Alberto Toscano – författare

The rich archive of twentieth-century debates on fascism can steer a path through an increasingly authoritarian present. Developing anti-fascist theory is an urgent and vital task. From the 'Great Replacement' to campaigns against critical race theory and 'gender ideology', today's global far right is launching lethal panics about the threats to traditional political, sexual and racial hierarchies.Drawing especially on Black radical and anti-colonial theories of fascism, Toscano makes clear the limits of associating fascism primarily with the kind of political violence experienced by past European regimes. Rather than looking for analogies from history, we should see fascism as a mutable process, one anchored in racial and colonial capitalism, which both predates and survives its crystallization in Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. It is a threat that continues to evolve in the present day.

From the “red years” that followed the social explosion of May '68 into the first decades of the 21st century, Alain Badiou and Toni Negri have produced two imposing and consequential bodies of philosophical writing, while never abandoning their commitment to a militant politics of equality. The essays collected in this book tackle multiple dimensions of their work—from ontology to biopolitics, from art to violence, from the theory of capitalism to the challenge of counter-revolution. But all of them are also efforts to explore and answer a single question: What does it mean to be a communist in philosophy?

Alain Badiou is arguable the most important and original philosopher working in France today. Swimming against the tide of postmodern orthodoxy, Badiou's work revitalizes philosophy's perennial attempt to provide a systematic theory of truth. This volume presents for the first time in English a comprehensive overview of Badiou's ambitious system. Beginning with Badiou's controversial assertion that ontology is mathematics, this volume sets out his theory of the emergence of truths from the singular relationship between a subject and an event. Also included is a substantial extract from Badiou's forthcoming work on the logics of appearance and the concept of world, presented here in advance of its French publication. Ranging from startling re-readings of canonical figures (Spinoza, Kant and Hegel) to decisive engagements with poetry, psychoanalysis and radical politics, "Theoretical Writings" is an indispensable introduction to one of the great thinkers of our time.

A timely book addressing the burning concerns of our times, from the excesses of capitalism to the global crisis of leadership.  There is widespread agreement, across a voluble political spectrum and around the planet, that we live in times of intensifying insecurity and turmoil. If ours is an age of transition, its direction is anything but certain. Momentous transformations in ecology, geopolitics, and everyday life are shadowed by a suffocating sense of stasis. The limits to capital and the limits of nature are entangled in frightful ways, while the profoundly obsolete form of leadership, domination, and conflict exacerbate an already baleful situation. And yet struggles for liberation have not been quelled. Terms of Disorder confronts this moment by probing some of the defining terms in the modern vocabulary of emancipation, with the aim of testing their capacity to name and orient collective action set on abolishing the present state of things. Ranging from communism to leadership, the eleven keywords addressed in this book provide a set of interlocking points of entry into the common task of forging a political language capable of navigating our disorientation. If, as Gramsci famously noted, the interregnum is a time when the new struggles to be born while the old order is moribund, we may wish to heed Cedric Robinson’s call to “choose wisely among the dying.”

Alain Badiou is arguably the most important and original philosopher working in France today. Swimming against the tide of postmodern orthodoxy, Badiou's work revitalizes philosophy's perennial attempt to provide a systematic theory of truth. This volume presents for the first time in English a comprehensive overview of Badiou's ambitious system. Beginning with Badiou's controversial assertion that ontology is mathematics, this volume sets out his theory of the emergence of truths from the singular relationship between a subject and an event. Also included is a substantial extract from Badiou's forthcoming work on the logics of appearance and the concept of world, presented here in advance of its French publication. Ranging from startling re-readings of canonical figures (Spinoza, Kant and Hegel) to decisive engagements with poetry, psychoanalysis and radical politics, Theoretical Writings is an indispensable introduction to one of the great thinkers of our time. The volume also features a preface written by the author especially for this collection.

Alain Badiou is arguably the most important and original philosopher working in France today. Swimming against the tide of postmodern orthodoxy, Badiou's thought revitalizes philosophy's perennial attempt to provide a systematic theory of truth. This volume, assembled with the collaboration of the author, presents a comprehensive outline of Badiou's ambitious system. Starting from the controversial assertion that ontology is mathematics, it sets out the theory of the emergence of truths from the singular relationship between a subject and an event. Also included is a substantial excerpt from Badiou's forthcoming work on the logics of appearance and the concept of world, presented here in advance of its French publication. Ranging from startling re-readings of canonical figures (Spinoza, Kant and Hegel) to decisive engagements with poetry, psychoanalysis and radical politics, "Theoretical Writings" is an introduction to one of the great thinkers of time.

