Blog

Importing Gramsci into Brazil

March 11, 2013, by Philip Roberts 4 comments

This is the sixth contribution in the series Thesis Pieces featured on For the Desk Drawer written by my past and present doctoral students. This contribution from Philip Roberts examines the work of Carlos Nelson Coutinho in shaping the reception of Gramsci in Brazil and how the categories of hegemony, passive revolution, war of position/war of manoeuvre and others inhere within the history of Brazilian state formation and contemporary politics under the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT).

Brill’s Historical Materialism Book Series is providing regular insights into Marxist theory developed in non-Anglophone settings, including two from Brazilian authors. One of the latest volumes is Carlos Nelson Coutinho’s Gramsci’s Political Thought (2012) that complements Ricardo Antunes’ contribution The Meanings of Work (2012) and casts light upon the roots of the Gramscian tradition in Brazil.

Occupy Sussex

March 5, 2013, by Adam David Morton No comments yet

Message of support from fellows of the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice at the University of Nottingham

The undersigned staff and postgraduate researchers at the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ) at the University of Nottingham fully support the University of Sussex students and staff in their peaceful protests against the management’s privatisation and outsourcing plans.

We urge the University of Sussex management to take note of their rightful demands and revoke the ongoing plans for the further marketisation of higher education. Read more →

The decaffeinated democratic transition in Mexico

March 4, 2013, by Adam David Morton No comments yet

In his fantastic, gripping, and haunting book, ’68 (Seven Stories Press), the writer and historian Paco Ignacio Taibo II (aka PIT) surveys the tumultuous upheaval of the ‘68 Movement in Mexico. It makes compelling reading today. He recounts the student solidarity demonstrations that gave birth to brigadismo – the mobile action groups that would incite rallies across Mexico City. There is the retelling of the occupation of schools and the creation of libertarian common spaces based on assemblies. Reference is made to the fragile workers’ committees that emerged in the sectors of electricity, oil refining, and railroads that then faded away. Then there was the shadow of the tanks moving in. The city that the students had roamed was lost in the aftermath of the government massacre of hundreds of students at Tlatelolco on 2 October 1968. Ghosts remain. There are the ghosts of the student dead and suicidal as well as the ghosts of traitors that fed the subsequent “dirty war” (La guerra sucia) in Mexico. The outcome, PIT argues, was a decaffeinated democratic transition in Mexico. How can Mexico’s neoliberal transition to democracy be understood?

The escapees

March 1, 2013, by Adam David Morton 2 comments

In responding to Jon Beasley-Murray’s latest rejoinder ‘Missing a trick’ it is clear that a number of issues are starting to stack up. This is a shorter response than previously because, like him, my concern is that the debate is losing its central focus and the productive basis for dialogue, especially in relation to the issues raised in my last post, ‘The war on errorism’.

For Beasley-Murray “something always escapes” which is how he approaches Louis Althusser’s text Machiavelli and Us in wanting to highlight those elements that evade us, that are elusive, that escape our grasp of the text. My response is that the something that escapes in Beasley-Murray’s reading is the very dispositif configuring text and context. This is a direct engagement with his reading of Machiavelli and Us (despite his bellyaching) and his claim that “something always escapes”. But much more is escaping.

The war on errorism

February 28, 2013, by Adam David Morton 1 comment

Antonio Gramsci commemorative plaque, Mokhovaya Street 16, Moscow.

The debate with Jon Beasley-Murray on the limits of posthegemony theory continues and has so far covered (1) his review of Louis Althusser’s Machiavelli and Us; (2) my critique Machiavelli, Gramsci, Althusser and Us; (3) his rejoinder A bit of a leap; (4) my reply Importuning Gramsci; and (5) his counter-response Not nearly far enough. That is an overview of the past, now back to the present with my latest contribution.

Throughout the exchange I have stressed the positive elements embedded in any such debate and I still want to retain that ethos of the critique. Indeed, from the new social media of blogging, one future option might be a return to the old media of the past and wrap the debate as it stands into journal form, supplemented with additional extended essays from each of us. For the present, though, my aim is to take issue with a number of points raised in the last round contained within Beasley-Murray’s ‘Not nearly far enough’ post.