Overview

""Inspired to contribute to the symbiotic relationship between the academic and activist worlds, Day has decided to pick up the pen instead of the Molotov cocktail. The result is this brilliant book."" Ann Hansen Ann was sentenced to life imprisonment for blowing up a cruise-missile component factory, and is the author of Direct Action: The Memoirs of an Urban Guerilla ""If revolutionary politics are to be reconstituted for the twenty-first century, all previously existing radical traditions must not only be remade but placed in new relationships with one another. The anarchism of Richard Day's brilliant Gramsci is Dead is not only an explosive break-out from the demoralizing horizons of contemporary social democracy, but also an exuberant intellectual dance-invitation extended to all mutant Marxists, autonomists and species-being activists eager to catch the strains of a new tune: Red Emma would be proud."" Nick Dyer-Witheford, Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario and author of Cyber-Marx (1999) Gramsci and the concept of hegemony cast a long shadow over radical political theory. Yet how far has this theory got us? Is it still central to feminism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, anarchism, and other radical social movements today? Unlike previous revolutionary movements, Day argues, most contemporary radical social movements do not strive to take control of the state. Instead, they attempt to develop new forms of self-organisation that can run in parallel with — or as alternatives to — existing forms of social, political, and economic organization. This is to say that they follow a logic of affinity rather than one of hegemony. This book draws together a variety of different strands in political theory to weave together an innovative new approach to politics today. Rigorous and wide-ranging, Day introduces and interrogates key concepts. From Hegel's concept of recognition, through theories of hegemony and affinity to Hardt and Negri's reflections on Empire, Day maps academia's theoretical and philosophical concerns onto today's politics of the street. Ideal for all students of political theory, Day's fresh approach combines Marxist, Anarchist and Post-structuralist theory to shed new light on the politics and practice of contemporary social movements.

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9780745321127

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Antonio Gramsci's analysis of hegemony - as the complete material and ideological domination of a population within the state - has had a significant impact upon scholarly literature on 'civil society' and new social movements (NSMs). Richard Day asserts, a 'genealogy of hegemony' shows that mainstream analysis in this area has long relied upon an image of 'total' (state wide) reform or revolution. This genealogy reveals our subjection within what Day calls 'the hegemony of hegemony', in which the possibilities of social change without the state form have been marginalised by the dominance of post marxist and neo liberal models of social change.' In this, Gramsci is Dead stands as a bold and quite convincing statement, one that offers exceptional insight into contemporary political activism. -- Shane Mulligan, Political Studies Review Richard Day reassesses from an anarchist perspective the 'logic of hegemony' that unites classical Marxism and liberalism, and declares that this logic has been 'exhausted' by recent social movements. To support his argument that certain strains of contemporary struggle have broken with this logic in favour of 'direct affinity' and 'structural renewal' terms he recovers from Landauer and Kropotkin. In the end, Day wants his readers to affirm the 'groundless solidarity' which links these various struggles for autonomy and self determination to one another, across or beyond any central axis of identity (19). In this respect, his conclusion resembles the one made by the autonomist Marxists, where social groups struggle to overcome their decomposition by normalized categories and divisions (class, gender, race) through a shared opposition to capitalist accumulation, except that here, the concept of 'infinite responsibility', a rather heady ethico-political form of contract borrowed from Derrida and Levinas, facilitates the articulation of linkages across 'decentralized networks of alternatives.' -- Roger Farr, The Rain Review of Books Inspired to contribute to the symbiotic relationship between the academic and activist worlds, Day has decided to pick up the pen instead of the Molotov cocktail. The result is this brilliant book. -- Ann Hansen -sentenced to life imprisonment for blowing up a cruise-missile component factory, and is the author of Direct Action: The Memoirs of an Urban Guerilla. If revolutionary politics are to be reconstituted for the twenty-first century, all previously existing radical traditions must not only be remade but placed in new relationships with one another. The anarchism of Richard Day's brilliant Gramsci is Dead is not only an explosive break-out from the demoralizing horizons of contemporary social democracy, but also an exuberant intellectual dance-invitation extended to all mutant Marxists, autonomists and species-being activists eager to catch the strains of a new tune: Red Emma would be proud. -- Nick Dyer-Witheford, Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario and author of Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism (University of Illinois, 1999)