In 1936, Walter Benjamin defined the revolutionary class as being in opposition to a dense and dangerous crowd, prone to fear of the foreign, and under the spell of anti-Semitic madness. Today, in formations great or small, that sad figure returns the hatred of minorities is rekindled and the pied-pipers of the crowd stand triumphant.Class, by Andrea Cavalletti, is a striking montage of diverse materials Marx and Jules Verne, Benjamin and Gabriel Tarde. In it, Cavalletti asks whether the untimely concept of class is once again thinkable. Faced with new pogroms and state racism, he challenges us to imagine a movement that would unsettle and eventually destroy the crowd.

Alain Badiou is arguable the most important and original philosopher working in France today. Swimming against the tide of postmodern orthodoxy, Badiou's work revitalizes philosophy's perennial attempt to provide a systematic theory of truth. This volume presents for the first time in English a comprehensive overview of Badiou's ambitious system. Beginning with Badiou's controversial assertion that ontology is mathematics, this volume sets out his theory of the emergence of truths from the singular relationship between a subject and an event. Also included is a substantial extract from Badiou's forthcoming work on the logics of appearance and the concept of world, presented here in advance of its French publication. Ranging from startling re-readings of canonical figures (Spinoza, Kant and Hegel) to decisive engagements with poetry, psychoanalysis and radical politics, Theoretical Writings is an indispensable introduction to one of the great thinkers of our time.

Alain Badiou is arguably the most important and original philosopher working in France today. Swimming against the tide of postmodern orthodoxy, Badiou's work revitalizes philosophy's perennial attempt to provide a systematic theory of truth.This volume presents for the first time in English a comprehensive overview of Badiou's ambitious system. Beginning with Badiou's controversial assertion that ontology is mathematics, this volume sets out his theory of the emergence of truths from the singular relationship between a subject and an event. Also included is a substantial extract from Badiou's forthcoming work on the logics of appearance and the concept of world, presented here in advance of its French publication.Ranging from startling re-readings of canonical figures (Spinoza, Kant and Hegel) to decisive engagements with poetry, psychoanalysis and radical politics, Theoretical Writings is an indispensable introduction to one of the great thinkers of our time.The volume also features a preface written by the author especially for this collection.

The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of interest in Marxism both within and without the academy. Marxian frameworks, concepts and categories continue to be narratively relevant to the features and events of contemporary capitalism. Most crucially, an attention to shifting cultural conditions has lead contemporary researchers to re-confront some classical and essential Marxist concepts, as well as elaborating new critical frameworks for the analysis of capitalism today. The SAGE Handbook of Marxism showcases this cutting-edge of today’s Marxism. It advances the debate with essays that rigorously map and renew the concepts that have provided the groundwork and main currents for Marxist theory, and showcases interventions that set the agenda for Marxist research in the 21st century.  A rigorous and challenging collection of scholarship, this book contains a stunning range of contributions from contemporary academics, writers and theorists from around the world and across disciplines, invaluable to scholars and graduate students alike.  Part 1: Reworking the critique of political economyPart 2: Forms of domination, subjects of strugglePart 3: Political perspectivesPart 4: Philosophical dimensionsPart 5: Land and existencePart 6: DomainsPart 7: Inquiries and debates

Alain Badiou is arguably the most original and influential philosopher working in France today. Working against the tide of postmodern orthodoxy, Badiou revitalizes philosophy's perennial attempt to provide a systematic theory of truth. Theoretical Writings presents, in Badiou’s own words, ‘the theoretical core of [his] Philosophy’. Beginning with the controversial assertion that ontology is mathematics, the chapters step the reader through his key concepts of being, subject and truth via startling re-readings of canonical figures including Spinoza, Kant and Hegel and engagements with poetry, psychoanalysis and radical politics. Theoretical Writings is an indispensable introduction to one of the great thinkers of our time.

Alain Badiou is arguably the most original and influential philosopher working in France today. Working against the tide of postmodern orthodoxy, Badiou revitalizes philosophy''s perennial attempt to provide a systematic theory of truth. Theoretical Writings presents, in Badiou''s own words, ''the theoretical core of [his] Philosophy''. Beginning with the controversial assertion that ontology is mathematics, the chapters step the reader through his key concepts of being, subject and truth via startling re-readings of canonical figures including Spinoza, Kant and Hegel and engagements with poetry, psychoanalysis and radical politics. Theoretical Writings is an indispensable introduction to one of the great thinkers of our time.

