Materialism and Politics

What remains of materialisms subversive potential - i.e. its ties with heresy or atheism and republicanism or communism - and to what extent does this concept still interpellate us politically and philosophically?As neoliberal policies expanded far beyond the state their mechanisms of control seeped into the materiality of social reproduction solidifying a conception of matter as something inert to be appropriated manipulated and exploited. If in this context the subversive nature of a reference to materiality is called into question it has also provoked new forms of resistance as well as fundamental reconsiderations of the political implications of the notion of matter. Against this background the aim of this book is to show the diversity within continued engagements with materialism as a central concept for progressive politics be it in the direction opened up by New Materialism in renewed forms of Marxist and Spinozist based approaches or in feminist analyses each in their own terms without excluding the possibility of alliances between them. Finally this volume insists that the study of materiality and materialist approaches does not amount to a renunciation of philosophy but rather urges us to broaden the task of philosophical thought in order to reconsider the historical and in every sense of the word material situatedness of all philosophical problems. Against a reductive and ahistorical conception of materialism - the straightest way back to ideology - this book offers an analysis of its diverse emancipatory potentialities.Edited by Bernardo Bianchi Émilie Filion-Donato Marlon Miguel and Ayşe Yuva the volume contains contributions also by Chiara Bottici Alex Demirovic Mariana de Gainza Christoph F. E. Holzhey Ericka Marie Itokazu Vittorio Morfino Cornelia Möser Catherine Perret Marianna Poyares Mauricio Rocha Pascal Sévérac Stefano Visentin Elena Vogman Frieder Otto Wolf.