Spectres of Class: Marxism, Deconstruction and the Politics of Affiliation.
The paper is concerned with the reaction of the left to the publication of Jacques Derrida’s Spectres of Marx (SM). My argument is that this reaction has, in general, been unwilling to engage with the ethico-political significance of Derrida’s thought, and that it has concentrated largely on reitera...
| Published in: | Journal for Cultural Research Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 1 - 23 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Jan2006
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=19651057&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 19651057 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 14797585 QMJ jtl: Journal for Cultural Research issn: 14797585 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jan2006 vid: 10 iid: 1 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 19651057 10.1080/14797580500422109 ppf: 1 ppct: 22 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 90KB tig: atl: Spectres of Class: Marxism, Deconstruction and the Politics of Affiliation. aug: au: Abbinnett, Ross su: Derrida, Jacques, 1930-2004 Spectres of Marx (Book) Communism Ahmad, Aijaz, 1941-2022 Callinicos, Alex Lewis, Tom Jameson, Fredric, 1934- Homology (Biology) sug: subj: Derrida, Jacques, 1930-2004 Spectres of Marx (Book) Communism Ahmad, Aijaz, 1941-2022 Callinicos, Alex Lewis, Tom Jameson, Fredric, 1934- Homology (Biology) ab: The paper is concerned with the reaction of the left to the publication of Jacques Derrida’s Spectres of Marx (SM). My argument is that this reaction has, in general, been unwilling to engage with the ethico-political significance of Derrida’s thought, and that it has concentrated largely on reiterating certain protocols which ought to govern the inheritance of Marx’s political provocations. I have taken three particularly vociferous critics of SM as exemplary of this attempt to designate the proper conditions of affiliation to Marxism: Aijaz Ahmad, Alex Callinicos and Tom Lewis. I argue that each of these thinkers has ignored the concept of the question which informs Derrida’s attempt to remain faithful to “a certain spirit” of Marxism, and that consequently they have failed to take seriously his attempts to transform conventional notions of class solidarity. In the final section I will examine Fredric Jameson’s attempt to restage the encounter between Marxism and deconstruction, and to reconfigure the idea of class in the light of Derrida’s remarks on logic of revolutionary condensation and historical necessity. My aim is to show that the apparent homology between Derrida and Jameson is ruptured by the latter’s insistence upon the “allegorical” configuration of class solidarities, and the former’s commitment to the de-affiliating questions (of hospitality) that arise from global organization of capitalism. I will always wonder if the idea of Marxism—the self-identity of Marxist discourse or system or even a science of philosophy—is not incompatible with the event-Marx. (Derrida 1993) pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Journal for Cultural Research is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Journal for Cultural Research holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2006 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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