What is Radical Politics Today?

Radical Politics

WHAT IS RADICAL POLITICS TODAY?

 

What is Radical Politics Today?

Debate and book launch

1.30pm, 25th November 2009, Canada House, Trafalgar Square, London, SW1Y 5BJ

Hosted by:
Catherine Fieschi (Director of Counterpoint, The Think Tank of the British Council; http://www.counterpoint-online.org/)
Jonathan Pugh (Director, the Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space network; http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org)
Dan Porter (Marketing Executive, Palgrave Macmillan).

Those who are interested in attending should contact: counterpoint@britishcouncil.org

The discussion on 25th November will include … Doreen Massey, Saskia Sassen and David Chandler.

NEW BOOK:

What is Radical Politics Today?

Published November 2009, by Palgrave Macmillan

Edited by Jonathan Pugh, Senior Academic Fellow, Newcastle University

A crisis makes you re-think your life. The recent economic crisis is no exception. All of us are now thinking how the world could be run differently. Despite this, a radical alternative has hardly emerged to mobilise the masses, which begs the question: What is radical politics today? In this book, leading academics, politicians, journalists and activists attempt to pinpoint an answer, debating the issues facing radical politics in the 21st Century. Rarely united in their opinions, they collectively interrogate the character and spirit of being radical in our times.

Including original contributions from Zygmunt Bauman, Frank Furedi, Paul Kingsnorth, James Heartfield, Terrell Carver, Clare Short, Edward W. Soja, David Chandler, Hilary Wainwright, Dora Apel, Michael J. Watts, Jason Toynbee, James Martin, Jeremy Gilbert and Jo Littler, Doreen Massey, Gregor McLennan, Tariq Modood, Nick Cohen, Amir Saeed and David Bates, Alastair Bonnett, Ken Worpole, Sheila Jasanoff, Nigel Thrift, Will Hutton, Saul Newman, Chantal Mouffe, David Featherstone, Alejandro Colas and Jason Edwards, David Boyle, and Saskia Sassen.

The project is ongoing, through the Radical Politics Today magazine and events (see http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org)

To purchase the book:
Order online at http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=375741
http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Radical-Politics-Today-Jonathan/dp/023023626X
or visit your local bookseller.

Hardback 978-0-230-23625-7
Paperback 978-0-230-23626-4

Those who come to the book launch, or attend Spaces of Democracy and Democracy of Space events more generally, will get 25% off the paperback purchase price.

Keys themes of ‘What is Radical Politics Today?’

*A wide-ranging survey of the spirit and character of radical politics at this pivotal moment in history.
*Thirty influential commentators write original 3000 word essays.
*Offers thought provoking and often conflicting opinions.
*Accessibly written for the general public and student audiences.

Recommendations for ‘What is Radical Politics Today?’

‘This is a bold, brave and timely book. As we emerge, blinking into the light after three decades of neo-liberal darkness, Jonathan Pugh has put together a collection of essays that will provoke and provide clues to the question of what comes next; what indeed is radical politics today ?’ — Neal Lawson (Chair, Compass)

‘This collection is a model for the kinds of discussion we need to move forward.’ — Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire, Multitude and Commonwealth

‘ … we need this sort of sustained critical discussion of the kinds of alternative politics available to us.’ — James Tully (University of Victoria).

‘…a major contribution to the ongoing debate on the problems of our times.’ — Lord Bhikhu Parekh

‘ … what sort of Left can win hearts and minds in this moment of crisis? The answers to these important questions are the stuff of this excellent book.’ — Noel Castree (Manchester University).

‘With impeccable timing, this volume provides a stimulating range of perspectives on what radical politics can offer during this period of crisis and change. It deserves to be widely read and debated.’ — Ruth Lister (Loughborough University).

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht: Story of a Friendship?

Bertolt Brecht

Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht: Story of a Friendship?