If revolutionary politics are to be reconstituted for the twenty-first century, all previously existing radical traditions must not only be remade but placed in new relationships with one another. The anarchism of Richard Day's brilliant Gramsci is Dead is not only an explosive break-out from the demoralizing horizons of contemporary social democracy, but also an exuberant intellectual dance-invitation extended to all mutant Marxists, autonomists and species-being activists eager to catch the strains of a new tune: Red Emma would be proud. -- Nick Dyer-Witheford, Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario and author of Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism (University of Illinois, 1999) Inspired to contribute to the symbiotic relationship between the academic and activist worlds, Day has decided to pick up the pen instead of the Molotov cocktail. The result is this brilliant book. -- Ann Hansen -sentenced to life imprisonment for blowing up a cruise-missile component factory, and is the author of Direct Action: The Memoirs of an Urban Guerilla. Richard Day reassesses from an anarchist perspective the 'logic of hegemony' that unites classical Marxism and liberalism, and declares that this logic has been 'exhausted' by recent social movements. To support his argument that certain strains of contemporary struggle have broken with this logic in favour of 'direct affinity' and 'structural renewal' terms he recovers from Landauer and Kropotkin. In the end, Day wants his readers to affirm the 'groundless solidarity' which links these various struggles for autonomy and self determination to one another, across or beyond any central axis of identity (19). In this respect, his conclusion resembles the one made by the autonomist Marxists, where social groups struggle to overcome their decomposition by normalized categories and divisions (class, gender, race) through a shared opposition to capitalist accumulation, except that here, the concept of 'infinite responsibility', a rather heady ethico-political form of contract borrowed from Derrida and Levinas, facilitates the articulation of linkages across 'decentralized networks of alternatives.' -- Roger Farr, The Rain Review of Books Antonio Gramsci's analysis of hegemony - as the complete material and ideological domination of a population within the state - has had a significant impact upon scholarly literature on 'civil society' and new social movements (NSMs). Richard Day asserts, a 'genealogy of hegemony' shows that mainstream analysis in this area has long relied upon an image of 'total' (state wide) reform or revolution. This genealogy reveals our subjection within what Day calls 'the hegemony of hegemony', in which the possibilities of social change without the state form have been marginalised by the dominance of post marxist and neo liberal models of social change.' In this, Gramsci is Dead stands as a bold and quite convincing statement, one that offers exceptional insight into contemporary political activism. -- Shane Mulligan, Political Studies Review

If revolutionary politics are to be reconstituted for the twenty-first century, all previously existing radical traditions must not only be remade but placed in new relationships with one another. The anarchism of Richard Day,s brilliant Gramsci is Dead is not only an explosive break-out from the demoralizing horizons of contemporary social democracy, but also an exuberant intellectual dance-invitation extended to all mutant Marxists, autonomists and species-being activists eager to catch the strains of a new tune: Red Emma would be proud. -- Nick Dyer-Witheford, Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario and author of Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism (University of Illinois, 1999) Inspired to contribute to the symbiotic relationship between the academic and activist worlds, Day has decided to pick up the pen instead of the Molotov cocktail. The result is this brilliant book. -- Ann Hansen -sentenced to life imprisonment for blowing up a cruise-missile component factory, and is the author of Direct Action: The Memoirs of an Urban Guerilla. Richard Day reassesses from an anarchist perspective the 'logic of hegemony' that unites classical Marxism and liberalism, and declares that this logic has been 'exhausted' by recent social movements. To support his argument that certain strains of contemporary struggle have broken with this logic in favour of 'direct affinity' and 'structural renewal' terms he recovers from Landauer and Kropotkin. In the end, Day wants his readers to affirm the 'groundless solidarity' which links these various struggles for autonomy and self determination to one another, across or beyond any central axis of identity (19). In this respect, his conclusion resembles the one made by the autonomist Marxists, where social groups struggle to overcome their decomposition by normalized categories and divisions (class, gender, race) through a shared opposition to capitalist accumulation, except that here, the concept of 'infinite responsibility', a rather heady ethico-political form of contract borrowed from Derrida and Levinas, facilitates the articulation of linkages across 'decentralized networks of alternatives.' -- Roger Farr, The Rain Review of Books Antonio Gramsci's analysis of hegemony - as the complete material and ideological domination of a population within the state - has had a significant impact upon scholarly literature on 'civil society' and new social movements (NSMs). Richard Day asserts, a 'genealogy of hegemony' shows that mainstream analysis in this area has long relied upon an image of 'total' (state wide) reform or revolution. This genealogy reveals our subjection within what Day calls 'the hegemony of hegemony', in which the possibilities of social change without the state form have been marginalised by the dominance of post marxist and neo liberal models of social change.' In this, Gramsci is Dead stands as a bold and quite convincing statement, one that offers exceptional insight into contemporary political activism. -- Shane Mulligan, Political Studies Review

'Inspired to contribute to the symbiotic relationship between the academic and activist worlds, Day has decided to pick up the pen instead of the Molotov cocktail. The result is this brilliant book.' Ann Hansen, sentenced to life imprisonment for blowing up a cruise-missile component factory, and the author of Direct Action: The Memoirs of an Urban Guerilla 'The anarchism of Richard Day's brilliant Gramsci is Dead is not only an explosive break-out from the demoralizing horizons of contemporary social democracy, but also an exuberant intellectual dance-invitation extended to all mutant Marxists, autonomists and species-being activists eager to catch the strains of a new tune: Red Emma would be proud.' Nick Dyer-Witheford, Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario and author of Cyber-Marx (1999)

Author Information

Richard J. F. Day is Professor in the Department of Global Development at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. He is a founder of the Critical U. community education project in Vancouver and has participated in food, housing and financial co-operatives. He is the author of Gramsci is Dead (Pluto, 2005).

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