Lorenzo Buti

Finally, even though the paper is based on a chapter in my PhD, it's also my first publication since defending it two years ago. In a way, it feels like moving on, both personally and professionally.
Have a look and dm for pdf. /fin

Second, the paper provides a reading of three theorists dear to me: Lefort on Machiavelli, Althusser on ideology and Nicos Poulantzas' theory of the capitalist state. I've written the text with the specific hope that the latter finds renewed recognition in social and political philosophy. /4

By doing so, the ideological dimension of the democratic political scene can be uncovered: democracy's theatrical acknowledgement of an open-ended future can hide how that future is structurally closed off or contained within market-conforming limits. /3

1) It criticizes how continental democratic theory overlooks the capitalist state . In addition to the 'show' of liberal democracy (public debates, parliamentary dynamics, etc) we must analyse its 'machinery' as well: the state institutions and structures in which that show is embedded. /2

Paper publication: My article on an ideology critique of contemporary liberal democracy got published in Thesis Eleven. The paper does two things (thread). /1

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Is this the platform where my students won't find me?

🙏✋

Agambenites participating in art theory conferences:

⚡️Along with Uğur Aytaç, we're convening a panel on technology, work, and the prospects of democratizing the economy as part of the 2025 @ecpr.bsky.social General Conference. Check the CfP here philevents.org/event/show/1... & send us your abstracts! Thanks for sharing!

End of rant. Im sure i missed a bunch of stuff and still have to read the good texts.

Why is race always a form of oppression? How does it oppress? Does it oppress in the same way in different cases? Questions that remain unanswered. Instead, race, class and gender become a black box with little explanatory value beyond merely pointing at things and saying: look class AND gender.

Or they fall into abstractionism, which doesn't help either. Race is a structure of oppression. How is it a structure? Are the state, or law, or markets also a structure? Are they similar types of structures?

Either they are merely descriptive. E.g Women from Mexican descent experience welfare state policies different than white women in the US. OK, but why? In order to answer that, you need to figure all these extra structures that are not explained as such. Saying "there is race" is not enough.

Instead we get confusing generalities: they are forms of social division, or structures of oppression, or a matrix of domination. But what are they and why can we call them that? This leads to this constant wavering between shallow empiricism and abstractionist structuralism ->

Probably totally incoherent, but after reading papers on intersectional theory all day: what a mess is that subfield. First of, four papers in and still no real description of what race, class or gender actually are.

arising from the passive survival of antiquated modes of production, with their inevitable train of social and political anachronisms. We suffer not only from the living, but from the dead. Le mort saisit le vif!"

Some more Marx posting: "We suffer not only from the development of capitalist production, but also from the incompleteness of that development. Alongside the modern evils, a whole series of inherited evils oppress us,

I feel ike the email system in academia is broken. No exaggeration, about two thirds of my emails go unanswered. Sending reminders after a week has become standard.

Those of you lamenting the fact that there's no gender balance with the keynote speakers: You're right and we're working hard to get that fixed. Not everything always goes according to plan.

If you're working in critical theory, the Marxist tradition or beyond, consider sending in an abstract. Don't hesitate to share with anyone who could be interested. Details are here: hiw.kuleuven.be/en/news-even... 2/2

ATTENTION: CfA for our conference Critical Emancipations, 23-25 May 2024 at the University of Leuven, Belgium. The theme of this year: the production of difference in the transformations of capitalism. Keynotes by Nick Nesbitt and Daniel Loick. 1/2

The Death of the Greek Left: A Political Tragedy Expectations for SYRIZA’s recent leadership contest were high. The early favourite among the party's radical-left to take the helm of the current Greek parliamentary opposition, a party that holds 4...

Rough read
www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/...

‎Politics Theory Other: Interregnum - The Israel-Hamas conflict on Apple Podcasts ‎Show Politics Theory Other, Ep Interregnum - The Israel-Hamas conflict - 11 Oct 2023

📢 NEW INTERREGNUM 📢 -
@leninology.bsky.social on Hamas' breakout from Gaza and their unprecedented attack on southern Israel, the possibility of a regional war, the terrifying situation in Gaza and the increasingly eliminationist rhetoric coming out of Israel:

Wants to be the Big Daddy figure but is in reality the creepy uncle

Big ass Lacan in the Feltrinelli bookstore.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuc

International games hit different whe you don't live at home anymore. Lukebakioooooo

This rich individuality is "as varied and comprehensive in its production as it is in its consumption... Its labour appears as the full development of activity itself, in wich natural necessity has disappeared in its immediate form, replaced by historically produced need." Extraordinary.

Marx on capital: "As the ceaseless striving for the general form of wealth, capital forces labour beyond the limits of natural need and thus creates the material elements for the development of the rich individuality."