ISSUE:
Editors' introduction
Edward Said, 1935-2003
by Joseph A. Buttigieg
This tribute to Edward W. Said draws attention to the salient features of
his life and his exemplary work as a critical intellectual and as one of the
leading literary scholars of his generation.
Out of melancholia: notes on Judith Butler's The Psychic Life of Power:
Theories in Subjection
by Pierre Macherey
This review of Judith Butler"s The Psychic Life of Power was first written
as a presentation of Butler's ideas to the study group on "La Philosophie au
sens large" that Macherey sponsors at the University of Lille 3. The review
focuses on Butler"s critique of the modern conception of power, the logic of
"subjection," and the "tropic subject"; the Althusserian theory of
ideological interpellation and the psychic dimensions of power; and the role
of mourning and melancholia in constituting subjected subjects.
Social origins of Appalachian poverty: markets, cultural strategies, and the
state in an Appalachian Kentucky community, 1804-1940
by Dwight B. Billings & Kathleen M. Blee
Appalachian poverty has typically been interpreted as the result of either
persistent economic isolation or, conversely, absentee corporate capitalist
exploitation. Instead, by stressing the interplay of slave-based
manufacturing and commerce, and the self-exploitation and exploitation of
family labor in subsistence farming, we locate the social origins of
Appalachian poverty in the indigenous development of the mountain economy
prior to the advent of capitalist industrialization. By examining the
interplay of markets, cultural norms, and the local state in
nineteenth-century Clay County, Kentucky, we picture the diversity and
complexity of non-capitalist class processes in Appalachia prior to the
modern era of coal mining and show how these contributed to the pattern of
dependent capitalist development and poverty for which the region is
well-known.
All the Catalogs (A-Z)
by Penelope Umbrico
Blame Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck. Or credit them if, like many of us,
you enjoy the experience of shopping from mail-order catalogs. In etiher
case, tracking down and listing all 15,194 catalogs that, as of 2002, were
available on the Internet must have been a painstaking task for artist
Penelope Umbrico. First produced as a Web piece, All the Catalogs (A to Z)
is printed for the first time in our pages.
>From Documenta to Documenta 11: a German return to truth and reconciliation
by Charity Scribner
Documenta 11, the international platform of contemporary art and ideas, was
held in Kassel, Germany in 2002. Following its aim to "activate the space of
public art as a site for the reconciliation of current political conflicts,"
the curators designated "Truth and Reconciliation" as one of the platform
themes. This essay evaluates Documenta's success at staging this theme, and
addresses the criticism that the curators' emphasis on public discourse
diminished the aesthetic effects of the art shown.
Subjectless aesthetics
by Gary Tedman
In "Ideology, the State and the Aesthetic Level of Practice" (RM, 1999), I
proposed the existence of an aesthetic level of human practice, which
contributes to the social reproduction of the relations of production. Here,
I defend the idea that, despite being founded on the almost taboo concept of
instincts, my approach remains immune to humanism because of its connection
to an "aesthetic dialectic." To demonstrate this, I analyze the scientific
legacy of Darwin and Freud, finding a crucial missing link for Marxism in
the work of Ewald Hering.
Critical Observations on Economics, Taxonomy, and Dynamism
by Andrea Micocci
Veblen's evolutionary attitude can be taken to mean dynamism in general. A
Marxist criticism of the lack of dynamism of economics is possible if we
take an anti-Hegelian stance. This way, we resolve the questions left open
by Veblen, laying the bases for a dynamic account of economic facts open to
historical "ruptures." A dynamic economics in this sense constitutes a
genealogy of the present, which presupposes a taxonomy. A taxonomy in an
anti-Hegelian framework grants dynamism to economic descriptions and forms
the bases of a truly historical materialism.
REMARX
The Burden of Marx minus Capital
by Robert S. Tanner
By means of a thought experiment concerning political consciousness, Tanner
rebuts the arguments of Alan Megill in Karl Marx: The Burden of Reason (Why
Marx Rejected Politics and the Market) that Marx remained indentured to his
early theoretical training as a rationalist philosopher. Tanner shows that
Marx conceives political consciousness differently in 1865 than he did in
the 1840s, the period during which Mr.Megill argues that Marx's theoretical
development stopped; and this despite the work of Althusser and others.
Globalization Goes for Therapy
by Richard McIntyre
Orthodox critics of globalization argue that globalization potentially
benefits all, but that the International Monetary Fund and other
multilateral institutions have mishandled it. If these institutions were
reformed, and in particular if their economic models were brought up to date
by incorporating the "economics of information," the discontent with
globalization could be overcome. But it may be more useful to think of this
discontent as part of the uneasiness that civilization produces as it
disciplines the instincts. Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents is
offered as a supplement to recent critics of globalization.
REVIEWS
Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a
Notion, by Slavoj Zizek
Reviewed by Richard Wolff
Dying in America, by Richard Licthman
Reviewed by Harriet Fraad
A project of the Association for Economic and Social Analysis (AESA),
Rethinking Marxism (RM) has become recognized as one of the premier
interdisciplinary journals on the Left. Now in its sixteenth year of
publication, RM aims to stimulate interest in and debate over the
explanatory power and social consequences of Marxian economic, cultural, and
social analysis. For information regarding subscription, article submission,
contents of back issues, etc. please click here.
To learn more about AESA and RM, please visit
http://www.rethinkingmarxism.org
If you would like to receive the New Issue Alert of the journal regularly,
please send an e-mail to Kenan Ercel (ercel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx).