Louis Althusser

https://classiques-garnier.com/l-histoire-et-la-question-de-la-modernite-chez-antonio-gramsci.html

Le marxisme ouvert d’Antonio Gramsci permet de redéfinir la philosophie de l’histoire en échappant à tout dogmatisme. Gramsci cherche en effet à penser le processus historique dans sa consistance tout en accordant un rôle central à l’activité et aux luttes humaines, en particulier grâce aux notions de praxis, d’hégémonie et de rapports de forces. L’auteur des Cahiers de prison s’attache ainsi à comprendre la complexité de la modernité européenne, depuis ses origines jusqu’à la crise organique qui marque son temps, et s’arrête notamment sur la Renaissance, la Réforme, la Révolution française, le Risorgimento, l’américanisme, le fascisme et le socialisme soviétique.

While the very possibility of a philosophy of history has been widely questioned, this book shows that Antonio Gramsci’s open Marxism gives it new life, away from all dogmatism. Gramsci seeks to conceive the historical process in its consistency while giving a central role to human agency and struggles, thanks to notions such as praxis, hegemony and relations of force. His determination to understand both the coherence and the complexity of European modernity leads him to trace its development from its origins to the organic crisis it was undergoing in his time, from the Renaissance and the Reformation to Americanism, Fascism and Soviet socialism, via the French Revolution and the Risorgimento.

In his text On the Reproduction of Capitalism, Louis Althusser references an appendix to the text, which remains either lost or unfinished: an appendix titled ‘The Ideology of Work.’ Inspired by the potential contents of this appendix, this paper discusses how Althusser has – and might have – considered the relationship between ideology and work within his writings and what the consequences of this consideration may be for the Marxist sociology of work today. The paper suggests the co-existence of two discussions of the ‘ideology of work’ between Althusser’s writings, constructed at similar times: one grounded in an analysis of ideology as the product of state apparatus (found in On the Reproduction of Capitalism); another grounded in ideology as an epistemological obstacle (found in The Humanist Controversy). The paper argues that the sociology of work has implicitly reproduced a harmful separation of these two analyses in its own thinking about the relationship between work and ideology, productive of economistic and humanist deviations of which it cannot make sense. The paper concludes with a call to revisit the tensions present in Althusser’s understandings of ‘the ideology of work’, with a view to reconstructing a method useful for the Marxist sociology of work.

In “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” Louis Althusser proposed a complete rethinking of the category of the Subject. Despite the many critiques of Subjectivity that proliferated in France at the time, Althusser intended to salvage the concept of the Subject in order to address how a given ideology maintains its stranglehold on an individual in the absence of any external repressive apparatus (e.g. a police officer). This paper will assess Althusser’s achievement by way of immanent critique; rather than dispensing with Althusser’s theoretical framework, I will update it by adding two components that attempt to remedy its deficiencies. Those components reside in between the Subject and the ideological apparatuses that “capture” it. This mediating region is itself split into two concepts: 1) the Freudian death drive, or repetition automatism, which pertains to the composition of the Subject’s interior border, and 2) the phenomenological experience of that border, designated by the phrase “wounds in the sensorium”.  In order to approach the latter phenomenological dimension of ideological interpellation, I will take a seemingly roundabout, but necessary journey through the work of Walter Benjamin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Franz Kafka.

One of the central topics of study in the humanities is the question of ideology. There are many theories about what it is and how it works. One of the more significant of these theories comes from a French Marxist, Louis Althusser, in his 1970 essay, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)." In it he argues that ideology interpellates individuals as subjects. Interpellation is the experience of being " hailed, " like a taxi driver is hailed by a person on the sidewalk sticking her arm out to get a lift. Each person identifies herself with a category, a role, and when hailed (like when someone shouts " hey you! ") we feel the need to respond. Ideology, in Althusser's view, is more than a set of beliefs about the world; it includes material practices within specific institutions that lead to subject formation and to the reproduction of social relationships. Institutions sort people into groups and then into particular roles; they shape and police our behaviors and our boundaries. Althusser wanted to understand why we tend to feel free, though we are constrained by our identities within a system of ideological categories. Ideology "works" when we submit freely to this system. One explanation is that we believe we can reject the interpellating message, just as the taxi driver can reject the person who wants a ride. Yet in doing so, we don't reject the category: just the particular instance of its use.

