Étienne BalibarEvery podcast appearance, updated as new ones drop

The philosopher Étienne Balibar reads and discusses with Bernard E. Harcourt Marx’s last texts (The Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy (1874), and Letters to Vera Zasulich (1881)) at Marx 13/13 @Columbia in Paris. Read more here: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/13-13/ The full-length introduction to Marx 13/13 is here: https://tinyurl.com/IntroMarx1313 The recording of the seminar is here: https://youtube.com/live/5nwOCRrql4w Information about Marx 13/13: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/ Information on the 13/13 series: https://cccct.law.columbia.edu/content/13-13 ***** This is the seminar with Étienne Balibar at Marx 13/13 at which we read and discuss Marx's last writings, including his Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), his conspectus and critique of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy (1874), and his letter and drafts to the Russian revolutionary, Vera Zasulich (1881). What makes these final texts so utterly fascinating and important is that they encapsulate Marx’s post-economic political thought: his political thinking after he had fully developed and articulated his mature political-economic theories. These political texts of the Late Marx—by contrast to the Communist Manifesto (1848), the Eighteenth Brumaire (1852), or the earlier articles on the thefts of wood (1842)—formulate political views within the framework of Marx’s mature economic thinking. What we have, in effect, here, is the unwritten final political volume of Capital. In this political moment, it is especially important to end here, on these political writings, in this last seminar of Marx 13/13, in order to discuss their contemporary relevance. We will study them at the seminar Marx 13/13 with the philosopher Étienne Balibar, with whom we began this seminar series eight months ago and who has been a constant companion on this journey—perhaps since at least the early 1960s. In this final, closing session of Marx 13/13, the philosopher Étienne Balibar joins us to discuss the final texts of Marx and to reflect on our discussions during the year-long seminar. Welcome to Marx 13/13!

Bernard E. Harcourt introduces the final session of the Marx 13/13 seminars on the Late Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy (1874), and Letters to Vera Zasulich (1881)) with the philosopher Étienne Balibar @Columbia. Read more here: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/13-13/ The full text of this introduction to Marx 11/13 is here: https://tinyurl.com/IntroMarx1313 The video recording of the seminar Marx 13/13 with Étienne Balibar is here: https://www.youtube.com/live/5nwOCRrql4w?si=vskXmMsLgZeVrZs6 Information about Marx 13/13: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/ Information on the 13/13 series: https://cccct.law.columbia.edu/content/13-13 ***** This is the full-length introduction to the final session of Marx 13/13 at which we read and discuss Marx's last writings, including his Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), his conspectus and critique of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy (1874), and his letter and drafts to the Russian revolutionary, Vera Zasulich (1881). What makes these final texts so utterly fascinating and important is that they encapsulate Marx’s post-economic political thought: his political thinking after he had fully developed and articulated his mature political-economic theories. These political texts of the Late Marx—by contrast to the Communist Manifesto (1848), the Eighteenth Brumaire (1852), or the earlier articles on the thefts of wood (1842)—formulate political views within the framework of Marx’s mature economic thinking. What we have, in effect, here, is the unwritten final political volume of Capital. In this political moment, it is especially important to end here, on these political writings, in this last seminar of Marx 13/13, in order to discuss their contemporary relevance. We will study them at the seminar Marx 13/13 with the philosopher Étienne Balibar, with whom we began this seminar series eight months ago and who has been a constant companion on this journey—perhaps since at least the early 1960s. Let me here introduce these final texts in this video before turning to our seminar with Étienne Balibar. Welcome to Marx 13/13!

