Populism is Janus-faced. There is not a single form of populism but rather a variety of different forms, each with profoundly different political consequences. Despite the current hegemony of authoritarian populism, a much different sort of populism is also possible:… Continue Reading
By Darshana Mitra Foucault, in his lectures Psychiatric Power, characterises sovereign power through an expenditure-levy dynamic, whereby the sovereign imposes a levy on services, but also simultaneously makes expenditures, such as the provision of protection, or the granting of gifts.… Continue Reading
By Jeff Stein In earlier writings for this seminar, I have claimed that left projects may be, at best, distorted and stunted by the currently unhealthy speech environment and, at worst, overwhelmed by pathologies that metastasize under current conditions. Assuming… Continue Reading
By Jeff Stein In this post, I will claim that improvements to the speech environment are central to the projects that we’ve been engaging with this year. I will argue that this conclusion follows from a text that ostensibly places… Continue Reading
By Julian Huertas The March 27 session of the 13/13 seminar series was another opportunity to deal with the leading question raised in the Critique & Praxis 13/13: What is to be done? Since the topic addressed by the guests… Continue Reading
By Julian Huertas When Judith Butler published her Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (hereinafter Notes) on 2015, she had in mind recent events like the Occupy Movement, Tahrir Square protests, Puerta del Sol, Gezi Park and the like.… Continue Reading
By John Finnegan I left Praxis 9/13, “Left Populism,” wondering where the Left in America should go. The panelists had largely spoken in a “chorus,” as Seyla Benhabib put it, against the dangers of “left populism,” (although there was much… Continue Reading
By John Finnegan Banu Bargu’s ethnography and theoretical exploration of the Turkish death fasters differs from many of the prior texts read in this seminar series in declining to offer much prescriptive content. Unlike, say, Chantal Mouffe’s For a Left… Continue Reading
By Shaunna Rodrigues This note is going to follow the question that Bernard Harcourt posed in his blog for the 8/13 Praxis Seminar. How do we explore communism’s ideal form through doing rather than through theory? There were many… Continue Reading
By Nikita Shepard A curious emotion seemed to flow through the discussion of left populism tonight: a nostalgia for an imagined democracy. Both the proponents and the critics of left populism seem united in their evocation of a democracy—perhaps modified… Continue Reading