A one-day conference

10am–8pm,
6 November 2009
Birkbeck,
Malet Street, Bloomsbury
London wc1e 7hx
Rooms b36/b02 & b03

The English translation of Erdmut Wizisla’s formidable study Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht: The Story of a Friendship was published this Autumn by Libris. No one has a better view of the much disputed relationship between these two figures than Erdmut Wizisla, director of Berlin’s Benjamin and Brecht Archives. Greeting the German edition, Momme Brodersen, Benjamin’s biographer, spoke for many when he wrote: ‘If this book had appeared decades ago, it would have terminated an unproductive debate in one fell swoop: that of the influence – be it fruitful, be it disastrous – of probably the most significant German playwright and poet of the 20th century, Bertolt Brecht, on probably the most significant critic of his day, Walter Benjamin’. Our conference celebrates the book’s publication and explores the ways in which Wizisla’s study augments, challenges or re-constellates previous analyses (most notably the one emanating from that other Story of a Friendship, published in English in 1982, by Gershom Scholem).

The conference is free, but please register beforehand by email to Julia Eisner, j.eisner@bbk.ac.uk

Any queries may be directed to Esther Leslie, e.leslie@bbk.ac.uk

Conference Programme
10am–5pm
Room b36, basement, Birkbeck, main building
Papers are c. 20 minutes long and are followed by discussion

10.00am Registration
10.20 Opening words

10.30 Peter Thompson (Sheffeld)
Brecht, Benjamin and the Crisis of Modernity

11.10 Chryssoula Kambas (Osnabrck)
From West to East: An External Examiner Remembers

11.50 Break

12.10pm Barbara Engh (Leeds)
Friendship and Clang Figures

1.00 Lunch break

2.30 Erdmut Wizisla (Berlin) – The Benjamin Archive and the New German Benjamin Edition

3.10 Tony Phelan (Oxford) Brecht on Benjamin – ‘On the Philosophy of History’

3.50 Break

4.10 Summing up – Esther Leslie
Constellations and Comradeship

5.00 Conference closes

Launch
5.30–c. 8pm
Rooms B02 & B03
Erdmut Wizisla, Walter Benjamin
and Bertolt Brecht – the Story of a Friendship, Libris, London 2009

‘Wizisla’s brilliant study of the complex and controversial intellectual relationship between Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht will be the standard work on this subject for years to come. It blows away the dusty cliches that
have so far passed for scholarship in this area, thanks to Wizisla’s unsurpassed knowledge of previously unpublished documents and archive materials, which enables him to reconstruct and reconsider every dimension of Brecht and
Benjamin’s relationship from 1929 to 1940. Lucidly and accessibly written, this book is essential reading not only for Brecht and Benjamin specialists, but for all those interested in this crucial phase of twentieth century cultural history.’
– Steve Giles, Emeritus Professor of German Studies and Critical Theory, University of Nottingham.

5.30pm Welcome and wine
5.40 Words of memory and thanks – Nick Jacobs
5.45 Introduction – Tom Kuhn
6.00 Erdmut Wizisla – ‘My First Acquaintance with Brecht and Benjamin’
Thereafter wine and snacks

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ides: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Douglas Kennedy

The Pursuit of Happiness

DOUGLAS KENNEDY

 

Ruth Rikowski has written a subtantial article on the work of the American novelist Douglas Kennedy. You can view Ruth’s article at her Serendipitous Moments blog: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.com/2009/10/douglas-kennedy.html

Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Two Talks by Shlomo Sand in New York City

Jerusalem

TWO TALKS BY SHLOMO SAND IN NYC

 

TALK  BY  PROFESSOR  SHLOMO  SAND, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  TEL  AVIV, ON  HIS  NEWLY TRANSLATED  BOOK, THE  INVENTION  OF  THE  JEWISH  PEOPLE

”This may be the most important and most surprising book on Zionism, Israel and Judaism written in the last fifty years. Nothing in the Middle East looks the same after reading it. To whet your desire to attend the talk, I’ve appended a brief sketch of some of the major themes in the book at the end of this announcement. I’ve also booked a large hall for Sand’s talk (SEE BELOW), so please pass this announcement on to friends, students and colleagues who are (or should be) interested in these subjects”–Bertell Ollman