This is the seminar Marx 1/13 with the philosopher Etienne Balibar and Bernard E. Harcourt on Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach and Ernst Bloch’s Commentary from The Principle of Hope @CGCParis. Read more here: marx1313.law.columbia.edu/1-13/ The full text of this introduction to Marx 1/13 is here: the1313.law.columbia.edu/2024... The video recording of the seminar Marx 1/13 with Étienne Balibar can be watched here: https://youtu.be/gAB6FveTjEc?si=ERuOf5jssUdvDwY3 Information about Marx 13/13: marx1313.law.columbia.edu/ Information on the 13/13 series: cccct.law.columbia.edu/conten... Ludwig Feuerbach’s writings served both as a foil and a springboard for Marx to develop his radical philosophical approach. Feuerbach was a pivotal thinker, for Marx, who put him on the path to a new materialism having the standpoint of “human society, or socialized humanity,” as Marx wrote in Thesis #10. Feuerbach turned idealist systematicity on its head in order to focus attention on the being of humans (what was called human essence, human nature, species being). Although Feuerbach did not complete that turn to the satisfaction of Marx, Feuerbach launched a movement that would give Marx momentum. Marx wrote extensively about Feuerbach in the years 1844-1845 in The Holy Family: A Critique of Critical Criticisms (1844) and The German Ideology (unpublished, 1845). In 1888, Frederick Engels published Marx's jottings from a notebook under the title "Theses on Feuerbach" as an appendix to his book, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy (1888). Engels' publication of the Theses on Feuerbach has been a source of controversy and commentary since, with the Theses themselves entering what Étienne Balibar calls the pantheon of "emblematic formularies of Western philosophy." With that, of course, comes the risk of distortions or misreadings or projections or, as well, excellent commentaries on such emblematic formulas. Engels had a project in mind when he published the Theses, possibly to systematize Marx's thought, perhaps to solidify his interpretation of historical materialism. Was that Marx's project as well? In this seminar, the philosopher Étienne Balibar rereads the Theses in conversation with Ernst Bloch's commentary on the Theses from The Principle of Hope. Balibar uses the Theses as an entry point for our study of Marx this year. Why start with Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach? you may ask. How does Ernst Bloch's commentary reorient the interpretation of Marx and shape a style of Marxism? Please join us for the seminar to hear Étienne Balibar address these questions. Welcome to Marx 1/13! Readings for Marx 1/13: marx1313.law.columbia.edu/1-1...

In this session, we’re joined by none other than Etienne Balibar to discuss the history and present state of dialogue between Marxism and Spinozism. This is part of our series ‘From Marx to Spinoza’. For more information see: https://culturepowerpolitics.org/from-marx-to-spinoza-affect-ideology-materiality/ If you can support us with a small regular donation, please do so here . If you’d like to make a one-time donation, please do so here .

Professor Étienne Balibar joins Charles Smith and Giselle Williams of Columbia's WKCR for a conversation on the critical theoretic foundations for concrete utopias. This conversation is part of the Utopia 13/13 seminars at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought. Professor Balibar joined us for Utopia 1/13 at the Maison Française on September 28, 2022. You can find the full recording from the seminar and additional resources on the Utopia 1/13 page here: https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/utopia1313/1-13/ At the seminar, Professor Balibar presented a new paper, “Uncovering lines of escape: towards a concept of concrete utopia in the age of catastrophes." You can read the full paper in English here: https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/utopia1313/etienne-balibar-uncovering-lines-of-escape-towards-a-concept-of-concrete-utopia-in-the-age-of-catastrophes/ In his lecture, “Uncovering lines of escape: towards a concept of concrete utopia in the age of catastrophes,” the philosopher Étienne Balibar develops three dimensions of the urgency of rethinking concrete utopias in these times of crises: first, Balibar discusses the dilemmas surrounding the concept of utopia and utopian thinking, without which there could be no “radical” politics, but at a time and in an age of at least three major catastrophes (the climate, the nuclear, and the digital); second, Balibar explores “real” or “concrete” utopias in light of the Foucauldian distinction between “utopias” and “heterotopias,” which could also be interpreted as a conversion of utopia into heterotopias; third, Balibar concludes on the transcendental problems of the different modalities of the “possible,” the “impossible,” the “necessary,” the “inevitable,” in their relationship to a concept of time (e.g. Bloch’s time of “not-yet”), as displaced by the questioning of “utopia” in today’s catastrophic circumstances. At the seminar, Professors Balibar and Harcourt discussed Ernst Bloch, The Spirit of Utopia (1918); Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias” (1967/1984); Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future (2005); Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1847; Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek, Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics (2013; Erik Olin Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias (Verso 2010); and Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandonia (2005).