Marx and Spinoza, a Subterranean Tradition

Catalog description

This seminar will focus on the thought of Baruch Spinoza and Karl Marx and trace the traditions of their encounter—traditions that extend not only to philosophy and critical theory, but also to fields ranging from literary studies to environmental humanities. Countering the dominant narrative of Hegelianism in Marxist theory, we will look at how Spinoza’s philosophy shaped the dissident currents in the Social Democratic Party in Germany and gave birth to the so-called Russian Marxism in the early twentieth century. Subsequently, we will investigate how the second half of the twentieth century witnessed a revival of interest in Spinoza across humanities and social sciences as a means of rethinking the very terms of philosophical and political debates of modernity. The seminar will follow this persistent strain of Spinozan thought in modernity to the most recent publications and investigate the contradictory and conflictual Spinoza-interpretations on the political and philosophical left. The currents addressed in this seminar will include, but are not limited to: the vicissitudes of Spinozism among Soviet Marxists (Georgi Plekhanov, Lyubov Axelrod, Abram Deborin, Evald Ilyenkov); the deployment of Spinoza against Hegel to rejuvenate Marxism in France (Louis Althusser, Etienne Balibar, Gilles Deleuze, Chantal Jaquet, Alexandre Matheron); the development of theories of the multitude in the tradition of Autonomism in Italy (Antonio Negri, Paolo Virno); and, most recently, we will look at the Spinozan thought in contemporary Lacanian psychoanalysis (A. Kiarina Kordela), theories of finance capitalism (Frédéric Lordon, Jason Read), feminist theory (Moira Gatens), intellectual history (Tracie Matysik, Franck Fishbach, Katja Diefenbach), literary studies (Pierre Macherey, Anthony Uhlmann), and environmental humanities (Hasana Sharp, Beth Lord).