Loss as Resistance; Towards a Hermeneutic of Revolution (Radical Notes – 6)

Description

Loss is not a central conceptual figure in the Marxist inventory of concepts and practices.Or, so it is usually believed. In this monograph the author argues against both thecommunistological proponents and poststructuralist detractors of the Marxist scienceof working-class politics to assert that loss is the essential point of departure for anyrevolutionary politics as the phenomenon and discursive concept of loss is intrinsicto capitalism. He, however, contends that loss, as far as working-class politics isconcerned, must be freed from its univocal articulation by the symbolic logic of capitalso that it becomes its own singular ground reconstituted as resistance. Through anunorthodox Marxist re-reading of an eclectic motley of works of literature, art, cinema,psychoanalysis and philosophy, the author attempts to show how loss is posited asresistance, either actively or as an immanent tendency, by the texts under discussion.This essay is a plea for envisaging Marxist theory as a hermeneutic of revolution, therebyreturning its idealised, philosophical form to its performative material origin.

Pothik Ghoshwas educated in Allahabad and has worked as a professional journalist inCalcutta, Lucknow and Delhi. Active with various Left groups, he is currently based inDelhi and is one of the editors of www.radicalnotes.com.