Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory PDF
Preview Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory
L E F T- W I N G M E L A N C H O L I A n ew d i r ec t i o n s i n c r i t i c a l t h eo ry trav17942.indb i 10/21/16 8:43 AM new directions in critical theory Amy Allen, General Editor New Directions in Critical Theory presents outstanding classic and contemporary texts in the tradition of critical social theory, broadly construed. The series aims to renew and advance the program of critical social theory, with a particular focus on theorizing contemporary struggles around gender, race, sexuality, class, and globaliza- tion and their complex interconnections. Narrating Evil: A Postmetaphysical Theory of Refl ective Judgment , María Pía Lara The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory , Amy Allen Democracy and the Political Unconscious , Noëlle McAfee The Force of the Example: Explorations in the Paradigm of Judgment , Alessandro Ferrara Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence , Adriana Cavarero Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World , Nancy Fraser Pathologies of Reason: On the Legacy of Critical Theory , Axel Honneth States Without Nations: Citizenship for Mortals , Jacqueline Stevens The Racial Discourses of Life Philosophy: Négritude, Vitalism, and Modernity , Donna V. Jones Democracy in What State? , Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Daniel Bensaïd, Wendy Brown, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Rancière, Kristin Ross, Slavoj Ž ižek Politics of Culture and the Spirit of Critique: Dialogues , edited by Gabriel Rockhill and Alfredo Gomez-Muller Mute Speech: Literature, Critical Theory, and Politics , Jacques Rancière The Right to Justifi cation: Elements of Constructivist Theory of Justice , Rainer Forst The Scandal of Reason: A Critical Theory of Political Judgment , Albena Azmanova The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics , Adrian Parr Media of Reason: A Theory of Rationality , Matthias Vogel Social Acceleration: The Transformation of Time in Modernity , Hartmut Rosa The Disclosure of Politics: Struggles Over the Semantics of Secularization , María Pía Lara Radical Cosmopolitics: The Ethics and Politics of Democratic Universalism , James Ingram Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life , Axel Honneth Imaginal Politics: Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary , Chiara Bottici Alienation , Rahel Jaeggi The Power of Tolerance: A Debate , Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst, edited by Luca Di Blasi and Christoph F. E. Holzhey Radical History and the Politics of Art , Gabriel Rockhill The Highway of Despair: Critical Theory After Hegel , Robyn Marasco A Political Economy of the Senses: Neoliberalism, Reifi cation, Critique , Anita Chari The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory , Amy Allen Recognition or Disagreement: A Critical Encounter on the Politics of Freedom, Equality, and Identity , Axel Honneth and Jacques Rancière, edited by Katia Genel and Jean-Philippe Deranty What Is a People? , Alain Badiou, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Georges Didi-Huberman, Sadri Khiari, and Jacques Rancière trav17942.indb ii 10/21/16 8:43 AM L E F T- W I N G M E L A N C H O L I A M A R X I S M , H I S T O RY, A N D M E M O RY e n z o t r av e r s o c o l u m b i a u n i v e r s i ty p r es s New York trav17942.indb iii 10/21/16 8:43 AM columbia university press publishers since 1893 new york chichester, west sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2016 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Traverso, Enzo, author. Title: Left-wing melancholia: Marxism, history and memory / Enzo Traverso. Description: New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. | Series: New directions in critical theory | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifi ers: lccn 2016023862 | isbn 9780231179423 (cloth: alk. paper) | isbn 9780231543019 (e-book) Subjects: lcsh: Communism—History. | Memory. | Melancholy (Philosophy) | History— Philosophy. Classifi cation: lcc hx40 .t6365 2016 | ddc 335.4—dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.gov/2016023862 Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 cover design: Jenny Carrow trav17942.indb iv 10/21/16 8:43 AM FOR MICHAEL LÖWY trav17942.indb v 10/21/16 8:43 AM trav17942.indb vi 10/21/16 8:43 AM C COONNTTEENNTTSS Illustrations xi Preface xiii Acknowledgments xvii Introduction: Haunting Pasts Without Utopias 1 Historical Turn 1 End of Utopias 5 Three Realms of Revolution 12 Three Memories 14 Specters 19 1 1 The Culture of Defeat 22 Shipwreck with Spectator 22 The Vanquished Left 25 Dialectic of Defeat 31 vii trav17942.indb vii 10/21/16 8:43 AM CONTENTS Left-Wing Melancholy 38 The Antinomies of Walter Benjamin 45 The Melancholy Wager 48 2 2 Marxism and Memory 54 Enter Memory, Exit Marx 54 Memory of the Future 58 Myth and Remembrance 73 Futures’ Past 74 3 3 Melancholy Images 85 Film and History 85 The Earth Trembles 87 Against Colonialism 92 Realms of Memory 97 Red Shadows 99 Spanish Ghosts 106 Santiago Remembrance 111 U-topia 117 4 4 Bohemia: Between Melancholy and Revolution 120 Sociology 120 Marx 127 Gustave Courbet 132 Walter Benjamin 138 Leon Trotsky 141 Bohemia and Revolution 142 Movements and Figures 149 5 5 Marxism and the West 151 Zeitgeist 151 Hegelian Sources 154 Empires 156 viii— trav17942.indb viii 10/21/16 8:43 AM CONTENTS “Peoples Without History” 158 Violence and Rebellion 160 Tensions 163 Aftermaths 164 A Missed Dialogue 166 Parting Ways 174 6 6 Adorno and Benjamin: Letters at Midnight in the Century 178 Testimonies 178 Constellation 181 Hierarchies 183 Exile 186 Politics 190 Surrealism 195 Mass Culture 198 Redemption 200 7 7 Synchronic Times: Walter Benjamin and Daniel Bensaïd 204 Portbou 204 Paris 209 Rereading Marx 215 Synchronic Times 217 Historicism 222 Revolution 226 Utopia 231 Notes 235 Index 275 ix trav17942.indb ix 10/21/16 8:43 AM
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