Alain Badiou is arguably the most original and influential philosopher working in France today. Working against the tide of postmodern orthodoxy, Badiou revitalizes philosophy''s perennial attempt to provide a systematic theory of truth. Theoretical Writings presents, in Badiou''s own words, ''the theoretical core of [his] Philosophy''. Beginning with the controversial assertion that ontology is mathematics, the chapters step the reader through his key concepts of being, subject and truth via startling re-readings of canonical figures including Spinoza, Kant and Hegel and engagements with poetry, psychoanalysis and radical politics. Theoretical Writings is an indispensable introduction to one of the great thinkers of our time.

The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of interest in Marxism both within and without the academy. Marxian frameworks, concepts and categories continue to be narratively relevant to the features and events of contemporary capitalism. Most crucially, an attention to shifting cultural conditions has lead contemporary researchers to re-confront some classical and essential Marxist concepts, as well as elaborating new critical frameworks for the analysis of capitalism today.

The SAGE Handbook of Marxism showcases this cutting-edge of today’s Marxism. It advances the debate with essays that rigorously map and renew the concepts that have provided the groundwork and main currents for Marxist theory, and showcases interventions that set the agenda for Marxist research in the 21st century.  A rigorous and challenging collection of scholarship, this book contains a stunning range of contributions from contemporary academics, writers and theorists from around the world and across disciplines, invaluable to scholars and graduate students alike. 

Part 1: Reworking the critique of political economy

Part 2: Forms of domination, subjects of struggle

Part 3: Political perspectives

Part 4: Philosophical dimensions

Part 5: Land and existence

Part 6: Domains

Part 7: Inquiries and debates

The true story of the Tour de France winner who cycled all over Mussolini''s Italy in a secret quest to rescue hundreds of Jewish lives.Cyclist Gino Bartali won the Giro d''Italia (Tour of Italy) three times and the Tour de France twice. But these weren''t his only achievements.Deeply religious, Bartali quietly agreed during the dark years of fascist rule to work with the Resistance and pass messages and papers from one end of the country to the other. Despite the dangers, Bartali used his training as a pretext to criss-cross Italy, hiding documents in the handlebars and saddle of his bicycle, hoping each time he was searched that they wouldn''t think to disassemble his machine.As a result of his bravery, eight hundred Jews—including numerous children—were saved from deportation. In this book, Alberto Toscano shares the incredible story of this great sportsman, recognized as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" by Jerusalem''s Yad Vashem Memorial after his death in Florence in 2000, and recounts a story of humble heroism, real-life suspense, and twentieth-century European history."An informative testament to the kinds of risks and sacrifices [of] the anti-Nazis in Mussolini''s Italy during World War II . . . an extraordinary story of an extraordinary man in extraordinary times." —Midwest Book Review

The true story of the Tour de France winner who cycled all over Mussolini''s Italy in a secret quest to rescue hundreds of Jewish lives.Cyclist Gino Bartali won the Giro d''Italia (Tour of Italy) three times and the Tour de France twice. But these weren''t his only achievements.Deeply religious, Bartali quietly agreed during the dark years of fascist rule to work with the Resistance and pass messages and papers from one end of the country to the other. Despite the dangers, Bartali used his training as a pretext to criss-cross Italy, hiding documents in the handlebars and saddle of his bicycle, hoping each time he was searched that they wouldn''t think to disassemble his machine.As a result of his bravery, eight hundred Jews—including numerous children—were saved from deportation. In this book, Alberto Toscano shares the incredible story of this great sportsman, recognized as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" by Jerusalem''s Yad Vashem Memorial after his death in Florence in 2000, and recounts a story of humble heroism, real-life suspense, and twentieth-century European history."An informative testament to the kinds of risks and sacrifices [of] the anti-Nazis in Mussolini''s Italy during World War II . . . an extraordinary story of an extraordinary man in extraordinary times." —Midwest Book Review

Can capital be seen? Cartographies of the Absolute surveys the disparate answers to this question offered by artists, film-makers, writers and theorists over the past few decades. It zones in on the crises of representation that have accompanied the enduring crisis of capitalism, foregrounding the production of new visions and artefacts that wrestle with the vastness, invisibility and complexity of the abstractions that rule our lives.

