‘For a New Europe: University Struggles Against Austerity’, École des hautes études en sciences sociales/Université Paris VIII, February 2011: It’s a struggle

News It’s a struggle ‘For a New Europe: University Struggles Against Austerity’, École des hautes études en sciences sociales/Université Paris VIII, February 2011This three-day meeting, hosted by the Italian activist collective Edu-factory, attracted 300–400 university students, faculty, community leaders and activists from across Europe, as well as from Tunisia, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, the United States […]

Sara Ruddick, 1935–2011: A Mother's Thought

Obituary A mother’s thought Sara Ruddick, 1935–2011 ‘i speak about a mother’s thought’ wrote the feminist philosopher Sara Ruddick, who has died in New York at the age of 76. ^ Along with Adrienne Rich, Ruddick was probably the most important philosophical thinker to address the issue of mothering and motherhood since second-wave feminism, and, […]

167 Reviews

It is perhaps appropriate that this collection of political writings by Maurice Blanchot is marked by a troubling absence. Yet it is hard to join the editor and publisher of this translation in respecting the decision of the editors of the French collections to begin their coverage in the 1950s: the first edition published in […]

Neither theocracy nor secularism: Politics in Iran

On Saturday 13 June this year, hours after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Ministry of the Interior announced his landslide victory as Iran’s president and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the religious head of state, prematurely and unconstitutionally embraced these results, Tehran and several other major cities became the stage for spontaneous, sporadic and widespread protests. Despite the government’s arrest […]

Who was Oscar Masotta?: Psychoanalysis in Argentina

Who was Oscar Masotta? Psychoanalysis in Argentina Philip derbyshire As Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s sardonic detective Pepe Carvalho ruefully observed, in a dictionary of Argentine clichés, psychoanalysis would have a crucial place, along with ‘tango and the disappeared’. [1] ‘One’ knows that along with Paris, Buenos Aires is one of the centres of psychoanalytic practice, and […]

As flowers turn towards the sun: Walter Benjamin’s Bergsonian image of the past

As flowers turn towards the sun Walter Benjamin’s Bergsonian image of the past Andrew mcgettigan Benjamin’s theses ‘On the Concept of History’, the final precipitate of the unfinished Arcades Project, was intended to strike at the fundamental pil ars of a thought complicit in its times. [1] On the seventieth anniversary of the Ribbentrop–Molotov pact, […]

158 Reviews

Reviews Of princes and principlesGraham Harman Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics, Re.Press, Melbourne, 2009. 247 pp. £16.00 pb., 978 0 9805440 6 0. Unlike those of some of his compatriots, the name of Bruno Latour is not one to have graced the pages of Radical Philosophy with much frequency. It is not just […]

Children of postcommunism

Dossier The PosTcommunisT condiTionchildren of postcommunism Boris buden A curious set of metaphors marks the jargon of postcommunist transition: education for democracy, classrooms of democracy, democratic exams, democracy that is growing and maturing, but which might still be in diapers or making its first steps or, of course, suffering from children’s il nesses. [1] This […]

Towards a critical theory of postcommunism: Beyond anticommunism in Romania

Towards a critical theory of postcommunism? Beyond anticommunism in Romania Ovidiu ţichindeleanu In Eastern Europe, 1989–2009 has been a time of fundamental changes in the meaning of social and political concepts, accompanied at different speeds by the radical transformation of society. I consider transition the fundamental thematic concept of this historical shift, its operative terms […]

Sovereign democracy: Dictatorship over capitalism in contemporary Russia

sovereign democracy Dictatorship over capitalism in contemporary Russia Julia svetlichnaja with james heartfield Economists tell us that Russia is on its way to completing the transition to capitalism. The only problem remaining now is a political one – the paradise of a fully fledged ‘free-market’ economy is suspended by the lack of liberal democracy, while, […]

Rentier capitalism and the Iranian puzzle

Comment Rentier capitalism and the iranian puzzle dariush m. doust The word ‘Iran’ usually signifies unpredictability, offering either raw material for the narratives of news agencies, or a fascinating enigma. Recent events have once again underlined the fact that the 1979 Iranian Revolution is still poorly conceptualized. To state the obvious: the outcome of the […]

159 Reviews

Reviews Trend lines and frontlines Gopal Balakrishnan, Antagonistics: Capitalism and Power in an Age of War, Verso, London and New York, 2009. xiv + 290 pp., £14.99 pb., 978 1 84467 269 1. ^ Geopolitics and political economy are registers that the recent revival in the fortunes of radical political thought has largely evaded or […]

Faint signal: The student occupations in California and the Communiqué from an Absent Future

News Faint signal The student occupations in California and the Communiqué from an Absent FutureFrom 24 September to 2 October 2009, students from the University of California, Santa Cruz occupied and blockaded the University’s graduate student commons: nominally in protest against the cuts in education spending in the UC system, more generally against the entire […]

The Question of Caster Semenya

Commentary the Question of caster semenya Mandy merck Caster Semenya, the South African runner, won the 800 metre gold medal at the World Championships. What did Pierre Weiss, head of the world athletics governing body, say in response to questions about her sex?The Times Sport Quiz, 26 December 2009 What indeed? The question of Caster […]