Overview

The turn of the Millennium demonstrated a fully-fledged revival and fusion of various left-wing social movements with differing agendas. Movements for women’s, black, indigenous, LGTB and animal liberation as well as ecological, anti-nuclear and anti-war groups unified against the global capital. Considering the diverse emphases of these movements, is there a philosophical framework that could help us understand their nature and their modes of operation in the 21st century? This book provides a set of conceptual tools offering a theoretical model of ‘slow’ social transformation, a modality of social change that explicitly differs from the irruptive model of a revolution or a paradigm-changing event. Instead, it proposes the two concepts of mimetic contagion and solidarity with singularity which allow us to understand what is currently happening in the activist milieu. By bringing together some of today’s most important thinkers, including Butler, Girard, Badiou, and Sloterdijk this book suggests a philosophical lens to look at the alternative living projects that contemporary left-wing activists undertake in practice. At the heart of their projects lie the pressing concerns that these contemporary philosophers currently debate. Breaking from the conceptual apparatus of the Marxian tradition, Theorizing Contemporary Anarchism instead takes Hegelian concepts and feeds them through the thought of contemporary theorists in order to form an original, productive, and inclusive scaffold with which to understand today’s world of social and political movements.

Full Product Details

Author:   Iwona Janicka (Research Institute for Philosophy Hanover, Germany)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions:   Width: 13.80cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.467kg
ISBN:  

9781474276184

ISBN 10:   1474276180
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   26 January 2017
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction 1. Universality in Triangulation: Hegel on a Carousel Hegel's static triad: Universality-particularity-singularity Butler's dynamic universal: Political performativity Circulating singularity Recognition and the question of asymmetry Where are 'we' in Butler: The question of collectivity 2. Universality in Mimesis: Structural Failure and Social Transformation Towards recognition: Performativity as a special case of mimesis How mimesis produces failure Why we repeat: Freud, Foucault, Derrida Does gender always have to be sexual? Butler and the question of the transgender Structural failure everywhere Against formalism, against emptiness Slow social transformation: How radical is that? Reform, revolution, emancipation, subversion Collecitivites of heterogeneity 3. Universality in Space: Collectivities of Heterogeneity meet Peter Sloterdijk's Sphereology Sloterdijk's theory of bubbles and foams The archaeology of the intimate: coexistence in microspheres and dyadic subjectivity Republic of spaces: a city of human foams 'Everything is a society': Gabriel Tarde and the contamination of anthropocentrism Schaumdeutung versus Traumdeutung: Ego formation through the ears Foam ethics: Immunism of co-fragile heterogeneous systems Affirmation versus critique: Foucault and the planet of the practising 4. Co-Immunism versus Communism: Challenging Alain Badiou's Model of Revolution Universal doubling: Generic multiplicity and universal singularity Generic multiplicity in ontology The difficult passage: Between being and being-there Universal singularity in the world of appearing The problem with particularity Make it quick: Event and revolution as irruptive transformations Communism a la parisienne 5. Towards Anarchism Away from equality Solidarity with singularity and contemporary anarchism Directed mimesis, contagion and anarchist r/evolution Impure universality and slow social transformation Bibliography Index

Reviews

This is an engaging and ambitious analysis of contemporary political philosophy which examines the work of Judith Butler, Alain Badiou, Peter Sloterdijk and others to discuss the plural political practices that exemplify contemporary radical politics. Using two novel concepts - mimetic contagion and solidarity with singularity - the book develops an anarchist model of slow social transformation and is a challenging and timely intervention into current theoretical debates. Ruth Kinna, Professor of Political Theory, department of Politics, History and International Relations, Loughborough University, UK Iwona Janicka's Theorizing Contemporary Anarchism is a welcome addition to the burgeoning literature on anarchist theory. In clear and compelling language, she marshals recent political theory in order to construct an original position, one that offers a new framework for understanding political change. Todd May, Professor of Philosophy, Clemson University, USA

A remarkably rich and intrepid work that will surely make a lasting contribution to anarchist discourse in the present. I cannot recommend it to readers strongly enough. * Anarchist Studies * This is an engaging and ambitious analysis of contemporary political philosophy which examines the work of Judith Butler, Alain Badiou, Peter Sloterdijk and others to discuss the plural political practices that exemplify contemporary radical politics. Using two novel concepts – mimetic contagion and solidarity with singularity – the book develops an anarchist model of slow social transformation and is a challenging and timely intervention into current theoretical debates. * Ruth Kinna, Professor of Political Theory, department of Politics, History and International Relations, Loughborough University, UK * Iwona Janicka's Theorizing Contemporary Anarchism is a welcome addition to the burgeoning literature on anarchist theory. In clear and compelling language, she marshals recent political theory in order to construct an original position, one that offers a new framework for understanding political change. * Todd May, Professor of Philosophy, Clemson University, USA *

Author Information

Iwona Janicka is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow with the University of Warwick, UK.

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