Sažetak: Altiserov neosporni doprinos istoriji marksizma je u tome što je pokazao da apstraktan filozofski diksurs o čoveku, njegovom otuđenju i razotuđenju (oslobođenju), koji je dominirao i dotadašnjom marksističkom filozofijom, predstavlja ozbiljnu prepreku za jednu radikalnu teorijsku i političku praksu. Naime, takav humanizam previđa suštinski značaj klasne borbe i klasne analize. On je s pravom ukazao i na odsustvo razvijene teorije ideologije u marksističkoj filozofiji, ispravno kritikujući neke ograničenosti Marksovog shvatanja ideologije. Ipak, njegov krajnji stav da ideologija ostaje trajan element društvene stvarnosti, tj. da je nužna za svako, a ne samo klasno društvo, nije prihvatljiv. On negira mogućnost da čovek ovlada strukturama svog društvenog života; one neminovno dominiraju nad životom i svešću pojedinaca, uprkos iščezavanju klasnih odnosa eksploatacije. Uticaj strukturalizma dolazi ovde do punog izražaja: subjekti su zahvaćeni anonimnim objektivnim strukturama, a njihova svest (subjektivnost) samo je učinak delovanja (ideoloških) struktura. Strukturalizam kod Altisera odnosi tako prevagu nad Marks(izm)om. Čini se stoga da Altiserova teorija ideologije, koja projektuje otuđenu podelu rada i postojanje ideologije i u samo besklasno društvo, u krajnjem završava kao jedna teorijska ideologija. Ključne reči: ideologija, marksizam, strukturalizam, humanizam, materijalizam, idealizam, nauka, utopija, kritika, revolucija, (bes)klasno društvo Summary: Altiserov unquestionable contribution to the history of Marxism is in prove that an abstract philosophical discourse about the man, his alienation and de-alienation (liberation), which was dominant in the Marxist philosophy too, is a serious obstacle to a radical theoretical and political practice. Namely, such a humanism overlooks the crucial importance of class struggle and class analysis. He also rightly pointed to the lack of developed theory of ideology in Marxist philosophy, properly criticized some of the limitations of Marx's conception of ideology. However, his ultimate position that ideology remains a permanent element of social reality, ie. it is a necessary for each, not just a class society, is unacceptable. He denies the possibility that man can overmaster the structures of his social life; they inevitably dominate the life and consciousness of individuals, despite the disappearance of class relations of exploitation. The influence of structuralism comes here to the fore: the subjects are affected by anonymous objective structures, and their consciousness (subjectivity) is just the effect of action of these (ideological) structures. So, structuralism prevails Marx(ism) in Althusser’s thought. It appears therefore that Althusser's theory of ideology, which projects the alienated division of labor and the existence of ideology in a classless society too, ultimately ends up as a theoretical ideology. Key words: ideology, Marxism, structuralism, humanism, materialism, idealism, science, utopia, criticism, revolution, class(less) society

El 25 de noviembre de 2013 viajamos de Berlín a Managua para conocer de primera mano la realidad nicaragüense y preparar un proyecto artístico promovido por Oxfam Intermón que será expuesto en Madrid en 2014. Terminamos la lectura del libro "Para un materialismo aleatorio", de Althusser, en el avión de ida a Managua.
Estos dos hechos podrían no haber confluido, pero se dio aleatoriamente el encuentro entre una realidad que se pensaba socialista y la teoría de uno de los más insignes marxistas. El presente relato filosófico constituye la cristalización de ese encuentro.

Якщо французький філософ не помітив принцип читання у фрагменті про читання, який їм згадувався, то що можна говорити про всі ті, можливі, фрагменти, що не згадані філософом? Може Маркс сам не визначився з питанням про читання? Одним словом, є нагальна потреба звернутися до пошуку згадок в текстах Карла Маркса та Фрідріха Енгельса лексеми, пов’язаної з читанням (читання, читач, автор, текст), а потім обґрунтувати новий метод читання теоретичних текстів. Першу дію тим більше необхідно зробити з огляду на ці слова Маркса з приводу його критиків, які передав Енгельс: «Оце так, якби ці люди хоча б читати вміли!» (Ja, wenn die Leute doch nur lesen könnten!) (MEW, Band 38 , 1979, S. 129 – курсив в оригіналі – І.І.). Вочевидь, що Маркс мав на увазі щось під читанням.

What happens to foreign politics when actors, things or processes are presented as threats? This book explains state’s international behavior based on a reflexive framework of insecurity politics. It argues that governments act on knowledge of international danger available in their societies, and that such knowledge is organized by varying ideas of who threatens whom and how. The book develops this argument and illustrates it by means of various European case studies. Moving across European history and space, these show how securitization projected abroad evolving – and often contested – local ideas of the organization of international insecurity, and how such knowledges of world politics conditioned foreign policymaking on their own terms. With its focus on insecurity politics, the book provides new perspectives for the study of international security. Moving the discipline from systemic theorizing to a theory of international systematization, it shows how world politics is, in practice, often conceived in a different way than that assumed by IR theory. Depicting national insecurity as a matter of political construction, the book also raises the challenging question of whether certain projections of insecurity may be considered more warranted than others.

