Josh Cohen _Spectacular Allegories: Postmodern American Writing and the Politics of Seeing_ London: Pluto Press, 1998 ISBN 0-7453-1212-8 169 pp.

Jean Baudrillard _Fatal Strategies_ Translated by Philip Beitchman and W. G. J. Niesluchowski Edited by Jim Fleming London: Pluto Press, 1999 ISBN 0-7453-1453-8 191 pp.

Edited by Nieves Zúñiga García-Falces. In 15 years, the international community has been blamed for resorting too easily to the use of force on some occasions (Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo), and also it has been blamed for intervening too late or not at all in other crises (Rwanda, Bosnia and today Sudan and Congo). Even today, one of the most contested questions of international politics is the legitimacy for the use of force. David Chandler, Professor of International Relations at the University (...) of Westminster (UK) and Daniele Archibugi, a research director at National Research Council (Italy) and Professor at Birkbeck College (University of London), discuss about the use of force, how the theory and practice of warfare and humanitarian intervention have evolved in the contemporary world and the international responsibility of states. In his Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-building (Pluto Press), David Chandler has forcefully argued that Western interventions are destablizing exercises of power without responsibility. Daniele Archibugi has been equally critical of these armed interventions, although in his The Global Commonwealth of Citizens. Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy (Princeton University Press), he urges for a cosmopolitan responsibility based on non-violence and inclusion. (Published: 19 May 2009) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2009, pp. 155-169. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v2i2.1974. (shrink)

Eleanor Byrne and Martin McQuillan _Deconstructing Disney_ London: Pluto Press, 1999 ISBN 0 7453 1456 2 (hbk) 209 pp.

