Strategies of Refusal

Strategies of Refusal: Explorations in Autonomist Marxism

Since the publication of Hardt and Negri’s Empire new attention has been brought to a previously ignored current of revolutionary theory and practice, namely that of autonomist Marxism. The attention paid to readings of Negri have tended to neglect the vast wealth of engaged theoretical reflection contained within the history of autonomist thought and organizing from which Negri’s work emerges. The course will begin to explore this future behind our backs focusing on key concepts and practices with autonomst Marxism such as class composition analysis, spatial articulations and enclosures, mobility and exodus, the refusal of work, affective labor, biopower, communication and information theory, and current developments in autonomist organizing such as those around precarious labor. It will explore the writing of theorists as Mario Tronti, Paolo Virno, the Midnight Notes Collective, Harry Cleaver, Silvia Federici, Bifo, Leopoldina Fortunati, Ferrucio Gambino, Raniero Panzieri, Sandro Mezzadra, George Caffentzis, Maurizio Lazzarato, Mariarosa Dallacosta, Toni Negri, Félix Guattari, and Alisa Del Re. Having at least a working knowledge of Marxist concepts (and a willingness to critique them) would be very helpful. A majority of the reading will be made available electronically and/or in scanned form.

Bluestockings • 172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington, NYC •  • $25 – 50 sliding scale
Sundays 12 – 2 PM from October 9nd – December 4th, 2005
Instructors: Jack Z. Bratich & Stevphen Shukaitis

::Readings::
Readings are divided into core and supplementary readings. The core readings (noted with a star *, approximately 50 pages) will be used to form the basis of discussion of the topics for the given week. Supplementary readings are materials arguments will be drawn from and would be useful for pursuing particular topics further but are not necessary to read before discussion. Reading core materials is highly encouraged and will greatly aid in having engaging and intersting discussions.

::October 9th – Introduction / Overview::
*Gary Kinsman, “The Politics of Revolution: Learning from Autonomist Marxism” http://auto_sol.tao.ca/node/view/383
*Harry Cleaver. Reading Capital Politically (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1979), 3-66.
*Mario Tronti, “The Strategy of Refusal,” Italy: Autonomia. Post-political politics. Ed. Sylvere Lotringer and Christian Marazzi (Semiotext 1980), 28-35.

::October 16th – The Future Behind Our Backs::
*Sergio Bologna, “The Tribe of Moles,” Italy: Autonomia. Post-political politics. Ed. Sylvere Lotringer and Christian Marazzi (New York: Semiotext, 1980), 36-61.
*Patrick Cunninghame, “Autonomia in the 1970s: The Refusal of Work, the Party and Power”
*Michael Hardt, “Introduction: Laboratory Italy,” Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics. Ed. Michael Hardt and Paolo Virno(Minneaplois, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 1-9.
*Steve Wright. Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

::October 23rd – Enclosures//Exodus// Migrations//Lines of Flight::
*Midnight Notes, “The New Enclosures,” Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973 – 1992 (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1992), 317-333.
*Sandro Mezzadra, “The Right to Escape,”ephemera Volume 4 Number 3 (August 2004), 267-275.
Antonio Negri, “Rupture Within Empire: The Power of Exodus,” TCS 2002
*Paolo Virno, “Vitruosity and Revoltuion: The Political Theory of Exodus,” Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics. Ed. Michael Hardt and Paolo Virno. Trans. Ed Emery (Minneaplois, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 189-210.
Massimo De Angelis, “Marx and Primitive Accumulation: the Continous Character of Capital’s Enclosures,” The Commoner Number 2 (2001), 1-22.
John Holloway, “Capital Moves,” Revolutionary Writing: Common Sense Essays in Post-Political Politics. Ed. Werner Bonefeld (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2003), 161-169
Sandro Mezzadra, “Citizenship in Motion,” MakeWorlds
Marcus Rediker and Peter Lineabaugh, “The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, and the Atlantic Working Class in the Eighteenth Century,” Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture. Ed. Ron Sakolsky and James Koehnline (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1993), 129-180.
Nicholas Thoburn, “The Hobo Anomalous: class, minorities and political invention in the Industrial Workers of the World,” Social Movement Studies Volume 2 Number 1 (2001): 61-84.

::October 30th – Constituent Power// Biopolitics// States of Exception::
*Giorgio Agamben, “What is a Camp?” Means Without End
*Michel Foucault. The History of Sexuality -section on biopolitcs
*Maurizio Lazzarato, “From Biopower to Biopolitics”
*Antonio Negri. Insurgenceis: Constituent Power and the Modern State. Trans. Maurizio Boscagli (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 1-35.
Giorgio Agamben. Homo Sacer
Walter Benjamin, “Critique of Violence,” Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. Trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968), 277 – 300.
Jacques Derrida, “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority’,” Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice. Ed. Drucilla Cornell, Michel Rosenfeld, David Gray Carlson (New York: Routledge, 1992), 3- 67.
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, “Biopolitical Production,” Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 22-41.
Nikolas Rose, “The Politics of Life Itself,” Theory, Culture & Society 2001 Vol. 18(6): 1–30

::November 13th – Autonomist Feminism// Affective Labor//the Body::
*Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James. The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1972)
*Alisa Del Re, “Women and Welfare: Where is Jocasta?” Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics. Ed. Michael Hardt and Paolo Virno. Trans. Ed Emery (Minneaplois, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 99-113..
*Silvia Federici, “Introduction,” Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2004), 11-19.
Leopoldina Fortunati.The Arcane of Reproction
Wages for Housework
“Development and Reproduction” – Mariarosa Dalla Costa
Caffentzis – On the Notion of a Crisis of Social Reprodction
Michael Hardt, “Affectivew Labor” boundary (1999)
Women, Development and Labour Reproduction: Issues of Struggles and Movements – Ed. The Dalla Costa sisters

