An expanded edition of revered theorist Michael Löwy's Morning Star: Marxism and Surrealism (previously published in French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Greek), this masterwork collects the author's essays on the ways in which surrealism intersected with a variety of revolutionary political approaches, ranging from utopian ideals to Marxism and situationism. Taking its title from André Breton's essay "Arcane 17," which casts the star as the searing firebrand of rebellion, Löwy's provocative work spans many perspectives. These include surrealist artists who were deeply interested in Marxism and anarchism (Breton among them), as well as Marxists who were deeply interested in surrealism (Walter Benjamin in particular).Probing the dialectics of innovation, diversity, continuity, and unity throughout surrealism's international presence, Morning Star also incorporates analyses of Claude Cahun, Guy Debord, Pierre Naville, José Carlos Mariátegui and others, accompanied by numerous reproductions of surrealist art. An extraordinarily rich collection, Morning Star promises to ignite new dialogues regarding the very nature of dissent.

Morning Star: surrealism, marxism, anarchism, situationism, utopia

Literature & Fiction

Löwy, Michael

History & Criticism

University of Texas Press

An expanded edition of revered theorist Michael Löwy's Morning Star: Marxism and Surrealism (previously published in French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Greek), this masterwork collects the author's essays on the ways in which surrealism intersected with a variety of revolutionary political approaches, ranging from utopian ideals to Marxism and situationism. Taking its title from André Breton's essay "Arcane 17," which casts the star as the searing firebrand of rebellion, Löwy's provocative work spans many perspectives. These include surrealist artists who were deeply interested in Marxism and anarchism (Breton among them), as well as Marxists who were deeply interested in surrealism (Walter Benjamin in particular).
Probing the dialectics of innovation, diversity, continuity, and unity throughout surrealism's international presence, Morning Star also incorporates analyses of Claude Cahun, Guy Debord, Pierre Naville, José Carlos Mariátegui and others, accompanied by numerous reproductions of surrealist art. An extraordinarily rich collection, Morning Star promises to ignite new dialogues regarding the very nature of dissent.

Morning Star: surrealism, marxism, anarchism, situationism, utopia (Surrealist Revolution Series)

This collection of essays deals with the history of Marxism as a political philosophy and provides a heterodox reintegration of the revolutionary socialist tradition. Michael Lowy highlights cultural, "spiritual," or ethical dimensions largely neglected by the economistic tendency dominant in much Marxist literature - the national question, religion, Utopia, and above all the Romantic impulse in Marxist political culture. "Politics" does not mean here only questions relating to power and state, but the broad range of issues common to everyday human life. And "philosophy" refers to basic theoretical, methodological, or ethical interrogations. Moreover, this is a political philosophy that aims, as Marx wrote in his famous "Thesis XI on Feuerbach," not only at interpreting but above all at changing the world. That is why the concept of revolution - its various historical and social dimensions-is a central theme in most of these essays. In addition to Karl Marx, the essays focus on authors belonging to the revolutionary/humanist tendency in Western Marxism: Rosa Luxemburg, Gramsci, Lukacs and Walter Benjamin. These diverse writers share an understanding of socialism as the only truly human alternative to modern forms of barbarism, a dialectical or Hegelian approach to social reality, and, Lowy stresses, a recognition of Romanticism as one of the key sources of the Marxist critique of capitalist civilization and an important component of the Marxist Utopia.

On Changing the World: Essays in Political Philosophy, from Karl Marx to Walter Benjamin (Revolutionary Series)

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Humanities Pr

Franz Kafka: Subversive Dreamer (Michigan Studies In Comparative Jewish Cultures)

Franz Kafka: Subversive Dreamer is an attempt to identify and properly contextualize the social critique in Kafka’s biography and work that links father-son antagonisms, heterodox Jewish religious thinking, and anti-authoritarian or anarchist protest against the rising power of bureaucratic modernity. The book proceeds chronologically, starting with biographical facts often neglected or denied relating to Kafka’s relations with the Anarchist circles in Prague, followed by an analysis of the three great unfinished novels—Amerika, The Trial, The Castle—as well as some of his most important short stories. Fragments, parables, correspondence, and his diaries are also used in order to better understand the major literary works. Löwy’s book grapples with the critical and subversive dimension of Kafka’s writings, which is often hidden or masked by the fabulistic character of the work. Löwy’s reading has already generated controversy because of its distance from the usual canon of literary criticism about the Prague writer, but the book has been well received in its original French edition and has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, and Turkish.

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

University of Michigan Press

Franz Kafka: Subversive Dreamer is an attempt to identify and properly contextualize the social critique in Kafka’s biography and work that links father-son antagonisms, heterodox Jewish religious thinking, and anti-authoritarian or anarchist protest against the rising power of bureaucratic modernity. The book proceeds chronologically, starting with biographical facts often neglected or denied relating to Kafka’s relations with the Anarchist circles in Prague, followed by an analysis of the three great unfinished novels—Amerika, The Trial, The Castle—as well as some of his most important short stories. Fragments, parables, correspondence, and his diaries are also used in order to better understand the major literary works. Löwy’s book grapples with the critical and subversive dimension of Kafka’s writings, which is often hidden or masked by the fabulistic character of the work. Löwy’s reading has already generated controversy because of its distance from the usual canon of literary criticism about the Prague writer, but the book has been well received in its original French edition and has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, and Turkish.

