Radical feminists have argued for both the radical potential of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and its oppressive and damaging effects for women. This paper will address the question of what constitutes a radical feminist position on ART; I will argue that the very debate over whether ART liberates or oppresses women is misguided, and that instead the issue should be understood dialectically. Reproductive technologies are neither inherently liberating nor entirely oppressive: we can only understand the potential and (...) effects by considering how they are actually taken up within a culture. The internal contradictions, tensions, and inconsistencies within ART and the way it is addressed within the law points to a dialectic that resists a simple reductivist understanding. (shrink)

How can we radically change the inhuman conditions existing in the world today? In this paper, I answer this question by explaining the how, when, and who of radical socio-political transformation. We need both critical theorizing and transformative practice to explain how we can change the world. We must theorize the moment of the limit in the objective domain of power to answer when the transformative agency becomes possible. I introduce the idea of the “political subject-in-outline” that moves within (...) the tension of minimal closure and permanent openness to theorize a who, which remains inclusive and has the strength to transform the status quo. Marx’s and Adorno’s thought remains central to theorize socio-political transformation today. (shrink)

In the 1960s, the strict opposition between the religious and the secular began to break down, blurring the distinction between political philosophy and political theology. This collapse contributed to the decline of modern liberalism, which supported a neutral, value-free space for capitalism. It also deeply unsettled political, religious, and philosophical realms, forced to confront the conceptual stakes of a return to religion. Gamely intervening in a contest that defies simple resolutions, Clayton Crockett conceives of the postmodern convergence of the secular (...) and the religious as a basis for emancipatory political thought. Engaging themes of sovereignty, democracy, potentiality, law, and event from a religious and political point of view, Crockett articulates a theological vision that responds to our contemporary world and its theo-political realities. Specifically, he claims we should think about God and the state in terms of potentiality rather than sovereign power. Deploying new concepts, such as Slavoj Žižek's idea of parallax and Catherine Malabou's notion of plasticity, his argument engages with debates over the nature and status of religion, ideology, and messianism. Tangling with the work of Derrida, Deleuze, Spinoza, Antonio Negri, Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, John D. Caputo, and Catherine Keller, Crockett concludes with a reconsideration of democracy as a form of political thought and religious practice, underscoring its ties to modern liberal capitalism while also envisioning a more authentic democracy unconstrained by those ties. (shrink)

RESUMO:O artigo discute a noção de esfera pública tematizada nos trabalhos habermasianos, defendendo que a íntima associação entre esfera pública e democracia permite pensar um modelo de política radical, no qual a aproximação entre Estado burocrático e partidos políticos profissionais com os movimentos sociais e as iniciativas cidadãs poderia superar a redução da práxis política a política partidária, concedendo a devida importância aos impulsos normativos e aos interesses generalizáveis advindos da sociedade civil rumo ao político, recuperando também uma concepção (...) de esfera pública não desvirtuada por formas de comunicação ideológicas ou distorcidas, inclusiva e crítica do poder. Para isso, entretanto, a práxis política necessitaria, correlatamente àquela aproximação, dar um passo além da própria esfera pública concentrada na mídia corporativa, adentrando nas esferas públicas informais desenvolvidas pelos movimentos sociais e pelas iniciativas cidadãs. Com efeito, as acusações, por Habermas, de subversão da esfera pública das democracias de massa contemporâneas somente poderiam ser superadas a partir de uma maior ênfase em tais esferas públicas informais, que também poderiam dinamizar uma organização administrativo-partidária atualmente marcada pelo distanciamento e pela sobreposição em relação à sociedade civil – situação possibilitada, em grande medida, pela mídia corporativa e pela burocracia e elitismo partidários. ABSTRACT:This paper discusses the Habermasian notion of public sphere. It is argued that the intrinsic association between the public sphere and democracy allows for the development of a model of radical politics in which the approximation between the bureaucratic state and professional political parties, along with social movements and citizen initiatives, could overcome the reduction of political praxis to partisan politics. This would include giving basic importance to normative impulses and universalistic claims coming from civil society. It would also involve regenerating a conception of the public sphere that is not undermined by ideological or distorted forms of communication, including the critique of power. For this, however, political praxis needs, along with such that approximation, to take a step beyond the public sphere concentrated in corporate media, focusing instead on the informal public spheres developed by social movements and citizen initiatives. In fact, Habermas’ claimed degeneration of the public sphere of contemporary mass democracies can only be overcome by a major emphasis on informal public spheres. This could energize administrative-party organizations, currently characterized by detachment and overlap in relation to civil society – a situation largely enabled by corporate media, the bureaucracy, and party elitism. (shrink)

