Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory (New Directions in Critical Theory Book 17)

The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of the Cold War but also the rise of a melancholic vision of history as a series of losses. For the political left, the cause lost was communism, and this trauma determined how leftists wrote the next chapter in their political struggle and how they have thought about their past since. Throughout the twentieth century, argues Left-Wing Melancholia, from classical Marxism to psychoanalysis to the advent of critical theory, a culture of defeat and its emotional overlay of melancholy have characterized the leftist understanding of the political in history and in theoretical critique. Drawing on a vast and diverse archive in theory, testimony, and image and on such thinkers as Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, and others, the intellectual historian Enzo Traverso explores the varying nature of left melancholy as it has manifested in a feeling of guilt for not sufficiently challenging authority, in a fear of surrendering in disarray and resignation, in mourning the human costs of the past, and in a sense of failure for not realizing utopian aspirations. Yet hidden within this melancholic tradition are the resources for a renewed challenge to prevailing regimes of historicity, a passion that has the power to reignite the dialectic of revolutionary thought. -- Provided by publisher The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of the Cold War but also the rise of a melancholic vision of history as a series of losses. For the political left, the cause lost was communism, and this trauma determined how leftists wrote the next chapter in their political struggle and how they have thought about their past since. Throughout the twentieth century, argues Left-Wing Melancholy, from classical Marxism to psychoanalysis to the advent of critical theory, a culture of defeat and its emotional overlay of melancholy have characterized the leftist understanding of the political in history and in theoretical critique. Drawing on a vast and diverse archive in theory, testimony, and image and on such thinkers as Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, and others, the intellectual historian Enzo Traverso explores the varying nature of left melancholy as it has manifested in a feeling of guilt for not sufficiently challenging authority, in a fear of surrendering in disarray and resignation, in mourning the human costs of the past, and in a sense of failure for not realizing utopian aspirations. Yet hidden within this melancholic tradition are the resources for a renewed challenge to prevailing regimes of historicity, a passion that has the power to reignite the dialectic of revolutionary thought. trav17942,PHI040000,PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Critical Theory,POL005000,POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Communism & Socialism Film and History -- The Earth Trembles -- Against Colonialism -- Realms of Memory -- Red Shadows -- Spanish Ghosts -- Santiago Remembrance -- U-topia -- 4. Bohemia: Between Melancholy and Revolution -- Sociology -- Marx -- Gustave Courbet -- Walter Benjamin -- Leon Trotsky -- Bohemia and Revolution -- Movements and Figures -- 5. Marxism and the West -- Zeitgeist -- Hegelian Sources -- Empires -- "Peoples Without History"--Violence and Rebellion -- Tensions -- Aftermaths -- A Missed Dialogue -- Parting Ways -- 6. Adorno and Benjamin: Letters at Midnight in the Century -- Testimonies Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Haunting Pasts Without Utopias -- Historical Turn -- End of Utopias -- Three Realms of Revolution -- Three Memories -- Specters -- 1. The Culture of Defeat -- Shipwreck with Spectator -- The Vanquished Left -- Dialectic of Defeat -- Left-Wing Melancholy -- The Antinomies of Walter Benjamin -- The Melancholy Wager -- 2. Marxism and Memory -- Enter Memory, Exit Marx -- Memory of the Future -- Myth and Remembrance -- Futures' Past -- 3. Melancholy Images Constellation -- Hierarchies -- Exile -- Politics -- Surrealism -- Mass Culture -- Redemption -- 7. Synchronic Times: Walter Benjamin and Daniel Bensaïd -- Portbou -- Paris -- Rereading Marx -- Synchronic Times -- Historicism -- Revolution -- Utopia -- Notes -- Index