AUT: NEW JOURNAL - Multitudes

[FRANCO BARCHIESI <029FRB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

MULTITUDES
A new periodical by March 3, 2000

'Multitudes' will be a French language quarterly hard-copy (paper)
periodical, with issues coming out in October, December, March, and
May.  It will be published and distributed by Exils, Paris (France).
'Multitudes' will also maintain an electronic mailing list, and a
web-site: Multitudes On Line.

'Multitudes' is a cultural and political review. 'Multitudes' might
take as its own the formula Michel Foucault used to characterise his
own endeavours:

"I am trying (...) while avoiding any abstract and limiting
totalisation, to open up to problems that are as concrete and general
as is possible. Problems that backtrack politics, criss-cross
societies, and are at the same time constituent of our history and
constructed by it".

Backtracking politics: there lies the true subversion of
contemporary social movements.  It is what 'Multitudes' aims at
analysing, as theoretical practice, as ontology, and as materialism
within though. Flight, desertion, exodus, and resistance are not
abstract facts stemming from eternally negative critical thought, but
are constituent of a space of positive affirmation. The (true)
alternative is the building power of what transforms thought into
action: in the field of culture, in that of theory, and in politics.

'Multitudes' is born out of the desire to reconstitute a community
of thought that existed with the review 'Futur Anterieur'. 'Futur
Anterieur' was a breath of fresh air within what Felix Guattari had
dubbed the 'winter years'. But the past preterite is also the time of
bygone virtuality, and the present time, to us, seems to carry a much
more joyful and subversive load than nostalgia ever could.

In an allegedly disillusioned world, where politics, management and
spectacle form an uncanny mix, we bet on making a periodical that
will be post-communist, post-socialist, and post-pessimist. A
periodical that will be simply Left. Not second wave social-democratic
left, nor that national-republican left whose embrace of sovereignty
makes it a bed-fellow of the reactionary right. And we are not at the
'left of the left' either, which never ventures beyond a perpetual
critique of domination in all its forms. To the obligation of revolt
inspired by resentment, we far prefer hailing revolts, manifold
manifestations. Absolute domination never was a real occurence, and it
has not happened yet either. Everywhere there are ideas, actions,
texts, groups, and tribes cropping up, defeating the deathly myth of
domination's absoluteness. Ours is this choice for purposeful living.

In its fifth first issues, 'Multitudes' will discuss the following
major topics:

1. Bio-politics and the problem of Power
2. New standards to measure Wealth, towards a new political economy
3. Europe and the Empire
4. The debate on contemporary Art
5. Syncretism of reason and the critique of universalism.

'Multitudes', Issue 1. Bio-politics and the Problem of Power.

This issue will deal with the relations between the various
transformation of the forms of practising and legitimating power, and
the production and reproduction of life under all its possible aspects
(eg. patenting of the (human) genome, life sciences, i.e. genetic
manipulations and bio-technology). We have here a strategic turn in
capitalism and in the power system, but this is also a major
transformation, whose consequence is to (re)define power in terms of
governing life itself, causing a crisis within the parameters that
delimits power since the 17th century, the theory and the practice of
sovereignty, the political contract, and what demarcates power, its
domain and territory. This issue also aims at opening up a new
project: to reverse the notion of bio-politics in order to make it
operative in the realm of political subjectivisation. Contemporary
political struggles (as those of december 1995 in France, the movement
of people without (regular) employment, some campaigns against AIDS,
etc.) force us to reconsider the way we approach the basis of action
in bio-politics.

Dossier prepared by Bruno Karsenti, Maurizio Lazzarato, Eric Alliez
and Saverio Ansaldi

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PLUS:

'Internet, New Social Co-operation and Militancy' (dossier prepared by
Aris Papatheodorou, Laurent Moineau, Jerome Gleizes and Jean-Louis
Weissberg)

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'Multitudes', Issue 2. New Standards to Measure Wealth, Towards a New
Political Economy

The main axis of bio-politics leads us straight into this second
problem which will be the backbone of the second issue of
'Multitudes': questionning the political economy as we know it, the
'episteme' upon which it was built at the close of the 17th century,
with the industrial revolution and the end of slavery within the
world economy of the time. What becomes of value in an information
economy, driven by intangible forms of labor, and what is the future
of a welfare system that is essential and yet in profound crisis?

Dossier prepared by Antonella Corsani, Christian Marazzi, Jerome
Gleizes, Laurent Guilloteau, Yann Moulier Boutang and Giuseppe Cocco

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PLUS:

'World Cities and the Metamorphosis in Urban Management' (dossier
prepared by Thierry Baudouin, Michele Collin , Anne Querrien, Arnoldo
Rivkin)

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'Multitudes', Issue 3. Europe and the Empire.

Whereas globalisation overlaps to a large extent with the domination
of the US super-power in the field of patenting life, defining human
capital and services, it is nonetheless clear that in order to think
about the Empire, it has become necessary to go beyond the
conceptual apparatus of anti-imperialism. In order to reflect about
federalism, a painful absence in the mainstream politics of Europe of
'92, it is no longer sufficient to analyse the crisis of the elites.
It has also become necessary to be on the look-out for its
manifestations at the basis.

