Authoritarian Neoliberalism, the Occupy Movements, and IPE

In the absence of any kind of hegemonic aura, neoliberal practices have proved increasingly unable to garner the consent, or even the reluctant acquiescence, necessary for more ‘normal’ modes of governance. Of particular importance in the post-2007 crisis has been the growing frequency with which constitutional and legal changes, in the name of economic ‘necessity’, are seeking to reshape the purpose of the state and associated institutions. This attempted reconfiguration is three-fold: (1) the more immediate appeal to material circumstances as a reason for the state being unable, despite ‘the best will in the world’, to reverse processes such as greater socioeconomic inequality and dislocation;(2) the deeper and longer-term recalibration of what kind of activity is feasible and appropriate for ‘non-market’ institutions to engage in, diminishing expectations in the process; and (3) the reconceptualisation of the state as increasingly non-democratic through its subordination to constitutional and legal rules that are ‘necessary’ for prosperity to be achieved

Rethinking the artistic imagination: from formalistic ‘innovation’ to productive potential for social and political change

The dominant contemporary understandings of art are underpinned by the well-established assumption that art is a space in which limits are boundless, with works such as Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ invoked to support the argument that art is anything that one wants it to be. However, this emphasis on expanding the category of art has conversely restricted the transformative potential of art. A key consequence has been, somewhat ironically, for earlier, elitist paradigms such as those advocated by Clement Greenberg to be reproduced in new ways. In particular, the supposed limitless nature of contemporary art masks a formalism which presents a relatively one-sided understanding of art. Instead of the form-heavy focus on ‘innovation’, the artistic imagination needs to be rethought in favour of a renewed focus on the productive potential of art. Returning especially to Walter Benjamin’s classic essays on the author as producer and art in the age of mechanical reproduction, we argue for a conception of art that moves away from preoccupations which emphasise the formal (re)arrangements of the object. While this may superficially seem close to approaches such as the radical aesthetics perspective, our position is founded upon the notion that a discussion of art ought to have at its core an awareness of what it is doing rather than what it is. This more materialist conception of art gives us considerably greater possibilities for understanding how art can contribute to wider processes of social and political change, and we present a re-interpretation of ‘Fountain’ in order to make our case

Moving to new generational beats: lived experiences of capitalism, student-led (re)makings of knowledge, and the evolution of critical research agendas

Via a reflection on the evolution of a module on comparing capitalisms that I have been teaching for more than a decade, this article discusses the collective influence of new generations of students on how knowledge is (re)made. I deploy a conjunctural understanding of the term ‘generations’ in order to make sense of how students’ interpretations of the topics covered by the module have, across the 2010s, led me to increasingly question the field that was, in an earlier conjuncture, essential for my intellectual foundation and development. Their lived experiences of capitalism are more likely to be dominated by themes such as political, economic and social crises and conflicts, inequality, personal indebtedness and precarity, and in some cases activism. This has had profound and long-lasting effects on my teaching and research, discomfiting me in an ultimately beneficial way; most notably, through the recognition that future critical work on comparing capitalisms ought to move away from previous attempts to engage immanently with dominant, mainstream approaches and towards the articulation of a more confident, autonomous position. Hence, a key aspect of the development and evolution of critical research agendas occurs in and through educational exchanges in the seminar room.</p