This paper argues that the current scholarship of radical politics primarily bannered by Christopher Ryan Maboloc is a misappropriation of the postMarxist political project of Mouffe and Laclau. Drawing primarily both on Mouffe’s and Laclau’s work Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics and an interview with Chantal Mouffe herself, the paper argues how the post-Marxist radical political project of Mouffe and Laclau fails to theoretically fit to the style of governance and regime (...) of Duterte. Fundamental to the idea of radical democratic politics is the task of radicalizing liberal democracy. However, as discussed in the paper, liberal democracy is a project whose very institutions and processes Duterte and his regime have undermined and attacked. Under Duterte’s regime, radical democracy lost the conditions for its flourishing, rendering its own impossibility. (shrink)

There is little doubt that our political discourse has become more polarized over the last thirty years. I argue that as radical thinkers we can turn to politeness as one way to begin working past this partisan and adversarial atmosphere. I define politeness as a self-conscious appreciation of the role of social convention in repairing and maintaining our relationships. The first section compares politeness and decency to highlight what is unique about politeness. The second section argues that politeness can (...) be considered a form of care. The third and final section describes how radical theory can use politeness to start initiating healthier dialogue. (shrink)

In this book, Sean Homer addresses Slavoj Žižek’s work in a specific political conjuncture, his political interventions in the Balkans. The charge of inconsistency and contradiction is frequently levelled at Žižek’s politics, a charge he openly embraces in the name of "pragmatism." Homer argues that his interventions in the Balkans exposes the dangers of this pragmatism for the renewal of Leftist politics that he calls for. The book asses Žižek’s political interventions inso far as they advance his self-proclaimed (...) "ruthlessly radical" aims about changing the world. Homer argues the Balkans can be seen as Žižek’s symptom, that element which does not fit into the system but speaks its truth and reveals what the system cannot acknowledge about itself. (shrink)

There has always been a strong connection historically between aesthetics and radical politics, and this is no less true for the global justice movements current preoccupation with cultural approaches to political action. The essays collected here seek to engage with past and present convergences between the theories and practices of artists and writers and the theories and practices of movements for radical social change. There is already a massive amount of literature on Marxist approaches to aesthetics, art (...) and literature, and whilst recognising the usefulness of such approaches, the essays collected here attempt to engage with culture from other radical critical positions - whether they be anarchist, autonomist, ecological or otherwise. Such perspectives have often been overlooked historically, but it is arguable that they now more centrally influence the activities of radical artists and activists. As such, the perspectives of these essays, which are often drawn from or inspired by the practices of the current global justice movement, exhibit an exhilarating political and generational break with the suppositions of earlier radical theoretical approaches to cultural critique. (shrink)

Li 禮 (translated variously as “ritual”, “etiquette”, or “propriety”) plays a central role in early Confucianism, but its complexity is not always fully understood. At first glance, it may seem as if li behaviors are merely attempts to promote conservative practices from the idealized Chinese past. However, by examining the nature and function of li, as described the Analects (Lunyu 論語) and the Xunzi 荀子 (two key texts in the early Confucian tradition), it becomes overwhelmingly apparent that li is a (...) much more complicated phenomenon. Li actually plays key roles within the interconnected fields of Confucian ethics, religion, and politics and often adds aesthetic elements to these areas of thought. As such, it is as much a source of Confucian innovation as it is a tool for promoting reverence for the past. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre originally made the term engagement a part of the existentialist vocabulary following WWII. It imples the responsibility of intervening in social or political conflicts in the hope of fostering freedom. Imagining the Possible opens different windows upon this particular engagement.