Dossier prepared by Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt and Yann Moulier
Boutang

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PLUS:

'Cinemas, Power and Counter-power of the Image' (dossier prepared by
Thierry Pillon and Christophe d'Hallivill)

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'Multitudes', Issue 4. The Debate on Contemporary Art.

What is happening to contemporary art today? What are the issues and
the potentials of contemporary art that are unleashing such fierce
desires of revenge and the dazzling publicity that was given to this
'querelle'? What has the notion of 'avant-garde' become today? What
is valuable in this 'contemporary art' that can indifferently be
associated to both the 'terrorist register of modernity' or to the
post-modern kingdom of the 'commodity'? What happened, finally, to
art today? And what about practices of engagement by artists and
collectives?

Dossier prepared by Eric Alliez and Jean-Philippe Antoine

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PLUS:

'Patenting the Living' (Dossier prepared by Pierre Egea, Toni Negri
and Patrice Riemens)

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'Multitudes', Issue 5. Syncretism of Reason and the Critique of
Universalism.

The crisis of Republicanism in France, which is also a crisis of
abstract universalism, is fought out around extremely concrete
issues, such as gender equality, positive discrimination, dress
codes - eg against 'islamic scarves' - in public schools, pitting
against each others the proponents of juridic universalism and
communitarians who are quickly accused of representing the
fundamentalism of difference.  Yet it is beyond question that in all
Western democracies, which have become mixed societies in reality if
not in statute, the intertwining of minority agendas engenders
different becoming-subjects than those prescribed by the Declaration
of Human Rights. The minority subject discovers, whether it is
through the experience of exclusion, or through taking part in
affirmative - rather than identitary - grouping: (a) that he is
instrumental through (his/her) specificity in creating a space that
is outside the norm; (b) that he has become the source of the
constitution of the universal becoming of the norm as a frontier,
benchmark, beacon; (c) that it is only through the experience of this
minority-becoming that (the) universal (value(s)) can exist for the
other.

Dossier prepared by Emmanuelle Cosse, Germinal Pinalie, Yann Moulier-
Boutang, Anne Querrien, Charles Wolfe, Gisele Donnard and Alisa Del
Re'

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PLUS:

'Alice in Development-Land. Whither the Economy of Development?'
(Dossier prepared by Giuseppe Cocco, Franco Barchiesi and Carlo
Vercellone)

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The hardcopy edition of 'Multitudes' will have six regular features
spread over 200 pages: 'En tete' (Headline) will give an
explanatory overview of each issue's content. 'Inserts' is a 20-
pages space devoted to the European/ international editors of the
review. 'Majeure' (Major) will handle one specific topic in one or
more detailled articles, so as to attain critical mass. 'Icone' will
start with the 4-colors cover-pages, and go on for another 30 or so,
where artists can express themselves as they wish, with texts and
graphics, the latter however limited to black-and-white. 'Hors
champ' (off-range) will welcome texts and debates which break with
the tradition of seriousness in social sciences writings. 'Mineure'
(Minor) will discuss, over ca. 30 pages, another specific theme
with shorter texts (10 pp max.), and this will be in an entirely
different field than what is treated in 'Majeure'. 'Liens' (links)
finally, will contain brief descriptive articles, it will point to
items in the on-line edition of 'Multitudes', and will also cary a few
book-reviews.

Table of content of the upcoming issue (provisional):

Issue # 1.

1. Cover - Gerard Fromanger (painter)
2. Detailled list of contents for #1, summary for #2 &3.
3. Intro: presentation of the new review 'Multitudes'
4. 'Inserts': Letter from Seattle and Brasil by Beppe Caccia
5. 'Majeure': Bio-politics
Outline of the topic:  Presentation by Bruno Karsenti
(i) Michael Hardt and Toni Negri: 'The Bio-political Production' (-
System)', based on chapter 12 of their book 'Empire', to be published
at Cambridge (Mass), Harvard University Press, 2000;
(ii) Muriel Combes and Bernard Aspe on two recent books by Giorgio
Agamben:'Homo Sacer' and 'Ce qui Reste d'Auschwitz' (What Remains
After Auschwitz);
(iii) Maurizio Lazzarato on bio-politics;
(iv) Paolo Napoli 'Bio-politics and bio-ethics';
(v) Interview with Peter Sloterdijk by Eric Alliez;
(vi) Questions on the issues of bio-politics asked to Jacques
Ranciere, Bruno Latour, Toni Negri, Isabelle Stengers, Michele Tort,
Matthieu Potte Bonneville and Daniel Defert
6. 'Icone':
(i) Contribution by Gerard Fromanger
(ii) 'The Austrian Actionnism' by Hubert Klocker, and interwiew with
Otto Moehl by Jacques Donguy
7. 'Hors-champ':  Alain Badiou, 'Multiples, multiplicities'
8. 'Mineure': Electronic/Internet Culture
(i) Laurent Moineau and Aris Papatheordorou: 'Internet and Co-
operation';
(ii) Interview with Richard Stallman and Steve Wright;
(iii) Jerome Gleizes on free software and Open Source;
(iv) Fabien Farjon on Internet and militant users
9. 'Liens': Yann Moulier Boutang: 'L'histoire bousculee' (A shaked-
up history), a joint review of Theodore Allen's 'The Invention of
the White Race' (Verso 1994, I and 1997, II), and Ghassan Hage's
'The White Nation' (Pluto, 1998).

