This thesis focuses on a sphere of contemporary anarchism in which the ideas of the Situationists have found influence. It foregrounds the oppositional impulse underpinning the lived worlds of these milieux, and the symbolic representations used in their aims, ideals and responses to the realities they confront. One of the key sources of primary evidence will therefore be independently published texts. Writing and publishing are important interventions in the activities which constitute the broader anarchist movement, forming an essential background to the post-Situationist interventions, mainly periodicals, which are the main focus of the thesis. The Situationists, a group of radicals active, in the 1950s and 1960s, who developed a critique of everyday life, of commodity culture and of hierarchy and power, form the central theme connecting the range of interventions explored. The discussion includes a consideration of May 68, in which the Situationists participated, and the wall writing of May 68, which reflects the Situationist influence and which expresses an alternative reality and reclaimed public space. The Situationists, and May 68, form the focus of two other themes. Firstly, the past as a repository of ideas, transmitting the means of an oppositional impulse over time. Secondly, the way in which a sense of community is constituted not just synchronically but diachronically. Another key argument is that the 'oppositional impulse' arises not only through rational, intellectual and cognitive thought, but also on an emotional level - as a response to and reaction against the system. Situationist texts are analysed for their power, through lyrical poetic writing, in evoking a critical response to everyday life. The thesis selects post-Situationist periodicals and interventions, 1980s-1990s, and explores their histories, those involved in their production, the use of the past as a repository of ideas, inspirations and influences, and the debates that emerge through such interventions. The thesis aims to evoke and convey, with richness and texture, the ideas and critical perspectives of the milieux and interventions explored. It aims, through an explication of Situationist and post-Situationist anarchistic ideas, combined with ethnographic descriptions derived through 'observant participation', to capture something of the ethos of the lived worlds of the spheres discussed It is argued that these elements tend to be overlooked in 'new social movement' (NSM) accounts of oppositional currents. A range of anthropological literature is also evaluated to clarify the perspectives informing this thesis, which aims for an egalitarian research method.

ABSTRACT Radical Black movements in the United States are often judged according to the feasibility of their aims and practices. This tends to overlook other ameliorative and even revolutionary contributions that these movements make. While the Civil Rights Protest Movement is well acknowledged for its ameliorative contributions to the just treatment of Blacks in America, black radicals are often decried as having been impractical and unrealistic. The impracticality of black radical movements often baffles scholars when they try to rationalize the existence of these movements, and often sociological justifications are sought. This dissertation seeks to show that the sentiments of the black radical movements were rooted in variables which are understandable and justifiable. Separatism and revolutionism, by the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party respectively, were direct responses to the situation of Blacks in America, in the past and in the future. The past was that of brutal discrimination and exploitation, the future spelled out assimilation and yet again exploitation. It made sense to the Nation of Islam that they should seek separatism and self-determination within or without America, and it also made sense to the Black Panther to seek revolution in order to end all exploitation and paternalism. The history of Black/white relations could not be erased from the collective memory. In order to denounce the past, the present was to be cursed. The callous past justified autonomy and this autonomy was sought in separatism and revolution. The proponents of these tenets were not deluded about the feasibility of the most extreme of their demands- the tenets were a denunciation of America, the American national consciousness. The mere adherence to these beliefs granted its proponents racial and class solidarity, dignity and pride. These alone are enough to justify the noise that these movements made. This is the argument of this dissertation. An attempt will be made, through textual analysis of some of the documents of the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party to extract excerpts that link to the ideals of racial solidarity, dignity and pride.

