Framework

The history of Marxism is marked by various formulations about “its” crises. The unquestionable unity of a Marxism devoid of tensions can exist only as an evanescent paradigm. The "crisis of Marxism" is already present from the moment that Marxism is named as such in the late nineteenth century. Discussions on the "crisis of Marxism" are also present in the twentieth and twenty-first century.

In this sense, Marxism is both a thought of the crisis and a theory of praxis, since its debates assume a close link with the specific political and economic circumstances and have given rise throughout, their history, to multiple processes of theoretical reformulation and different political stakes. The theoretical and political challenge to think about the current crisis of Marxism, which began in the early 1970s, is to understand and work the particularities of this age and the specificities of the conceptual debates that differentiate them from previous crises.

In order to understand the current crisis, the context must be emphasised: the collapse of the so-called real socialisms and neoliberal transformations in the mode of capitalist accumulation and its impact on the world of labour. These processes have subverted the Marxist sense of history, giving rise to speculation about the possibility of socialism. Consequently, the current crisis of Marxism presents fundamental differences in relation to previous crises. To be precise, what is in crisis is not just a series of categories that allow a sequence of reformulations or theoretical adjustments of Marxism; is the very method of dialectical analysis and its relation to the logic of capitalism that have been called into question.
Thus the present forms for escaping the crisis of Marxist thought have a common axiom: to place the Hegelian inheritance and the problems of dialectics at the centre of the current discussions of the crisis. This seminar aims to help clarify the historical conditions of the possibility of dialectics as a method of analysis for contemporary political thinking in the context of neoliberal capitalism.

Bio note

Julia Expósito (Rosario, Argentina, 1985) holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires, an MA in Cultural Studies from CEI, a BA in Political Science from the National University of Rosario and a Post-Doctorate from CONICET. She works as a researcher and professor at the Department of Political Analysis of the Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations of the National University of Rosario. She is currently conducting a guest researcher stay at the CES of the University of Coimbra. She also participates in several research groups on critical theory, Marxism and debates on contemporary political theory, and has organised and participated in national and international conferences and congresses. She has published numerous articles in academic journals and books, among which: El Marxismo Inquieto. Sujeto, política y estructura en el capitalismo neoliberal, Prometeo Libros, 2017. Additionally, she participates as an activist of the women's and feminist movement in Argentina, and in assemblies of teachers and science and technology workers in Rosario.

Comments: João Rodrigues