M U L T I T U D E

Editor (Exils): Philippe Thureau d'Angin
Editor in chief: Yann Moulier Boutang

Editorial Board of the review (Paris):
Eric Alliez,
Saverio Ansaldi,
Jean-Philippe Antoine,
Thierry Baudouin,
Maria Bianchini,
Laurent Bove,
Barbara Cassin,
Jerome Ceccaldi,
Michele Collin,
Antonella Corsani,
Emmanuelle Cosse,
Christophe Degoutin,
Gisele Donnard,
Alisa Del Re',
Pierre Egea,
Jerome Gleizes,
Laurent Guilloteau,
Christophe d'Hallivillee,
Pascal Jollivet,
Bruno Karsenti,
Sandra Laugier,
Maurizio Lazzarato,
Francois Matheron,
Laurent Moineau,
Yann Moulier Boutang,
Aris Papatheodorou,
Thierry Pillon,
Germinal Pinalie,
Emmanuel Ponsard,
Anne Querrien,
Arnoldo Rivkin,
Pascal Severac,
Emmanuel Videcoq,
Jean-Louis Weissberg

International Secretariat:
Thomas Atzert (Frankfurt)
Nanni Balestrini (Rome)
Franco Barchiesi (Johannesburg)
Pachutan Butzari (Berlin)
Giuseppe Cocco (Rio de Janeiro)
Ed Emery (Londres)
Michael Hardt (New York)
Yoshihiko Ichida (Osaka)
Christian Marazzi (Geneva)
Sandro Mezzadra (Genoa)
Toni Negri (Rome)
Judith Revel (Rome)
Patrice Riemens (Amsterdam)
Steve Wright (Melbourne)

Editorial Board (Europe)
Giorgio Agamben (Venice) Italy
El Albert (London) United Kingdom
Gabriel Albiac (Madrid) Spain
Keith Ansell Pearson (Warwick) United Kingdom
Sergio Bologna (Milan) Italy
Sebastian Budgen (London) United Kingdom
Giuseppe Caccia (Venice) Italy
Alessandro Dal Lago (Genoa) Italy
Luciano Ferrari-Bravo (Padua) Italy
Ferrucio Gambino (Padua) Italy
Jose' Gil (Lisbon) Portugal
Salvatore Palidda (Milan) Italy
Alessandro Pandolfi (Milan) Italy
Carlos Prieto Del Campos (Madrid) Spain
Ludovic Prieur (Padua) Italy
Francisco Sampedro (Santiago de Compostels) Spain
Elizabeth Samsonow (Vienna) Austria
Peter Sloterdijk (Karlsruhe) Germany
Isabelle Stengers (Bruxelles) Belgium
Jean Terrier (Geneva) Switzerland
Manuel Villaverde Cabral (Lisbon) Portugal

Editorial Board (Rest of the World):
Akira Asada (Kyoto) Japan
Georges Caffentzis (Ithaca) USA
Harry Cleaver (Austin) USA
Giuseppe Cocco (Rio de Janeiro) Brazil
Walter Evangelista  (Belo Horizonte) Brazil
Ghassan Hage (Sydney) Australia
Helena Hirata (Sao Paulo) Brazil
Peter Linebaugh (Toledo) USA
Mitsuro Marimo (Kyoto) Japan
Carlos-Alberto Messeder Pereira (Rio de Janeiro) Brazil
Warren Montag (Los Angeles) USA
John Rajchman (New York) USA
Naoki Sakai (Boston) USA
Charles Wolffe (Boston) (USA)

The review maintains a network of correspondents both in France, the
European Union and other countries (the list will be published on
the back of the first issue).

A meeting of the Friends of 'Multitudes' will be convened (in Paris
or elswhere) twice per quarter.

Subscription rates:
France and European Union:
a) individuals: FFR 360
b) institutional : FFR 500
c) discounted  (students, unemployed): FFR 300
Other Countries:
a) individuals: FFR 460
b) institutional : FFR 600
c) discounted  (students, unemployed): FFR 400

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| Franco Barchiesi                                            |
| Sociology of Work Unit - Dept of Sociology                  |
| University of the Witwatersrand                             |
| Private Bag 3 - PO Wits 2050 - Johannesburg - South Africa  |
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| E-Mail 029frb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                               |
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| Home:                                                       |
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