The spectacular growth in the 1970s and 1980s of the Marxist literature on politics and the state in capitalist society was hailed at the time as cumulative proof of Marxism's success in producing an effective theory of the political superstructure. More generally, it was seen as confirmation of the health and vigor of Marxist theory. Axel van den Berg questions both of these claims. Through comprehensive analysis of Marxist thought on bourgeois politics and the state, from that produced by Marx himself on, van den Berg radically challenges the viability of a distinctly Marxist theory of the state and of recent Marxist theorizing in general. In an exhaustive review of the literature, van den Berg shows that neo-Marxist theories are, for the most part, not empirically testable. To the extent that it is possible to draw any empirical implications from these theories at all, such implications are virtually indistinguishable from those of "bourgeois" theories. Van den Berg proceeds to lay bare the contradiction at the heart of Marxist theory in general: it presupposes the viability and desirability of some ideal socialist society yet its "anti-utopian" insistence that all criticisms of capitalism must rest on foundations immanent in capitalism itself prohibits any open discussion of such a utopia. Now available in paperback, this is a fundamental work for political and social theorists. "This work is brilliant in its polemical courage, its originality, and its detailed and revealing examination of texts. Van den Berg demonstrates that postwar Marxist political theory and sociology is not only vague and contradictory but that it actually makes critical concessions to the bourgeois thought' it claims to surpass. Appearing in the midst of afar-reaching reconsideration of the Marxism project in Europe, this volume crystallizes these issues for North American social science..."--Jeffrey Alexander, University of California, Los Angeles. "Van den Berg has made a major contribution to the long overdue relegation of Marxism to the museum of nineteenth-century ideological antiquities."--Dennis Wrong, Contemporary Sociology. Axel van den Berg is a Dutch-Canadian professor of sociology at McGill University in Montreal. His most recent work is The Social Sciences and Rationality.

This book explores the contribution to recent developments in post-secularism, philosophical realism and utopianism made by key thinkers in the Hegelian tradition. It challenges dominant assumptions about what the relationship between religion and our so-called "secular age" should be that have sought to reduce or even eliminate religiosity from the public sphere. It draws upon utopian thinkers within the Hegelian tradition whose work has challenged this narrow secularism. In particular it explores the importance of philosophical transcendence to Hegelian and post-Hegelian religious, social and political theorising. This includes philosophers whose thinking is sympathetic or at least compatible with transcendence (such as Hegel, Taylor, Bhaskar and Bloch) but also those who have a reputation for rejecting transcendence and instead embracing immanence and even atheism (Feuerbach, Marx and Engels). By drawing on the utopian content of these thinkers it seeks to shed new light on the importance religious ideas have played in a range of philosophical positions within the broadly Hegelian tradition from theism, idealism, materialism and atheism to new ideas, especially new research on Hegel's so-called "panentheism". The book will be of interest to those working in the areas of post-secularism and utopian studies. It should also be of interest to academics and students of the recent turn within Critical Realism to "meta-reality" and its implications for Hegelianism and Marxism.

This collection of original essays examines the relationship between anarchism and utopianism, exploring the intersections and overlaps between these two fields of study and providing novel perspectives for the analysis of both. The book opens with an historical and philosophical survey of the subject matter and goes on to examine antecedents of the anarchist literary utopia; anti-capitalism and the anarchist utopian literary imagination; free love as an expression of anarchist politics and utopian desire; and revolutionary practice. Contributors explore the creative interchange of anarchism and utopianism in both theory and modern political practice; debunk some widely-held myths about the inherent utopianism of anarchy; uncover the anarchistic influences active in the history of utopian thought; and provide fresh perspectives on contemporary academic and activist debates about ecology, alternatives to capitalism, revolutionary theory and practice, and the politics of art, gender and sexuality. Scholars in both anarchist and utopian studies have for many years acknowledged a relationship between these two areas, but this is the first time that the historical and philosophical dimensions of the relationship have been investigated as a primary focus for research, and its political significance given full and detailed consideration.

This book offers a new interpretation of William Morris’s utopianism as a strategic extension of his political writing. Morris’s utopian writing, alongside his journalism and public lectures, constituted part of a sustained counter-hegemonic project that intervened both into the life-world of the fin de siècle socialist movement, as well as the dominant literary cultures of his day. Owen Holland demonstrates this by placing Morris in conversation with writers of first-wave feminism, nineteenth-century pastoralists, as well as the romance revivalists and imperialists of the 1880s. In doing so, he revises E.P. Thompson’s and Miguel Abensour’s argument that Morris’s utopian writing should be conceived as anti-political and heuristic, concerned with the pedagogic education of desire, rather than with the more mundane work of propaganda. He shows how Morris’s utopianism emerged against the grain of the now-here, embroiled in instrumental, propagandistic polemic, complicating Thompson’s and Abensour’s view of its anti-political character.

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Osnabrück, language: English, abstract: This paper will argue that in "Parable of the Sower" by Octavia Butler creates utopian hope by realistically building a dystopian vision which immanently criticises the present. For reasons of brevity, this will be elucidated mainly using the example of capitalism. While an abundance of other issues taken up by the novel, like climate change, democracy, racism or violence, would certainly serve as productive foci of analysis as well, capitalism will be the centre of attention because it is at the core of the apocalyptic circumstances portrayed in the novel. It also constitutes an intersection with most of the other issues named above, making capitalism a suitable starting point. Firstly, a short overview will be given on contemporary interpretations of the state of utopia, pointing out capitalism as a main factor in the changing of utopianism. Among others, Krishan Kumar’s “The Ends of Utopia”, Jerry Phillips’s “Utopia and Catastrophe in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower” and Darko Suvin’s Metamorphoses of Science Fiction will be consulted. Realism, cognition, and estrangement will be pointed out as main tools of offering immanent critique and, in extension, utopian hope. Secondly, the production of immanent critique in Parable of the Sower will be analysed with the help of Mathias Nilges’s paper on “The Realism of Speculation”. Mike Davis’s City of Quartz will serve to illustrate the realism in Butler’s vision of future Los Angeles. The second example will examine the company town Olivar. Briefly consulting Rottinghaus’, Pluretti’s and Sutko’s discursive paper “The End of Material Scarcity”, the effectiveness of this immanent critique will be discussed. Lastly, this paper will seek to show how immanent critique allows for the creation of utopian hope, pointing towards the transformative value of utopian literature presented in Carl Freedman’s Critical Theory and Science Fiction. This paper will, because of its limited length, not be able to further investigate critiques of capitalism in any other context than that of Butler’s novel. Also, it will not be analysing the portrayal of capitalism as essentially nostalgic and conservative, making it the opposite of the utopian vision of adaptation and progress that it is contrasted with. This paper will not delve deeper into other interesting aspects of the generation of utopian hope, like narration

This book addresses the recent rise in post-secularism in the humanities and social sciences. Post-secularism is the proposition that the secular project begun by the Enlightenment has come to an end. If we define secularism as the historical process of increasing marginalisation of the religious from contributing to debates in the public sphere and the process of public policy formation then it is in crisis. This opens up the intriguing possibility that there may be opportunities for renewed debate about the nature of our "secular age" and the role of religion in modern society.