::November 20th -Media//Information Flows//General Intellect::
*Nick Dyer-Witherford, “Intellects,” Cyber-Marx, Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-Technology Capitalism (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1999), PAGES.
*Maurizio Lazzarato, “Immaterial Labor,” Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics. Ed. Michael Hardt and Paolo Virno. Trans. Ed Emery (Minneaplois, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 133-147.
*Karl Marx, “Fragment on Machines,” Grundrisse. Translated Martin Nicolaus (London: Penguin Books, 1973), 690-712.
*Paolo Virno, “Notes on the General Intellect,” Marxism Beyond Marxism. Ed. Saree Makdisi, Cesare Casarino, and Rebecca E. Karl (New York: Routledge, 1996), 262-272.

::December 4th – Autonomism Today::
*Colectivo Situaciones, “Further Comments on Research Militancy. Footnotes on Procedures and (In)decisions,” ephemera. Trans. Nate Holdren and Sebastian Tsouza. Volume 5 Number 4 (forthcoming November 2005)
*Greenpepper Magazine. Precarity Issue
*Antonio Negri, “Twenty Theses on Marx: Interpretation of the Class Situation Today,” Marxism Beyond Marxism. Ed. Saree Makdisi, Cesare Casarino, and Rebecca E. Karl (New York: Routledge, 1996), 149-180.
*Paolo Virno, ‘Ten Theses on the Multitude and Post-Fordist Capitalism” from Grammar of the Multitude

::Materials::
Romano Alquati, “The Network of Struggles in Italy,”notes taken summarizing a presentation by Alquati in the late 1960s.
Guido Baldi, “Theses on the Mass Worker and Social Capital,” Radical America, vol.6, No.3, May-June 1972
Sergio Bologna, “Class Composition and the Theory of the Party at the Origin of the Workers Councils Movement,” The Labour Process & Class Strategies. Trans. Bruno Ramirez (London: Stage 1, 1976), 68-91.
Sergio Bologna, “The Tribe of Moles,” Italy: Autonomia. Post-political politics. Ed. Sylvere Lotringer and Christian Marazzi (New York: Semiotext, 1980), 36-61.
Harry Cleaver. Reading Capital Politically (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1979)
Lucio Colletti. From Rosseau to Lenin: Studies in Ideology and Society. Trans. John Merrington and Judith White (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972)
Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James. The Power of Women and the Subversion of Community
Massimo De Angelis, “Marx and Primitive Accumulation: the Continous Character of Capital’s Enclosures,” The Commoner Number 2 (2001), 1-22.
Empire’s New Clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri. Ed. Paul Passavant and Jodi Dean (New York: Routledge, 2004)
ephemera Volume 4 Number 3 (August 2004), “Theory of the Multitude”
Silvia Federici. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation(Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2004)
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000)
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Labor of Dionysus: Critique of State Form
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Multitude: Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (New York: Penguin Press, 2004)
John Holloway, “In the Beginning Was the Scream,” Revolutionary Writing: Common Sense Essays in Post-Political Politics. Ed. Werner Bonefeld (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2003), 15-37.
Italy: Autonomia. Post-political politics. Ed. Sylvere Lotringer and Christian Marazzi (Semiotext 1980)
Midnight Notes Collective. Auroras of the Zapatistas: Local & Global Struggles of the Fourth World War (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2001)
Midnight Notes Collective. Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973 – 1992 (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1992)
Anonio Negri and Felix Guattari. Communists Like Us. Trans. Michael Ryan (New York: Semiotext(e), 1990)
Antonio Negri. Insurgenceis: Constituent Power and the Modern State. Trans. MaurizioBoscagli (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999)
Antonio Negri. Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse. Ed. Jim Fleming. Trans. Harry Cleaver, Michael Ryan, Maurizio Viano (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1991)
Antonio Negri. Negri on Negri: Antonio Negri in Conversation with Anne Dufourmantelle. Trans. M. B. DeVoise (New York: Routledge, 2004)
Antonio Negri. Time for Revolution. Trans. Matteo Mandarini (London: Continuum, 2003)
Toni Negri, “Keynes and the Capitalist Theory of the State Post-1929,” Revolution Retrieved: Selected Writings on Marx, Keynes & New Social Subjects 1967-1983. Ed. Ed Emery (London: Red Notes, 1988)
Raniero Panzieri, “Surplus Value and Planning: Notes on the Reading of Capital,” In The Labour Process and Class Strategies. CSE Pamphlet, No.1, London: Stage 1, 1976.
George Rawick, “Working Class Self-Activity,” Radical America ,Vol.3, No.2 (March-April 1969)
Red Notes. Working Class Autonomy and the Crisis: Italian Marxist Texts of Theory and Practice of a Class Movement, 1964 – 1979. Ed. Ed Emery (London: Red Notes Archive, 1979)
Tiziana Terranova. Network Culture: Politics and the Information Age (London: Pluto Books, 2004)
Nicholas Thoburn. Deleuze, Marx, and Politics (London: Routledge, 2003)
Mario Tronti, “The Strategy of Refusal,” Italy: Autonomia. Post-political politics. Ed. Sylvere Lotringer and Christian Marazzi (Semiotext 1980), 28-35.
-“Lenin in England”
-“Workers and Capital”
Paolo Virno. Grammar of the Multitude. Trans. Sylvčre Lotringer (New York: Semiotext(e), 2004)
Steve Wright. Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
Zerowork Collective, “Introduction to Zerowork,” reprinted in Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973 – 1992 (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, [1975] 1992), 109-114.
John Zerzan, “The Revolt Against Work,” Telos 1974