The Fetish Revisited

The Fetish Revisited PDF Author: J. Lorand Matory
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478002433
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
Since the early-modern encounter between African and European merchants on the Guinea Coast, European social critics have invoked African gods as metaphors for misplaced value and agency, using the term “fetishism” chiefly to assert the irrationality of their fellow Europeans. Yet, as J. Lorand Matory demonstrates in The Fetish Revisited, Afro-Atlantic gods have a materially embodied social logic of their own, which is no less rational than the social theories of Marx and Freud. Drawing on thirty-six years of fieldwork in Africa, Europe, and the Americas, Matory casts an Afro-Atlantic eye on European theory to show how Marx’s and Freud’s conceptions of the fetish both illuminate and misrepresent Africa’s human-made gods. Through this analysis, the priests, practices, and spirited things of four major Afro-Atlantic religions simultaneously call attention to the culture-specific, materially conditioned, physically embodied, and indeed fetishistic nature of Marx’s and Freud’s theories themselves. Challenging long-held assumptions about the nature of gods and theories, Matory offers a novel perspective on the social roots of these tandem African and European understandings of collective action, while illuminating the relationship of European social theory to the racism suffered by Africans and assimilated Jews alike.

An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital

An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital PDF Author: Michael Heinrich
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583672915
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The global economic crisis and recession that began in 2008 had at least one unexpected outcome: a surge in sales of Karl Marx's Capital. Although mainstream economists and commentators once dismissed Marx's work as outmoded and flawed, some are begrudgingly acknowledging an analysis that sees capitalism as inherently unstable. And of course, there are those, like Michael Heinrich, who have seen the value of Marx all along, and are in a unique position to explain the intricacies of Marx's thought. Heinrich's modern interpretation of Capital is now available to English-speaking readers for the first time. It has gone through nine editions in Germany, is the standard work for Marxist study groups, and is used widely in German universities. The author systematically covers all three volumes of Capital and explains all the basic aspects of Marx's critique of capitalism in a way that is clear and concise. He provides background information on the intellectual and political milieu in which Marx worked, and looks at crucial issues beyond the scope of Capital, such as class struggle, the relationship between capital and the state, accusations of historical determinism, and Marx's understanding of communism. Uniquely, Heinrich emphasizes the monetary character of Marx's work, in addition to the traditional emphasis on the labor theory of value, this highlighting the relevance of Capital to the age of financial explosions and implosions.

The Fetish Revisited

The Fetish Revisited PDF Author: J. Lorand Matory
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478002433
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
Since the early-modern encounter between African and European merchants on the Guinea Coast, European social critics have invoked African gods as metaphors for misplaced value and agency, using the term “fetishism” chiefly to assert the irrationality of their fellow Europeans. Yet, as J. Lorand Matory demonstrates in The Fetish Revisited, Afro-Atlantic gods have a materially embodied social logic of their own, which is no less rational than the social theories of Marx and Freud. Drawing on thirty-six years of fieldwork in Africa, Europe, and the Americas, Matory casts an Afro-Atlantic eye on European theory to show how Marx’s and Freud’s conceptions of the fetish both illuminate and misrepresent Africa’s human-made gods. Through this analysis, the priests, practices, and spirited things of four major Afro-Atlantic religions simultaneously call attention to the culture-specific, materially conditioned, physically embodied, and indeed fetishistic nature of Marx’s and Freud’s theories themselves. Challenging long-held assumptions about the nature of gods and theories, Matory offers a novel perspective on the social roots of these tandem African and European understandings of collective action, while illuminating the relationship of European social theory to the racism suffered by Africans and assimilated Jews alike.

Karl Marx’s Life, Ideas, and Influences

Karl Marx’s Life, Ideas, and Influences PDF Author: Shaibal Gupta
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030248151
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Since the latest crisis of capitalism broke out in 2008, Marx has been back in fashion, and sometimes it seems that his ideas have never been as topical, or as commanding of respect and interest, as they are today. This edited collection arises from one of the largest international conferences dedicated to the bicentenary of Marx’s birth. The volume contains 16 chapters authored by globally renowned scholars and is divided into two parts: I) On the Critique of Politics; II) On the Critique of Political Economy. These contributions, from multiple academic disciplines, offer diverse perspectives on why Marx is still so relevant for our times and make this book a source of great appeal for both expert scholars of Marx as well as students and general readers who are approaching his theories for the first time.