The idea of fanaticism as a deviant or extreme variant of an already irrational set of religious beliefs is today invoked by the West in order to demonize and psychologize any non-liberal politics. Alberto Toscano's compelling and erudite counter-history explodes this accepted interpretation in exploring the critical role fanaticism played in forming modern politics and the liberal state. Tracing its development from the traumatic Peasants' War of early sixteenth-century Germany to contemporary Islamism, Toscano tears apart the sterile opposition of 'reasonableness' and fanaticism. Instead, in a radical new interpretation, he places the fanatic at the very heart of politics, arguing that historical and revolutionary transformations require a new understanding of his role. Showing how fanaticism results from the failure to formulate an adequate emancipatory politics, this illuminating history sheds new light on an idea that continues to dominate debates about faith and secularism.

The idea of fanaticism as a deviant or extreme variant of an already irrational set of religious beliefs is today invoked by the West in order to demonize and psychologize any non-liberal politics. Alberto Toscano''s compelling and erudite counter-history explodes this accepted interpretation in exploring the critical role fanaticism played in forming modern politics and the liberal state. Tracing its development from the traumatic Peasants'' War of early sixteenth-century Germany to contemporary Islamism, Toscano tears apart the sterile opposition of ''reasonableness'' and fanaticism. Instead, in a radical new interpretation, he places the fanatic at the very heart of politics, arguing that historical and revolutionary transformations require a new understanding of his role. Showing how fanaticism results from the failure to formulate an adequate emancipatory politics, this illuminating history sheds new light on an idea that continues to dominate debates about faith and secularism.

This first book in a three-volume collection of Georges Bataille’s essays introduces English readers to his philosophical and critical writings.In the aftermath of the Second World War, French thinker and writer Georges Bataille forged a singular path through the moral and political impasses of his age. In 1946, animated by “a need to live events in an increasingly conscious way,” and to reject any compartmentalization of intellectual life, Bataille founded the journal Critique. Adopting the format of the review essay, he surveyed the post-war cultural landscape while advancing his reflections on excess, non-knowledge, and the general economy. Focusing on literature as a mode of sovereign uselessness, he tackled prominent and divisive figures such as Henry Miller and Albert Camus.  In keeping with Critique’s mission to explore the totality of human knowledge, Bataille’s articles did not just focus on the literary but featured important reflections on the science of sexuality, the Chinese Revolution, and historical accounts of drunkenness, among other matters. Throughout, he was attuned to how humanity would deal with the excessive forces of production and destruction it had unleashed, his aim being a way of thinking and living that would inhabit that excess.  This is the first of three volumes collecting Bataille’s post-war essays. Beginning with an article on Nietzsche and fascism written shortly after the liberation of Paris and running to the end of 1948, these texts make available for the first time in English the systematic diversity of Bataille’s post-war thought.

An introduction for English-language readers to Georges Bataille’s postwar philosophical and critical writings.In the aftermath of World War II, French thinker and writer Georges Bataille forged a singular path through the moral and political impasses of his age. In 1946, animated by “a need to live events in an increasingly conscious way,” and to reject any compartmentalization of intellectual life, Bataille founded the journal Critique. Continuing the publication of his postwar writings, this second book in a three-volume collection of Bataille’s work collects his essays and reviews from the years 1949 to 1951.In this period of intellectual isolation and intense reflection, Bataille developed and refined his genealogy of morality through a sustained reflection on the fate of the sacred in the modern world. He offered a critique of the limits of existing morality, especially in its denial of excess, while sketching the lineaments of a new hyper-morality. Bataille’s wide-ranging reflections are true to the intellectual mission of Critique, which he founded as a space open to the broadest considerations of the present. As well as discussing significant figures like Samuel Beckett, André Gide, and René Char, Bataille also offers fascinating reflections on American politics, Nazism, existentialism, materialism, and play.The connecting thread in these diverse essays remains Bataille’s concern with the extremes of human experience and the possibilities of transcending the limits of societies founded on utility and restraint. His writings remain a provocative incitement to rethink the boundaries we impose on expression and existence.

The rich archive of twentieth-century debates on fascism can steer a path through an increasingly authoritarian present. Developing anti-fascist theory is an urgent and vital task. From the ''Great Replacement'' to campaigns against critical race theory and ''gender ideology'', today''s global far right is launching lethal panics about the threats to traditional political, sexual and racial hierarchies.Drawing especially on Black radical and anti-colonial theories of fascism, Toscano makes clear the limits of associating fascism primarily with the kind of political violence experienced by past European regimes. Rather than looking for analogies from history, we should see fascism as a mutable process, one anchored in racial and colonial capitalism, which both predates and survives its crystallization in Mussolini''s Italy and Hitler''s Germany. It is a threat that continues to evolve in the present day.

