The Two Names of Communism

The two names of communism John roberts Toujours avec l’espoir de rencontrer la mer, Ils voyageaient sans pain, sans batons et sans urnes, Mordant au citron d’or de l’idéal amer. Stéphane Mallarmé, 18621The recent explosion of writing on the communist idea, ideal and ‘communization’ recovers or expands a moment in the early to mid-1980s when […]

Philosophizing the everyday: The philosophy of praxis and the fate of cultural studies

Philosophizing the everyday The philosophy of praxis and the fate of cultural studies John roberts The following presents a genealogy and critique of the concept of the ʻeverydayʼ, looking at the philosophical, political and cultural conflicts and contexts which radically transformed its contents after the Russian Revolution from a term synonymous with the ʻdailyʼ and […]

On autonomy and the avant-garde

But if this position rightly demolishes the opposition between art and technological mediation enshrined in late modernist theory1 it nevertheless suffers from its own kind of blindness: the identification of technological mediation with the democratization of form. By subsuming art under technology, this kind of thinking renders the connection between form and ethics harmless or […]

Art, politics and provincialism

Commentary Art, politics and provincialism John roberts The Sunday afternoon I visited the recent ʻProtest & Surviveʼ exhibition at Londonʼs Whitechapel Gallery, I was witness within a period of twenty minutes to four different demonstrations outside the gallery. A single demonstration outside a gallery these days is pretty rare; four is a miracle. That they […]