Busco neste trabalho compreender a relação entre o discurso da lei (sustentado pelo aparelho jurídico) e algumas práticas urbanas ilegais/irregulares/informais, notadamente a comercialização de produtos piratas. Para tanto, vou analisar uma reportagem sobre a apreensão de produtos piratas na cidade de Salvador. Pautado na premissa de que a cidade contemporânea é o lugar da produção/reprodução do modo de produção capitalista, pretendo compreender de que modo certas práticas que precisam tipificadas pelo aparelho jurídico-administrativo representam pontos de tensão e, conforme gostaria de propor, de resistência, precisando ser circunscritas e significadas no domínio normativo.

Zwischen 1975 und 1980 hat Louis Althusser seine Position gegenüber dem Staat radikalisiert, indem er offene Kritik gegenüber den in der Kommunistischen Partei Frankreichs (KPF) dominierenden Tendenzen übte. Die Diskussion gewann an Brisanz, als
die KPF den Begriff der ,Diktatur des Proletariats’ 1976 aus ihrem Programm entfernte. Étienne Balibar und Althusser betrachteten dies als einen Fehler, so, als ob etwas aus dem ,Herzen’ des Marxismus entfernt wurde. Die Streichung des Begriffs schien ein Zugeständnis
an Forderungen nach einer stärker demokratischen Form kommunistischer Politik zu sein, wie sie von den in Italien und Spanien einflussreichen Tendenzen des Eurokommunismus gefordert wurde. Für Althusser und Balibar jedoch öffnete die Streichung dem Einfluss von
sozialdemokratischen und kleinbürgerlichen Ideologien innerhalb der KPF die Türen. Die Diskussion brach in den frühen 1980er Jahren abrupt ab, wurde aber in den letzten Jahren von einigen Autoren wieder aufgenommen. In diesem Artikel diskutiere ich die Argumente, die Althusser dazu hervorbrachte, warum er
den Begriff der ,Diktatur des Proletariats’ als Kernstück des Marxismus betrachtete und wie dieser Begriff mit Althussers Kritik des Staates in den späten 1970er Jahren in Verbindung steht.

This paper tries to explore the anarchistic traits of the Joker, the DC Comics supervillain, through the lens of Louis Althusser's influential essay "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," with special references to two movies, "The Dark Knight" (2008) and "Joker" (2019).

This article attempts to portray how a contemporary young adult literature entitled The Giver (Lowry, 1993) illustrates the operation of state apparatus in a dystopian setting of time and place. Applying Althusser's theory of state apparatuses, the study particularly focuses on a prominent issue of Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) which is operated within the The Giver's society. Descriptive qualitative research is applied to interpret the data in the novel. The result of this study reveals that the novel draws ISA as a tool to control and to maintain the dominance in this dystopian community. The ISA operates through training system, particular rule of language used by the community, media censorship, and family's role.

В статье на примере исследовательской практики британской школы “исследований культуры” (cultural studies) исследуются возможности применения (нео)марксистского понятия идеологии в области изучения масс-медиа и популярной культуры (popular culture). Автор рассматривает «исследования культуры» 1970-1980-х годов с точки зрения их вклада в развитие (нео)марксистской проблематики идеологии. Указанная проблематика задавала рамку для конкретных исследований масс-медиа и популярной культуры, отличающихся, в свою очередь, высоким уровнем теоретической рефлексии.
Как показано в статье, наиболее ценные результаты в указанных областях были достигнуты за счет синтеза марксистского понятия идеологии в трактовке Л.Альтюссера,  концепции гегемонии А.Грамши и (пост)структуралистской семиотики и теории дискурса. В статье проводится мысль о том, что отход более поздних «исследований культуры» от (нео)марксистской проблематики идеологии оставляет незавершенным проект критического исследования сложного взаимодействия культурных практик и структур классового доминирования в современном обществе.

In the paper, I analyze relations between power, freedom, and formation of the self in reference to Foucault’s works since this triangle is central not only to the philosophy of education, but also goes to the heart of the problem with Foucault’s late intellectual enterprise. Furthermore, I argue that Foucault’s last will can be found, not in the ancient care of the self, but in his limit-attitude aimed at losing one’s identity which might be also understood as an exercise of being nobody and de-subjectivation. Yet, this task appears to be a serious problem for educational practice which does not exist without subjects and is based on the model of Althusser’s interpellation wherein a teacher takes the role of a policeman.