continent. 2.2 (2012): 152–154 Levi R. Bryant. The Democracy of Objects . Ann Arbor, MI: Open Humanities Press. 2011. 316 pp. | ISBN 9781607852049. | $23.99 For two decades post-anarchism has adopted an epistemological point of departure for its critique of the representative ontologies of classical anarchism. This critique focused on the classical anarchist conceptualization of power as a unitary phenomenon that operated unidirectionally to repress an otherwise creative and benign human essence. Andrew Koch may have inaugurated this trend (...) in 1993 when he wrote his influential paper entitled “Post-structuralism and the Epistemological Basis of Anarchism.” Koch’s paper certainly laid some of the important groundwork for post-anarchism’s continual subsumption of ontology beneath the a priori of an epistemological orientation, and his work continues to be cited as an early and important venture into post-anarchist philosophy. The problem is that Koch could not conceive of an anti-essentialist and autonomous ontological system, one not subject to regulation or representation by the human mind. Consequently, he was forced to assert a subjectivist claims-making ego as the foundation of a post-structuralist anarchist politics. Saul Newman was indebted to this heritage insofar as he also posited the ego (extrapolated from the writings of Max Stirner) and the subject (extrapolated from Jacques Lacan’s oeuvre ) as the paradoxical ‘outside’ to power and representation. Todd May fell into a similar trap in his book The Political Philosophy of Post-structuralist Anarchism when he wrote that “[m]etaphysics [...] partakes of the normativity inhabiting the epistemology that provides its foundations.” 1 Whereas Newman’s approach did not necessarily foreclose the possibility of metaphysics—at least to the extent that he began with the subject of the Lacanian tradition (wherein the subject is believed to be radically split between thinking and being)—May completely foreclosed the possibility of any escape from the reign of the epistemological. There laid the impasse of yesterday’s post-anarchism. This impasse at the heart of the project of post-anarchism has forced Koch, Newman, May, and many others, to come to similar conclusions about the place of ontology in post-anarchist scholarship. The post-anarchists have all formulated a response strikingly similar to Koch’s argument that any representative ontology ought to be dismantled and dethroned in favour of “a conceptualization of knowledge that is contingent on a plurality of internally consistent episteme .” 2 By dismissing all ontologies as suspiciously representative and as incessantly harbouring a dangerous form of essentialism, post-anarchists have overlooked the privilege that they have placed on the human subject, language, and discourse, at the expense of the democracy that the human subject shares with other animals, objects, and beings in the world. This epistemological characterization of post-anarchism has held sway for far too long. It is not by chance that post-anarchism, as a concept, was first formulated by Hakim Bey as an “ontological anarchism,” 3 and subsequently repressed by the canon of post-anarchist authors. Perhaps Bey’s ontological anarchism also lacked the ‘rigour’ required of today’s scholarly audience and for these two reasons (at least) he has received very little credit for his inaugurating efforts into post-anarchism. In any case, I want to challenge this reluctance and revive the roots of post-anarchism. Levi Bryant gives us a reason to believe that we can achieve the promise of Bey’s ontological anarchism without sacrificing the scholarly standard of rigour. Levi Bryant’s newest open-access book, The Democracy of Objects , is a tour de force . His book challenges post-anarchists to take their radical critique of representation a step further by questioning the “hegemony that epistemology currently enjoys in philosophy.” Bryant maintains that post-structuralism, and radical anti-humanisms, only appear to reject the subject as the locus of political agency. Their rejection is actually more of a disavowal, a replacement of the human subject with the equally human order of language or discourse. What post-structuralism attempts to elucidate is the manner in which the subject is colonized by the Other of language, discourse and social relations. What here appears as a movement away from the determining subject of humanism and existentialism is only replaced with the determining apparatuses of structures as they are conceived by astute analysts of political culture. Post-structuralism thus re-enters the anthropocentric discourse to the extent that the cultural analyst believes himself capable of conceiving the determinative structures of society. In contradistinction to the claims of post-structuralism and post-anarchism, the role of the ontologist is not to suture the gap between epistemology and the real but to de-suture it, as Bryant puts it: “[o]ntology does not tell us what objects exist, but that objects exist, that they are generative mechanisms.” Above all else, the role of ontology, for post-anarchists, ought to be a real de-centering of the subject in relation to other objects in the non-human world such that the subject becomes conceived as one object among others within a living democracy of equality. This inevitably leads to the conclusion that objects exist whether or not the subject or analyst is there to represent them: they represent themselves and are autonomous from our dictation, just as each object finds its autonomy in relation to other objects. Ontology must now be distinguished from representation. We must shift the terms of the debate and interrogate the hegemony that epistemology has been afforded within post-anarchist philosophy. At least two possibilities are now permitted. On the one hand, one could intervene into the reigning mode of philosophy, namely epistemology, by latching onto concepts from meta-ethical philosophy. Meta-ethics allows one to easily separate the ontological from the epistemological and to answer very particular questions about each in order to formulate an overarching meta-ethical position. 