Marxism and Urban Culture is the first volume to reconcile social science and humanities perspectives on culture. Covering a range of global cities-Bologna, Buenos Aires, Guatemala City, Liverpool, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mahalla al-Kubra, Mexico City, Montreal, Osaka, Strasbourg, Vienna-the contributions fuse political and theoretical concerns with analyses of urban cultural practices and historical movements, as well as urban-themed literary and filmic art. Conceived as a response to the persistent rift between disciplinary Marxist approaches to culture, this book prioritizes the urban problematic and builds implicitly and explicitly on work by numerous thinkers: not only Karl Marx but also David Harvey, Henri Lefebvre, Friedrich Engels and Antonio Gramsci, among others. Rather than reanimate reductive views either of Marx or of urban theory, the chapters in Marxism and Urban Culture speak broadly to the interdisciplinary connections that are increasingly the concern of cultural scholars working across and beyond the boundaries of geography, sociology, history, political science, language and literature fields, film studies, and more. A foreword written by Andy Merrifield (the author of Metromarxism) and an introduction by Benjamin Fraser (the author of Henri Lefebvre and the Spanish Urban Experience) situate the book's chapters firmly in interdisciplinary terrain.

Marxism and Urban Culture is the first volume to reconcile social science and humanities perspectives on culture. Covering a range of global cities-Bologna, Buenos Aires, Guatemala City, Liverpool, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mahalla al-Kubra, Mexico City, Montreal, Osaka, Strasbourg, Vienna-the contributions fuse political and theoretical concerns with analyses of urban cultural practices and historical movements, as well as urban-themed literary and filmic art. Conceived as a response to the persistent rift between disciplinary Marxist approaches to culture, this book prioritizes the urban problematic and builds implicitly and explicitly on work by numerous thinkers: not only Karl Marx but also David Harvey, Henri Lefebvre, Friedrich Engels and Antonio Gramsci, among others. Rather than reanimate reductive views either of Marx or of urban theory, the chapters in Marxism and Urban Culture speak broadly to the interdisciplinary connections that are increasingly the concern of cultural scholars working across and beyond the boundaries of geography, sociology, history, political science, language and literature fields, film studies, and more. A foreword written by Andy Merrifield (the author of Metromarxism) and an introduction by Benjamin Fraser (the author of Henri Lefebvre and the Spanish Urban Experience) situate the book's chapters firmly in interdisciplinary terrain.

Bernie Bros Gone Woke offers a provocative in-depth analysis of the Sanders campaigns and argues for a return to universalist politics In 2016 and 2020, the Bernie Sanders campaign gave American leftists a path towards social change through electoral politics. In order to combat neoliberal and reactionary uses of identity, the 2020 Sanders campaign combined a working-class agenda of universalist policies with various forms of social movement activism. In doing so it compromised on universalist principles and socialist radicalism in order to appeal to distinct demographic groups and win the election. Bernie Bros Gone Woke reveals how intersectional politics contributed to the failure of the Sanders campaign - a lesson that the organized left must learn if it is to challenge progressive neoliberalism and move beyond postmodern post-politics.

Drive in Cinema offers Zizek-influenced studies of films made by some of the most engaging and influential filmmakers of our time, from avant-garde directors Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Vera Chytilova, to independent filmmakers William Klein, Oliver Ressler, Hal Hartley, Olivier Assayas, Vincent Gallo, Jim Jarmusch and Harmony Korine. These essays in critical cultural theory present interdisciplinary perspectives on the relations between art, film and politics. How does filmic symbolization mediate intersubjective social exchange? What are the possibilities for avant-gardism today and how does this correspond to what we know about cultural production after capitalism's real subsumption of labour? How have various filmmakers communicated radical ideas through film as a popular medium? Drive in Cinema pursues Lacanian ethics to avenues beyond the academic obsession with cultural representation and cinematic technique. It will be of interest to anyone who is concerned with film's potential as an emancipatory force.

Cultural production as we know it has been undergoing significant restructuring. In an effort to compensate for the global decline in economic growth, governments and corporations have begun to seriously consider the creative fields as markets that can be stimulated through venture capital and regional development initiatives. Along with the neoliberalization of cultural institutions, a conservative agenda that is buttressed by a war economy confronts critics and activists with the repressive forms of state censorship and police control. From art collectives to the US-led war on terror, from cultural contestation to neoliberal governmentality and from alter-global anti-capitalism to the creative industries, this collection of essays examines the issues and politics that have marked cultural production in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In the context of a proliferation of socially engaged art practices and the interventions of autonomous art collectives, Culture and Contestation in the New Century presents the viewpoints of leading international artists and intellectuals working in the fields of critical and cultural theory. After the impasse of a postmodern post-politics 'beyond left and right', what are the possibilities for a radical politicization of cultural discourse? How has oppositionality shifted away from identity and difference, as well as social constructionism, to consider the universal determinations of contemporary neoliberal capitalism? These essays present a number of untimely reflections on the conditions of contemporary cultural practice, subjectivity and political dissidence, making new connections between cultural production, politics, economics and social theory. Simply stated, the book provides an account of the current interface between art and politics.

This book is premised on the view that the idea of the avant garde has an increased importance in these times of global political crisis. Much cultural production today is shaped by a biopolitics that construes all creative and knowledge production in terms of capital accumulation. A different kind of culture is possible. This collection of writings, essays, interviews and artworks by many of today's most radical cultural practitioners and astute commentators on matters avant garde mediates the different strategies and temporalities of avant-garde art and politics. Tracing diverse genealogies and trajectories, the book offers an inter-generational forum of ideas that covers different arts fields, from visual art, art activism, photography, film and architecture, to literature, theatre, performance, intermedia and music. This is an extraordinarily rich collection and is sure to be a benchmark for many years. -- .

The avant garde is dead, or so the story goes for many leftists and capitalists alike. But in an era of neoliberal austerity, neocolonial militarism and ecological crisis, this postmodern view seems increasingly outmoded. Rejecting 'end of ideology' post-politics, Vanguardia delves into the changing praxis of socially engaged art and theory in the age of the Capitalocene. Covering the major events of the last decade, from anti-globalisation protests, Occupy Wall Street, the Maple Spring, Strike Debt and the Anthropocene, to the Black Lives Matter and MeToo campaigns, Vanguardia puts forward a radical leftist commitment to the revolutionary consciousness of avant-garde art and politics. -- .

'Brave New Avant Garde' is a collection of essays that ask the questions: what is an adequate model of contemporary avant garde practice and what are its theoretical premises?