Western Marxism Thurs 6PM 6 E16th 906 Introduction The critical thought of our time draws heavily on continental

philosophy, but more often than not what makes it critical is the lingering influence of Marx, as mediated by the so-called western marxists. The term critical here means something different to what it does after Kant. This critical tradition is less about determining the limits to knowledge and more about determining the limits to what about our contemporary society has to be taken at face value. To what degree does what appears as the common sense of our time merely reflect either the interests of those who rule or the contours of our particular form of social organization? So to understand the critical thought of our time, we need, among other things, to know about this critical tradition on which it draws western Marxism. It is different to the Marxism that came to be codified into a dogma in the Soviet Union, particular in Stalins time. While western Marxists disagree on a lot of things, what they have in common is an uneasy attempt to retain some intellectual independence from the authorized thought of the Soviet Union, without passing over into western liberalism. We will start by looking briefly at some short texts by Marx himself, including the famous Estranged Labor text from Marxs 1844 manuscripts. This only surfaced in the 1920s and was a revelation to many who thought they knew Marxs work. One way of defining Western Marxism is that it is a tradition that either (1) anticipated these texts, (2) took them as central to understanding Marx, or (3) reacted against them and stressed Marxs later work instead. Four general texts are particularly recommended. We spend a week on Perry Andersons Considerations on Western Marxism, an excellent short introduction that was very influential in the 70s and since in defining western Marxism, particularly in the Anglophoe world. Dont worry if you dont understand the middle part on the

various arguments. This will become clearer as we go along. We will look at Martin Jays magisterial Marxism and Totality chapter by chapter as we go through the classic texts. Goran Therborns book attempts to update Anderson and bring the story up to date through the so-called post-Marxists. The Jacques Bidet I dont know so well but it looks like a handy reference for the later writers. Rosa Luxemburg and Victor Serge are not usually considered theorists of Western Marxism, but they provide crucial background into the difficult years from 1914 (the Great War) to 1928 (the rise of Stalin) which is the crucible of Western Marxism. We spend March on a range of classic writers that most would agree are part of the Western Marxist tradition. There are inevitably some omissions, but you will understand the overall pattern from these readings. After the late Raymond Williams, we move on to more contemporary inheritors of Western Marxism. Here our coverage is necessarily more partial and incomplete. I chose four authors who can be read as drawing on particular aspects of Western Marxism: Postone on Lukacs, Jameson on Sartre, Negris return to Marx as a repetition of Althussers return to Marx, and Zizeks very different use of psychoanalysis and Hegel to that of Adorno. While hardly exhaustive, this sampling should give some idea of how critical theory in the present draws on the Western Marxist past in various ways. Plagiarism and Academic Integrity Please read the New Schools policies and comply with them. A true scholar cares for nothing but his or her reputation. Dont destroy yours: http://www.newschool.edu/lang/academic-policies/ Assessment Attendance and Participation: 25%

Its to your own advantage to do the readings, come to class, and have something to say for yourself. Habermas used to throw people out of his seminars who did not contribute to them. While I wont be doing that, I agree with him that a seminar is a collaborative process of discovery to which everyone should contribute what they can. And on Marxs principle of from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. Weekly Notes 25% Each week, at the end of class, I will collect from each of you a single page with notes on the weeks reading. This can be keywords, quotes or even your questions about parts you dont understand. I will also ask people to read from their notes at the start of, and during each class. Project Proposal 25% Due March 21st. This is no more than 3 pages, plus an additional bibliography. The proposal may be brief but the bibliography should be extensive. The parameters for the proposal is that it relate no less than three of our western Marxist authors together. You can compare them, you can show how one develops out of the other two. You can show how one would have been better off paying attention to the others. You can show how they argue with each other. Bonus points if you can include our later authors, which will require some reading ahead. Final paper 25% Due 2nd May. Yes, lets get them done early! The final paper must be based on the proposal. You cannot change topic, although the idea for the paper may of course evolve once you get down to it. This is not one of those courses were were looking for too much originality. The paper should show an understanding both of particular authors, their relations (or non-relations) with each other, and their place in history. Readings