4 Post-anarchism is particularly adept at this task because of its resounding ability to frame itself as an ethical political philosophy in relation to the strategic political philosophy of classical Marxism. On the other hand, Bryant argues that “[p]erhaps the best way to defeat [the privilege currently held by epistemology] is to shift the terms of debate.” Shifting the terms of debate is also something that post-anarchists have been very good at doing. Thus, instead of asking the question ‘how do representative ontological systems harbour concealed epistemological orientations toward the political?’ one might ask ‘ do epistemological orientations toward the political always harbour representative and subject-centred ontological systems?” The genius of Bryant’s book rests in its ability to convincingly argue for the radical autonomy of being and of objects. This claim speaks to some of the most compelling theories of the political in anarchist and marxist political philosophy (for instance, hegemony, representation, democracy, and so on) and it re-stages the political drama of our times across a much wider terrain. The fallacy of strategic political philosophy in the Marxist tradition, as Todd May quite correctly points out, is that it remains committed to a concept of power that is unitary in its analysis, unidirectional in its influence, and utterly repressive in its effect. Similarly, Bryant’s ontology allows one to argue that there is a fallacy that occurs “whenever one type of entity is treated as the ground or explains all other entities.” Whereas May’s post-structuralist anarchism moved away from the fallacy of the unitary analysis of power, whereby subjects are constituted by the influence of a single site of power, it nonetheless remained committed to a tactical political philosophy which is monarchical in the final analysis . It remains monarchical to the extent that the human world, the world of epistemology, is treated as the yardstick of democracy. Bryant’s argument is quite instructive: “[w]hat we thus get is not a democracy of objects or actants where all objects are on equal ontological footing [...] but instead a monarchy of the human in relation to all other beings.” The real fallacy is thus not against strategic political philosophy but philosophy itself and the way it has played out over so many centuries. “The epistemic fallacy,” writes Bryant, “consists in the thesis that proper ontological questions can be fully transposed into epistemological questions.” The point that Bryant is making relates to the way ontology is today always reduced to an epistemology and thereby loses its significance as a philosophical question. This book should be applauded for its novelty and its thesis ought to be taken seriously by post-anarchists today. Because of this book, and the attendant post-continental movement that is being called ‘speculative realism,’ we can now distinguish three stages in the life of post-anarchism. First, we can deduce what Süreyya Evren has described as its ‘introductory period.’ The introductory period of post-anarchism is defined by its inability to side-step the ontological problem in the literature of classical anarchism. During this period, post-anarchism needed to distinguish itself from classical anarchism while nonetheless remaining committed to its ethical project. The second period overcomes the problem of the separation of post-anarchism from classical anarchism by re-reading the classical tradition as essentially post-anarchistic. Some of the critiques of post-anarchism—especially that from Cohn & Wilbur 5 —are included into this period insofar as post-anarchism, for them, was always already anarchism. Whereas the first and second phases have included only explicitly anarchist literature under their rubric of worthwhile investigation, in the third period this no longer holds true. To be certain, the second period permitted the incorporation of post-structuralist literature into post-anarchist discussions (but always with a certain amount of reservation). This third period, the one that is to come—the one that is already here if only we would heed its call—will not take such care with attempts at identification or canonization. Indeed, post-anarchism is already here, like a seed beneath the snow, waiting to be discovered. Levi Bryant teaches us that the third period is already here: and yet where is it? NOTES 1) Todd May. The Political Philosophy of Post-Structuralist Anarchism . University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. 1997. 2. 2) Andrew Koch. “Post-structuralism and the Epistemological Basis of Anarchism” [1993] in Post-Anarchism: A Reader . Eds. Duane Rousselle & Sureyyya Evren. London: Pluto Press. 2011. pp. 23-40. 3) Bey, Hakim. “ Post-Anarchism Anarchy .” 1987. 4) I have attempted to do this in my paper on Bataille’s post-anarchism; see Duane Rousselle. “Georges Bataille’s Post-anarchism.” Journal of Political Ideologies . 17(3): in press. 5) Jesse Cohn & Shawn Wilbur. “ What’s Wrong with Post-anarchism? ” 2010. (shrink)

