Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics

by Paolo Virno, Michael Hardt

Overview

Over the past several decades, Italian revolutionary politics has offered a model for new forms of political thinking. Radical Thought in Italy continues that tradition by providing an original view of the potential for a radical democratic politics today that speaks not only to the Italian situation but also to a broadly international context. First, the essays settle accounts with the culture of cynicism, opportunism, and fear that has come to permeate the Left. They then proceed to analyze the new difficulties and possibilities opened by current economic conditions and the crisis of the welfare state. Finally, the authors propose a series of new concepts that are helpful in rethinking revolution for our times. Contributors: Giorgio Agamben, U of Verona and Collège Internationale de Philosophie, Paris; Massimo De Carolis, U of Salerno; Alisa Del Re, U of Padua; Augusto Illuminati, U of Urbino; Maurizio Lazzarato; Antonio Negri, U of Paris VIII; Franco Piperno, U of Calabria; Marco Revelli, U of Turin; Rossana Rossanda; Carlo Vercellone; Adelino Zanini. Paolo Virno is the author of several books, including the recently translated A Grammar of the Multitude. Michael Hardt is professor of literature and romance studies at Duke University.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816649242
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	10/05/2006
Series:	Theory Out Of Bounds
Edition description:	First edition
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	882,020
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Paolo Virno is an Italian philosopher, semiologist, and a prominent figure among contemporary Marxist thinkers. He teaches philosophy of language at the University of Rome. He is the author of A Grammar of the Multitude, Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation, When the Word Becomes Flesh: Language and Human Nature, and Déjà Vu and the End of History.