Materialism and Politics

What remains of materialism's subversive potential i.e., its ties with heresy or atheism and republicanism or communism and to what extent does this concept still interpellate us politically and philosophically? As neoliberal policies expanded far beyond the state, their mechanisms of control seeped into the materiality of social reproduction, solidifying a conception of matter as something inert, to be appropriated, manipulated, and exploited. If in this context the subversive nature of a reference to materiality is called into question, it has also provoked new forms of resistance, as well as fundamental reconsiderations of the political implications of the notion of 'matter'. Against this background, the aim of this book is to show the diversity within continued engagements with materialism as a central concept for progressive politics, be it in the direction opened up by New Materialism, in renewed forms of Marxist and Spinozist based approaches, or in feminist analyses, each in their own terms, without excluding the possibility of alliances between them. Finally, this volume insists that the study of materiality and materialist approaches does not amount to a renunciation of philosophy, but rather urges us to broaden the task of philosophical thought in order to reconsider the historical and, in every sense of the word, material situatedness of all philosophical problems. Against a reductive and ahistorical conception of materialism the straightest way back to ideology , this book offers an analysis of its diverse emancipatory potentialities.

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What remains of materialism's subversive potential - i.e., its ties with heresy or atheism and republicanism or communism - and to what extent does this concept still interpellate us politically and philosophically? As neoliberal policies expanded far beyond the state, their mechanisms of control seeped into the materiality of social reproduction, solidifying a conception of matter as something inert, to be appropriated, manipulated, and exploited. If in this context the subversive nature of a reference to materiality is called into question, it has also provoked new forms of resistance, as well as fundamental reconsiderations of the political implications of the notion of 'matter'. Against this background, the aim of this book is to show the diversity within continued engagements with materialism as a central concept for progressive politics, be it in the direction opened up by New Materialism, in renewed forms of Marxist and Spinozist based approaches, or in feminist analyses, each in their own terms, without excluding the possibility of alliances between them. Finally, this volume insists that the study of materiality and materialist approaches does not amount to a renunciation of philosophy, but rather urges us to broaden the task of philosophical thought in order to reconsider the historical and, in every sense of the word, material situatedness of all philosophical problems. Against a reductive and ahistorical conception of materialism - the straightest way back to ideology -, this book offers an analysis of its diverse emancipatory potentialities.

Contenu
From 'Materialism' towards 'Materialities' / The Editors I. The Actuality of Spinoza's Materialism Introduction to Part I / Stefan Hagemann Materialist Variations on Spinoza: Theoretical Alliances and Political Strategies / Mariana de Gainza Non Defuit Materia: Freedom and Necessity in Spinoza's Democratic Theory / Stefano Visentin Temporality and History in Spinoza: The Refusal of Teleological Thought / Ericka Marie Itokazu Spinozist Moments in Deleuze: Materialism as Immanence / Mauricio Rocha Are there One or Two Aleatory Materialisms? / Vittorio Morfino II. The Materiality of the Milieu and the Materialist Education Introduction to Part II / Marlene Kienberger and Bruno Pace Language Follows Labour: Nikolai Marr's Materialist Palaeontology of Speech / Elena Vogman Materialism and Capitalism Today: Zoo-aesthetics and a Critique of the Social Bond after Marcel Mauss and André Leroi-Gourhan / Catherine Perret The Product of Circumstances: Towards a Materialist and Situated Pedagogy / Marlon Miguel In the Labyrinth of Emancipation: An Inquiry into the Relationship between Knowledge and Politics / Bernardo Bianchi A Materialist Education: Thinking with Spinoza / Pascal Sévérac III. Critical Materialities in Feminism and New Materialism Introduction to Part III / Alison Sperling Materialism, Matter, Matrix, and Mater: Contesting Notions in Feminist and Gender Studies / Cornelia Möser Anarchafeminism & the Ontology of the Transindividual / Chiara Bottici Psychodynamism of Individuation and New Materialism: Possible Encounters / Émilie Filion-Donato Emergence that Matters and Emergent Irrelevance: On the Political Use of Fundamental Physics / Christoph F. E. Holzhey IV. Towards a Renewed Historical Materialism Introduction to Part IV / Daniel Liu Materialism against Materialism: Taking up Marx's Break with Reductionism / Frieder Otto Wolf Materialism, Politics, and the History of Philosophy: French, German, and Turkish Materialist Authors in the Nineteenth Century / Aye Yuva The Historicity of Materialism and the Critique of Politics / Alex Demirovi On Populist Illusion: Impasses of Political Ontology, or How the Ordinary Matters / Facundo Vega Theory's Method?: Ethnography and Critical Theory / Marianna Poyares References Notes on the Contributors Index