Stephen Hastings-King: The Project of Autonomy in a Time of Fading Empire

Abstract of a contribution to the Castoriadis workshop in March 2014 at Berlin

This paper has two main sections with a transitional space that links them.  The first presents my forthcoming book, Looking for the Proletariat: Socialisme ou Barbarie and The Problem of Worker Writing.  The transitional space involves labyrinths.  The second main section outlines the prospects for the project of autonomy in the present, a time of fading empires.  It is a kind of exhortation.

The project of autonomy is the over-arching theme.  Socialisme ou Barbarie articulated a version from within a Marxist context: a contemporary project of autonomy that might look to SouB confronts the problem of the closure of the Marxist Imaginary.  One of the motifs is an exploration of what this closure entails.

The following is a condensed version of the presentation.  It is comprised of elements pulled from the paper that touch on most, but not all, of the main themes.  While they are in order, there is often material in the paper that will appear between the elements. The transitional section, on crossroads in labyrinths, is not included.
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