İdeoloji konusunu çalışanlar bu kavramın ne kadar karmaşık olduğunu iyi bilir. Başlangıçta filozoflarca olumlu kabul edilen bu kavram ilerleyen süreçte olumsuz bir içeriğe bürünür. Fransız düşünür Louis Althusser' e göre ideoloji, bireyin gerçek varoluş ko-şullarıyla kurduğu hayali ilişkinin bir temsili olarak karşımıza çıkar. Bu haliyle ideoloji, klasik izahların aksine tüm sınıfların bu temsile dahil olduğu, sürek-liliği olan ve her yana yayılmış pratikler dizgesi ola-rak kabul görür. Althusser, İdeoloji ve Devletin İde-olojik Aygıtları adlı eserinde okul, medya, hastane, hapishane ve bunun gibi çeşitli ideolojik araçlar yar-dımıyla devletin üretim ilişkilerini yeniden ürettiği-ni ve böylelikle meşruiyet kazanarak ayakta kaldığını öne sürer. Adı geçen kitapta Hitler ve dönemine iliş-kin başlıklar yer almaz; ancak Althusser'in bu kitapta ele aldığı iki önemli kavram Hitler'in siyasal ve eko-nomik tezleri ile bu tezlerin temsilinin ileride nasıl somut hale geldiğini anlayabilmek açısından önem-lidir. Bu kavramların ilki ideolojinin maddi olması ilkesi diğeri de devletin ideolojik aygıtları vasıtasıyla toplum geneline enjekte edilebilmesi gerçeğidir. Bu yazının amacı da bu izahı "nasyonel sosyalizm yük-selişi" üzerinden yapabilmektir.

"La riproduzione sociale e culturale"

Capitolo in "Famiglia e sociologia. Dai classici alla modernità" (a cura di Antonietta Censi)

Capitolo 6 - La riproduzione sociale e culturale Nel capitolo sono trattati i concetti ed i contributi specifici degli autori riconducibili al cosiddetto filone teorico e di ricerca della “riproduzione sociale e culturale”. Vengono affrontate in particolare le tematiche relative: alla crisi delle teorie della modernizzazione di stampo funzionalista; il contributo specifico degli autori del suddetto filone rispetto alla sociologia della famiglia; il processo di trasmissione del capitale familiare (socializzazione, habitus e codici linguistici). Infine, viene analizzata criticamente l’influenza e l’eredità storica delle teorie della riproduzione rispetto all’analisi della famiglia, evidenziandone le potenzialità interpretative ma anche i rischi insiti in una lettura caratterizzata talvolta da un eccesso di determinismo sociale.

L’articolo esplora il concetto di cittadinanza sviluppato da Étienne Balibar considerandolo all’interno della fase «post-marxista» del suo pensiero. Il testo cerca allora innanzitutto di situare il senso di questa fase. Quest'ultima non costituisce un abbandono, ma piuttosto una riflessione nuova sul marxismo, che riprende in particolare il concetto althusseriano di «surdeterminazione» per leggere i rapporti tra la classe, la razza e la nazione. È da questa riflessione, nonché dalla congiuntura socio-politica in cui Balibar si è trovato a intervenire, che emerge il concetto di «diritto di città». Questo è un atto di verifica del principio dell’«egalibertà», che l’autore rintraccia nella Dichiarazione dei diritti del 1789. Ma tale principio è correlato nell’opera balibariana a una dimensione antropologico-politica che gli permette di analizzare il divenire-soggetto del cittadino nella modernità considerando quest’ultimo come un individuo «transindividuale».

Chinese translation of the essay "Max Horkheimer, a Teacher without a Class," originally published at "Jacobin" magazine (15 February 2020, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/02/max-horkheimer-frankfurt-school-adorno-working-class-marxism).

Translation: 吴小译 (Wu Xiaoyi) for 无产者译丛 (Proletariat Translation Series), 7 July 2020.