The Automatic Fetish

The Automatic Fetish PDF Author: Beverley Best
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1804294802
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Why you should read all three volumes of Marx's Capital together The Automatic Fetish recreates Marx's analysis of capital, step-by-step, through the material compiled posthumously as Capital, Volume three. Identifying the critique of value as the central through-line of the analysis, Best elaborates Marx's theory of value as a theory of movement through which the capital-machine generates social forms of appearance that are the inversions of its inner operating mechanisms. Characterizing capital’s movement and the dynamic production of social form as a 'perceptual physics,' Best demonstrates the consistency and the coherency with which Marx's theory of value orients all trajectories of analysis in Capital 3, as well as providing the conceptual bridge between Volumes on. The book illustrates the way in which capital’s development to this day is as much as a story of the continuity of capital's inner dynamics as it is a story of ongoing transformation of capital's surface-forms. Best develops, through Marx's critique, an analysis of money, credit, crisis, and the derivatives of profit-interest and ground-rent, that takes the reader from their emergence as capitalist forms to their current expressions. Neither a back-to-basics nor newfangled reconstruction, The Automatic Fetish eschews novelty to show why, once again, Marx deserves to be read carefully.

Speculation

Speculation PDF Author: Marina Vishmidt
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262373890
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
A wide-ranging investigation of what speculation is, and what is at stake for artistic, curatorial, critical, and institutional practices in relating to their own speculative character. Engaging with the question of speculation in ways that encompass the artistic, the economic, and the philosophical, with excursions into the literary and the scientific, this collection approaches the theme as a powerful logic of contemporary life whose key instantiations are art and finance. Both are premised on the power of contingency, temporality, and experimentation in the creation (and capitalization) of possible worlds. Artistic autonomy, and the self-legislation of the space of art, have often been seen as the freedom to speculate wildly on material and social possibilities. In this context, the artist is seen as a speculative subject and a paragon of creativity—the diametrical opposite of the bean-counter obsessed with balance sheets and value added. However, once social reality becomes speculative and opaque in its own right—risky, algorithmic, and overhauled by networked markets—what becomes of the distinction between not just art and finance but art and life? This anthology surveys material and social inventiveness from the ground up, speculating with technologies, gender, constructs of the family, and systems of logistics and coordination. An ecology of speculation is traced—one that is as broken, specific, and enthralling as the world. Artists Surveyed include Bertolt Brecht, Jerzy Ludwiński, Cameron Rowland, Salvage Art Institute, Andy Warhol, Mi You, PiraMMMida, Sam Lewitt Writers Include Lisa Adkins, Ramon Amaro, Brenna Bhandar, Octavia Butler, Cédric Durand, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Sophie Lewis, Dougal Dixon, Stanisław Lem, Isabelle Stengers and Phillip Pignarre, Steven Shaviro, Can Xue, Daniel Spaulding

Protocol

Protocol PDF Author: Alexander R. Galloway
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262303639
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
How Control Exists after Decentralization Is the Internet a vast arena of unrestricted communication and freely exchanged information or a regulated, highly structured virtual bureaucracy? In Protocol, Alexander Galloway argues that the founding principle of the Net is control, not freedom, and that the controlling power lies in the technical protocols that make network connections (and disconnections) possible. He does this by treating the computer as a textual medium that is based on a technological language, code. Code, he argues, can be subject to the same kind of cultural and literary analysis as any natural language; computer languages have their own syntax, grammar, communities, and cultures. Instead of relying on established theoretical approaches, Galloway finds a new way to write about digital media, drawing on his backgrounds in computer programming and critical theory. "Discipline-hopping is a necessity when it comes to complicated socio-technical topics like protocol," he writes in the preface. Galloway begins by examining the types of protocols that exist, including TCP/IP, DNS, and HTML. He then looks at examples of resistance and subversion—hackers, viruses, cyberfeminism, Internet art—which he views as emblematic of the larger transformations now taking place within digital culture. Written for a nontechnical audience, Protocol serves as a necessary counterpoint to the wildly utopian visions of the Net that were so widespread in earlier days.