Towards the end of the 19th century, there appeared in Central Europe a generation of Jewish intellectuals whose work was to mark modern culture. Drawing at once on the traditions of German Romanticism and Jewish messianism, their thought was organized around the cabbalistic idea of the "tikkoun": redemption. "Redemption and Utopia" uses the concept of "elective affinity" to explain the surprising community of spirit that existed between redemptive messianic religious thought and the wide variety of radical secular utopian beliefs held by this important group of intellectuals. The author outlines the circumstances that produced this unusual combination of religious and non-religious thought and illuminates the common assumptions that united such seemingly disparage figures as Martin Buber, Kafka, Walter Benjamin and Georg Lukacs.

Redemption and Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe: A Study in Elective Affinity

Heaney, Hope

History

Continuum International Publishing Group

The Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics, Revolutionary Warfare (Critical Currents in Latin American Perspective Series)

In this seminal exploration of Che Guevara's contributions to Marxist thinking, Michael Löwy traces Che's ideas about Marxism both as they related to Latin America and to more general philosophical, political, and economic issues. Now revised and updated, this edition includes a chapter on Guevara's search for a new paradigm of socialism and a substantive essay by Peter McLaren on Che's continued relevance today. Löwy portrays Guevara as a revolutionary humanist who considered all political questions from an internationalist viewpoint. For him, revolutionary movements in Latin America were part of a world process of emancipation. Löwy considers especially Che's views on the contradiction between socialist planning and the law of value in the Cuban economy and his search for an alternative road to the "actually existing socialism" of the Stalinist and post-Stalinist Soviet bloc. Che's varied occupations—doctor and economist, revolutionary and banker, agitator and ambassador, industrial organizer and guerrilla fighter—were expressions of a deep commitment to social change. This book eloquently captures his views on humanity, his contributions to the theory of revolutionary warfare, and his ideas about society's transition to socialism, offering a cohesive, nuanced introduction to the range of Guevara's thought.

Business & Money

Economics

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Fatherland or Mother Earth?: Essays on the National Question

Politics & Government

Pluto Press

Do fragmentary writings by Marx and Engels leave clues to a second coherent theory of nationalism? This timely new book argues that in work left uncompleted at the times of their deaths the two authors may have been laying the foundation for a truly international dialectic.The conventional Marxist concept of nationalism is essentially Eurocentric. However, author Löwy argues that the explosion of nationalist movements around the world today cannot be wholly understood without acknowledging Lenin’s notion of ‘oppressed nations’ nor be adequately addressed without Bauer’s toolbox of ‘national/cultural autonomy’. Löwy demonstrates that by doing justice to national realities and identities, and simultaneously linking together new forms of social-movement internationalism - anti-IMF, ecological, feminist - a new internationalism can be created for the twenty-first century. This first English-language edition of Fatherland or Mother Earth? has been fully updated and revised for English readership.

Fatherland or Mother Earth?: Essays on the National Question (Iire Notebook for Study and Research, No 27-28)

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there appeared in Central Europe a generation of Jewish intellectuals whose work was to mark modern culture. Drawing at once on the traditions of German Romanticism and Jewish Messianism, their thought was organized around the kabbalistic idea of Tikkoun: redemption. Redemption and Utopia uses the concept of "elective affinity" to explain the surprising community of spirit that existed between redemptive messianic religious thought and the wide variety of radical secular utopian beliefs held by this important group of intellectuals. The author outlines the circumstances that produced this unusual combination of religious and non-religious thought and illuminates the common assumptions that united such seemingly disparate figures as Martin Buber, Kafka, Walter Benjamin and Georg Lukacs.

Europe

Stanford University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Löwy, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Löwy, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Löwy, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Morning Star: surrealism, marxism, anarchism, situationism, utopia

Morning Star: surrealism, marxism, anarchism, situationism, utopia (Surrealist Revolution Series)

On Changing the World: Essays in Political Philosophy, from Karl Marx to Walter Benjamin (Revolutionary Series)

Franz Kafka: Subversive Dreamer (Michigan Studies In Comparative Jewish Cultures)

Franz Kafka: Subversive Dreamer (Michigan Studies In Comparative Jewish Cultures)

Redemption and Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe: A Study in Elective Affinity

The Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics, Revolutionary Warfare (Critical Currents in Latin American Perspective Series)

Fatherland or Mother Earth?: Essays on the National Question

Fatherland or Mother Earth?: Essays on the National Question (Iire Notebook for Study and Research, No 27-28)

Redemption and Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe: A Study in Elective Affinity