Althusser builds on Marx's principle of revolution by explaining the functioning of the state and ideology. Contradictions in the society are when the class struggles are possible. When there is a contradiction between the owners of means of production and the relations of production, the owners of the previous means of production will do everything possible to keep the relations of production same in order to have the power to influence other classes in the society. This is why Althusser says that there is a need to constantly reproduce the relations of production. This contradiction can be seen in the events preceding the French Revolution where differences between the landowners and the industrialists surfaced which eventually led to a confrontation. Althusser distinguishes between the base and the superstructure of a capitalist mode of production. The base is the economic base which is also the infrastructure and the superstructure is a set of apparatuses used by the state to enforce their hegemony (In my opinion, he is describing Gramsci's hegemony in terms of how the state uses it). Althusser speaks of Ideology as a structure under which the various state apparatuses operate at the superstructure level. The state here has been equated to power in the sense that a certain class or a class alliance seizes the state power. The apparatuses could be further divided into two types: the repressive state apparatus and the ideological state apparatus. The repressive state apparatus are primarily violent mechanisms which operate in the public domain. Examples would include the army, the police etc. The ideological state apparatus contributes to influencing individuals by influencing ideas (at the very base) which ensure the reproduction of the ideology and is mostly in the private domain. For example, the education system, the family, the social media etc. In Althusser's opinion, education is the most influential of the ISAs. Saussure breaks down language to a series of signs which are determined by the sound image and the concept it is referring to. He uses the terms signifier and signified to refer to them respectively. The relation of the signifier to the signified is created by an associative bond in our brains. For instance, for the sound image " tree " the concept that it invokes (it could vary from the cherry blossom tree with pink leaves to a banyan tree with green leaves depending on the individual) shows the relation in between the signifier and the signified. Saussure then points highlights the arbitrariness which exists in the functioning of the sign. The meaning is not naturally fixed. This is because the signifier is different for each individual who performs the task of attaching meaning to objects. This indicates that the meaning of the object lies with the signifier (sound image) and the individual who attaches it to the signified (the concept). Two other concepts are brought into the picture; langue and parole. Langue refers to the underlying rules and the deeper organization of language. The langue helps an individual interpret the world. The underlying rules of a language tend be relatively fixed (by social forces) and it is usually out of the power of the individual to change this deeper structure of language. Parole on the other hand would be the acts performed and the statements made at an individual level. Parole is the manifestation of the pre-existing langue. The dominant agent of change according to Saussure would be the structure that is a result of the Adheip Rashada (12060321002) Critical Ideas of the 20 th Century Assignment

The role of cultural production and ideology in revolution has long been a topic of debate. Frantz Fanon, among other theorists, questioned what this role could be in national liberation struggles and socialist movements among colonized populations. In the context of Fanon’s success and his widespread contemporary use, to say that cultural production is a necessary component of struggles for national liberation and sovereignty should not be contentious; in fact at this point it may be terribly obvious. This standpoint becomes even more evident when one considers the historical struggles of Indigenous people in Canada to maintain their cultures along with their sovereignty, which have both been systematically denied and stripped from us  by the Canadian state. Like any other system of domination, settler-colonialism needs to maintain itself; often this is done through cultural and ideological mechanisms, which is precisely why it is so fundamental that these mechanisms of interpellation be broken.

This project intends to explore interpellation processes within settler-colonialism and to look at how those processes can be interrupted and broken through rejection of colonial recognition and transformative Indigenous cultural production. I will utilize Glen Coulthard’s conception of recognition and Fanon’s understanding of colonial subjects as my primary anticolonial scholarship. This is a means of framing my discussion of Louis Althusser’s concept of interpellation in an anticolonial manner which stresses Indigenous and colonized perspectives; as well as their connection with Marxism. Coulthard identifies the important connection between Fanon’s anticolonial Marxism and Althusser, stating:

Fanon anticipates at least one aspect of the well-known work of French philosopher Louis Althusser, who would later argue that the reproduction of capitalist relations of production rests on the ‘recognition function’ of ideology, namely the ability of a state’s ‘ideological apparatus’ to ‘interpolate’ individuals as subjects of class rule. For Fanon, colonialism operates in a similarly dual-structured manner: it includes ‘not only the interrelations of objective historical conditions but also human attitudes to these conditions’. Fanon argued that it was the interplay between the structural/ objective and recognitive/subjective features of colonialism that ensured its hegemony over time (32)

