Theory and History of Ideological Production

Theory and History of Ideological Production PDF Author: Rodríguez Gómez Rodríguez
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780874138092
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
To explain a text, according to Rodriguez, is to locate it precisley at a real historical conjuncture, to situate it ideologically. This insistence on the historicity of literature saved Rodriguez from the fate that, from the late 1970s onward, overtook many Althusserians. The latter, unable to historicise and therefore transcend the key category of the subject, refused to rank 'real art' among the ideologies, as a result of which their concept of literary 'production' remained locked in a Kantian- and therefore eminently bourgeois- problematic. For Rodriguez, in contrast, ideology could not be the discourse of the subject, for the simple reason that the subject was itself an historical category, whose origins were to be found in animism, the ideology of the bourgeoisie during its early, mercantilist phase. As an emergent ideology, animism stood in contradiction to substantialism, its dominant counterpart under feudalism, that manifestly had no place for a 'free subject'. The analysis of these conflictual ideologies, during the protracted transition in Spain from feudalism to capitalism, constitutes the kernel of Theory and History of Ideological Production. University of Granada.

Theory and History of Ideological Production

Theory and History of Ideological Production PDF Author: Rodríguez Gómez Rodríguez
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780874138092
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
To explain a text, according to Rodriguez, is to locate it precisley at a real historical conjuncture, to situate it ideologically. This insistence on the historicity of literature saved Rodriguez from the fate that, from the late 1970s onward, overtook many Althusserians. The latter, unable to historicise and therefore transcend the key category of the subject, refused to rank 'real art' among the ideologies, as a result of which their concept of literary 'production' remained locked in a Kantian- and therefore eminently bourgeois- problematic. For Rodriguez, in contrast, ideology could not be the discourse of the subject, for the simple reason that the subject was itself an historical category, whose origins were to be found in animism, the ideology of the bourgeoisie during its early, mercantilist phase. As an emergent ideology, animism stood in contradiction to substantialism, its dominant counterpart under feudalism, that manifestly had no place for a 'free subject'. The analysis of these conflictual ideologies, during the protracted transition in Spain from feudalism to capitalism, constitutes the kernel of Theory and History of Ideological Production. University of Granada.

The Political Unconscious

The Political Unconscious PDF Author: Fredric Jameson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801471575
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Fredric Jameson, in The Political Unconscious, opposes the view that literary creation can take place in isolation from its political context. He asserts the priority of the political interpretation of literary texts, claiming it to be at the center of all reading and understanding, not just a supplement or auxiliary to other methods current today. Jameson supports his thesis by looking closely at the nature of interpretation. Our understanding, he says, is colored by the concepts and categories that we inherit from our culture's interpretive tradition and that we use to comprehend what we read. How then can the literature of other ages be understood by readers from a present that is culturally so different from the past? Marxism lies at the foundation of Jameson's answer, because it conceives of history as a single collective narrative that links past and present; Marxist literary criticism reveals the unity of that uninterrupted narrative. Jameson applies his interpretive theory to nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts, including the works of Balzac, Gissing, and Conrad. Throughout, he considers other interpretive approaches to the works he discusses, assessing the importance and limitations of methods as different as Lacanian psychoanalysis, semiotics, dialectical analysis, and allegorical readings. The book as a whole raises directly issues that have been only implicit in Jameson's earlier work, namely the relationship between dialectics and structuralism, and the tension between the German and the French aesthetic traditions. The Political Unconscious is a masterly introduction to both the method and the practice of Marxist criticism. Defining a mode of criticism and applying it successfully to individual works, it bridges the gap between theoretical speculation and textual analysis.

Lenin and Philosophy

Lenin and Philosophy PDF Author: Louis Althusser
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178873176X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
No figure among the western Marxist theoreticians has loomed larger in the postwar period than Louis Althusser. A rebel against the Catholic tradition in which he was raised, Althusser studied philosophy and later joined both the faculty of the Ecole normal superieure and the French Communist Party in 1948. Viewed as a structuralist Marxist, Althusser was as much admired for his independence of intellect as he was for his rigorous defense of Marx. The latter was best illustrated in For Marx (1965), and Reading Capital (1968). These works, along with Lenin and Philosophy (1971) had an enormous influence on the New Left of the 1960s and continues to influence modern Marxist scholarship. This classic work, which to date has sold more than 30,000 copies, covers the range of Louis Althusser's interests and contributions in philosophy, economics, psychology, aesthetics, and political science. Marx, in Althusser's view, was subject in his earlier writings to the ruling ideology of his day. Thus for Althusser, the interpretation of Marx involves a repudiation of all efforts to draw from Marx's early writings a view of Marx as a humanist and historicist. Lenin and Philosophy also contains Althusser's essay on Lenin's study of Hegel; a major essay on the state, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, Freud and Lacan: A letter on Art in Reply to Andr Daspre, and Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract. The book opens with a 1968 interview in which Althusser discusses his personal, political, and intellectual history.