Tato studie je recenzní statí ke knize Andrew MCGETTIGAN, The Great University Gamble: Money, Markets and the Future of Higher Education. London: Pluto Press, 2013. Klíčovým motivem studie je využití McGettiganovy analýzy technických aspektů reformy univerzitního systému započaté v Anglii na konci první dekády jednadvacátého století pro výklad vzestupu specifického režimu vzdělávání vyjádřeného v jazyce a logice „trhu a peněz". Vzestup tohoto režimu je interpretován s ohledem na procesy odpojování univerzitního prostředí od dosavadního vzdělávacího rámce spojeného s (...) veřejnými zájmy. Studium způsobů, jakými procházejí peníze zaváděným systémem vzdělávání, odkrývá novou podobu konfrontace klasických ideálů univerzitní výchovy s realitou masového vzdělávání. (shrink)

_Alien Identities: Exploring Differences in Film and Fiction_ Edited by Deborah Cartmell, I. Q. Hunter, Heidi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan London: Pluto Press, 1999 ISBN: 0-7453-1405-8 197 pp.

Jean Baudrillard _Revenge of the Crystal: Selected Writings on the Modern Object and its Destiny, 1968-1983_ London: Pluto Press, 1999 ISBN: 0-7453-1443-0 198 pp.

_Aliens R Us: The Other in Science Fiction Cinema_ Edited by Ziauddin Sardar and Sean Cubitt London: Pluto Press, 2002 ISBN 0-7453-1544-5 (hb) 0-7453-1539-9 (pbk) 208 pp.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action by Rhiannon FirthJohn-Erik HanssonRhiannon Firth. Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action. London: Pluto Press, 2022. Paperback, 243 pp. ISBN 9780745340463The COVID-19 pandemic and the unfolding climate crisis, with the multiplication of unprecedented weather events, have shown how urgent it is to reflect on our responses to disaster. Following up on themes she first broached in Coronavirus, Class, (...) and Mutual Aid in the United Kingdom, Rhiannon Firth throws a fresh, anarchist, and utopian light on disaster relief in Disaster Anarchy.1 In this work, Firth seeks to “consider how [anarchist] social movements’ impressive efforts in mutual aid might contribute to a radical and revolutionary reconceptualisation of disasters and the processes of relief and recovery efforts” (19). To do so, she begins by surveying the dominant approaches to disaster relief (chapters 2 and 3) before offering a comprehensive anarchist theoretical critique of these perspectives (chapter 4). Firth then fleshes out her anarchist theory of disaster and community response through two empirical case studies of grassroots relief efforts. In chapter 5 she looks into the Occupy Sandy movement, a New York area community-based response to the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy’s passage in October 2012 in the United States. The final chapter is then dedicated to the COVID-19 Mutual Aid Groups that emerged in the United Kingdom during the pandemic.In building her argument, Firth mobilizes anarchist (and more broadly radical) theory and interviews with participants in both movements. She engages with how activists motivated and understood their participation in mutual aid groups, perceived disaster and relief organizing, sought to solve practical and political problems, and reflected on their experiences. The empirical sections of Disaster Anarchy are thus reminiscent of investigations into the anarchist connections and orientations of contemporary social movements, such as Occupy Wall Street.2 However, Firth’s is a work [End Page 606] of political theory. Her interviews were not conducted simply to describe and analyze the anarchist components of disaster relief social movements. Echoing Uri Gordon, she proposes to take the “worldviews of activists seriously as sources of theoretical knowledge,” leading us to rethink both anarchism and the politics of disaster as a whole (16).3 There lies a key part of the originality of Firth’s contribution to both anarchist theory and to the study of disaster relief. The utopian core of Disaster Anarchy also shines through this movement-based theoretical elaboration of an anarchist challenge to the dominant theories and practices of disaster relief. By examining mutual aid groups in critical dialogue with anarchist theory, Firth raises the possibility of more egalitarian and democratic “utopian alternatives to the status quo,” though, as she reminds us, they always run the risk of being co-opted (20).To set the scene for the desirability of anarchist approaches to disaster relief, Disaster Anarchy opens with Firth’s dissatisfaction with what she identifies as the two main sets of approaches to disaster studies. The first represents “the dominant neoliberal paradigm of disaster politics” and falls under the umbrella of “Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)” (21). Firth contends that, despite some internal variety, all DRR approaches share the three same basic assumptions. First, DRR considers disasters to be “ruptures in the normal functioning of society.” They become a “management problem” that must be dealt with using the tools of political governance to restore order and ensure “systemic stability” (39–40). This can be done both directly through state institutions, and through civil society-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that cooperate with state institutions. DRR then evaluates responses using the categories of “efficiency and cost-effectiveness,” leaving aside “the affects and human impacts of disasters” (40). Second, DRR tends to flatten out differences between disasters, and in the ways in which individuals and groups respond to them. Disaster becomes abstract, and authorities can design sets of responses taken to be effective regardless of local contexts and demands. DRR approaches are therefore particularly congenial to the growth of large governmental “specialised agencies like DHS [Department of Homeland Security] and FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency]” that produce knowledge and practices linked to the vertical “management of disaster” (41). Finally... (shrink)