But this hegemony is not impervious. The history of settler-colonialism in Canada, being accompanied by resistance and political ruptures between the Canadian state and its colonial subjects, is often interrupted by opposing ideological forces. In recent years, the opposing ideological force of Indigenous thought in cultural production, though long in existence, has come into the foreground of Canadian politics. This development has occurred contemporaneously with a renewed interest in assimilating Indigenous cultures into Canadian culture as a means of eschewing questions of sovereignty, self-determination and secession. As Coulthard points out, this renewed interest in “including” Indigenous cultures in Canadian nationalism cannot be categorized as the same type of colonial rule that has been employed by the Canadian state in the past. Coulthard argues that “whereas before 1969 federal Indian policy was unapologetically assimilationist, now it is couched in the vernacular of ‘mutual recognition’” (Coulthard 3). This new form of assimilation necessitates a different type of colonial interpellation based on identification with the state, and while the threat of state violence remains, the pretense of multiculturalism makes frequent violence less defensible. This, of course, does not mean there is no longer overt violence against Indigenous people. Frequent police brutality, profiling, carding, botched investigations, and other such problems are still mainstays of the Canadian state. However, this, too, is becoming less defensible and is no longer the primary method of controlling Indigenous populations within the borders of Canada.

As these contradictions simmer underneath the surface of Canadian society, activists and artists alike have attempted to expose them. Kent Monkman’s film, Shooting Geronimo, works to illustrate the repressive nature of colonial values in relation to frontier attitudes as well as sexuality and gender in film practices. Likewise, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers’ short film A Red Girl’s Reasoning lays bare the intentional mishandling of rape and sexual assault cases involving Indigenous women, emphasizes the victim-blaming, and underscores the profound misogyny that underpins colonial ideology.  I will be examining these films alongside the theory I have already identified to elaborate on my arguments about interpellation in a specific artistic milieu. Both of these films offer distinctly anti-colonial perspectives on issues usually left out of Canadian cultural production, but, beyond that, I believe that films such as these can become methods for resisting settler-colonial ideology and interpellation in cultural production. Furthermore, it can be argued that these films produce and reproduce ideologies that disrupt the colonial narrative and the ability of the settler-colonial state to interpolate and “recognize” Indigenous subjects. They generate a new ideological framework wherein the colonial subject becomes essentially unrecognizable to its oppressors.

This paper will address Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta’s The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) together with Walter Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence” – and its interpretation by Slavoj Žižek in Violence – in order to explore the concepts of mythic and divine violence within the film. First, I will explore the “law-preserving” and “law-making” powers of the state exerted by both the police and, more importantly, the press in the film as forms of mythic violence, which suggest a rapport between Benjamin’s text and Althusser’s well-known concepts of repressive and ideological state apparatus. I will furthermore attempt to approach this question at the level of genre: in the melodramatic excesses of Schlöndorff and Trotta’s film, I will suggest – via Thomas Elsaesser’s genealogy of melodrama in “Tales of Sound and Fury” – that it is possible to discern the functioning of mythic violence as the sudden reversals of fortune and egregious suffering that are fundamental to the genre. I will then ask whether, through Katharina’s acts of resistance and final, murderous outburst, the film could open up a potential space for divine violence. If – as Benjamin and Žižek suggest – it cannot be objectively defined, then can Katharina Blum at least point to the possibility for divine violence as, in Žižek’s terms, the counter violence to the excess of state power? By offering us, as spectators, a moment where we sympathise with – if not actively urge – the murder of Katharina’s tormentor, the tabloid hack and agent of institutional oppression, Werner Tötges, might the film place us in a position (as we could speculate did Katharina) to “wrestle with [the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”] in solitude and (…) to take upon [ourselves] the responsibility of ignoring it”?

This project re-reads Althusserian Marxism as an aesthetic project in light of Althusser’s writings on art and drama. I contend that the Althusserian legacy points to a theory of theory as ultimately an aesthetic project aimed at surpassing the idealist dialectic of theory and practice.

States need to benefit from some persuasion techniques especially at wars. Besides on military superiority, it is important to control both rivals and allies psychology and way of thinking. Thanks to developments in communication technologies, states reach their actions and desires to public more effectively and more rapidly; however, these improvements are not unilateral process, while states' potential to permeation public sphere improves, people's capabilities to access diversified sources increase correspondingly. United States of America, which defines itself as a defender of liberal and democratic world, takes advantage of psychological means of war either. These means had shown itself especially at Vietnam War, First Gulf War and eventually, Iraq War in 2003. Iraq War counted as a turning point regarding usage of media, because during that war, while technological equipments increased ways of journalist

Very brief analysis of childhood behavior shows that such combinations as histrionic play, bluff, playful threat, teasing play in response to threat, histrionic threat, and so on form together a single total complex of phenomena. And such adult phenomena as gambling and playing with risk have their roots in the combination of threat and play.