This thesis seeks to create a more robust concept of resistance that may respond to the crisis of liberal democracy in contemporary neoliberal society. The crisis comes as a result of increasing dissatisfaction with the liberal democratic institutions, which are viewed by citizens as unrepresentative and unresponsive to their political demands. I argue that the post-2008 wave of protest movements represents an important attempt at challenging neoliberalism through the political project of radicalising democracy. Drawing upon different post-Marxist and poststructuralist approaches in contemporary political theory, the key theoretical contribution of the thesis is to elucidate the relationship between radical politics of protest movements and the existing political institutions. I suggest that the relation between the two is antagonistic largely due to the tension in liberal democracy between liberal institutions and rights and popular sovereignty. To this end, I argue that the political project of theorising radical democracy needs to be complemented with a political economy analysis. The political project of radicalising democracy responds to the limitations of the pluralist-elitist conception of politics in contemporary democratic theory and points towards social movement and new radical left literature as a fruitful way for constructing an alternative model of democracy. In response to the objection to power in parts of the radical left, I maintain that a more nuanced understanding of resistance is needed, which accounts for the structural relation between resistance and power. Finally, to properly account for the structural conditions and obstacles facing the radical left in the struggle against neoliberalism, the thesis also provides an economic-institutional analysis, which explains the ideological relationship between liberal democracy and neoliberalism from a historical perspective. The different theoretical contributions together help elucidate the empirical case of radical politics in Southern Europe and the challenges lying ahead.

Alan Burns was one of the key figures in the group of experimental writers working in Britain in the nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, which included writers such as B.S. Johnson, Christine Brooke-Rose, Ann Quin and Giles Gordon. All of them sought ways to update and radicalize the techniques of modernism to make them relevant for their contemporary situation. Alan Burns took the novel to more radical extremes than his counterparts, eschewing traditional narrative in favour of a dense accumulation of detail. This is the first full length study of Burns' work, which has largely been neglected by scholars and, for the most part, remains out of print. I provide a thorough account of Burns' life and work and theorise the reasons for his obscurity. I examine the role of trauma in his work. For Burns the experience of the traumatic moment is one in which the violence that underpins everyday society is momentarily unveiled, the sheer and explicit violence of the event produces a rupture that displays the deeper and more insidious violence that exists beneath it and gives it structure. I draw on theories of visual art, music and cinema, both of the 'classical' avant-garde and more recent, as much as of literature and philosophy, to attempt to account for the strategies, techniques and approaches that Alan Burns engaged with in his writing. Avowedly left-wing, in interviews Burns is frequently optimistic about the possibility for political change in the world, and is even confident about the role that literature can play in fostering that change. However, I argue that his novels present a rather different, and much more pessimistic picture: each of them shows the way in which any activism can ultimately be constrained and co-opted.

JOVINO, Wildiana Kátia Monteiro. Igualdade substantiva, política radical e educação: mediações para a negação do capital na obra de István Mészáros. 2015. 195f. – Tese (Doutorado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação Brasileira, Fortaleza (CE), 2015. / Submitted by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2015-12-08T14:49:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_tese_wkmjovino.pdf: 710340 bytes, checksum: 0ab4b0c0cc0d1b6f417c6d66c0295e7c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo(marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2015-12-08T18:51:05Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_tese_wkmjovino.pdf: 710340 bytes, checksum: 0ab4b0c0cc0d1b6f417c6d66c0295e7c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-08T18:51:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_tese_wkmjovino.pdf: 710340 bytes, checksum: 0ab4b0c0cc0d1b6f417c6d66c0295e7c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Esta tese de Doutorado, fundamentada no pensamento do filósofo marxista István Meszáros, defende que a construção do “modo de controle reprodutivo social”, qualificado de socialista, não se separa da negação ontológica do modo de controle metabólico social do capital. Para tanto, faz-se necessário, por um lado, redefinir as condições de vida impostas pelo conjunto de “mediações antagônicas de segunda ordem do capital”, como a família nuclear, a produção alienada, o dinheiro, os objetivos fetichistas da produção, o trabalho assalariado, o Estado e o mercado mundial, e, por outro, reivindicar a transformação econômica e social radical que deve ser realizada, segundo a nossa interpretação do autor, através de mediações, tais como: 1) a igualdade substantiva como princípio primus inter pares a gerir as relações sociais, haja vista que a superação definitiva do sistema do capital depende da adoção de uma estrutura de reprodução social fundamentalmente diferente, na qual a “universalização do trabalho” e os frutos positivos da atividade produtiva devem ser igualmente repartidos; 2) a política radical que, em expresso e claro combate à política burguesa, exercida por uns em nome de variadas formas de dominação sobre os outros, deve restituir à base social o poder de controle e a tomada de decisão política, dos quais a classe trabalhadora foi mantida sempre alheia; e 3) a educação, que, embora se encontre refém do poder mercadológico que a classifica como um campo inesgotável de rendimentos para o capital, se adequadamente engajada no projeto socialista de sociedade, é uma prática social integrante da teia de mediações que rejeita o domínio do capital e é capaz de dar amparo à formação/autoformação crítica dos sujeitos em prol da emancipação humano-social. Nessa perspectiva, percebe-se, portanto, que não será a mera substituição do poder político, de uma classe por outra, ou a “expropriação dos expropriadores” por decreto, que irá alterar a base material das mediações antagônicas de segunda ordem do sistema do capital. A crença na onipotência do Estado como agente da promoção social, como promoveram, por exemplo, a experiência do Welfare State e a do sistema soviético, desconsidera o papel decisivo exercido por ele na preservação das estruturas alienadas e desumanas que envolvem a tríplice relação capital, trabalho e Estado, como, também, relativiza a força contundente dos imperativos da expansão e acumulação do capital sobre o desejo político de controle do sistema. Metodologicamente guiados pelo materialismo histórico-dialético, é possível concluir que o desfecho vital da superação da ordem do capital requer transformações históricas e estruturais na relação de subordinação do trabalho ao capital, de modo a instituir a verdadeira igualdade, a participação associada dos produtores e a educação contínua do sujeito emancipatório.

