Leftist Literature for Cool Newbies

A few that have provoked thought (my descriptions):

Aihwa Ong - Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline (1987) link

Why did Malaysian factory women experience possession by spirits in their place of work? Ong details for us the economic, political and cultural forces behind a story at the periphery of the capitalist system, taking Foucault’s rejection of the notion that capital-labor relations have an overdetermining logic. She concludes that the visitations were an unconscious form of protest against labor discipline and male control, revealing a sense of dislocation in human relations and a greater need for spiritual vigilance in domains reconstituted by capitalist relations of production.

Steven Shaviro - No Speed Limit: Three Essays on Accelerationism (2015) link

In a neoliberal hellscape where real subsumption leaves no aspect of life uncolonized, artists are hemmed in on all sides. It has become increasingly clear that contradictions do not lead to the demise of capitalism - for Shaviro, the intensities of works of trangression and negativity only serve the aim of extracting surplus value and accumulating profit. Shaviro praises art that revels in the sleaze and exploitation of our present conditions, refusing to hide their complicity or take the moral high ground. The inefficacy of these works help move us towards the disinterest and epiphenomenality of the aesthetic. Oscar Wilde’s dandy is taken as a model for an abundant, post-capitalist future - an attitude of self-cultivation, and qualified, temporary satisfactions.

5 Likes