Publications
“In Search of a New Left, Then and Now
January 27th, 2014
“In Search of a New Left, Then and Now” was published in Living with Class. Philosophical Reflections on Identity and Material Culture, edited by Ron Scapp and Brian Seitz (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 25-31.
In Search of a New Left, Then and Now
January 25th, 2014
“In Search of a New Left, Then and Now,” is a short autobiographical-philosophical essay published in a collective volume called Living with Class. Philosophical Reflections on Identity and Material Culture, edited by Ron Scapp and Brian Seitz (Routledge, 2013), pp. 25-31).
The important parallels come from the attempts to renew a left gone static, whether it was that of the Old Left of communist-marxist vintage, or the attempt to draw implications from the Occupy … movements. The collection tries to draw some lessons, or better– to reflect on: the Occupy movements and the question whether the concept of “class” makes sense today. Younger contributors offer newer views; but interesting is that the essay following mine is by Stanly Arownowitz, who contributed to the 1971 volume edited with Karl Klare, The Unknown Dimension, in which we tried to make inroads into received opinion, as does this volume.
“Foreword” to Martin Breaugh, THE PLEBEIAN EXPERIENCE. A DISCONTINUOUS HISTORY OF POLITICAL FREEDOM
December 4th, 2013
Series Editor’s Foreword (pp. xi-xiv) to Martin Breaugh, The Plebeian Experience. A Discontinuous History of Political Freedom (Columbia University Press “Studies in Political Thought/Political History”). Breaugh’s provocative study begins with the historical examples of the Roman republic, the Ciompi in Florence, the Carnival in Romans, and the Mansaniello in Naples. It turns then to the “philosophical genesis ” of what he calls the “plebeian principle” from Marchiavelli through Rancière. The study then turns to the French revolution, the English Jacobins and the Paris Commune. The third part of the book tries briefly, in 40 suggestive pages, to draw some contemporary conclusions concerning what Breaugh calls the “social bond of fraternity” (from the Sans-Culottes), the “political bond of plurality” (from the English Jacobins) and the “political bond of association association” (from the Commune).
The editorial Foreword puts this study also in the context of the CUP “Studies in Political Thought/Political History” edited by Dick Howard.
André Gorz & the Philosophical Foundation of the Political
November 12th, 2013
I wrote first about André Gorz in the early 1970s, in an essay on the New Working Class that later became a chapter in The Marxian Legacy. We continued to correspond over the years; and he dedicated a later essay to me. This has led some analysts to ask me questions about Gorz; and it has led others to find some of our correspondence in his Archives at the IMEC in France (full copies of my part, and some missing letters of his are at my Archives at the library of Stony Brook University).
This essay returns to some of the problems that we discussed over the years (but it is not based on archival work, only memory and a rereading of his work). Especially important is the early philosophical treatise, Fondements pour une morale, and also Le traître. Perhaps most enlightening for me who knew him is the Lettre à D…, which seems to me to put an entirely new spin on the thin skin of the early existentialist.
Read: Gorz dans Logos
“Il faut “renouer avec le politique”
November 12th, 2013
Interview of Dick Howard by Marc-Olivier Behrer for Le Monde (le 4 novembre 2013). Regards sur la France contemporaine, sa politique, sa culture, et sa philosophie. Mise en oeuvre d’un point de vue comparative. Et esquisse de plusieurs thèmes qui mérite discussion à la lumière du “shutdown” gouvernemental américain et sentiment de crise non maîtrisée en France. Notamment la distinction d’une démocratie républicaine d’une république démocratique.
Lire la page entière du Monde: Monde, lisible…
Lire cette page dans un format plus agréable: Monde, imprimé
Les États-Unis, un pays divisé
October 15th, 2013
À la veille du 17 octobre, après deux semaines de “shutdown”, comment s’expliquer cette crise et sa virulence? Il s’agit d’une part d’une dernière étape de la construction d’un état-nation commencée au moment de la Guerre civile et poursuivie contre une opposition protéiforme qui, en dernier lieu, s’inspire aussi bien d’une logique politique que d’une passion qu’on ne peut pas ne pas appeler racaille sinon raciste. Esquisse des étapes, et rappel de la distinction d’une république démocratique (la forme française de la révolution) et d’une démocratie républicaine (américaine, mais qui tire à ses limites).
Voire aussi la présentation de ces arguments à la Fondation Jaurès le 16 octobre 2013.
Lire la version écrite publié par la site web de la revue Esprit: Les États-Unis, un pays divisé
La version écrite se trouve aussi dans la Newsletter de la Fondation Jaurès, Nr. 542, le 17 octobre 20i3. Les Etats-Unis, un pays divisé (dans: Esprit: http://esprit.presse.fr/news/frontpage/news.php?code=281).
Une version légèrement modifiée se trouve aussi sur mon Blog à Philosophie Magazine, Chronique transatlantique qui se trouve en ligne: Les Etats-Unis, un pays divisé
Forward to Breckman, “Adventures of the Symbolic. Post-Marxism and Radical Democracy”
June 5th, 2013
Series Editor forward to Warren Breckman, Adventures of the Symbolic. Post-Marxism and Radical Democracy (Columbia University Press, “Political Thought/Political History”), pp. xi-xv. Conveys the excitement of reading this path-breaking study, and draws on analogy in title to Merleau-Ponty’s “Adventures of the Dialectic,” the essay that defined “Western Marxism” while criticizing not only its Stalinist realization in the USSR but also its “existential” variant in Sartre’s “ultra-bolshevism”… a position not without echoes in Breckman’s last chapter which discusses among others Badiou and Zizek!
Forward to Breckman: Adventures of the Symbolic: Post-Marxism and Radical Democracy
Un parcours philosophique et politique franco-américain, via Castoriadis, Lefort et Gorz etc.
May 26th, 2013
Interview paru primitivement dans Platypus Review, reprise dans la revue du MAUSS avec une nouvelle préface.
Lire: Un parcours philosophique
Contre la téléologie en art : à l’occasion d’une exposition de Claes Oldenburg au MoMA
May 14th, 2013
Commentaire critique de l’exposition Claes Oldenburg: The Street, The Store. Mouse Museum. Au Moma àpartir du 14 avril 2013. Le Pop n’est pas ce que vous pensez, surtout à ses origines. Question d’une théorie critique par l’oeuvre d’art. Paru dans le Blog de Philosophie Magazine. Une suite aux “Chroniques transatlantiques.”
Lire: Contre la téléologie en art: à l’occasion d’une exposition de Claes Oldenburg
Pour réaliser le rêve américain, il faut assumer une part de conflit
December 31st, 2012
Article/interview présenté quelques semaines avant les élections de novembre 2012 dans le dossier de Philosophie Magazine.