Probings and Re-Probings

Probings and Re-Probings PDF Author: Sankar Ray
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000485595
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
'Controversy was the breath of Marx's life and he revelled in it. We are therefore not at all apologetic', wrote Puran Chand Joshi in the preface to Karl Marx: A Symposium, published in 1968 commemorating the 150th birth anniversary of Marx, adding further, (It is) 'in the best Indian tradition to operate with belief and hope that it is only through the clash of ideas that truth emerges.' At a time, when a Marxian renaissance has been taking place in academia, Joshi's words reverberate with a new vitality, an evanescence of 'official Marxism' and official Marxist parties notwithstanding. There is no denying that the so-called Marxists now pay dearly for wavering 'between a rather mechanistic interpretation of crisis and its opposite: the conviction that capitalism could only be overcome by an act of will.' This book is the outcome of an international conference on Karl Marx organised by ADRI in Patna between June 16 and 20, 2018 keeping the new Marxian reality in mind. Over 50 scholars from across the world sent papers to the Conference, covering topics such as economics, politics, society, philosophy, etc. ADRI welcomed them with an open mind in sync with the Marxian reawakening that treats Marx historically and critically. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Theory of the Gimmick

Theory of the Gimmick PDF Author: Sianne Ngai
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674984544
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Christian Gauss Award Shortlist Winner of the ASAP Book Prize A Literary Hub Book of the Year “Makes the case that the gimmick...is of tremendous critical value...Lies somewhere between critical theory and Sontag’s best work.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “Ngai exposes capitalism’s tricks in her mind-blowing study of the time- and labor-saving devices we call gimmicks.” —New Statesman “One of the most creative humanities scholars working today...My god, it’s so good.” —Literary Hub “Ngai is a keen analyst of overlooked or denigrated categories in art and life...Highly original.” —4Columns “It is undeniable that part of what makes Ngai’s analyses of aesthetic categories so appealing...is simply her capacity to speak about them brilliantly.” —Bookforum “A page turner.” —American Literary History Deeply objectionable and yet strangely attractive, the gimmick comes in many guises: a musical hook, a financial strategy, a striptease, a novel of ideas. Above all, acclaimed theorist Sianne Ngai argues, the gimmick strikes us both as working too little (a labor-saving trick) and working too hard (a strained effort to get our attention). When we call something a gimmick, we register misgivings that suggest broader anxieties about value, money, and time, making the gimmick a hallmark of capitalism. With wit and critical precision, Ngai explores the extravagantly impoverished gimmick across a range of examples: the fiction of Thomas Mann, Helen DeWitt, and Henry James; the video art of Stan Douglas; the theoretical writings of Stanley Cavell and Theodor Adorno. Despite its status as cheap and compromised, the gimmick emerges as a surprisingly powerful tool in this formidable contribution to aesthetic theory.

The Returns of Fetishism

The Returns of Fetishism PDF Author: Charles de Brosses
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022646489X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
For more than 250 years, Charles de Brosses’s term “fetishism” has exerted great influence over our most ambitious thinkers. Used as an alternative to “magic,” but nonetheless expressing the material force of magical thought, de Brosses’s term has proved indispensable to thinkers as diverse as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Lacan, Baudrillard, and Derrida. With this book, Daniel H. Leonard offers the first fully annotated English translation of the text that started it all, On the Worship of Fetish Gods, and Rosalind C. Morris offers incisive commentary that helps modern readers better understand it and its legacy. The product of de Brosses’s autodidactic curiosity and idiosyncratic theories of language, On the Worship of Fetish Gods is an enigmatic text that is often difficult for contemporary audiences to assess. In a thorough introduction to the text, Leonard situates de Brosses’s work within the cultural and intellectual milieu of its time. Then, Morris traces the concept of fetishism through its extraordinary permutations as it was picked up and transformed by the fields of philosophy, comparative religion, political economy, psychoanalysis, and anthropology. Ultimately, she breaks new ground, moving into and beyond recent studies by thinkers such as William Pietz, Hartmut Böhme, and Alfonso Iacono through illuminating new discussions on topics ranging from translation issues to Africanity and the new materialisms.

Immanent Externalities

Immanent Externalities PDF Author: Rebecca Carson
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004522476
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Environmental degradation, crises in care and the predations of finance capital impose new challenges to human reproduction. It is imperative to understand their roots in capitalism. But how best to do so? This book develops the concept of ‘immanent externalities’ to grasp the non-capitalist life processes produced by – and necessary for – capitalist reproduction. Immanent Externalities thus considers the category of reproduction by means of a philosophical re-reading of the three volumes of Marx’s Capital. In doing so, the book locates capitalism’s fundamental contradiction as that between the reproduction of profit-driven activity and ecologically situated human life, suggesting new orientations for theory and practice today.