For those reading not online, I will email pdfs. So check your email regularly! I will send out more than the recommended weekly readings. Do additional reading if you can, and keep the texts to help with writing your paper. By the end of the course you will have a useful little library, so keep the pdfs and back them up! Useful general references Theres no book to buy, but the following may be useful: Jacques Bidet et al. (ed): Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism Perry Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality Goran Therborn, From Marxism to PostMarxism 31st January Lets start with Marx, particularly the famous Estranged Labor from his 1844 manuscripts. It surfaced after Korsch, Lukacs and Gramsci had written some of the founding western Marxist texts, but they knew the published works well and in some ways filled in the blanks. We will also look at two of Marxs short thumbnail texts which explain his historical method. Karl Marx, Estranged Labor http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts /labour.htm Marx & Engels, The German Ideology, A. Idealism and Materialism http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/germanideology/ch01a.htm Marx & Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party Ch. 1 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communistmanifesto/ch01.htm#007 7th February Next, we jump forward in time to the 70s. After the hot years around 1968, interest in western Marxism really expanded. This short

text sums up a whole program, executed by Anderson and his colleagues at New Left Review, to recover the whole history of continental western Marxism. Anderson intentionally neglects most of the Anglophone Marxists that preceded him, but thats another story. We will partly make up for that omission when we return to Raymond Williams. The first chapter is a very helpful context-setter. Anderson then goes on to map out the major writers and debates. Feel free to bring your questions about this to class. You will probably not get what is going on yet, but dont worry. The pattern will emerge. Perry Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality, introduction 14th February Now we are going back to the period from 1914 to 1928. The war destroyed the internationalism of the mainstream socialist parties. Luxemburg saw this first hand. The 1917 revolution in Russia confounded their theories it was not supposed to happen there. The new Soviet state both inspired and worried western Marxists. Luxemburg warned about its authoritarian tendencies, but Serge saw it first hand, as he was active in the Soviet Union through the civil war years and in Germany during its (failed) postwar revolution. Serge was influenced by the Trotskyist opposition to Stalinism, but also broke with it. Karl Korsch, together with Georg Lukacs, launch western Marxism via a return to the Hegelian side of Marxs writings. They were both inclined initially to critique the Leninist party from the far left, from a tradition close to Luxemburg and known as Council Communism. Rosa Luxemburg, The Junius Pamphlet http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1915/junius/index.h tm Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, ch. 3-5

Karl Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy, http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1923/marxismphilosophy.htm Karl Korsch, The Crisis of Marxism http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1931/crisis-marxism.htm Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality, ch. 3 21st February Lukacs and Gramsci are the two leading figures (with Korsch) at the founding of Western Marxism. Both read Marx through Hegel (in Gramscis case through Italian Hegelians such as Croce). They diverge from the rather mechanistic and deterministic Marxism represented by Nicholai Bukharin, who was perhaps the leading Marxist theorist until Stalin undermined his power and eventually executed him. In these extracts, both Lukacs and Gramsci develop a philosophical scaffold for Msrxism, and also develop key concepts: reification and hegemony, respectively. George Lukacs History and Class Consciousness, What is Orthodox Marxism? and Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/index.ht m Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, The Modern Prince and The Philosophy of Praxis Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality, ch. 2 & 4 28th February Both Adorno and Benjamin read Lukacs, but they develop the Hegelian side of Marxism in very different ways. Unlike their predecessors, they were not political activists. Their work is marked by exile and retreat. Minima Moralia is perhaps the first Marxist work that is also a literary classic, and shows the commodity form at

work in everyday life. Benjamins text breaks decisively with deterministic theories of history. George Bataille reads Marx through the French revelation of Hegel, which happened rather late, and is also influenced by Surrealism. Theodor Adorno Minima Moralia http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1951/mm/in dex.htm Walter Benjamin, One Way Street, The Work of Art and On the Concept of History http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/benjamin/1940/histor y.htm George Bataille, Visions of Excess: Base Materialism, The Old Mole and Base Materialism essays. Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality, ch. 8 & 9 7th March It was Merleau-Ponty who popularized the term western Marxism duing his (brief) Marxist years. Sartre, one of the leading intellectuals of his time, came to Marxism rather late, and like Merleau-Ponty read it through his prior foundation in phenomenology. They represent an influential school of thought in postwar France, and more broadly, in somewhat torturous dialogue with the heavily Stalinist French Communist party, but independent from it. Cesaire, surrealist poet and unrepentant Stalinist, nevertheless wrote a truly excoriating text on colonialism, to which Sartre in particular responds in his own anti-colonial activism, if not quite in his writing. Cesaire is not usually considered a western Marxist, and one might ask why. His inclusion here will have to stand in for a whole host of omissions and blindspots. Maurice Merleu-Ponty, Adventures of the Dialectic: Western Marxism, Sartre and Ultrabolshevism essays.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Search for a Method Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality, ch. 11 & 12 Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism 14th March It is Althusser who breaks with the Hegelian readings of Marx. On the one hand, he insists on the break between the late Marx and his early writings. On the other, he reads Marx in the light not of Hegel but Spinoza, thus starting a very influential strand of western Marxism. Althusser was a member of the French Communist Party, but more sympathetic to Mao and the Chinese revolution. Maos dictum put politics in command is a key one for Althussers concentration on the relative autonomy of political and ideological superstructures, at a time when the Stalinists though of Socialism mostly in terms of expanding Soviet steel production. On the Young Marx http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1961/young -marx.htm Contradiction and Overdetermination http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1962/overd etermination.htm On the Materialist Dialectic http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1963/uneve nness.htm Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality, ch. 13 21st March Drawing on Lukacs, Debord responded to the rise of the Althusserians with a return to the Hegelian version of Marxism, but also like Bataille he responds to the avant gardes such as surrealism.