Martin Barker, with Thomas Austin _From Ants to Titanic: Reinventing Film Analysis_ London: Pluto Press, 2000 ISBN: 0-7453-1579-8 (pb); 0-7453-1584-4 (hb) v + 222 pp.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Utopia and Modernity in China: Contradictions in Transition ed. by David Margolies and Qing CaoArtur BlaimDavid Margolies and Qing Cao, eds. Utopia and Modernity in China: Contradictions in Transition. London: Pluto Press, 2022. 176 pp. Paperback, £19.99, ISBN 978 0 7453 4739 4In recent years, numerous publications have appeared focusing on the until now little known non-Western utopias and utopianism.1 Utopia and Modernity in China (...) is a most welcome addition, offering a highly informative survey of Chinese utopias and utopianism combined with an insightful discussion of their formative role in the making of modern China. The book consists of seven chapters introducing different aspects of the opposition of utopia and modernity as exemplified by various cultural productions and their impact on the social and political life of the country. Its publication has acquired a special relevance today not only due to China’s increasingly major role in the contemporary world, but also in connection with its official support of the [End Page 143] Russian invasion of Ukraine, contradicting its repeatedly declared adherence to the principles of international law and the ideals of national sovereignty, noninterference, and harmony in international affairs.Although the term utopia appeared in Chinese discourse only at the end of the nineteenth century, the idea of a radically better society has always existed in China, assuming different forms and shapes. The contributors to the volume trace the functioning of the broadly conceived phenomenon of utopian thinking in various domains of Chinese cultural, social, and political life, paying special attention to literary and cinematic works. The declared aims of the book are not only cognitive but also pragmatic as the editors believe that recent Chinese history involving “fundamental conflict of values,” the country’s experiences with economic systems that fail to supply the needs of the population, and the emergence of a society based on inequality, can be seen as highly relevant in the Western context also, to the extent that—as the editors convincingly argue—it “can provide English-language readers with a perspective useful for making sense of their own condition” (2).The editors see the opposition of utopia and modernity as less significant in the Western context than in China, where modernity became essential for preserving the integrity of the state torn by the conflict between the traditional values of nonconfrontation and continuity and the urgent need for significant change. Unlike in the West, where the dominant view of modernity was largely influenced by the Platonic model of the society in which the class of rulers was protected by the military class controlling the rest of the population, the Confucian model of social relations prevalent in China was based—at least in theory—on the principle of harmony rather than force. Other factors defining the Chinese variety of utopianism were Taoism, emphasizing the importance of nature and “The Way,” and Buddhism, advocating the limitation of needs and control of desires. The editors see this as “the reverse of the West’s view: for China, utopia (in the aspect of harmony) is the expectation, the desired normal, while modernity is the disrupter” (4) which is responsible for the predominance of the nostalgic utopia looking backwards to the idealized harmony of the past. The revolutions taking place in China in the twentieth century led to the decline of traditional ideals and brought with them experiments with the implementation of various Western ideologies, ranging from liberalism and democracy to socialism and communism. As a result, there are three main tendencies in the value system of contemporary China: orthodox communism, market-based liberalism, and [End Page 144] values derived from traditional Chinese culture. Nevertheless, the state continues to be generally seen in Confucian terms as an extension of the family based on moral authority rather than as “necessary evil.”The first chapter, “The Lure of Utopia: Reinterpreting Liang Qichao’s Xinmin Shuo, 1902–1906,” proposes a new perspective on the ideas of Liang Qichao, a highly influential early twentieth-century political activist, journalist, and intellectual, by focusing on the ways in which he advanced a utopian vision of the West as a radical alternative to the traditional Chinese social views. Liang... (shrink)

Reseña del libro FLAKIN, Nathaniel. Martin Monath: A Jewish Resistance Fighter among Nazi Soldiers. London, Pluto Press, 2019.

