Article

Death, resistance and liberation in Peter Horn's “The Plumstead Elegies”

June 1996
Journal of Literary Studies 12(1-2):171-186

DOI:10.1080/02564719608530132

Authors:

Rhodes University

The article focuses on the notions of death, resistance and liberation in Peter Horn's sequence of poems “The Plumstead Elegies”. It argues that the process of radical personal and social transformation described in the poems is rendered problematical by employing a conceptual framework that is at once psychoanalytic and Marxist. The dilemma posed by the process of transformation described in the poems is seen to arise from a disjunction between the psychoanalytic view of an inevitable division within the psyche, which suggests that the subject can never fully embrace his or her freedom, and the teleological logic of a Marxism requiring that domination be followed by the singular event of a deliverance.

Article

Sep 1997
J Commonwealth Lit

Dorothy Driver

The Language of the Self

Book

Jan 1968

Jacques Lacan

Article

Geniuses of resistance: Feminist consciousness and the Black radical tradition

April 2005 · Race & Class

H.L.T. Quan

This article contests the criticisms of Black Marxism, asa basically masculinist text, that have circulated mainly in oral form. Based in part on an interview with Robinson, the article explores the concept of a closed, top-down narrative, which permits no further engagement or activity on the part of the reader, and an open-ended text, based on a methodology such as Robinson’s, which can act as ... [Show full abstract] a point of departure for other activist scholars. The article develops the notion of resistance itself as gendered, which is particularly evident in Robinson’s later work, and argues that the simplistic inclusion of women does not, of itself, render a text feminist.

Chapter

Resurrecting Marxism

January 1999

David Marsh

Some claim that Marxism is dead and the list of potential killers is quite long, although possible collaboration between them is not denied. The collapse of communism, the triumph of capitalism, New Right ideology and postmodernism have all been credited with a hand in the quick death of Marxism. There is certainly no doubt that Marxism is in crisis to the extent that it is out of fashion; even ... [Show full abstract] university sociology degrees these days are likely to feature more courses drawing on postmodernist thought than on Marxism. At the same time, many intellectual Marxists have changed their position, again often embracing post modernism and pluralism. However, as Andrew Gamble emphasised in Chapter 1, such crises are not new. Marxism, like other theories, has always developed in this way, responding to intellectual challenges from sympathisers as well as critics and attempting to explain and understand changes in the social world which it is analysing. Nevertheless there are some important questions which this book has addressed. How well is Marxism responding to this challenge? Is it still a coherent position? Is it still a relevant position?

Article

The Ethics of Exploitation

November 2008 · Studia Philosophica Estonica

McLaughlin Paul

Philosophical inquiry into exploitation has two major deficiencies to date: it assumes that exploitation is wrong by definition; and it pays too much attention to the Marxian account of exploitation. Two senses of exploitation should be distinguished: the ‘moral’ or pejorative sense and the ‘non-moral’ or ‘non-prejudicial’ sense. By demonstrating the conceptual inadequacy of exploitation as ... [Show full abstract] defined in the first sense, and by defining exploitation adequately in the latter sense, we seek to demonstrate the moral complexity of exploitation. We contend, moreover, that moral evaluation of exploitation is only possible once we abandon a strictly Marxian framework and attempt, in the long run, to develop an integral ethic along Godwinian lines.

Chapter

Historical Observations on Archaeology in the Polish People’s Republic, 1945–1989

December 2017

Sarunas Milisauskas

This article represents a personal perspective and the culmination of my experiences in doing archaeological research in the Polish People’s Republic, 1945- 1989. I make observations on various aspects of Polish archaeology including politics, organization, method, and theory. Major changes occurred in archaeology and politics during this period. There was not much Marxism in archaeology in ... [Show full abstract] communist Poland. It is important to evaluate this period objectively and dispassionately examining its positive and negative aspects and the specific Polish context.

Article

Neoliberalism as a historical stage

July 2018 · Global Discourse

Kojin Karatani

Orthodox Marxist historical materialisms have viewed the history of social formations one-sidedly from the mode of production as base, which over-determines the political, ideological superstructure. In contrast, this article proposes an augmentation of historical materialism which has as its determinative base the mode of exchange. Specifically, through a lens of exchange, a spatial and ... [Show full abstract] territorial element is brought to an analysis and historicizing of imperialism. This article argues that the world entered into an imperialist stage of capitalism in the 1990s. Imperialism is inseparable from the capitalist economy. But it does not necessarily follow that imperialism can be explained away as a historical stage of the capitalist economy. Imperialism is a matter of politics among nations. To see this, we need to look at world history from the double axis, i.e. the state and capital. Modern imperialism is not necessarily expansionist in terms of territory. Rather, it aims at expanding through trade. By way of spreading the market economy, imperialism tries to gain surplus value. Thus, ‘neoliberalism’ by definition is imperialism. Its nature is to aim for global expansion of the market.