BRECHT FORUM –
451  WEST  STREET  (BETWEEN BANK  AND  BETHUNE  STREETS,  THAT IS  ON THE CORNER OF WHAT WOULD BE ABOUT 12TH STREET AND THE WEST SIDE HIGHWAY)

DATE /  TIME  – THURSDAY,  OCTOBER 15  -  7:30 – 10:00 PM
(In Discussion with Professor Joel Kovel, Bard College, author of OVERCOMING ZIONISM)

***

MARXIST THEORY COLLOQUIUM AT NYU

DATE / TIME – FRIDAY, OCTOBER  16   -   4:15 – 6:15 PM
(Please note new date and later starting time)
PLACE  – MEYER HALL,  N.Y.U., 4 WASHINGTON PLACE (between West 4^th Street and Waverly Place, just west of Broadway), Room 121. (Please note new place)

SPEAKER: – PROFESSOR SHLOMO SAND
Sand is a much published professor in the Dept. of History at Tel Aviv University specializing in the history of ideas. His most recent book is THE INVENTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE.  It is an extremely scholarly, very original, and often shocking work – the title is meant literally – with profound implications for Zionism and the ongoing conflict between Israel and its neighbors. I can’t recall when last I – Bertell – learned so much about both nationalism and Zionism from any book. It was a best seller and caused a huge scandal when it appeared a couple of years ago in Israel and another scandal when the French edition appeared last year. Sand will be in the U.S. for a week promoting the English edition of the book. For more, see reviews and interviews in English at: http://inventionofthejewishpeope.com      

TOPIC – “THE INVENTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE”

DON’T MISS THIS ONE!

*********MEDIA – Professor Sand has a few time slots available for interviews with the media during his stay in New York (Oct. 15 – 18). Those of you in the media (or who have contacts in the media) who are interested in interviewing him, should write to Julie McCarroll, his editor at Verso Books at juliem@versobooks.com

******************* NYU REQUIRES A PHOTO I.D.TO GET INTO ALL OF ITS BUILDINGS

BRIEF SKETCH OF SAND’S BOOK

THE INVENTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE  is divided into two parts. The first is a long section on the theory of nationalism, whose main characteristic, according to Sand, is the tendency to invent a past that suits the current needs and goals of the people in question. This is not a new idea (Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner have presented versions of it), but this is the best account of it that I have read. Second, there follows a much longer section on Zionism, Judaism and Israel, in light of the earlier discussion of nationalism. Most of this long book is devoted to showing with a great deal of evidence and arguments from several different disciplines that most of Jewish history has been invented.

The turning point is the supposed expulsion of the Jews from Palestine by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. (apparently, there is no evidence for this; the Roman’s never engaged in such mass expulsions; and most of the Jews in Palestine at the time were peasants living in the countryside, who would not be directly affected by the destruction of Jerusalem).

This raises two key questions: 1) Where did the large Jewish populations that turn up later throughout the rest of the Middle East and Europe come from, if they were not descended from people who were expelled from Palestine by the Romans? Sand’s answer is that most of them came from mass conversions of peoples to Judaism that occurred in at least three different places and times between the destruction of the Second Temple and the early modern period. (He also shows that some mass conversions of people to Judaism took place in Palestine even before the destruction of the Second Temple. So the practice of converting people, even large groups of people, to Judaism is not as unknown to the history of Judaism as is commonly believed.)

Probably the biggest mass conversion took place in Khazaria, a Turkamen empire between the Caspian and the Black Sea between the 8^th and 11th century A.D., which was destroyed in the 11th century by attacks from Russians, with most of its Jewish population migrating west into eastern Europe. Together with a somewhat later, smaller, more prosperous and more cultured Jewish migration from Western Europe through Germany, they became the future Jews of Poland, Russia, Hungary, etc.