Bu çalışmada, Fransız düşünür Louis Althusser’in ölümünden sonra yayımlanan Karşılaşma Maddeciliğinin Yer Altı Akımı ve Machiavelli ve Biz başlıklı metinlerinden yola çıkarak, içerisinde bulunduğumuz konjonktürde radikal bir siyasetin olanakları üzerine düşünmeyi deneyeceğiz. Söz konusu eserlerin, Althusser’in felsefi arayışı boyunca, politik pratiğin koşulları üzerine düşünme çabasında, yeni ve beklenmedik bir pozisyona karşılık geldiğini önereceğimiz bu makalede, sadece Althusser üzerine değil ama aynı zamanda Althusser ile birlikte ve yer yer de ona rağmen düşünerek, bu pozisyonun bir “karşılaşma politikasına” doğru nasıl geliştirilebileceğinin yollarını arayacağız. Sol siyasetin etkisini yitirmesine paralel biçimde dünyanın değişik yerlerinde otoriter lider ve rejimlerin yükselişe geçtiği, neo-liberalizmin yıkıcılığına küresel pandeminin yarattığı felaketin eklemlenerek kesif bir belirsizlik yarattığı bu konjonktürde, Althusser’in bu yeni pozisyonunun düzen dışı radikal bir siyaseti yeniden düşünebilmek için barındırdığı olanakları irdeleyeceğiz. Bu yolla, Althusser’i güncelliğini yitirmemiş bir felsefi figür olarak yeniden düşünme fırsatı da yakalamış olacağız.

Através de uma tomada de posição que visa a considerar a problemática da interpelação ideológica em relação à questão racial, apresento, neste artigo, uma análise discursiva que busca dar consequência a tal relação no modo como ela se materializa no grito “Você é negro!” que se encontra em uma das cenas do filme Ó paí, ó!. O artigo perpassa três eixos teórico-analíticos, a saber: a) a questão da interpelação ideológica tomada por uma visada que considera a problemática racial; b) o problema da denúncia no intercruzamento entre interpelação e raça; e c) a materialidade vocal do grito como forma de denúncia. Toda discussão é feita assumindo os pressupostos da Análise de Discurso de orientação materialista.

El presente artículo tiene por objetivo problematizar la relación entre teoría y práctica política en la obra de Althusser. Asimismo, la relación entre teoría y política está íntimamente ligada al problema de la totalidad social. Es decir, para Althusser hay una relación estrecha entre el modo de concebir las prácticas y la conceptualización de la estructura social. Para ello, nos detendremos en la crítica que Althusser realizara a Hegel, puesto que condensa muchos de estos problemas. La totalidad hegeliana reduce todas las determinaciones y prácticas de la vida social al concepto produciendo de ese modo una “indistinción” entre las prácticas, en la medida en que todas ellas no son sino una manifestación del concepto. Frente a esta indistinción idealista, Althusser va a señalar la necesidad de pensar la articulación de prácticas singulares a la luz de lo que el llamará un “todo complejo y sobredeterminado”. En efecto, es a través del concepto de sobredeterminación que buscaremos pensar la primacía de la práctica política sobre la teoría. Intentaremos demostrar que esa primacía no supone un “salto a la política”, entendiendo por ello un desentendimiento de los problemas teóricos, ahora si resueltos a partir de su reducción a los conflictos políticos, sino que alude a una articulación diferencial que exige modos complejos del conocer.

En el presente trabajo analizaremos la lectura de Marx que Althusser llevó adelante con un conjunto de colaboradores. La misma llevó al filósofo francés a postular una serie de tesis sobre la ruptura epistemológica que le permitió a Marx constituir una ciencia de la historia, como un ámbito dotado de una legalidad específica, que desafiaba las lecturas dominantes realizadas primero en términos de un economicismo que fue crecientemente confrontado por lecturas izquierdistas que destacaban el papel en los escritos juveniles de Marx de conceptos como trabajo, elucidados de acuerdo a una clave que haría de "el hombre" el concepto crucial. Althusser pudo descubrir en ambas lecturas un supuesto compartido, la idea de que la historia sería un proceso dotado de un sujeto, donde el hombre sería el productor de su propia historia. Althusser desarrolló una lectura atenta de los textos juveniles de Marx para mostrar que esta idea es, por el contrario, el obstáculo epistemológico del que Marx tuvo que desembarazarse para poder desarrollar los lineamientos de una teoría científica de la historia, cuyos trazos mayores nos proponemos destacar en nuestra presentación.

abstract: The goal of this paper is to give an account of the pragmatic and social function of slurs, taken as speech acts. I develop a theory of the distinctive illocutionary force and pragmatic structure of slurs. I argue that slurs help to produce subjects who occupy social identities carved out by pernicious ideologies, and that they do this whether or not anyone involved intends for the slur to work that way or has any particular feelings or conscious thoughts associated with using or being targeted by the slur. I offer an Althusser-inspired account of what an ideology is, as well as of the mechanisms by which slurs can serve to cue and strengthen ideologies. A slur, I argue, is a kind of interpellation, which reduces its target to a generic identity and derogates and subordinates its target. I explore how slurs and ideologies work in tandem to constitute and fortify one another. I end by applying my account to see how well it fits and helps illuminate three quite different, especially complex slurs.