Volume 24, Issue 6, September 2019, Page 680-682.

Power is classically understood as the playing out of relations between the ruler and the ruled. Political impasse is often viewed as a moment in which no clear-cut delineation of power exists, resulting in an overwhelming sense of frustration or feeling stuck in a no-win situation. The new globalised world has produced a real shift in how power works: not only has power been concentrated in the hands of very few while many millions become more oppressed by radical shortages and (...) growing costs, but we also have a new category of political subjectivity in which many find themselves neither rulers nor radically oppressed. Those who live the neither/nor of contemporary power live the new global impasse. For those of us who are stuck and compelled to wait for dominant power to break, this book uncovers possibilities in thought, imagination, and self-appropriation through oikeiosis, that is, making oneself at home in oneself, and constancy. (shrink)

This book joins a small number of efforts in the last decade to present the complex scientific issues of geomagnetism to a broader, semi-technical audience. The author approaches this goal more closely than most scientists and science writers. He specifically eschews mathematical equations knowing that even one equation leads some readers to give up trying. He offers instead a mix of description and story-telling, the former directed at phenomena and procedures, the latter drawn mostly from personal experience.As Merrill notes, his (...) wife insisted that he “explain the material in a way she could understand it” (vii). A virtue of this is an enforced candor often obscured by mathematics, even in semi-popular accounts. This is most clear in addressing fundamental questions, such as when he asks what produces the magnetic field of magnets. In a paragraph that begins with a simple bar magnet, the author successively halves the magnet until he has only an electron remaining. This he calls a po. (shrink)

Addiction Trajectories is a collection of anthropological essays that brings a refreshingly human perspective to the scientific pursuit of addiction. This book encourages the reader to step back from the details, giving voice to the experiences of the drug user as they grapple to come to terms with their condition and the efforts of the treatment community. At the same time, the book provides insight into the machinations of the treatment community struggling to understand the scope of their task and (...) to respond to the shifting intellectual landscapes of licit and illicit drugs. The addiction trajectories framework is constructed around three themes. Theme one concerns the changing categories and concepts of addiction through time and across disciplinary boundaries. Theme two represents changes in therapeutic concepts of addiction across cultures and organisations. Theme three represents the experiences of the addicted individual. Conceptualising trajectories captures the shifting natur .. (shrink)

In the heady days of 2011–2012, when Barack Obama was in his first term and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act heralded a golden future, medical anthropologists and activists had reason to be excited. Their country was about to take—so they believed—the greatest single step in the right direction since LBJ’s “Great Society” welfare spending program. It was in this climate that Inhorn and Wentzell’s collection of essays was published, and the optimism of the times shines through many of (...) the essays.The harsh reality is that at the end of 2012 Obama was re-elected, and after a painful deadlock the health insurance legislation known as “Obamacare” was pushed through. What followed has not turned out quite the way anyone expected and has driven an initial and unprecedented tidal wave of disapproval of the Obama presidency. Reading Medical Anthropology at the Intersections is therefore a sobering lesson in how a week can be a very long time in politics and a year a positive etern. (shrink)

Andrew Marr has built this masterful study of Mutio Oddi on a set of ironies. He begins with a bitter blow of fortune: Oddi, in the middle of an apparently promising life as mathematician and architect in his native Urbino, had fallen afoul of his lord the Duke, accused of participating in a plot to depose him. After years of apparently unjust imprisonment, he was released in 1610, but into exile. Yet Oddi managed to recast his career in Milan and (...) then in Lucca, building upon a varied set of skills, and even returned eventually to Urbino. That varied set of skills had resulted from yet another, earlier, set of reversals and recoveries: he had turned to mathematics only after first training as an artist in the studio of Federico Barocci, a field he had been forced to abandon due to problems with his eyesight. Oddi was widely respected in his day, not only for his achievements themselves but also for his persistence and ingenuity in overcoming such obstacles. Yet to modern historians of .. (shrink)