Chantal Mouffe: The Return of the Political (1993–) [English, Spanish]

“A powerful new understanding of citizenship, democracy and pluralism.

In this work, Mouffe argues that liberal democracy misunderstands the problems of ethnic, religious and nationalist conflicts because of its inadequate conception of politics. He suggests that the democratic revolution may be jeopardized by a lack of understanding of citizenship, community and pluralism. Mouffe examines the work of Schmidt and Rawls and explores feminist theory, in an attempt to place the project of radical and plural democracy on a more adequate foundation than is provided by liberal theory.”

Publisher Verso, London, 1993
ISBN 0860914860, 9780860914860
156 pages

Review: Judith Squires (Radical Philosophy, 1995).

Publisher

The Return of the Political (English, 1993, updated on 2012-7-31)
El retorno de lo político (Spanish, trans. Marco Aurelio Galmarini, 1999, 6 MB, updated on 2020-10-23)
The Return of the Political (English, 2005, EPUB, added on 2020-10-26)

David Golumbia: The Cultural Logic of Computation (2009)

Advocates of computers make sweeping claims for their inherently transformative power: new and different from previous technologies, they are sure to resolve many of our existing social problems, and perhaps even to cause a positive political revolution.

In The Cultural Logic of Computation, David Golumbia, who worked as a software designer for more than ten years, confronts this orthodoxy, arguing instead that computers are cultural “all the way down”—that there is no part of the apparent technological transformation that is not shaped by historical and cultural processes, or that escapes existing cultural politics. From the perspective of transnational corporations and governments, computers benefit existing power much more fully than they provide means to distribute or contest it. Despite this, our thinking about computers has developed into a nearly invisible ideology Golumbia dubs “computationalism”—an ideology that informs our thinking not just about computers, but about economic and social trends as sweeping as globalization.

Driven by a programmer’s knowledge of computers as well as by a deep engagement with contemporary literary and cultural studies and poststructuralist theory, The Cultural Logic of Computation provides a needed corrective to the uncritical enthusiasm for computers common today in many parts of our culture.

Publisher Harvard University Press, 2009
ISBN 0674032926, 9780674032927
Length 257 pages

review (Marilyn Lombardi)
review (Rob Horning)

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The Occupation Cookbook, or the Model of the Occupation of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb (2009/2011) [Croatian/English]

The Occupation Cookbook is a “manual” that describes the organization of the student occupation of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences that took place in the spring of 2009 and lasted for 35 days. It was written for two reasons: to record what happened, and to present the particular organization of this action in such a way that it may be of use to other activists and members of various collectives if they decide to undertake a similar action.

What does it mean to “occupy” a school? A school occupation is not, as the corporate media like to portray it, a hostile takeover. A school occupation is an action by those who are already its inhabitants – students, faculty, and staff – and those for whom the school exists. (Which is to say for a public institution, the public itself.) The actions termed “occupations” of a public institution, then, are really re-occupations, a renovation and reopening to the public of a space long captured and stolen by the private interests of wealth and privilege. The goal of this renovation and reopening is to inhabit school spaces as fully as possible, to make them truly habitable – to make the school a place fit for living. – Marc Bousquet, from the Introduction

Originally published in the Croatian as Blokadna kuharica ili kako je izgledala blokada Filozofskog fakulteta u Zagrebu by Center for Anarchist Studies, Zagreb, November 2009
Written by students of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb
Translated by Drago Markiša
Introduction by Marc Bousquet
Foreword by Boris Buden
Released by Minor Compositions, London/New York/Port Watson, April 2011
ISBN 978-1-57027-218-9
82 pages

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