Article

Full-text available

Prolegomenon to a Contemporary Psychology of Liberation

August 1998 · Theory & Psychology

Thomas Teo

This prolegomenon outlines a framework for a contemporary, critical psychological theory of liberation. It is argued that recent developments in metatheory have led to problems in both form and content for theory construction in the domain of liberation. As a viable solution to the formal problem, a non-foundational 'conceptual network' is suggested. As 'knots' in this quasi-systematic network, ... [Show full abstract] and thus as a preliminary solution to the problem of content, three critical research programs are reconstructed to deal with different, yet complementary, aspects of power, and which are thus relevant for conceptualizing liberation: Klaus Holzkamp, representing traditional Marxism, and reconstructed in terms of participation in life conditions (labor); Jurgen Habermas, representing neo-Marxism in terms of communication (interaction); and Michel Foucault, representing post-Marxism, in terms of self-representation (aesthetics). From these reconstructions the subject's possibilities against power, essential for a psychology of liberation, are derived. Finally, it is argued that a conceptual network that strives to cope with practical problems must entail contextualization.

Article

Marx, Postmodernity, and Transformation of the Individual

June 1999 · Review of Radical Political Economics

Korkut A. Ertuirk

Postmodernity raises for Marxism the question of what happens to the alienated subject's consciousness and purposeful action in the aftermath of its alienation. Arguing that some of Marx's own ideas can shed light on this question, I make a conceptual distinction between form of consciousness and mode of consciousness to capture what I take to be the kernel of his thinking on the transformation ... [Show full abstract] of the "average" individual and her/his consciousness in his Early Writings, and especially in the Grundrisse.

Article

Full-text available

De la explotación a la subordinación: feminismo y marxismo

January 2015

Anabella Di Tullio Arias

Resumen: A partir de una presentación general de las relaciones y tensiones entre el feminismo y el marxismo, el presente trabajo sostiene la necesidad de repensar los criterios con los que abordamos el análisis de la distinción público-privado y el lugar de las mujeres en esa división. Para ello, propone retomar las categorías conceptuales de Carole Pateman para analizar el contrato matrimonial, ... [Show full abstract] el contrato de trabajo, y el contrato social-sexual, desde una mirada crítica a la noción de individuo como propietario de su persona. Abstract: This paper argues, from a general overview of the relations and the tensions between Feminism and Marxism, the need to rethink the analysis of the public-private distinction and the place of women in that division. It proposes, from a critique perspective of the notion of property in the person, to pick up the thread of the conceptual categories of Carole Pateman to analyze the marriage contract, the employment contract and the social-sexual contract.

Article

Mapping Legal Theory

June 1994 · Alberta Law Review

Richard F. Devlin

In this essay, the author briefly outlines recent trends in Canadian jurisprudence. Beginning with a brief overview of the classical jurisprudential debate between natural lawyers, legal positivists, and legal realists, the author then provides an introduction to a new theoretical tradition which he terms "Artifactualism", as well as a survey of contemporary "Artifactualist Jurisprudence". He ... [Show full abstract] argues that there has been a significant theoretical shift away from the classical conceptualization of law as morality (as embodied in natural law, and challenged by legal positivism and legal realism), toward the conceptualization of law as politics (as promulgated by artifactualism). This new conceptualization of law as the "terrain of struggle over the meaning and quality of social existence" has informed the works of Artifactualist jurisprudents in the areas of Liberalism, Marxism, Feminism, First Nations and Critical Legal Studies, and serves to elucidate some of the tensions in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Article

The Rise of Semiotic Marxism

April 1993 · Sociological Perspectives

Albert Bergesen

This paper identifies four distinct stages in the 20th century emergence of a new direction in Marxian theory. Called here "Semiotic Marxism," its central assumption is a reversal of the classic base/superstructure logic of determinate relations between the economic base and the political and ideological superstructure. Each stage builds upon the theoretical reconstitutions of the previous stage. ... [Show full abstract] To illustrate this step-by-step transformation, the theoretical logic of a representative Marxist theorist is explicated. These four stages in the emergence of a Semiotic Marxism are: (1) the initial inversion of base/superstructure logic (Gramsci), (2) the expansion of the logic of the ideological downward to merge with the logic of the political (Althusser), (3) the further expansion downward of the logic of the now merged ideological/political sphere to absorb the logic of the economic sphere (Poulantzas), and finally, (4) the recasting of the once Marxian social formation comprised of social relations in production, into the new Semiotic Marxist "discursive formation" composed of linguistic relations between subject identities (Laclau and Mouffe).

Article

Social Transformation in Old Hawai'I: A Bottom-Up Approach

October 2010 · American Antiquity

Tom Dye

A bottom-up approach based in structuralism and Marxism cast in the "old language of rights" is used to explain traditional Hawaiian import of metric tons of poor-quality oven stone to the Waimanalo Plain, and to explain decline in the traditional use of tree firewood. The presence of poor-quality oven stones and the pattern of tree firewood use are linked to a long-term decline in the importance ... [Show full abstract] of rights of person and a concomitant increase of rights of property associated with the demise of lineage organization and the development of social stratification. It is argued that a bottom-up approach is more productive in the current archaeological situation than a top-down approach based in functionalism and neoevolutionary theory.

Article

Marx, postmodernity, and transformation of the individual

June 1999

K.A. Erẗrk

Postmodernity raises for Marxism the question of what happens to the alienated subject's consciousness and purposeful action in the aftermath of its alienation. Arguing that some of Marx's own ideas can shed light on this question, I make a conceptual distinction between form of consciousness and mode of consciousness to capture what I take to be the kernel of his thinking on the transformation ... [Show full abstract] of the "average" individual and her/his consciousness in his Early Writings, and especially in the Grundrisse.