Postmarxism and Postsocialism: A Theoretical and Historical Critique

This thesis aims to critically examine the relationship between post-socialism and post-Marxism, between a historical context opened by the collapse of 'really existing' socialist states in Eastern Europe, and a theoretical shift fashioned upon the idea of the immanent demise and overcoming of Marxist theory. The thesis is split into two parts. In the first part, my aim is to trace, through a detailed assessment of the writings of Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser - and also via the examination of the relationship between the two thinkers - a specific development of the problem of the 'superstructures' in Marxist theory, of questions of politics, the State and ideology. If Gramsci, in his conceptualisation of the politics of hegemony, and in his attempt to reformulate Marxism as a 'philosophy of praxis', pushes the issues of the theoretical and practical autonomy of revolutionary politics to the very limits of Marxism, then Althusser represents a further radicalisation of Gramsci. Arguing against a post-Marxist call for a 'return from Althusser back to Gramsci', and especially against the attempt, such as can be found with Laclau and Mouffe, to reinterpret the Gramscian problematic through a revalorisation of the fundamental concepts of the liberal-democratic tradition, I argue for a need to reassess the singularity of Althusser's philosophical contributions to Marxism, and for their importance for a contemporary reinvigoration of Marxism. In this sense, I place particular stress on two moments in the theoretical apparatus of Althusser: a) his conception of philosophy as an act, or an intervention - which seems as a powerful solution to the question of 'practicality of thought', to the injunction to 'change the world' philosophically, without a reduction of philosophy to a simple servant of political practice and its immediate ideological objectives; and b) his theorisation of politics, or, more exactly, of the specificity of revolutionary politics, which Althusser is at pains to extract and separate from the 'autonomy of the political', that is, to render heterogeneous to the general, 'autonomous', sphere of the Law, of the State and of ideology. With Althusser, the true question of the autonomy of politics can only come via a radical negation of the 'autonomy of the political', and, at the same time, through an affirmation of an irreducible singular dimension of political practice. In the second part of the thesis, I focus more concretely on the historical context of post-socialism, whilst drawing from the field of theoretical problems opened by the previous discussions of Althusser, Gramsci and post-Marxism. In this, I attempt to demonstrate that a certain rethinking and revitalisation of Marxism, and namely, of Althusser's contributions, seems as a necessary part of a critical confrontation with the post-socialist political, ideological and socio-economic realities. In the three analyses of the second part, I focus on some of the symptomatic moments of what I call the post-socialist political reason: a) the precise historical role of post-Marxist theory in the genesis of post-socialist reality, which I read via an examination of the political significance of Laclau and Mouffe's notion of hegemony in the context of the Slovenian Spring of the late 1980s; b) the relationship between liberal-democracy and nationalism, and in this, the specific structural dialectic of violence internal to the liberal State as a historical form, which I read against the paradoxes of 'democratisation' in the context of the break-up of Yugoslavia; and c) the effects of the fetishism of legal categories and of the general tendency to reduce politics to Law in the post-socialist ideological spectrum, which I contrast to the singularity of the revolutionary politics of Yugoslavia

The Violence of Form:Philosophical Remarks on Mazen Kerbaj’s Sound Piece Starry Night

The article offers a philosophical reading of Mazen Kerbaj’s sound piece Starry Night. Recorded in 2006 during the bombing of Beirut by the Israeli Air Force, the piece stages an acoustic encounter between the improvised sounds of the trumpet and live bomb explosions. Arguing for a formal examination of the ways in which Kerbaj stages the problem of the genesis of musical order in the exchange between trumpet and bombs, the article draws parallels with explorations of the problems of the State and of political contradiction in the Marxist tradition. Three common points are identified: the contingency of the appearance of order, its inseparability from an excess of violence, and its spatializing function. The last part delineates parallels between Kerbaj’s subversive aesthetic strategies and Badiou’s elaboration of the concept of the subject as the interruption of a repetitive logic of placement

CAY10593 inhibits the human P2X7 receptor independently of phospholipase D1 stimulation

