Insurgent Metaphors: Essays on Culture and Class

Marxism s cultural turn, which has been prominent in its operation over at least the past four decades, continues to belie the hope it had initially held out. The idea that such a move would eventually pull Marxism out of its ontological crisis is on the verge of a miscarriage. That is certainly the case in sub-continental South Asia. Unsurprisingly, therefore, culturally-turned Marxism survives as the sign of the very crisis it was meant to surpass. Its canonisation within the academia, and beyond, as a mere analytic of culture has led to the blurring of politico-ideological lines. The quietist impulse that this theory of the science of revolution has, as a consequence, come to share with so-called poststructuralism implies its complete detachment from all notions and conceptions of class and class action.

The 13 essays that comprise this book are envisaged as a small attempt from South Asia where communitarian postcolonialism and Marxist culturalism constitute the most respectable trend in radical theory to remedy the situation.