El presente libro reúne, por primera vez, a grandes filósofos de diferentes latitudes anglosajones, latinoamericanos y europeos para hacer una lectura actual sobre Hegel. La obra se ha estructurado en cuatro partes.En la primera, con los aportes de Robert Pippin, Catherine Malabou y Slavoj Žižek, se muestra el complejo tema histórico del Idealismo; en la segunda, a través de los textos de Frank Ruda, Edgardo Albizu, Miguel Giusti, Juan Ormeño y Birgit Sandkaulen, se reflexiona sobre el necesario asunto filosófico pero también político del sistema y del sujeto, conceptos pilares de la filosofía hegeliana; en la tercera parte, de la mano de Terry Pinkard, Alberto Damiani, Ricardo Espinoza, Jorge Eduardo Fernández, Klaus Vieweg y Gustavo Leyva, se aborda el totalmente pertinente asunto político y ético del reconocimiento, libertad y revolución; y en la cuarta y última parte, con los aportes de Félix Duque, Vincenzo Vitiello, Massimo Cacciari, Jose Maria Ripalda Crespo y Alberto Toscano, se reflexiona sobre cómo se dialoga con Hegel hoy desde otras miradas para resolver los problemas.En esta obra, Hegel se transforma en el marco conceptual que nos permite entender, pensar y criticar lo que hoy se nos muestra como contradictorio en los distintos niveles de la realidad y de la actualidad social e intelectual: la verdad, la historia, la sociedad, entre otros. Asimismo, la singularidad de las distintas y potentes voces reunidas aquí en pos de Hegel abre la filosofía a múltiples lectores de distintas disciplinas y saberes que busquen en nuestro presente las claves que nos permitan ver cómo podemos construir un mundo más justo para todos.

"En un mundo sacudido por crisis ecológicas, económicas y políticas, las fuerzas del autoritarismo y la reacción parecen tener la sartén por el mango. ¿Cómo podemos nombrar, cartografiar y responder a esta situación? El rico acervo de los debates sobre el fascismo del siglo xx puede orientarnos en un presente cada vez más autoritario. Desarrollar una teoría antifascista es una tarea urgente y vital. Desde el «gran reemplazo» hasta las campañas contra la teoría crítica de la raza y la «ideología de género», la extrema derecha global está generando crispación y alarma social ante cualquier amenaza a la jerarquía política, sexual y racial tradicional.Basándose especialmente en las teorías radicales de la negritud y las teorías anticoloniales del fascismo, Toscano deja claros los límites de asociar el fascismo principalmente con el tipo de violencia política experimentada por los regímenes europeos del pasado. En lugar de buscar analogías en la historia, deberíamos ver el fascismo como un proceso mutable, anclado en el capitalismo racial y colonial, que antecede y sobrevive a su cristalización en la Italia de Mussolini y la Alemania de Hitler. Una amenaza que sigue evolucionando en la actualidad.«El amplio y erudito estudio de Toscano es a la vez teóricamente satisfactorio y políticamente inspirador: una referencia esencial para repensar el fascismo y la política antifascista hoy en día».Michael Hardt"

El siglo XX termina con el auge de la condena simplista a las prácticas religiosas, por parte de académicos ilustrados, élites y gente del común. La religión nos dejó en la pobreza, la ignorancia y el atraso, dicen unos; en la guerra que acabará con el mundo, dicen otros. Tal como lo muestra el libro de Alberto Toscano, la religión no es un simple arcaísmo, sino un problema para pensar y experimentar. Un problema global. El autor nos propone recorrer determinados episodios cruciales en la vida de una idea: los usos y abusos de la idea de fanatismo que, en su despliegue, está poblada de sujetos (no individuos), verdades (no dogmas) e historias (no esencias).Este libro nos convoca a buscar formas imaginativas para construir ese problema. En ese sentido, la cuestión no es la falsedad de la religión, sino los grados de verdad que puede alcanzar una abstracción determinada (en este caso, una abstracción religiosa). Esta obra nos invita a dejar de creer que la religión es una creencia del desdichado, del pobre o del supersticioso.