A second mass conversion in the period after the destruction of the Second Temple took place among several Berber tribes in North Africa in the 6th century A.D., though many conversions to Judaism occurred in and around what had been Carthage and other coastal towns in North Africa before that. When the Arabs brought Islam to these lands a century later, they showed their typical respect for the “people of the book” by not forcing them to adopt their religion. Then, when North African Muslims (not Arabs from Arabia) invaded Spain in 711 A.D., Jewish Berbers made up a good part of their army, and included at least one general. Many of them settled in Spain, and became the core of what we call the Spanish Jews. The third big conversion(s) occurred in Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian 
peninsula, which had a large number of Jews from very early on, including at least one Jewish king in the 6th century A.D., who tried to convert  his subjects to Judaism.

Granted that some Jews already lived throughout the Middle East and Southern Europe before the destruction of the Second Temple – but if we add up all the mass conversions to Judaism that occurred after this event, it appears that the bulk of world Jewry from the early middle ages on were descended from people who never set foot in Palestine. Which raises, of course, the next key question – what happened to the Jews who were still in Palestine after the destruction of the Second Temple? Where did they go? Sand’s answer is that they didn’t go anywhere. They are today’s Palestinians, most of whom converted to Islam in the early years of Islam’s expansion into the rest of the Middle-East. These are not unsupported conjectures, for the great strength of Sand’s book lies in the enormous wealth of evidence and careful, scholarly argumentation he offers for each of his claims.

Where does all this leave the central idea that underlies the whole Zionist project: that Jews everywhere have not only a duty but a right to return to “their original homeland”, Palestine? I can’t think of a more fundamental critique of Zionism and therefore of Israel too than the one found in Sand’s book. No serious reader who is interested in Zionism or Israel – whatever their personal views  – can avoid being shaken up “big-time” by Sand’s impressive redrawing of the major religious and “racial” boundaries that are usually taken for granted in most discussion of these subjects.

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Geographies of Power

Global Power

GEOGRAPHIES OF POWER

 

A Lecture on Venezuela by Doreen Massey

This event involves Doreen Massey (co-initiator of the Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space network).

Simón Bolívar Hall
54 Grafton Way
London
WIT 5DL

Tuesday 27th October 2009,
7-30pm – 9.00pm

Venezuela is experimenting with new forms of democracy. It aims to address the balance between the dominant coastal cities and the rest  of the country. And it is inventing new structures of participatory democracy to parallel those of the representative democracy of the state. In other words, it has taken seriously the important relation between power and space. And in doing so, it has drawn on a concept of Doreen Massey’s: ‘power geometry’. The fourth motor of the revolution, as set out in 2007, is the need to build ‘una nueva geometría del poder’. In this talk, Doreen Massey reflects on this relation between geography and power, on the Venezuelan experiment, and on the use of the idea of geometries of power in building a more democratic society.

In co-ordination with the Cultural Section of the Venezuelan Embassy.

For “The Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space” network website
http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org<http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org/>

For Radical Politics Today magazine
http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org/resources/publications/magazine/magazine.html<http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org/resources/publications/magazine.magazine.html> <http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org/resources/publications/magazine/magazine.html>

For more on the book What is radical politics today?, published in 2009 by Palgrave MacMillan: http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org/resources/resources_bookstoread.html

Jonathan Pugh
Senior Academic Fellow
Director “The Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space” network
School of Geography, Politics and Sociology
5th Floor Claremont Tower
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
United Kingdom
Honorary Fellow, The Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski, The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

London Anarchist Bookfair 2009

Anarchist Bookfair 2009

LONDON ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR 2009

 

Saturday, 24th October 2009, from 10am to 7pm

Books – Meetings – Workshops – Food – Films – Creche … and More!

As capitalism collapses around us in the market of ideas the anarchist pound is bouyant and the 28th London Anarchist Bookfair is back at Queen Mary College in London’s East End. A big thank you to everyone who helped make last year’s bookfair run smoothly and to you all for respecting the space.  Last year we have 38 meetings, 90 stalls, an all day cabaret starring assorted ranters, poets, singers and comics; all day film showings and, two kids spaces. We are planning more of the same in 2009.

