Marx, Marxism and the Spiritual

While Marxian theory has produced a sound and rigorous critique of capitalism, has it faltered in its own practice of social transformation? Has it faltered because of the Marxian insistence on the hyper-secularization of political cultures? The history of religions - with the exception of some spiritual traditions - has not been any less heartless and soulless. This book sets up a much-needed dialogue between a rethought Marxian praxis of the political and a rethought experience of spirituality. Such rethinking within Marxism and spirituality and a resetting of their lost relationship is perhaps the only hope for a non-violent future of both the Marxian reconstruction of the self and the social as also faith-based life-practices. Building on past work in critical theory, this book offers a new take on the relationship between a rethought Marxism and a rethought spirituality (rethought in the life, philosophy and works of Christian thinkers, anti-Christian thinkers, Marxian thinkers, those critical of Marxist Statecraft, Dalit neo-Buddhist thinkers, thinkers drawing from Judaism, as well as thinkers drawing critically from Christianity). Contrary to popular belief, this book does not see spirituality as a derivative of only religion. This book also sees spirituality as, what Marx designated, the "sigh of the oppressed" against both social and religious orthodoxy. In that sense, spirituality is not just a displaced form of religion; it is a displaced form of the political too. This book therefore sets up the much needed dialogue between the Marxian political and the spiritual traditions. The chapters in this book were originally published in Rethinking Marxism - A Journal of Economics, Culture and Society.

Anjan Chakrabarti, Professor of Economics, University of Calcutta, India. Anup Dhar, Professor of Philosophy, Ambedkar University Delhi, India. Serap A. Kayatekin, Professor, American College of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Editors' Introduction Theory  1. Rethinking Marx and the Spiritual 2. Spirituality Beyond Man: Toward a Labor Theory of the Soul 3. Marx, Foucault, and the Secularization of Western Culture 4. What Kind of "Life Affirmation"? Disentangling the Conflation of Spinoza and Nietzsche 5. Specter and Spirit: Ernst Bloch, Jacques Derrida, and the Work of Utopia 6. Ernst Bloch and the Spirituality of Utopia 7. Reading Marx with Levinas 8. Liberation Theology and Marxism Practice 9. Saint Francis in Climate-Changing Times: Form of Life, the Highest Poverty, and Postcapitalist Politics 10. Faiths with a Heart and Heartless Religions: Devout Alternatives to the Merciless Rationalization of Charity 11. Gramsci's Concept of the "Simple": Religion, Common Sense, and the Philosophy of Praxis 12. Subalterns, Religion, and the Philosophy of Praxis in Gramsci's Prison Notebooks 13. Marxism as Asketic, Spirituality as Phronetic: Rethinking Praxis Social Context of Theory and Practice 14. Religion in Russian Marxism 15. Serving the Sighs of the Working Class in South Africa with Marxist Analysis of the Bible as a Site of Struggle 16. Inner Life, Politics, and the Secular: Is There a "Spirituality" of Subalterns and Dalits? Notes on Gramsci and Ambedkar Conversations 17. "I am sure that you are more pessimistic than I am...": An interview with Giorgio Agamben 18. Crossing Materialism and Religion: An Interview on Marxism and Spirituality with the Fourteenth Dalai Lama 19. Transcendence, Spirituality, Practices, Immanence: A Conversation with Antonio Negri