Today, looking at the Middle East, through and beyond the dust and smoke of war, it is apparent that new forms of politics and democracy are being shaped in social practices and by social experimentation. We are referring to the people's councils that have been established in various places in the Kurdistan region, and through which people are taking greater responsibility for and control of their daily lives and the places where they live. Those involved refer to these councils (...) in the context of ‘democratic autonomy’ and ‘democratic confederalism’, which indicates that they are not simply to be considered as just local initiatives, but also contribute to a larger project or idea and way of thinking about and doing politics. We may not fully comprehend this form of politics, yet this should challenge academics and those interested in developing new forms of democracy to take a closer look. (shrink)

Two methodological remarks are needed at the outset. First, while I am going to treat the redemptive paradigm in full, I will — for obvious reasons of length — analyze the democratic paradigm only insofar as it is related to the alternative under discussion. Second, under the heading of “redemptive paradigm in radical politics,” I will address both left and right political theories. It is, however, only to the degree that conservatives embrace the redemptive paradigm that I speak (...) of “conservative political radicalism.” Redemptive politics was born at the end of the 18th century. It entered the theater mundi in the person of the hero whom Hegel appropriately called Weltgeist zu Pferde and on whom Weber modeled his principle of “charismatic legitimation.”. (shrink)

This article reconstructs the forgotten friendship between Georges Bataille and the Russian émigré poet and philosopher Boris Poplavsky. Comparing their solar metaphysics, I focus on conceptions of friendship, sacrifice and depersonalisation. First, I retrace Bataille’s relationship to early Surrealis and Russian circles in interwar Paris, with a focus on his friendship with Irina Odoevtseva. I then offer a novel reading of Poplavsky’s poetry through the lens of Bataille’s philosophy, analysing a recurring motif that I call ‘dark solarity’. Uncovering a hidden (...) intertextual dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I argue for Poplavsky’s lasting impact on Bataille’s anti-Icarian sun cult. Finally, my paper demonstrates how Poplavsky’s writings on solar sacrifice, excess and friendship left marks on Bataille’s vision of a solar community, embodied in the secret society Acéphale. The dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I finally suggest, is a missing piece in the entangled history of Russian and French philosophy, as well as an original contribution to discourses on friendship in twentieth-century continental thought. (shrink)

Successive waves of global protest since 1999 have encouraged leading contemporary political theorists to argue that politics has fundamentally changed in the last twenty years, with a new type of politics gaining momentum over elite, representative institutions. The new politics is frequently described as radical, but what does radicalism mean for the conduct of politics? Capturing the innovative practices of contemporary radicals, Routledge Handbook of Radical Politicsbrings together leading academics and campaigners to answer these (...) questions and explore radicalism's meaning to their practice. In the thirty-five chapters written for this collection, they collectively develop a picture of radicalism by investigating the intersections of activism and contemporary political theory. Across their experiences, the authors articulate radicalism's critical politics and discuss how diverse movements support and sustain each other. Together, they provide a wide-ranging account of the tensions, overlaps and promise of radical politics, while utilising scholarly literatures on grassroots populism to present a novel analysis of the relationship between radicalism and populism. Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics serves as a key reference for students and scholars interested in the politics and ideas of contemporary activist movements. er. Together, they provide a wide-ranging account of the tensions, overlaps and promise of radical politics, while utilising scholarly literatures on grassroots populism to present a novel analysis of the relationship between radicalism and populism. Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics serves as a key reference for students and scholars interested in the politics and ideas of contemporary activist movements. (shrink)

This book analyzes early Chinese ritual discourse during the Warring States and early Western Han Periods, arguing that the Ruists (Confucians) conceived ritual as primarily a dramaturgical matter, which had wide-ranging effects on the ways authors of early Chinese texts discussed matters of religion, ethics, and politics. It reveals how performance became a fundamental feature of political life, making theatrical "presence" a necessary element for either expression or deception in a community of spectators.

