On the notion of the political in postmarxist theory.
04.12.2008
Martin Saar
Negri on Power.
Political Spinozism
03.11.2008
Steve Wright
The Refusal of Labor
Tronti's Legacy
05.06.2008
Massimo De Angelis, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Anne Querrien
The production of commons, subjectivity and space
Communists like us
05.12.2007
A. Auerbach, K. Diefenbach, S. Dillemuth, M. Vishmidt
The politics of bohemia
08.11.2007
Maria Muhle
Politics, police and power from Foucault to Rancière
07.11.2007
Manfred Hermes
Narrative strategies of subjectivisation in Fassbinder’s "Berlin Alexanderplatz"
In the figurative sense
05.10.2007
Serhat Karakayali
On political hegemony and militant becoming: Gramsci and Deleuze
The poetics of knowledge
29.06.2007
Ruben Martinez, Jaron Rowan, Marina Vishmidt, Katja Diefenbach
The cultural producer as model of the post-fordist worker
In the mood for work
05.04.2007
Grahame Lock
The actuality of Althusser's thinking
Dictatorship of the proletariat as political science
04.04.2007
Judith Hopf
The imposition of creative work
Hey production!
08.03.2007
Raul Zelik
Notes on asymmetric warfare and governance
Sovereign police
- Guest Lecture by Martin Saar (University of Frankfurt)
- Auditorium
My talk will assess and discuss the importance of the work of early modern Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza for Postmarxist and Postoperaist theorizing and in particular for the work of Antonio Negri.
The crucial feature of Spinoza’s writing for political thought, one might say, is his fundamental (or ontological) theory of power. I will give an overview of this theory and try to show why such a line of thinking has proven attractive for 20th century political or social philosophy (from Althusser to Balibar).
I will then comment on Negri’s extensive interpretation of Spinoza and try to determine where he creatively transforms (or rewrites) the early modern themes. But this, I argue, comes at a price: Negri’s own account of power suffers from some elements that relate to his Marxist commitments but that might be said to weaken the potential inherent in the Spinozist framework, as can be seen in Empire and Multitude.
I will close in discussing the importance of ontology for political thought, drawing on the case of Negri, but also referring to Balibar, Deleuze, and Virno.