Stalls will again be split between the Great Hall and the Octagon room, which means that there will be more space and the whole bookfair will be wheelchair accessible. Please contact the info stall for wheelchair lift passes if you need one. If you have any other access requirements, please let us know in advance if possible so we can meet your needs. If you are Deaf and require BSL interpreting and/or speech-to-text provision, please give us as much notice as possible and we will do our best to organise these.

To discuss any specific access needs, please contact us at: mail@anarchistbookfair.org. At the bookfair please go to the info stall for further details.

Next to the Octagon room will be an all day tea, coffee and snack stall (until 6pm).

The creche will be signposted, and the ‘older kids room’ is also in the basement below the Octagon Room.

We have loads going on – see the rest of the website, for a run down of the meetings and other events. More will be added as we get nearer to October.

Please don’t forget this is all organised by a small collective – so any help would be very much appreciated. This year, more than ever, we need your donations to break even – the room and table hire have gone up and we may be over a grand down again. So, any donations or funds from benefit gigs would come in very handy.

Getting to the venue: The venue for this year’s London Anarchist Bookfair, for the 3rd year running, is Queen Mary & Westfield College, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS.

If you are coming by public transport the following buses stop near the college on Mile End Road: 25; 205; 339.

If you are coming by tube the two nearest stations are Mile End (central line / Hammersmith & City line or District line) or Stepney Green (Hammersmith & City line or District line). From Mile End tube come out of station and turn left. Walk along Mile End Road until you get to Harford Street and entrance to venue is opposite Harford Road. From Stepney Green tube come out of station and turn left. Walk along Mile End Road and venue entrance is on your left opposite Harford Road.

Further details: http://www.anarchistbookfair.org

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Victor Rikowski, The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Zizek: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

Porcupine Tree - The Incident

FIRST AS TRAGEDY, THEN AS FARCE

 

Verso Books and the Brecht Forum welcome

Zizek: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

7:00 PM / Wednesday October 14, 2009, the Cooper Union, Great Hall, New York

Advance Registration: http://www.brechtforum.org/zizek  

Pay what you can: $10 / $15 ($15 admission includes a copy of Zizek’s newly-released First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

Called “the most dangerous philosopher in the West,” Slavoj Žižek is today’s most controversial public intellectual. His work traverses the fields of philosophy, psychoanalysis, theology, history and political theory, taking in film, popular culture, literature and jokes—all to provide acute analyses of the complexities of contemporary ideology as well as a serious and sophisticated philosophy. The author of over 50 books, his forthcoming First as Tragedy, Then As Farce will be published in October.

Slavoj Žižek’s provocative prose has challenged a generation of activists and intellectuals. Now “the Elvis of cultural theory” will make a major New York City appearance on October 14 at the Great Hall in Cooper Union. Zizek’s talk—“FIRST AS TRAGEDY, THEN AS FARCE”—will frame the current global crisis, with an accessible analysis of how we moved from the tragedy 9/11 to the farce of the financial meltdown.

First as Tragedy, Then As Farce (Verso Books; $12.95; Pub October 19, 2009) asks whether we are prepared now that history has forced itself upon us, first with the attacks of September 11, 2001 and more recently with the financial meltdown of 2008. While figures on the Right and Left alike now descry the years of irrational exuberance that propped up the housing bubble, few have come to understand the deadlock that binds us. A call for the Left to reinvent itself in the light of our desperate historical situation, First as Tragedy, Then As Farce declares that “the time for liberal, moralistic blackmail is over.”

VISIT ZIZEK’S NEWLY LAUNCHED WEBSITE: http://zizek.us/

BUY THE BOOK: http://zizek.us/tragedy/

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Toward a Global Autonomous University

 

Edu-factory

TOWARD A GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY

 

Toward a Global Autonomous University: Cognitive Labor, the Production of Knowledge and Exodus from the Education Factory

By: Edu-factory Collective
ISBN 978-1-57027-204-2: price $14.95: 196 pages

What was once the factory is now the university. We started off with this apparently straightforward affirmation, not in order to assume it but to question it; to open it, radically rethinking it, towards theoretical and political research. The Edu-factory project took off from here….Edu-factory is, above all, a partisan standpoint on the crisis of the university…. The state university is in ruins, the mass university is in ruins, and the university as a privileged place of national culture — just like the concept of national culture itself — is in ruins.

