AUT: [Fwd: Rethinking Marxism - New Issue Alert (16/3)]

[David McInerney <borderlands@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

RETHINKING MARXISM
Vol. 16 No. 3
(July
2004)



IN THIS ISSUE:

Editors' Introduction

In this issue we inaugurate an exciting new section of the journal,
under the editorial guidance of Jack Amariglio.
Our goal in "art/iculations is to encourage the formulation and
dissemination of distinctively Marxian discourses
concerning contemporary art and culture.

art/iculations: Editor's Note
by Jack Amariglio

This section is dedicated to the politics and economics (and political
economy) of art, culture, and aesthetics.
We invite papers that focus on specific events, sites, and experiences
(such as art exhibitions, Web sites, or
performances).

art/iculations: From Wall to Fence (and Pillar to Post): The Politicized
Aesthetics of Divided Territories
by Jack Amariglio

This article reviews two concurrent art exhibitions in Berlin in 2003
that traced the legacy of historically divided territories through the
political aesthetics. The first exhibition, "Territories: Islands,
Camps, and Other States of Utopia," featured Israeli architects Eyal
Weizman and Rafi Segal's contribution, "A Civilian Occupation," which
graphically detailed the way in which the building of Israeli
settlements on the West Bank (and Gaza) has been organized, spatially
cut off, imprison, survey, etc., existing Palestinian settlemets. The
second exhibition, "Kunst in der DDR." was billed as the first attempt
to exhibit the wide variety of contemporary art prouced in
East Germany (DDR) from 1945 to 1989. The show highlighted the
difficult, controversial task of characterizing and promoting the
aesthetic and political significance of work done in the DDR.

Retracing Capital: Toward a Theory of Trace in Marxian Political Economy
by Michael Marder

 From ethical theory to semiotics, trace emerges as one of the key
concept-metaphors in poststructuralism. In this paper I revisit Marx's
monumental Capital--one of the most successful attempts of exposing the
inner logic/ontology of capital--through the prism of poststructuralist
theory of the trace, especially as it is articulated in the writings of
Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. At the level of the ontology of
capital, I shall argue that whereas the labor process results in what I
call "commodity-trace production," the social intercourse of commodities
in circulation strives toward "trace erasure." Further, I outline the
distinction between trace of the same, standing for the uninterrupted
self-expansion of value, and trace of the other, symbolizing the
use-value obstacles that subvert this movement. Finally, I shall examine
Marx's epistemological project in light of the retracing of traces
muddled by capital and classical political economy.

Comparative Hybridities: Latin American Intellectuals and Postcolonialists
by Hosam Aboul-Ela

Tracing the discursive history of the term "hybridity" in the work of
Nestor García Canclini manifests the roots of his thought in Latin
American intellectual history. In particular, the regional tradition
growing out of José Carlos Mariátegui's writings inflects García
Canclini's work with a concern for historical location and questions of
political economy. These emphases contrast with those of Anglo-American
postcolonial theory for in this latter discourse, hybridity is
understood textually, as a linguistic or psychoanalytic category, just
as colonialism is often centered in the consciousness of the Western
colonizing subject. The goal of examining these contrasting conceptions
of hybridity is not merely to expose the culturalist fetish of much
mainstream postcolonialism, but also to suggest a larger contrast
between intellectual voices in the Global South and mainstream
postcolonialist critics who are often taken to speak for the southern
intellectual.

THE NEW SHORTER OXDORF ENGLISH DICTIONARY
by Ayreen Anastas

Anastas seperates a group of of twenty-seven words --ranging from Arab
to Zionism-- from their "proper" meanings in order to create a new guide
to a world "lacking in absolute guarantees."

Material/Queer Theory: Performativity, Subjectivity, and Affinity-Based
Struggles in the Culture of Late Capitalism
by Rob Cover

This paper examines the return to an anticapitalist approach within
lesbian/gay and queer antihomophobic activist struggles. Arguing that
notions of queer identity are governed by a triumvirate of approaches
which take into account economic structuration variously, I make a case
for a stronger link between marxian and queer theory approaches by
discussing the ways in which queer performative identities are
constituted within a matrix of coherence that is implicated in late
capitalist culture.

Rights, Needs, and the Moral Grounds of Democratic Society
by Jeff Noonan

The traditional liberal justification of democracy appeals to the rights
ground of social morality. According to this ground, citizens are
entitled to appropriate and dispose of their property according to
absolute property rights. These rights impose no obligation on
appropriations of property that compromise the life interest of fellow
citizens. Against contemporary democratic theory, I argue that democracy
has not developed through the simple evolution of this rights ground to
include positive rights to welfare, but rather, through struggles rooted
in an alternative ground of social morality, the needs ground. The needs
ground argues that the existence of a fundamental need is sufficient for
claims on the resources necessary to satisfy it, and from it follows a
conception of democracy as social and not simply political
self-determination.

REMARX

Between Althuserrian Science and Foucauldian Materialism: The Later Work
of Pierre Macherey
by Philip Goldstein

In early work, Macherey defends the Althusserian belief that scientific
Marxism opposes Stalinist and humanist theory and that literature,
situated between science and ideology, shows but does not tell the
truth. In later work, Macherey repudiates the Althusserian opposition of
science and ideology as well as the disciplinary divisions of literature
and philosophy. Inspired by Michel Foucault's archeological studies, he
shows that theory is always situated in a practical context in which it
reveals the antagonisms of and takes a position on the contrary views
forming the context. He grants the validity of a work's misreadings,
what he calls "true errors," and evaluates a work's historical influence
and philosophy's institutional contexts.

REVIEWS

The High Price of Capitalism, by Tim Kasser
Reviewed by Richard Wolff

The Power of Negativity: Selected Writings on the Dialectic in Hegel and
Marx, by Raya Dunayevskaya
Reviewed by Andrew Kliman

Notes on Contributors


A project of the Association for Economic and Social Analysis (AESA),
Rethinking Marxism (RM) has become
recognized as one of the premier interdisciplinary journals on the Left.
Now in its sixteenth year of publication, RM aims
to stimulate interest in and debate over the explanatory power and
social consequences of Marxian economic, cultural,
and social analysis. For information regarding subscription, article
submission, contents of back issues, etc. please
click here.



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