The P2X7 receptor is a trimeric ATP-gated cation channel important in health and disease. We have observed that the specific phospholipase D (PLD)1 antagonist, CAY10593 impairs P2X7-induced shedding of the \u27low affinity\u27 IgE receptor, CD23. The current study investigated the mode of action of this compound on P2X7 activation. Measurements of ATP-induced ethidium+ uptake revealed that CAY10593 impaired P2X7-induced pore formation in human RPMI 8226 B cells, P2X7-transfected HEK-293 cells and peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Concentration response curves demonstrated that CAY10593 impaired P2X7-induced pore formation in RPMI 8226 cells more potently than the PLD2 antagonist CAY10594 and the non-specific PLD antagonist halopemide. Electrophysiology measurements demonstrated that CAY10593 also inhibited P2X7-induced inward currents. Notably, RT-PCR demonstrated that PLD1 was absent in RPMI 8226 cells, while choline-Cl medium or 1-butanol, which block PLD stimulation and signalling respectively did not impair P2X7 activation in these cells. This data indicates that CAY10593 impairs human P2X7 independently of PLD1 stimulation and highlights the importance of ensuring that compounds used in signalling studies downstream of P2X7 activation do not affect the receptor itself

Web application for exchanging and visualisation of traffic data

The fast progress of web technologies and modern navigation devices is helping the driver to gain real time information about the current traffic situation. The information can be accessed while driving through modern GPS devices or by accessing the internet (via the cell telephone, PDA or personal computer) before he actually hits the road. The following paper describes the integration of web technologies such as Google Maps with the European standard Datex II used for exchanging traffic related information, to display a point event on the road. The paper will describe a series of road accidents on the highway section H4 Razdrto – Vrtojba.

PLANIRANJE U ŽELJEZNIČKOME PROMETU

Cilj rada jest istražiti specifičnosti planiranja u željezničkome prometu. Njegova je svrha skrenuti pozornost na nužnost postignuća poduzetnosti i ciljeva željezničkoga poduzeća kroz planiranje. U radu definirani su osnovni ciljevi željezničkoga poduzeća te temeljni izazovi u planiranju u željezničkome prometu. Glavni nalaz rada upućuje na važnost planiranja u željezničkome prometu kako bi se sposobnost pružanja prijevoznih usluga željezničkoga prijevoznika temeljila na profitabilnosti, interesima društva i planeta u cjelini. Rezultati istraživanja temelje se na sekundarnim izvorima podataka te znanstvenim metodama deskripcije, klasifikacije, indukcije i dedukcije te analize i sinteze

Present Perfect, ali čas postsocializma

What is the specific conception of historical time that is established with the so-called post-socialist condition? I argue that the time of post-socialism, and especially its own construction of actuality, can be conceptualised as the present perfect. Present perfect stands for two things: 1) a conception of the present which is entirely determined by the past, 2) a conception of historical change which is conceived as the infinite perfection of the existent. These two subjective orientations of historical time in post-socialism correspond to the prevalence of, respectively, nationalist ideologies and neo-liberal and liberal-democratic ideals. The present perfect in both its variations is an obscurantist time: a time which obscures our subjective disposition to master history collectively, a time which obscures the egalitarian political construction of the present itself as an infinite opening and interruption in history.Kakšno je specifično pojmovanje zgodovinskega časa, ki se je vzpostavil s t.i. postsocialističnim stanjem? Teza pričujočega članka je, da je mogoče postsocialistični čas, predvsem pa njegova lastna konstrukcija aktualnosti, pojmovati kot dovršni sedanjik (present perfect). Present perfect pomeni dvoje: 1. pojmovanje sedanjosti, ki jo popolnoma obvladuje preteklost; 2. pojmovanje zgodovinske spremembe, ki je dojeta kot neskončno izpopolnjevanje obstoječega. Ti dve subjektivni usmeritvi zgodovinskega časa v postsocializmu ustrezata prevladi nacionalističnih ideologij oziroma neoliberalnih liberalnodemokratskih idealov. Present perfect je v obeh inačicah obskurantistični čas: čas, ki zamrači našo subjektivno dispozicijo, ko gre za kolektivno obvladovanje zgodovine, in hkrati čas, ki zamrači egalitarno politično konstrukcijo same sedanjosti kot neskončno odpiranje in prekinitev v zgodovini

PLANIRANJE U ŽELJEZNIČKOME PROMETU

Cilj rada jest istražiti specifičnosti planiranja u željezničkome prometu. Njegova je svrha skrenuti pozornost na nužnost postignuća poduzetnosti i ciljeva željezničkoga poduzeća kroz planiranje. U radu definirani su osnovni ciljevi željezničkoga poduzeća te temeljni izazovi u planiranju u željezničkome prometu. Glavni nalaz rada upućuje na važnost planiranja u željezničkome prometu kako bi se sposobnost pružanja prijevoznih usluga željezničkoga prijevoznika temeljila na profitabilnosti, interesima društva i planeta u cjelini. Rezultati istraživanja temelje se na sekundarnim izvorima podataka te znanstvenim metodama deskripcije, klasifikacije, indukcije i dedukcije te analize i sinteze