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Rating: 
Summary: Not So Fast
Review: Athough there are some interesting ideas here, history appears unappreciated. In a war described by Lenin as being amongst imperialists, and at a time when Russian soldiers were embracing Bolshevism, psychiatry rose to prominence in an attempt to heal the trauma suffered by American working class soldiers during the First World War. And although you'd expect the post-World War II McCarthy reaction against homosexuals by monopolists would likewise be examined, the regulatory impulse of monopolists (and resistance to it), as illuminated by authors like Foucault, seems unrecognized. In short, the origins of the homosexual movement in class struggle, and queer theory as a form of working class consciousness, appears under appreciated.
Rating: 
Summary: Marxism, Queer Theory, Gender
Review: Marxism, Queer Theory, Gender Volume 2 of Transformation: Marxist Boundary Work in Theory, Economics, Politics and Culture Edited by Mas'ud Zavarzadeh, Teresa L. Ebert, Donald Morton The Red Factory, Paperback $22.00 Transformation is a series presenting "Marxist boundary work in theory, economics, politics and culture." Its second volume, focused on "Marxism, Queer Theory, Gender," not only goes against the grain of contemporary theory (Derrida, Butler, Fish -- to mention the triangle of hegemonic theory), but also counters the mainline of truncated "marxisms" that one finds in the writings of Laclau, Jameson, Zizek, Spivak and in such institutional journals as Rethinking Marxism. In fact the first volume of Transformation (Marxism and Postmodernism) was hailed in Europe as a path-opening "American alternative to Social Text and Rethinking Marxism" (Textual Practice). The path taken by Transformation is the path of classical Marxism, which argues for social transformation (hence the title of the series) by deploying the concepts of class, revolution, and the labor theory of value, and its overriding goal is freedom of humanity from necessity. These are, of course, concepts that have been marginalized by today's "third way" leftism and in the writings of post-marxists. Transformation No. 2 puts the "red"--the revolutionary--back into Marxist theory and politics. It takes classical Marxist theory and puts it on the boundaries of contemporary conflicts over sexuality, AIDS, sexual harassment in the workplace, "family values," pedagogy, cyber-activism, domestic labor and above all, dominant forms of queer theory. The first, and most theoretically expansive text of the volume, Donald Morton's "Pataphysics of the Closet," theorizes the enduring silence around issues of class and exploitation in contemporary forms of sex-radicalism and dominant forms of queer theory. Setting the agenda for the volume as a whole, Morton argues against the dominant knowledges which (in the guise of "radical democracy" and "radical thinking") have transformed "difference" into a code-word for the unique entrepreneurial self. Morton's critique argues for a "Red Queer Theory" which "refuses to give up difference as the difference of class." Other theorists contributing to the collection, Dana Cloud, Robert Nowlan, Jennifer Cotter, Huei-ju Wang, Robert Wilkie, and Teresa L. Ebert, provide rigorous scholarly and theoretical explanations of various aspects of questions of sexuality and gender now. This is a uniquely rich, innovative, and ground-breaking volume. At a time when the left and post-marxisms have all but in name surrendered to triumphalist global capitalism, Transformation continues to be in the vanguard of red struggles for social equality, economic justice, and freedom from necessity.
Rating:
Summary: Marxism, Queer Theory, Gender
Review: Marxism, Queer Theory, Gender Volume 2 of Transformation: Marxist Boundary Work in Theory, Economics, Politics and Culture Edited by Mas'ud Zavarzadeh, Teresa L. Ebert, Donald Morton The Red Factory, Paperback $22.00 Transformation is a series presenting "Marxist boundary work in theory, economics, politics and culture." Its second volume, focused on "Marxism, Queer Theory, Gender," not only goes against the grain of contemporary theory (Derrida, Butler, Fish -- to mention the triangle of hegemonic theory), but also counters the mainline of truncated "marxisms" that one finds in the writings of Laclau, Jameson, Zizek, Spivak and in such institutional journals as Rethinking Marxism. In fact the first volume of Transformation (Marxism and Postmodernism) was hailed in Europe as a path-opening "American alternative to Social Text and Rethinking Marxism" (Textual Practice). The path taken by Transformation is the path of classical Marxism, which argues for social transformation (hence the title of the series) by deploying the concepts of class, revolution, and the labor theory of value, and its overriding goal is freedom of humanity from necessity. These are, of course, concepts that have been marginalized by today's "third way" leftism and in the writings of post-marxists. Transformation No. 2 puts the "red"--the revolutionary--back into Marxist theory and politics. It takes classical Marxist theory and puts it on the boundaries of contemporary conflicts over sexuality, AIDS, sexual harassment in the workplace, "family values," pedagogy, cyber-activism, domestic labor and above all, dominant forms of queer theory. The first, and most theoretically expansive text of the volume, Donald Morton's "Pataphysics of the Closet," theorizes the enduring silence around issues of class and exploitation in contemporary forms of sex-radicalism and dominant forms of queer theory. Setting the agenda for the volume as a whole, Morton argues against the dominant knowledges which (in the guise of "radical democracy" and "radical thinking") have transformed "difference" into a code-word for the unique entrepreneurial self. Morton's critique argues for a "Red Queer Theory" which "refuses to give up difference as the difference of class." Other theorists contributing to the collection, Dana Cloud, Robert Nowlan, Jennifer Cotter, Huei-ju Wang, Robert Wilkie, and Teresa L. Ebert, provide rigorous scholarly and theoretical explanations of various aspects of questions of sexuality and gender now. This is a uniquely rich, innovative, and ground-breaking volume. At a time when the left and post-marxisms have all but in name surrendered to triumphalist global capitalism, Transformation continues to be in the vanguard of red struggles for social equality, economic justice, and freedom from necessity.
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