This argument aims to provide an overview of the historical context and main factors shaping the relation between left-wing radical politics and emergency powers in interwar Europe. It also brings to the fore how left-wing radical movements fuelled, reacted to and were connected with the multiple crises of the time span between the two world wars. The main argument is that emergency powers had the potential and were turned into a vehicle for an authoritarian drive, as several (...) cases of that time illustrate. The abuse of emergency powers led to a normalisation of political violence and worked as a corrosive force against the liberal order in several European countries during the interwar period. (shrink)

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In his 2012 work, Faith of the Faithless, the philosopher Simon Critchley presented an ‘atheistic’ formulation of faith as an ‘experiment’ in ‘political theology.’ This work, as part of the so-called ‘turn to religion’ in continental political philosophy, gave an account of what Critchley had formerly articulated as ‘atheistic transcendence.’ Tracing the genesis of the latter and then linking to his notion of the supreme fiction, the paper seeks to account for Critchley’s ‘a/theological’ shift. Through a close reading, the paper (...) argues that Critchley’s ‘faith of the faithless’ depends on the Christian hermeneutic tradition – or radical theology – for its articulation. Finally, using John D. Caputo’s radical theology as the principal proponent in this regard, the paper demonstrates a necessary symmetry with Critchley’s faith of the faithless. Such a claim leads to the conclusion that while symmetrical, Critchley and Caputo are also inversely related. That is: a Critchlean radical politics nourished by radical theology opens up the possibility for a Caputoian radical political theology nourished by Critchlean radical politics. (shrink)

Comparative political theory is at best an embryonic and marginalized endeavor. As practiced in most Western universities, the study of political theory generally involves a rehearsal of the canon of Western political thought from Plato to Marx. Only rarely are practitioners of political thought willing (and professionally encouraged) to transgress the canon and thereby the cultural boundaries of North America and Europe in the direction of genuine comparative investigation. Border Crossings presents an effort to remedy this situation, fully launching a (...) new era in political theory. Thirteen scholars from around the world examine the various political traditions of West, South, and East Asia and engage in a reflective cross-cultural discussion that belies the assumptions of an Asian "essence" and of an unbridgeable gulf between West and non-West. The denial of essential differences does not, however, amount to an endorsement of essential sameness. As viewed and as practiced by contributors to this ground-breaking volume, comparative political theorizing must steer a course between uniformity and radical separation--this is the path of "border crossings.". (shrink)

Unlike many countries across the world, in Chile after 1968 a radical socialist government came to power with the electoral victory of Salvador Allende and Popular Unity underpinned by a whole range of movements toward a socialism “from below”. Using fragments gathered from workers’ newspapers produced during the 1930s, 1950s and 1970s, the aim of this article is to identify the changing content of radical socialist politics that coalesced by the time of this electoral victory in and (...) through the “everyday” experience of workers in the textile industry. Workers in this sector were at the forefront of the profound changes underway during the prior period of import-substitution industrialisation from the 1930s and the “pre-revolutionary” moment of 1970-1973, where major textile firms were amongst the first to be occupied and nationalised under the Allende government. By tracing the evolution of socialist ideas in these publications —published by trade unions, political parties and, in the 1970s, by workers in the occupied factories themselves— I unravel the development of a radical socialist politics through these decades that then coalesced with the electoral victory of the UP in 1970. Methodologically, I draw on the work of Chilean sociologist Tomás Moulian (1993) and his concept of ideas “en uso” to examine how radical socialist ideas developed and changed in their interaction with workplace conflicts of the time. Consequently, I identify four areas in which these ideas developed: expression of the changing workplace; interpretation of discontent through legalist and radical discourse; the complexities of Chilean socialist and anti-imperialist ideas; and the construction of historical memory. I demonstrate how the interplay of these four features of Chilean socialist ideas were represented in an “everyday socialism” that informed the factory occupations and nascent social transformations after 1970. (shrink)

This article offers a critical reflection on the mutually resonant recent works of Clayton Crockett and Jeffrey Robbins, both of whom expose “radical theology” as insufficiently political, “political theology” as insufficiently radical, and “radical politics” as insufficiently attuned to theology. In light of these shortcomings, they offer a radical political theology as a “necessary supplement” to the project of radical democracy—which is to say a politics of, by, and for “the multitude.” This article (...) tracks the shifting and occasionally conflicting contours of this radically democratic theology. (shrink)

