It has become a commonplace that "images" were central to the twentieth century and that their role will be even more powerful in the twenty-first. But what is an image and what can an image be? "Releasing the Image" understands images as something beyond mere representations of things. Releasing images from that function, it shows them to be self-referential and self-generative, and in this way capable of producing forms of engagement beyond spectatorship and subjectivity. This understanding of images owes much to phenomenology--the work of Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty--and to Gilles Deleuze's post-phenomenological work. The essays included here cover historical periods from the Romantic era to the present and address a range of topics, from Cezanne's painting, to images in poetry, to contemporary audiovisual art. They reveal the aesthetic, ethical, and political stakes of the project of releasing images and provoke new ways of engaging with embodiment, agency, history, and technology.

It has become a commonplace that "images" were central to the twentieth century and that their role will be even more powerful in the twenty-first. But what is an image and what can an image be? "Releasing the Image" understands images as something beyond mere representations of things. Releasing images from that function, it shows them to be self-referential and self-generative, and in this way capable of producing forms of engagement beyond spectatorship and subjectivity. This understanding of images owes much to phenomenology--the work of Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty--and to Gilles Deleuze's post-phenomenological work. The essays included here cover historical periods from the Romantic era to the present and address a range of topics, from Cezanne's painting, to images in poetry, to contemporary audiovisual art. They reveal the aesthetic, ethical, and political stakes of the project of releasing images and provoke new ways of engaging with embodiment, agency, history, and technology.

"Marxism Beyond Marxism" is a collection of essays that critically rethinks Marxism at time when its practice and theory has been seemingly taken to task by the events in 1989 in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Containing essays from a group of internationally distinguished writers and intellectuals, this collection addresses Marxism as a cultural-political problematic.
Contending that Marxism is deeply embedded in specific cultural practices, the contributors illuminate Marxism's contribution to discussions of labor in post-industrial capitalism, to controversies surrounding compulsory heterosexuality and queer theory, and to debates about the institutionalization and academicization of the "New" Left. In examining Marxism's relationship to cultural practices, the contributors make a vigorous and compelling case for Marxism's continued relevance. By combining a diversity of perspectives, these essays demonstrate that Marxism addresses urgent needs that are often foresaken by other political and ideological practices. They show how--now more than ever--Marxism's reaffirmation can serve as a sophisticated and cunning response to the latest global devlopments--and travesties.

"Marxism Beyond Marxism" is a collection of essays that critically rethinks Marxism at time when its practice and theory has been seemingly taken to task by the events in 1989 in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Containing essays from a group of internationally distinguished writers and intellectuals, this collection addresses Marxism as a cultural-political problematic.
Contending that Marxism is deeply embedded in specific cultural practices, the contributors illuminate Marxism's contribution to discussions of labor in post-industrial capitalism, to controversies surrounding compulsory heterosexuality and queer theory, and to debates about the institutionalization and academicization of the "New" Left. In examining Marxism's relationship to cultural practices, the contributors make a vigorous and compelling case for Marxism's continued relevance. By combining a diversity of perspectives, these essays demonstrate that Marxism addresses urgent needs that are often foresaken by other political and ideological practices. They show how--now more than ever--Marxism's reaffirmation can serve as a sophisticated and cunning response to the latest global devlopments--and travesties.

A groundbreaking volume introduces the unique feminist thought of the longstanding Italian group known as Diotima Introducing Anglophone readers to a potent strain of Italian feminism known to French, Spanish, and German audiences but as yet unavailable in English, Another Mother argues that the question of the mother is essential to comprehend the matrix of contemporary culture and society and to pursue feminist political projects. Focusing on Diotima, a community of women philosophers deeply involved in feminist politics since the 1960s, this volume provides a multifaceted panorama of its engagement with currents of thought including structuralism, psychoanalysis, linguistics, and Marxism. Starting from the simple insight that the mother is the one who gives us both life and language, these thinkers develop concepts of the mother and sexual difference in contemporary society that differ in crucial ways from both French and U.S. feminisms. Arguing that Diotima anticipates many of the themes in contemporary philosophical discourses of biopolitics-exemplified by thinkers such as Giorgio Agamben, Antonio Negri, and Roberto Esposito-Another Mother opens an important space for reflections on the past history of feminism and on feminism's future. Contributors: Anne Emmanuelle Berger, Paris 8 U-Vincennes Saint-Denis; Ida Dominijanni; Luisa Muraro; Diana Sartori, U of Verona; Chiara Zamboni, U of Verona.

A leading Marxist political philosopher and intellectual firebrand, Antonio Negri has inspired anti-empire movements around the world through his writings and personal example. Born in 1933, he was imprisoned in Italy in 1979 and convicted, nearly five years later, on questionable charges of "association and insurrection against the state," whereupon he left the country to teach in France. In 1997, he voluntarily returned to Italy to serve out his seventeen-year prison sentence. He was freed in 2003. In Praise of the Common, which began as a conversation between Negri and literary critic Cesare Casarino, is the most complete review of the philosopher's work ever published. It includes five exchanges in which the two intellectuals discuss Negri's evolution as a thinker from 1950 to the present, detailing for the first time the genealogy of his concepts. In Praise of the Common contains two essays by Casarino that expand Negri's most recent work by relating it to the work of other prominent thinkers. This is at once a book by Negri and on Negri. It presents, for the first time in English, a major essay by Negri on the "monster" as a political figure in the history of Western thought, engaging with discourses of biopolitics, eugenics, and genetic engineering. More candid and self-critical than ever before, Negri provides his wide audience with a rich and revelatory assessment of his controversial, highly influential thought.

A groundbreaking volume introduces the unique feminist thought of the longstanding Italian group known as Diotima Introducing Anglophone readers to a potent strain of Italian feminism known to French, Spanish, and German audiences but as yet unavailable in English, Another Mother argues that the question of the mother is essential to comprehend the matrix of contemporary culture and society and to pursue feminist political projects. Focusing on Diotima, a community of women philosophers deeply involved in feminist politics since the 1960s, this volume provides a multifaceted panorama of its engagement with currents of thought including structuralism, psychoanalysis, linguistics, and Marxism. Starting from the simple insight that the mother is the one who gives us both life and language, these thinkers develop concepts of the mother and sexual difference in contemporary society that differ in crucial ways from both French and U.S. feminisms. Arguing that Diotima anticipates many of the themes in contemporary philosophical discourses of biopolitics-exemplified by thinkers such as Giorgio Agamben, Antonio Negri, and Roberto Esposito-Another Mother opens an important space for reflections on the past history of feminism and on feminism's future. Contributors: Anne Emmanuelle Berger, Paris 8 U-Vincennes Saint-Denis; Ida Dominijanni; Luisa Muraro; Diana Sartori, U of Verona; Chiara Zamboni, U of Verona.