MATERIALISM AND POLITICS Cultural Inquiry EDITED BY CHRISTOPH F. E. HOLZHEY AND MANUELE GRAGNOLATI The series ‘Cultural Inquiry’ is dedicated to exploring how diverse cultures can be brought into fruitful rather than pernicious confrontation. Taking culture in a deliberately broad sense that also includes different discourses and disciplines, it aims to open up spaces of inquiry, experimentation, and intervention. Its emphasis lies in critical reflection and in identifying and highlighting contemporary issues and concerns, even in publications with a historical orientation. Following a decidedly cross-disciplinary approach, it seeks to enact and provoke transfers among the humanities, the natural and social sciences, and the arts. The series includes a plurality of methodologies and approaches, binding them through the tension of mutual confrontation and negotiation rather than through homogenization or exclusion. Christoph F. E. Holzhey is the Founding Director of the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry. Manuele Gragnolati is Professor of Italian Literature at the Sorbonne Université in Paris and Associate Director of the ICI Berlin. MATERIALISM AND POLITICS EDITEDBY BERNARDOBIANCHI EMILIE FILION-DONATO MARLONMIGUEL AYŞE YUVA ISBN (Paperback): 978-3-96558-018-3 ISBN (Hardcover): 978-3-96558-021-3 ISBN (PDF): 978-3-96558-019-0 ISBN (EPUB): 978-3-96558-020-6 Cultural Inquiry, 20 ISSN (Print): 2627-728X ISSN (Online): 2627-731X Bibliographical Information of the German National Library The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie (German National Bibliography); detailed bibliographic information is available online at http://dnb.d-nb.de. © 2021 ICI Berlin Press Cover design: Studio Bens This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ . In Europe, the paperback edition is printed by Lightning Source UK Ltd., Milton Keynes, UK. See the final page for further details. The digital edition can be downloaded freely at: https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-20. This publication was made possible through generous financial support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. ICI Berlin Press is an imprint of ICI gemeinnütziges Institut für Cultural Inquiry Berlin GmbH Christinenstr. 18/19, Haus 8 D-10119 Berlin [email protected] www.ici-berlin.org Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone. ‘But which is the stone that supports the bridge?’ Kublai Khan asks. ‘The bridge is not supported by one stone or another’, Marco an- swers, ‘but by the line of the arch that they form.’ Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: ‘Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me.’ Polo answers: ‘Without stones there is no arch.’ Italo Calvino, The Invisible Cities Contents Abbreviations ......................................... ix Acknowledgments ...................................... xi From ‘Materialism’ towards ‘Materialities’ THE EDITORS ....................................... 1 I. THE ACTUALITY OF SPINOZA’S MATERIALISM Introduction to Part i STEFAN HAGEMANN .................................. 21 Materialist Variations on Spinoza: Theoretical Alliances and Political Strategies MARIANA DE GAINZA ................................. 25 Non Defuit Materia: Freedom and Necessity in Spinoza’s Democratic Theory STEFANO VISENTIN .................................. 39 Temporality and History in Spinoza: The Refusal of Teleological Thought ERICKA MARIE ITOKAZU ............................... 55 Spinozist Moments in Deleuze: Materialism as Immanence MAURICIO ROCHA ................................... 73 Are there One or Two Aleatory Materialisms? VITTORIO MORFINO .................................. 91 viii MATERIALISM AND POLITICS II. THE MATERIALITY OF THE MILIEU AND THE MATERIALIST EDUCATION Introduction to Part ii MARLENE KIENBERGER AND BRUNO PACE .................. 109 Language Follows Labour: Nikolai Marr’s Materialist Palaeontology of Speech ELENA VOGMAN ..................................... 113 Materialism and Capitalism Today: Zoo-aesthetics and a Critique of the Social Bond after Marcel Mauss and André Leroi-Gourhan CATHERINE PERRET .................................. 133 The Product of Circumstances: Towards a Materialist and Situated Pedagogy MARLON MIGUEL .................................... 145 In the Labyrinth of Emancipation: An Inquiry into the Relationship between Knowledge and Politics BERNARDO BIANCHI .................................. 163 A Materialist Education: Thinking with Spinoza PASCAL SÉVÉRAC .................................... 181 III. CRITICAL MATERIALITIES IN FEMINISM AND NEW MATERIALISM Introduction to Part iii ALISON SPERLING .................................... 