We’re not suffering from nostalgia. Quite the contrary, we vindicate the university’s destruction. In fact, the crisis of the university was determined by social movements in the first place. This is what makes us not merely immune to tears for the past but enemies of such a nostalgic disposition.

University corporatization and the rise of a global university…are not unilateral impositions or developments completely contained by capitalist rationality. Rather they are the result — absolutely temporary and thus reversible — of a formidable cycle of struggles. The problem is to transform the field of tension delineated by the processes analyzed in this book into specific forms of resistance and the organization of escape routes.

This is Edu-factory’s starting point and objective, its style and its method.

The Edu-factory Collective: http://www.edu-factory.org/edu15/

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Edu-factory

Capitalism and the Dialectic

Not What It Seems

CAPITALISM AND THE DIALECTIC

 

PRESS RELEASE
– A Clear introduction to ground-breaking but little-known approach to Marxian political economy –

Capitalism And The Dialectic: The Uno-Sekine Approach To Marxian Political Economy
John R. Bell
Released October 25th 2009
PB / £ 25.00 / 9780745329338 / 230mm x 150mm / 256pp

This book is a clear introduction to a groundbreaking but little-known approach to Marxian economics: the Uno-Sekine approach. With this perceptive and thoughtful volume, John Bell renders a great service to the interested Western reader – Tom Sekine

From the 1960s to the 1990s the ground-breaking Japanese economists Kozo Uno and Thomas Sekine developed a masterful reconfiguration of Marxist economics. The most well-known aspect of which is the levels of analysis approach to the study of capitalism. Written in Japanese, the Uno-Sekine approach to Marx’s work is little understood in the West. John Bell seeks to correct this, explaining how problematic elements of Marxian Political Economy such as the law of value and the law of relative surplus population can be solved by using a more rigorous dialectical analysis. Bell’s clear and accessible synthesis provides economists with the tools to interrogate capitalism in a more powerful way than ever before.

John R. Bell taught for over three decades at Seneca College, Toronto, Canada. His ‘Dialectics and Economic Theory’ appeared in ‘A Japanese Approach to Political Economy’ (1995); ‘From Hegel to Marx to the Dialectic of Capital’ appeared in ‘New Dialectics and Political Economy’ (2003). He and Thomas Sekine co-authored ‘The Disintegration of Capitalism: A Phase of Ex-Capitalist Transition’ in ‘Phases of Capitalist Development: Booms, Crises and Globalizations’ (2001). In 2004 he co-edited ‘New Socialisms’, to which he contributed, ‘Marx’s Anti-Authoritarian Ecocommunism.

For further information, to request a review copy or to speak to the author please contact Jon Wheatley at jonw@plutobooks.com or on 0208 374 6424

345 ARCHWAY ROAD, LONDON, N6 5AA
TEL: 0208 3482724 FAX: 0208 348 9133 http://www.plutobooks.com

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Deleuze and Race

Gilles Deleuze

DELEUZE & RACE

 

Jason Adams

While the relevance of Gilles Deleuze for a materialist feminism has been amply demonstrated in the last two decades or so, what this key philosopher of difference and desire can do for the theorization of race and racism has received surprisingly little attention. This is despite the explicit formulation of a materialist theory of race as instantiated in colonization, sensation, capitalism and culture, particularly in Deleuze’s collaborative work with Félix Guattari.

Part of the explanation of why there has been a relative silence on Deleuze within critical race and colonial studies is that the philosophical impetus for overcoming eugenics and nationalism have for decades been anchored in the conventional readings of Kant and Hegel, which Deleuze laboured to displace. Through the vocabularies of psychoanalysis, deconstruction, and moral philosophy, even the more sophisticated theorizations of race today continue the neo-Kantian/neo-Hegelian programme of retrieving a cosmopolitan universality beneath the ostensibly inconsequential differences called race.