The subject today seems decentered in and by language, split by the unconscious, deformed by social forces, governed by ideology, and is either seen to have succumbed to the postmodern condition or to never have existed in the first place. Neither idealist philosophies nor new materialist approaches have adequately addressed the relation between subject and materiality.
Every materialist theory of the subject depends on a conception of materiality, which can delineate the character of what the material reality that the subject is constituted in consists of. This book offers readings of the approaches of Marxism, (post-)structuralism, and material semiotics and explores the relations between materiality and the subject in each approach.

During his imprisonment in WWII, Althusser, as stated, only had a book within reach: Pascal’s Pensées, a classic that, trough religious reflection, also involved epistemological, historical and sociological problems so in it we can find features «profoundly materialistic».2 Pascal’s influence is express, when Althusser takes from him the parable about the religious conversion, to explain (insufficiently) the fact of the ideological interpellation. However, Pascal ‘s texts keep intuitions that exceed the limits of the althusserian theory and that can be searched through the psychoanalytic theory of ideology as it is elaborated by the authors of the Slovene school.

This paper concerns the psychic trauma of the linguistic opposition of the terms “work” and “play” on unemployed youth as visually portrayed in the independent videogame Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall, 2017). Night in the Woods follows an unemployed young woman named Mae who returns to her hometown – a fictional, economically depressed Pennsylvania mining town – after dropping out of college. The player takes on the role of Mae as she traverses the town, an activity which is received by other characters as being inherently playful due to Mae’s position outside of the system of wage labor. The surveillance of judgmental neighbors robs Mae’s flânerie of its anonymity, in turn depriving Mae of the critical distance from her environment which permits the playful subjectivity of the flâneur. This ontological disjunction is addressed in the game through a dissociative breakdown in which Mae sees the entire world as incoherent shapes, a perceptual mode which infects the game’s visual style, wherein environments are an assemblage of geometric forms. This aesthetic evokes the geometric patterning of early Cubism, in which the intervention of language in the human perception of reality is represented through basic shapes which serve as arbitrary signs that are given different functions through the context of their relative position on canvas. In Night in the Woods, perceptible geometric signs represent Mae’s faltering comprehension of reality due to her uncertain position within the linguistic opposition of work and play, and the breakdown of the ideological unity of late capitalism itself.

"L'exforma. Arte, ideologia e scarto"
Nicolas Bourriaud, postmedia books 2016
108 pp. - isbn 9788874901777

Negli ultimi due decenni, la struttura stessa del discorso artistico è stata focalizzata su temi legati all'esclusione, del tipo "centro contro periferia", relazioni di potere, i confini, le minoranze, le situazioni suburbane... Ciò che mi ha portato a questa ricerca è il fatto che queste dinamiche non hanno trovato alcuna traduzione sul terreno estetico. La mia domanda era: se l'esclusione è il concetto chiave, come fanno gli artisti a tradurlo visivamente? E che tipo di forma vuol produrre? Così ho cercato di individuare questa specifica forma e dargli un nome. Quello che io chiamo "exforma" è una forma confiscata da paletti di esclusione, sia culturali che sociali o politici.

Se podría plantear que la cuestión de la ideología aparece como un componente fundamental a la hora de considerar una teoría crítica del derecho, como instancia superadora del "derecho natural" y el "derecho positivo", y hacia un cambio de consideraciones y abordajes que serán menesteres en su teoría y práctica. En el siguiente trabajo se dispondrá a abordar la cuestión de lo ideológico, planteado en la teoría marxista, y retomado y trabajado por Althusser en "Ideología y Aparatos Ideológicos del Estado", para refinar el acercamiento a conceptos, claves y componentes que sean relevantes a la hora de ajustar una precisión en la relación en torno a las cuestiones de la teoría del derecho. Para el siguiente abordaje será preciso remitirnos a la teoría althussereana, desde su obra "La cuestión de la Ideología", así como también a comentadores y continuadores. Trabajo realizado para la materia Filosofía del Derecho de la carrera de Profesorado en filosofía de la Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Año 2016.