Marxism, Intellectuals and Politics

by David Bates (Editor)

Marxism, Intellectuals and Politics sheds important new light on some long standing debates, as well as addressing a range of contemporary themes. What challenges have contemporary social and philosophical developments present to Marxism? How extensive are the prospects for emancipatory change in capitalist societies? More specifically, what ought the political role of the intellectual to be? How have Marxist approaches contributed to understanding the intellectual's role? Addressing these questions, and many more, this text contains essays on Marx's conception of the intellectuals, Lenin and Trotsky, Gramsci, Adorno, Sartre, Analytical Marxism and Post-Marxism, as well as thematic chapters exploring such issues as the role of the critical Marxist intellectual in contemporary medias, the challenge posed by feminism to the Marxist view of the intellectual, intellectual labour, exploitation and class analysis, and the very nature of intellectual critique itself.

Contents:
Marx and Intellectuals / Paul Blackledge
Lenin, Trotsky and the Role of the Socialist Intellectual in Politics / Ian D. Thatcher
Gramsci and the Intellectuals: Modern Prince Versus Passive Revolution / Peter Thomas
‘Unhappy Consciousness’: Reflexivity and Contradiction in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Changing Conception of the Role of the Intellectual / Leon Culbertson
Althusser: Intellectuals and the Conjuncture / Warren Montag
T. W. Adorno as a Critical Intellectual in the Public Sphere: Between Marxism and Modernism / Gerard Delanty
Analytical Marxism and the Academy / Jason Edwards
Philosophy and Ideology: Marxism and the Role of Religion in Contemporary Politics / Sean Sayers
Intellectual Labour and Social Class / David Bates
Critical Intellectuals and the Academic Labour Process / Frank Worthington
Mediated Intellectuals: Negotiating Social Relations in Media / Lee Salter
Enduring Echoes: Feminism, Marxism and the Reflexive Intellectual / Jayne Raisborough (et al.)

256 pages, ebook

First published November 28, 2006

About the author

DAVID BATES is Principal Lecturer in Social Science at Canterbury, Christchurch University, England, and Programme Director in Politics.

His research explores contemporary and classical Marxism, the sociology of class, the sociology of knowledge and the political economy of intellectual labour.

Before coming to Canterbury, Christchurch University in 2001, he was a PhD student and teaching assistant in the Department of Government at the University of Manchester. His PhD supervisor was the Marxist philosopher Professor Norman Geras.