These 12 essays give you new perspectives on how Agamben's work is increasingly relevant to economy and political action: the two ideas that frame the most pressing problems of global politics. New analyses of Agamben's recent work on government and his relationship to the revolutionary tradition opening up new ways of thinking about politics and critical theory in the post-financial crisis world. Contributors: Daniel McLoughlin Giorgio Agamben Jason E. Smith Jessica Whyte Justin Clemens Mathew Abbott Miguel Vatter Nicholas (...) Heron Sergei Prozorov Simone Bignall Steven DeCaroli. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The aim of this critical discourse analysis is to examine how the agenda and actions of the global protest movement ‘Youth for Climate’ are understood and constructed in Swedish mainstream press and to highlight how the journalistic recontextualization contributes to empowering and disempowering the critical voices and their demands. The article problematizes the journalistic ideal of objectivity in the case of the climate crisis and adds to discussions about the role of media and journalism in the political dynamics surrounding (...) various responses and solutions to the crisis. It suggests that journalism’s objectivity claim hampers the journalistic coverage – what stories can be told and how. This suggestion is based on findings that show how journalism neutralizes conflict and social critique by emptying it of its political content and incorporating it into consensus discourses as well as by focusing on a moral pseudo-struggle that allows journalism to cover conflict without acknowledging real political controversies. It is argued here that journalism contributes to disempowering the climate protests by means of evasive, transformative and emptying discursive strategies. (shrink)

An Insurrectionist Manifesto contains four insurrectionary gospels based on Martin Heidegger's philosophical model of the fourfold: earth and sky, gods and mortals. Challenging religious dogma and dominant philosophical theories, they offer a cooperative, world-affirming political theology that promotes new life through not resurrection but insurrection. The insurrection in these gospels unfolds as a series of miraculous yet worldly practices of vital affirmation. Since these routines do not rely on fantasies of escape, they engender intimate transformations of the self along the (...) very coordinates from which they emerge. Enacting a comparative and contagious postsecular sensibility, these gospels draw on the work of Slavoj i ek, Giorgio Agamben, Catherine Malabou, François Laruelle, Peter Sloterdijk, and Gilles Deleuze yet rejuvenate scholarship in continental philosophy, critical race theory, the new materialisms, speculative realism, and nonphilosophy. They think beyond the sovereign force of the one to initiate a radical politics "after" God. (shrink)

Some major leftist thinkers, including Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek and Terry Eagleton, have lately offered readings that claim the relevance of alternative interpretations of the Christian tradition in the face both of the conservative turn in the Catholic Church and of the contemporary secular oblivion of anything that has to do with religion. Furthermore, post-colonial studies have tended to blame the West en bloc for the disasters of past and present colonization, and have attacked the western endeavour to extend universal (...) truths as an ethnocentric device to facilitate and justify exploitation. In Holy Terror, Terry Eagleton both condemns western politics and questions its appeal to universals; but he also hears in this tradition a demand for a relationship with the other which offers an alternative to that established by current politics and capitalist exploitation. The other is the excluded, the oppressed, the exploited; the true material, rather than ideal, universal produced by global capitalist exploitation. As a consequence, anything that happens in any part of the planet belongs in our world and indicts us, though we tend to build barriers around an ideally safe and stable identity that ignores part of its own reality and that is therefore haunted by it. Texts like the Bacchae or the New Testament open the gates of the city and of the heart to the excluded. Terrorists — saints for their own communities and satanic for the rest — offer an example of the other that is impossible to comprehend within our conventional ways of life. Nevertheless, only if we hear in their violence a demand for justice can an exit be found from the vicious circle of violence and revenge. (shrink)

This book situates the development of radical English political thought within the context of the specific nature of agrarian capitalism and the struggles that ensued around the nature of the state during the revolutionary decade of the 1640s.

The history of political philosophy is marked by a conception of politics as inherently tragic. As such, it has hardly ever been systematically contrasted with the other model of dramatic art, comedy. In this article, I explore the relation between Hegel's twofold notion of drama as an ordered genre of disorder – what he considers to be the highest form of self-reflective art – and the post-foundational concept of radical democracy. After outlining the interplay between order and disorder (...) in post-foundationalist theories of political difference, I summarize the way in which the steps of Hegel's poetics consecutively build on each other and elaborate the role of the dramatic genres. By means of a genealogical reconstruction of the respective concepts of democracy and drama, I demonstrate the extent to which these two methodologies correspond to poetic and political order formation in a structural homology. This conceptualization concludes with the assertion of a constitutive dramatization of political modernity which does not, however, culminate in the concept of political tragedy but points towards a still-to-be-realized, comically ordered democracy. (shrink)