No description available.

The popular millenarian movement founded by Joanna Southcott (1750-1814) enjoyed a complex relationship with political radicalism in early nineteenth-century Britain. Southcott opposed radicalism during her lifetime, encouraging her followers to await a messianic agent of the millennium. Within two decades of the prophet’s death – as Southcott expected to give birth to this messiah – some surviving Southcottians became political radicals, most notably, John ‘Zion’ Ward (1781-1837) and James Elishama Smith (1801-57). Ward was a popular preacher during the agitations around the Reform Bill, Smith a radical lecturer, editor of Robert Owen’s journal Crisis, and ideologue within general trades unionism in 1833-34. The respective influence of each figure drew several hundred Southcottians into engagement with politics. This thesis presents a new interpretation of why such millenarians engaged with radicalism. Utilising a substantial range of Southcottian and radical sources, many previously unstudied, it challenges the existing explanations of Southcottian radicalism of E.P. Thompson, J.F.C. Harrison, Barbara Taylor and others. Through a close study of the religious experience, ideas and practices of Southcottians in 1815-35, it locates an altered disposition towards social activity through the evolving millennial theologies of Southcottian groups and the personal acquaintanceship of individual believers with radical freethinkers. Under the prophetic leadership of Zion Ward and John Wroe (1782-1863), earlier Southcottian notions of the respective roles of divine and human agency in the realising of the millennium were changed by 1830. This led Southcottians to a new sense of agency, where their own actions took on a millennial significance when directed towards the achievement of God’s perceived intentions for the world. For some, this presented engagement with political radicalism, even freethought radicalism, in a new light: as action apposite to their beliefs. This argument features an alternative theoretical framework for millenarian beliefs which takes account of the way conceptions of human agency can vary within religious movements centred on modern prophecy. In exposing the inadequacy of existing pre- and postmillennial categories to explain such beliefs, it demonstrates how visionary religion can inspire expectations of both disruptive and evolutionary change, and require both divine and human agency, in the realisation of the millennium. This is a study in religious history, orientated towards politics. It demonstrates that a sensitivity to how visionary religious ideas influenced individuals involved in political movements, aids an improved understanding of political motivations and ideals.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Esta Tese de Doutorado, fundamentada no pensamento do filÃsofo marxista IstvÃn MeszÃros, defende que a construÃÃo do âmodo de controle reprodutivo socialâ, qualificado de socialista, nÃo se separa da negaÃÃo ontolÃgica do modo de controle metabÃlico social do capital. Para tanto, faz-se necessÃrio, por um lado, redefinir as condiÃÃes de vida impostas pelo conjunto de âmediaÃÃes antagÃnicas de segunda ordem do capitalâ, como a famÃlia nuclear, a produÃÃo alienada, o dinheiro, os objetivos fetichistas da produÃÃo, o trabalho assalariado, o Estado e o mercado mundial, e, por outro, reivindicar a transformaÃÃo econÃmica e social radical que deve ser realizada, segundo a nossa interpretaÃÃo do autor, atravÃs de mediaÃÃes, tais como: 1) a igualdade substantiva como princÃpio primus inter pares a gerir as relaÃÃes sociais, haja vista que a superaÃÃo definitiva do sistema do capital depende da adoÃÃo de uma estrutura de reproduÃÃo social fundamentalmente diferente, na qual a âuniversalizaÃÃo do trabalhoâ e os frutos positivos da atividade produtiva devem ser igualmente repartidos; 2) a polÃtica radical que, em expresso e claro combate à polÃtica burguesa, exercida por uns em nome de variadas formas de dominaÃÃo sobre os outros, deve restituir à base social o poder de controle e a tomada de decisÃo polÃtica, dos quais a classe trabalhadora foi mantida sempre alheia; e 3) a educaÃÃo, que, embora se encontre refÃm do poder mercadolÃgico que a classifica como um campo inesgotÃvel de rendimentos para o capital, se adequadamente engajada no projeto socialista de sociedade, à uma prÃtica social integrante da teia de mediaÃÃes que rejeita o domÃnio do capital e à capaz de dar amparo à formaÃÃo/autoformaÃÃo crÃtica dos sujeitos em prol da emancipaÃÃo humano-social. Nessa perspectiva, percebe-se, portanto, que nÃo serà a mera substituiÃÃo do poder polÃtico, de uma classe por outra, ou a âexpropriaÃÃo dos expropriadoresâ por decreto, que irà alterar a base material das mediaÃÃes antagÃnicas de segunda ordem do sistema do capital. A crenÃa na onipotÃncia do Estado como agente da promoÃÃo social, como promoveram, por exemplo, a experiÃncia do Welfare State e a do sistema soviÃtico, desconsidera o papel decisivo exercido por ele na preservaÃÃo das estruturas alienadas e desumanas que envolvem a trÃplice relaÃÃo capital, trabalho e Estado, como, tambÃm, relativiza a forÃa contundente dos imperativos da expansÃo e acumulaÃÃo do capital sobre o desejo polÃtico de controle do sistema. Metodologicamente guiados pelo materialismo histÃrico-dialÃtico, à possÃvel concluir que o desfecho vital da superaÃÃo da ordem do capital requer transformaÃÃes histÃricas e estruturais na relaÃÃo de subordinaÃÃo do trabalho ao capital, de modo a instituir a verdadeira igualdade, a participaÃÃo associada dos produtores e a educaÃÃo contÃnua do sujeito emancipatÃrio.

