Marx and His Descendants

Few books have created as much controversy as Jacques Derrida's Ghosts of Marx, a collection of intense thoughts on the state and future of Marxism since the fall of the Berlin Wall. In this important book he wrote on Marx dated 1993, Derrida argues that the new world order and the "end of history" debates are a continuation of an old debate, an attempt to exorcise the spirit that Marxism represents. What he offers in The Specters of Marx is an invitation to certain political philosophy, to rethink the concept of "the political" at the "end of history."

After the book caused some comments and objections to arise, mostly from English-speaking Marxists, Derrida tries to answer the questions, comments, objections and misunderstandings about the book in his ironically titled essay Marx and His Descendants. Derrida observes, behind most of these, a scene of inheritance sharing; or it reads symptomatically the demand of sons or daughters "known as Marxists" to pursue the inheritance, appropriate it, or precisely the "feeling of ownership" that becomes so paradoxical when it comes to Marxism, or even the "right of priority in property". However, Derrida, who had previously referred to the "plural souls of Marx", stated that talking about a single and indivisible, non-contradictory Marx legacy cannot be assumed other than an identity arising from the idealization movement or the search for the pure, unadulterated, and that "Marx has a certain soul." He emphasized the need to respond to and be responsible for this.

Aijaz Ahmad, Terry Eagleton, Tom Lewis, Gayatri Chakravotry Spivak, Fredric Jameson, Pierre Macherey, Warren Montag, Tony Negri and Werner Hamacher are among the intellectuals whose criticisms Derrida tries to respond to.
(From the Promotional Bulletin)



Number of Pages: 112

Year of Printing: 2014


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Details Publications

First Print Year: 2004

Number of Pages: 112

Language Turkish