On the Theory and History of Ideological Production

On the Theory and History of Ideological Production PDF Author: Malcolm K. Read
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004678573
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
On the Theory and History of Ideological Production promotes the existence of an ‘ideological unconscious’, understood primarily as a product of social relations, not of the Ideological State Apparatus. Attention focuses upon the transition from feudalism to capitalism, as theorised by the Spanish Marxist and former student of Althusser, Juan Carlos Rodríguez. Theorization of the ‘ideological unconscious’ presupposes a change of terrain from the individual/society opposition to a problematic based on the ‘social formation’. The present text assesses Rodríguez’s work alongside that of his contemporaries, Fredric Jameson, Noam Chomsky, Terry Eagleton, Roy Bhaskar, Slavoj Žižek, and others.

Karl Marx's Theory of History

Karl Marx's Theory of History PDF Author: Gerald A. Cohen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691213003
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
First published in 1978, this book rapidly established itself as a classic of modern Marxism. Cohen's masterful application of advanced philosophical techniques in an uncompromising defense of historical materialism commanded widespread admiration. In the ensuing twenty years, the book has served as a flagship of a powerful intellectual movement--analytical Marxism. In this expanded edition, Cohen offers his own account of the history, and the further promise, of analytical Marxism. He also expresses reservations about traditional historical materialism, in the light of which he reconstructs the theory, and he studies the implications for historical materialism of the demise of the Soviet Union.

A Philosophy for Communism

A Philosophy for Communism PDF Author: Panagiotis Sotiris
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004291369
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 566

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Book Description
In A Philosophy for Communism: Rethinking Althusser Panagiotis Sotiris attempts a reading of the work of the French philosopher centered upon his deeply political conception of philosophy. Althusser’s endeavour is presented as a quest for a new practice of philosophy that would enable a new practice of politics for communism, in opposition to idealism and teleology. The central point is that in his trajectory from the crucial interventions of the 1960s to the texts on aleatory materialism, Althusser remained a communist in philosophy. This is based upon a reading of the tensions and dynamics running through Althusser’s work and his dialogue with other thinkers. Particular attention is paid to crucial texts by Althusser that remained unpublished until relatively recently. Shortlisted for the Deutscher Memorial Prize 2021.

Social Reproduction Theory

Social Reproduction Theory PDF Author: Tithi Bhattacharya
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN: 9780745399881
Category : Capitalism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Crystallizing the essential principles of social reproductive theory, this anthology provides long-overdue analysis of everyday life under capitalism. It focuses on issues such as childcare, healthcare, education, family life, and the roles of gender, race, and sexuality--all of which are central to understanding the relationship between exploitation and social oppression. Tithi Bhattacharya brings together some of the leading writers and theorists, including Lise Vogel, Nancy Fraser, and Susan Ferguson, in order for us to better understand social relations and how to improve them in the fight against structural oppression.

On Ideology

On Ideology PDF Author: Louis Althusser
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1788738551
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
This major voice in French philosophy presents a classic study of how particular political and cultural ideas come to dominate society. Spanning the years 1964 to 1973, On Ideology contains the seminal text, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus” (1970), which revolutionized the concept of subject formation. In “Reply to John Lewis” (1972–73), Althusser addressed the criticisms of the English Marxist toward On Marx and Reading Capital. Also included are “Freud and Lacan” (1964) and “A Letter on Art in Reply to André Daspre” (1966).

On the Theory and History of Ideological Production

On the Theory and History of Ideological Production PDF Author: Malcolm K. Read
Publisher: Historical Materialism Book
ISBN: 9789004678569
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The present volume promotes the notion of an 'ideological unconscious' as theorized by the Spanish Marxist, Juan Carlos Rodríguez. Secreted by the social relations dominant at a particular historical conjuncture, this unconscious always entraps and configures its libidinal counterpart.

On the Reproduction of Capitalism

On the Reproduction of Capitalism PDF Author: Louis Althusser
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178168524X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Louis Althusser's renowned short text "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" radically transformed the concept of the subject, the understanding of the state and even the very frameworks of cultural, political and literary theory. The text has influenced thinkers such as Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Zizek. The piece is, in fact, an extract from a much longer book, On the Reproduction of Capitalism, until now unavailable in English. Its publication makes possible a reappraisal of seminal Althusserian texts already available in English, their place in Althusser's oeuvre and the relevance of his ideas for contemporary theory. On the Reproduction of Capitalism develops Althusser's conception of historical materialism, outlining the conditions of reproduction in capitalist society and the revolutionary struggle for its overthrow. Written in the afterglow of May 1968, the text addresses a question that continues to haunt us today: in a society that proclaims its attachment to the ideals of liberty and equality, why do we witness the ever-renewed reproduction of relations of domination? Both a conceptually innovative text and a key theoretical tool for activists, On the Reproduction of Capitalism is an essential addition to the corpus of the twentieth-century Left.