199 Materialism, Matter, Matrix, and Mater: Contesting Notions in Feminist and Gender Studies CORNELIA MÖSER .................................... 203 Anarchafeminism & the Ontology of the Transindividual CHIARA BOTTICI .................................... 215 CONTENTS ix Psychodynamism of Individuation and New Materialism: Possible Encounters ÉMILIE FILION-DONATO ............................... 233 Emergence that Matters and Emergent Irrelevance: On the Political Use of Fundamental Physics CHRISTOPH F. E. HOLZHEY ............................. 253 IV. TOWARDS A RENEWED HISTORICAL MATERIALISM Introduction to Part iv DANIEL LIU ........................................ 271 Materialism against Materialism: Taking up Marx’s Break with Reductionism FRIEDER OTTO WOLF ................................. 277 Materialism, Politics, and the History of Philosophy: French, German, and Turkish Materialist Authors in the Nineteenth Century AYŞE YUVA ......................................... 293 The Historicity of Materialism and the Critique of Politics ALEX DEMIROVIĆ .................................... 313 On Populist Illusion: Impasses of Political Ontology, or How the Ordinary Matters FACUNDO VEGA ..................................... 327 Theory’s Method?: Ethnography and Critical Theory MARIANNA POYARES .................................. 345 References ............................................ 367 Notes on the Contributors ................................ 397 Index ............................................... 403 Abbreviations The following abbreviations will be used in the footnotes for Spinoza’s works, which are based on the Spinoza Series (Edinburgh Univer- sity Press): Ethics, followed by the Roman numeral of the part, and Praef. (preface), Def. (definition), Exp. (explanation), Ax. (axiom), App. (appendix), DA # (Definitions of the Affects from part three), or the Arabic numeral of the proposition, and Schol. (scholium), Dem. (demonstration), Cor. (corollary), Lem. (lemma), Post. (postulate); Theological-Political Treatise: TTP, followed by the Roman numeral of the chapter and by the Arabic numeral of the paragraph accord- ing to Karl Hermann Bruder’s edition; Political Treatise: TP, followed by the Roman numeral of the chapter and the Arabic numeral of the paragraph; Letters: Ep., followed by the Roman numeral of the corresponding letter and the addressee of the letter between square brackets; Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect: TdIE, followed by the Arabic numeral of the paragraph added by Bruder; Metaphysical Thoughts: CM; followed by the Roman numeral of the chapter. In all case, references are to The Collected Works of Spinoza, ed. and trans. by Edwin Curley, 2 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985–2016), abbreviated as CWS i for volume i (1985) and CWS ii for volume ii (2016), and followed by the Arabic numeral of the page. When relevant, the authors will also refer to the standard critical edi- tion of Spinoza’s Latin works — Spinoza opera, ed. by Carl Gebhardt, 4 vols (Heidelberg: Winter, 1925) — followed by the Roman numeral of the volume and the Arabic numeral of the page. For the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, MEW refers to Marx-Engels-Werke, 44 vols (Berlin: Dietz, 1956–2018) and MECW to Marx & Engels Collected Works, 50 vols (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1975–2004). The Werke are for the most part available online at <http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me_mew.htm> [accessed 12 September 2020] and <https://marx-wirklich-studieren.net/ marx-engels-werke-als-pdf-zum-download/> [accessed 1 November 2020]. Acknowledgments We would like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for their generous financial support, without which this book would not be possible. We thank the devoted editorial team from the ICI Berlin Press, Christoph Holzhey and Claudia Peppel, as well as our most diligent proofreader Lindsay Parkhowell, who revised all the texts included in this volume. We thank Baptiste Gasset for the translation of Chapter 3, Nicolas Allen for Chapter 4, and Ron Faust for Chapter 17. We thank the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, the Centre Marc Bloch (CMB), the Institute for Philosophy at the Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin), the Centre for Interdisciplinary Women’s and Gender Studies (ZIFG) of the Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin) for their institutional support, which allowed us to organize the conference Materialism and Politics in April 2019. Finally, we warmly thank all those who have been with us in the discussions held at our informal colloquium Materialism and Politics in Berlin (2018–2020). THE EDITORS From ‘Materialism’ towards ‘Materialities’ THE EDITORS THE ACTUALITY