[Generation_online] Dialogue entre une Prat et une liste moribonde

[Erik Empson]

Hello all,

I've been thinking about what we should do whilst knocked out with the flu,
so if this comes across as feverish delerium, please ignore. We still have
to decide what to read. I think we should keep the focus on and around
Empire, and try and use the other books in Negri's corpus to deepen our
understanding of what Negri's politics are. To read another single book, I
fear would alienate a large number on the list, who possibly do not either
have access to these extra books, nor the time or inclination to look at the
issues in any considerable depth. This I see as a problem that we can get
around, if we were to pick up issues in a more thematic way, and read
specific pre decided sections of the other books in order to debate and
discuss the main arguments that make up Empire.

Clearly, working out the programme would have to be a collaborative affair.
For instance I still do not have the labour of Dionysus, so I wouldn't know
what sections would correspond to what in Empire. However, I think we can
still delinieate areas, that we might, almost in seminar form, contribute
too, using the resources that we have available. This would mean that we
could stick to a tight and dedicated reading of texts as a lot of people
have requested, thought not necesarily slogging through a whole book at
once.

The advantage of proceeding thus would mean that even those with no acess to
specific books could read something related and therefore still contribute
towards the discussion. For instance if dealing precisely with a concept
like potestas, folks without access to Insurgencies, could read sections
from Spinoza's work or commentaries on it and we would thus be able to
compare and contrast Negri's interpretation. Or alternatively, texts from
different perspectives to Negri, could be read alongside sections from
Empire, so we enhance our conception of the field of debate as well as
possible criticisms of Negri's position. Moreover, list members might want
to re-read sections of Marx or their favourite thinkers, that pertain to the
issue in hand. This would make it more inclusive.

For this to work I think we would have to spend a lot of time preparing the
programme, and putting together a well thought out and ordered list with
reading lists and online resources. This would also be an attractive
proposal to send out on the web and encourage others to participate. The
idea of course is not thta we read all of these things, but read what is
either available and of most interest to us, and gear our reading towards
the answering of specific questions. There is of course no reason why issues
that emerge with world events would have to be sidelined, they could still
form part of the general information distributing side of the list.


Political ontology and the metaphysics of Marx and Spinoza.

Books: Savage Anomaly, Insurgencies and of course Empire.
People: Hobbes, Spinoza, Deleuze
Concepts: Multitude and strength, desire, potentia,

Conception of the State and constituted power

Books: Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise, Insurgencies, Marx's
critique of Hegel's philosophy of the state etc.
People: Balibar on Spinoza,
concepts: Potestas, Empire, power

Living labour, social ontology, Capital

Books: Marx beyond Marx, Grundrisse,
People: i.e. Chris Arthur, Harry Cleaver. Foucault.
Concepts: Bio-power, Domestic Labour debate, labour theory of value/ beyond
measure, material/immaterial labour

Postmodernity as societal state - postmodernization, globalisation, post-
nation

Books: Insurgencies, Empire, Postmodern condition/ Limits to Capital
People: David Harvey, Fred Jameson, Warren Montag, Wallerstein etc
concepts: post-fordism, immaterial labour, communication

Postmodernism as method, as relation to knowledge

Books: Lyotard, Zizek (politics of truth in Ticklish subject), Benhabib,
Negri (the Late Althusser article)
Concepts: Aleatory Materialism, epistemological relativism, skepticism and
cynicism

etc etc etc

At the moment this is just to give an idea of what I mean and how we might
proceed - its by no means exhaustive. Of course almost all of Negri's works
have something to say on each issue, so even the people that are just coming
to Empire (not surprising given its massive attention), would be able to
contribute fruitfully to the discussion.

Please respond about what you think about the general idea or suggestions
for themes and reading materials

Cheers

Erik