The open Marxism of Antonio Gramsci

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American postmodernist fiction and the past by Theophilus Savvas

A review of American Postmodernist Fiction and the Past by Theophilus Savva

Filosofijos ir istorijos problemos

Publikuojamas vieno skyriaus iš A. Gramscio knygos „Istorinis materializmas ir B. Croce‘s filosofija“ (1948 m.) vertimas. Šiame skyriuje tyrinėjamos filosofijos istorijos rašymo metodologinės problemos, taip pat aptariami visuomenės, istorijos raidos klausimai. Autorius teigia, kad istorinė filosofijos reikšmė gali būti nustatyta pagal jos praktinį paveikumą. Filosofija yra tam tikros visuomeninės veiklos apraiška, istorinis faktas, ji turi paveikti visuomenę. Filosofas profesionalas labiau priartėja prie visų kitų žmonių nei kitų sričių specialistai. Aptariamos filosofinės kritikos savybės, filosofijos istorinė reikšmė, filosofijos teorinis statusas, filosofo vaidmuo visuomenėje, nagrinėjama sveiko proto, žmogaus, jo prigimties, progreso ir tapsmo, demokratijos, individualizmo sampratos

Os sindicatos e a ditadura

A luta de classe internacional culminou até agora na vitória de operários e camponeses de dois proletariados nacionais. Na Rússia e na Hungria os operários e camponeses instauraram a ditadura proletária e tanto na Rússia como na Hungria a ditadura teve que sustentar uma áspera batalha, não só contra a classe burguesa, mas também contra os sindicatos: o conflito entre a ditadura e os sindicatos foi mesmo uma das causas da queda do Soviet húngaro, pois que os sindicatos, mesmo que nunca tenham tentado abertamente derrubar a ditadura, operaram sempre como organismos “derrotistas” da revolução e incessantemente semearam o desconforto e a covardia entre os operários e os soldados vermelhos. Um exame, mesmo que rápido, sobre as razões e as condições desse conflito, pode ser útil á educação revolucionária das massas, as quais devem se convencer que o sindicato talvez seja o organismo mais importante da revolução comunista, pois a tarefa da socialização da indústria recai sobre ele e porque deve criar as condições para que a empresa privada desapareça e não possa mais surgir, devendo também convencer-se da necessidade de criar, antes da revolução, as condições psicológicas e objetivas que tornem impossíveis qualquer conflito e qualquer dualismo de poder entre os vários organismos que encarnam a luta da classe proletária contra o capitalismo

From Passive to Radical Revolution in Venezuela’s Populist Project

In December 2001, Hugo Chávez and others changed Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolutionary project, which consisted of replacing a corrupt and elitist constitution with a fair and popular one, into a radical one. In its early stages the project corresponded to what Gramsci called a “passive revolution.” Attempts by opposition forces to crush the construction of a new populist hegemony (a coup in April 2002 and an indefinite strike in December 2002) were met with popular mobilization that reaffirmed Chávez’s hegemonic project. The radical revolution consisted of social programs designed to alleviate the suffering of the poor and consolidated a new hegemonic structure among Venezuela’s lower classes. The concept of “radical revolution” provides a theoretical alternative for assessing the extent to which a political project can be described as populist

Jubilee mugs:the monarchy and the Sex Pistols

With rare exceptions sociologists have traditionally had little to say about the British monarchy. In the exceptional cases of the Durkheimian functionalism of Shills and Young (1953), the left humanism of Birnbaum (1955), or the archaic state/backward nation thesis of Nairn (1988), the British nation has been conceived as a homogenous mass. The brief episode of the Sex Pistols' Jubilee year song 'God Save the Queen' exposed some of the divisions within the national 'mass', forcing a re-ordering of the balance between detachment and belonging to the Royal idea. I argue that the song acted as a kind of 'breaching experiment'. Its wilful provocation of Royalist sentiment revealed the level of sanction available to the media-industrial complex to enforce compliance to British self-images of loyal and devoted national communicants

The Erotic and the Vulgar: Visual Culture and Organized Labor's Critique of U.S. Hegemony in Occupied Japan

This essay engages the colonial legacy of postwar Japan by arguing that the political cartoons produced as part of the postwar Japanese labor movement’s critique of U.S. cultural hegemony illustrate how gendered discourses underpinned, and sometimes undermined, the ideologies formally represented by visual artists and the organizations that funded them. A significant component of organized labor’s propaganda rested on a corpus of visual media that depicted women as icons of Japanese national culture. Japan’s most militant labor unions were propagating anti-imperialist discourses that invoked an engendered/endangered nation that accentuated the importance of union roles for men by subordinating, then eliminating, union roles for women

Bravehearts and Bonny Mountainsides: Nation and History in Scottish Folk/Black Metal

Music, art, culture and leisure are elements or tools of political nationalism, of hegemonic control and of counter-hegemonic resistance. In the Scottish independence referendum, pop and rock musicians came out on either side, lending their voice, their celebrity and their music to save the United Kingdom or to support a new nation. In this paper, Scottish nationalism and Scottish identity is explored through two folk/black metal bands that have emerged on the extreme metal scene from Scotland: Saor and Cnoc An Tursa. I use an on-line semiotic analysis over a three-year period including the period of the referendum, along with an analysis of their lyrics and imagery, to show how each band has used Scottishness and responded to Scottish nationalism – and how fans have constructed Scottishness in their critical appreciation of the band’s songs and other identity-work. I argue that some progressive ideology exists, but it is situated within wider ideologies in metal, and wider assumptions about Scotland