This famous book is perhaps the first systematic account of modern media and consumer capitalism. Debord was hostile to all the orthodox Marxist parties, be they Stalinist, Maoist or Trotskyist. In politics, he continues the critical (post)Trotsyite position of someone like Victor Serge. His film in girum is, like Minima Moralia, a Marxist literary (and cinematic) classic. Guy Debord Society of the Spectacle ch 1 http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/1.htm Society of the Spectacle ch 5 http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/5.htm Society of the Spectacle ch 8 http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/8.htm In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/ingirum.htm 4th April The Anglophone currents that run in parallel to western Marxism are often neglected. One strand was much more based in the sciences (Needham, Bernal, Haldane and Childe). British Marxists were also particularly strong in history and literature, and Williams draws on both of these and also on Gramsci. His long revolution is about the struggle for hegemony in culture of the British working classes. Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution 11th April Jameson is perhaps the most famous Anglophone Marxist working on cultural questions. His essay on postmodernism may be a bit dated now, but it galvanized a whole literature on how late 20th century capitalist culture may be different to previous eras. The Political Unconscious was a training manual in method for a whole

generation of literary scholars, and still worth reading as such. Influenced by Sartre, Jameson tries to synthesize all the strands of Western Marxism, if with some curious omissions. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us /jameson.htm Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious 18th April I honestly dont know much about Postone. His book appears to advance the Lukacsian reading of Marx. I have put it on this course so I can read it myself, so we shall discover it together. It is part of the new left inspired reception of western Marxism in the United States, a movement to which Martin Jay and Jameson also beong. Moishe Postone, Time, Labor and Social Domination 25th April Uniquely among western Marxists, Gramscis work became central, orthodox teaching for a mainstream party the Italian Communist Party, of which he was a founder. He was however rather selectively read as advocating a gradualist and culturalist path to socialism. Italian Marxists to the left tended to bypass him and look elsewhere. The best known example is Negri. Here, he repeats Althussers gesture of a return to Marx, this time to a close reading of Marxs Grundrisse rather than Capital. Like Althusser, his Marxism is Spinozist, although there are otherwise significant differences between them. Antonio Negri, Marx Beyond Marx Note: the Historical Materialism NY conference is 26-28th April, and sure to have a lot of useful panels and such: https://sites.google.com/site/2013hmny/

2nd May This was Zizeks break-out book. It deepens Althussers engagement with the psychoanalysis of Lacan, to develop a theory of the ideological superstructures. Unlike Althusser, Zizek reads Marx (when he reads Marx at all) in a Hegelian vein. He does, however, have an encyclopedic knowledge of Western Marxism. Where Jameson attempts something of a synthesis of all of its currents, Zizek builds a distinctive Hegelain-Lacanian Marxism in part via critique of other western Marxist cocnepts. Slavoj Zizek, Sublime Object of Ideology 9th May Lastly, lets put western Marcism back into the wider context of the reception of Marx in the late twentieth century and into our time. While rather summary, Therborns short book is like Andersons in giving an overview of the whole field. It asks whether the ebb tide of social struggle will result in a retreat of Marxist thought as well a conclusion one might well question in the current conjuncture. Goran Therborn, From Marxism to PostMarxism 16th May The last week is strictly optional. You dont have to come. I reserve it for giving my own views on what is living and what is dead in the western Marxist tradition, and how I used it to write A Hacker Manifesto. Aside from vanity, the point might be to give an example from experience of how to develop new lines of inquiry out of this material. There are of course many others. McKenzie Wark, A Hacker Manifesto