No description available.

This research examines how the practice of curating has been used to further counter-hegemonic agendas in public art institutions since 1989. The central aim is to provide a fuller, contextualised, and medium specific understanding of the how the institutional exhibition might be used to challenge the hegemony of neoliberalism and the post-political consensus politics that sustains its dominance. It provides insights, through both historic case studies and reflective practice, that problematise the idea that the institutional art exhibition is a viable medium for counter-hegemonic critique, or represents the ideal space for the development of an agonistic public discourse. This thesis presents collaborative research undertaken with Tate Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University. The research presented both extrapolated from, and contributed to, the development of an exhibition, co-curated with Tate Liverpool, entitled Art Turning Left (8 November 2013 – 2 February 2014) and a supplementary publication of the same name. The first section investigates how the idea that curators can counter neoliberal dominance, through institutional exhibition-making, developed. It draws from analyses of previous exhibitions, and the theory of Chantal Mouffe, in order to critically evaluate the curatorial application of counter-hegemonic critique and agonistic practice. It also provides a review of how exhibitions (held in major art institutions since 1989) have articulated politics, in order to determine their relationship to neoliberal dominance, and to identify significant gaps in the dialogue facilitated by these institutions. These analyses provides the theoretical and contextual grounding for the final two chapters, which provide a rationale and critical evaluation of my own attempt to develop an alternative counter-hegemonic curatorial strategy for the exhibition at Tate Liverpool. They document, and analyse, the areas of dissensus, and the ideological and pragmatic limitations that emerged, in trying to realise these theoretical propositions (in practice) in a public art museum. The thesis therefore provides a critical framework for the development of an alternative practice that positions the exhibition as a form of post-political critique and specifically targets the hegemonic role that institutional exhibitions play in reinforcing class distinctions and devaluing nonprofessional creativity.