...Bruce Robbins This essay argues that Étienne Balibar, in his essay on Althusser’s dramaturgy, uses the analogy between ideology and theatrical performance to defend the significance of politics as a performance that is anything but free—that is, rather, informed and invested with meaning by its...

...Warren Montag In his commentary on what he calls Althusser’s dramaturgy, Étienne Balibar notes the importance of theater as a metaphor and in its literal, material existence as an organized space in which both visibility and invisibility are staged. This essay attempts to explore the importance...

...Étienne Balibar An important part of the new interest for the work of Louis Althusser (1918–1990) has focused on his interpretation of “materialist theater,” as proposed in a famous essay from 1962. This is, in fact, hardly separable from discussing again the “pragmatic” reading of his theory...

...Banu Bargu This essay offers a rejoinder to Balibar’s reconstruction of Althusser’s thought. The author analyzes Balibar’s reading by attending to its formal protocols and substantive arguments, especially the transposition of the aporias in Althusser’s theoretical formulations, moving from...

...Joshua Kates This essay returns to part 2, chapter 4 of Louis Althusser and Étienne Balibar’s landmark text Reading Capital to interrogate some of the historiographical concepts upon which literary studies continues to rely, especially that of the period. Althusser’s profound critique of the period...

...Adi Ophir In “Althusser’s Dramaturgy and the Critique of Ideology,” Étienne Balibar reconstructs Althusser’s quest for “a critical concept of ideology” and offers one of his own. Both moves are based on close attention to the relation between theater and politics. Power is always theatrical because...

...Ellen Rooney This article returns to the question “what is it to read?” through two texts: Louis Althusser's Reading Capital (1965) and The Way We Read Now , a special issue of Representations (2009). Rooney analyzes the issue's introduction, Sharon Marcus's and Stephen Best's “Surface Reading...

...” (Foucault), the “society effect” (Althusser), the “knowledge effect” (Althusser), and the “state effect” (Mitchell). Through a reading of Georg Lukács's essay “The Moment and Form” and J. M. Coetzee's novel Diary of a Bad Year , the article introduces two further effects to be placed alongside...

...Judith Butler Balibar’s consideration of Althusser’s notion of dramaturgy suggests that we might rethink conventional ways of understanding ideology. Althusser works out his views on dramaturgy through an engagement with Brecht, and so it makes sense to consider how Benjamin’s reading of Brecht...

...Timothy Bewes Taking issue with recent interventions on critical reading that appear caught between demolishing and reestablishing topographical modes of literary analysis, this article reexamines the approach of “symptomatic reading” as developed in Louis Althusser's reading of Karl Marx...

...R. Radhakrishnan Copyright © 1990 by Brown University and differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 1990 Works Cited Althusser Louis . Essays on Ideology . Trans. Brewster Ben . London : Verso , 1984 . Althusser Louis , and Balibar Etienne...

... Azoulay Ariella . “ Arendt’s Guidelines for a Fictionalized Cinematic Portrait .” 26 . 2 : 121 – 31 . Balibar Étienne . “ Althusser’s Dramaturgy and the Critique of Ideology .” 26 . 3 : 1 – 22 . Bargu Banu . “ Althusser’s Materialist Theater: Ideology and Its...

... W. Pickford. New York:Columbia UP, 1998 . 143 -60. Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. (Notes towards an Investigation).” Lenin and Philosophy . Trans. Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review, 1971 . 127 -86. Balibar, Étienne. Masses, Classes,Ideas . Trans...

...). The turn to the surface for Best and Marcus is a sharp turn away from what they call “symptomatic reading.” Although it is Louis Althusser who first uses “symptomatic” ( symptomale ) to characterize Marx’s reading of the classical political economists, Best and Marcus draw their understanding of the term...

...Neil Lazarus Copyright © 1991 by Brown University and differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 1991 Works Cited Adorno Theodor . Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life . Trans. Jephcott E. F. N. . London : Verso , 1985 . Althusser Louis...

...George P. Cunningham Copyright © 1989 by Brown University and differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 1989 Works Cited Althusser Louis . Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays . New York : Monthly Review , 1971 . Baker Houston A. Jr. Blues, Ideology...

... on Deleuze in Leo Bersani: A Speculative Introduction hypothesizes a connection between the absent origin Derrida finds in Rousseau in Of Grammatology and a perhaps similarly nonexistent primary sadism, thereby linking the seemingly secondary masochism to writing (33–34). It is notable that Althusser’s...

..., Jacques Rancière, and Jacques Lacan, among others. Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses(Notes toward an Investigation).” Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays . Trans. Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review, 1971 . 127 -88. ____. “Philosophy and the Spontaneous...

... Modern England . Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes towards an Investigation.” Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays . Trans. Ben Brewster. London: New Left, 1971 . 121 –73. Anthony, Evelyn. All the Queen's Men . New York: Crowell, 1960 . Averell...

... appeared in States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons , edited by Joy James (St. Martin's Press, 2002). His article “Social Death and the Relationship between Prison Abolition and Reform” is forthcoming in Social Justice . Althusser, Louis. The Future Lasts Forever . Ed. Olivier...