Opposing this idealism, Deleuze instead asks whether the conceptual basis for this program, however commendable, does not foreclose its political aims, particularly in its avoidance of the material relations it seeks to change. The representationalism and oversimplified dialectical frameworks guiding the dominant antiracist programme actively suppress an immanentist legacy which according to Deleuze is far better suited to grasping how power and desire differentiate bodies and populations: the legacies of Spinoza, Marx and Nietzsche; biology and archeology; Virginia Woolf and Jack Kerouac; cinema, architecture, and the fleshy paintings of Francis Bacon. It is symptomatic too, that Foucault’s influential notion of biopolitics, so close to Deleuze and Guattari’s writings on the state, is usually taken up without its explicit grounding in race, territory and capitalist exchange. Similarly, those (like Negri) that twist biopolitics into a mainly Marxian category, meanwhile, lose the Deleuzoguattarian emphasis on racial and sexual entanglement. It would seem then, that it is high time for a rigorous engagement with the many conceptual ties between Foucault’s lectures on biopolitics, Deleuze and Guattari, and Deleuze-influenced feminism, to obtain a new materialist framework for studying racialization as well as the ontopolitics of becoming from which it emerges. While it will inevitably overlap in a few ways, this collection will differ from work done under the “postcolonial” rubric for a number of important reasons.

First, instead of the mental, cultural, therapeutic, or scientific representations of racial difference usually analyzed in postcolonial studies, it will seek to investigate racial difference “in itself”, as it persists as a biocultural, biopolitical force amid other forces. For Deleuze and Guattari, as for Nietzsche before them, race is far from inconsequential, though this does not mean it is set in stone.

Second, as Fanon knew, race is a global phenomenon, with Europe’s racism entirely entwined with settler societies and the continuing poverty in the peripheries. The effects of exploitation, slavery, displacement, war, migration, exoticism and miscegenation are too geographically diffuse and too contemporary to fit comfortably under the name “postcolonial”. Rather, we seek to illuminate the material divergences that phenotypical variation often involves, within any social, cultural or political locus.

Third, again like Nietzsche, but also Freud, Deleuze and Guattari reach into the deep recesses of civilization to expose an ancient and convoluted logic of racial discrimination preceding European colonialism by several millennia. Far from naturalizing racism, this nomadological and biophilosophical “geology of morals” shows that racial difference is predicated on fully contingent territorializations of power and desire, that can be disassembled and reassembled differently. That race is immanent to the materiality of the body then, does not mean that it is static any more than that it is simple: rather what it suggests is that its transformation is an always already incipient reality.

Possible themes:

CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS – Oedipus and racialization – fascist desire – civilization, savagery and barbarism – earth and its peoples – delirium and hallucination as racial – miscegenation

CAPITALISM – faciality – colonization and labor migration as racializing apparatuses of capture – urban segregation – environmental racism

POLITICS – hate speech and law as order-words – D&G, May ‘68 and the third world – Deleuze and Palestine – Guattari and Brazil – terrorist war machines and societies of control – Deleuzian feminism and race

SCIENCE – neuroscience and race – continuing legacies of racist science and the “Bell Curve” debate – kinship, rhizomatics and arboreality – animals, plants, minerals and racial difference – miscegenation – evolutionary biology and human phenotypical variation – vitalism and Nazism

ART – affects of race (sport, hiphop, heavy metal, disco…) – primitivism (Rimbaud, Michaux, Artaud, Tournier, Castaneda, etc.) – vision, cinema and race – music, resonance and bodies

PHILOSOPHY – geophilosophy: provincializing canonical philosophy – race and becoming – decolonizing Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Schelling… – the effect of criticisms of Deleuze (Badiou, Zizek, Hallward) on antiracism Chapters will be between 4000 and 7000 words long.

Arun Saldanha will write the introduction and a chapter called “Bastard and mixed-blood are the true names of race”.

Jason Michael Adams will write the conclusion.

For more details on this project, contact Jason Adams at: adamsj@HAWAII.EDU

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

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