THE LEFT HEMISPHERE - RAZMIG KEUCHEYAN

I read this one off the recommendation of Charles Mudede, a local newspaper writer. He writes in the Stranger, and, until recently, was tied for my favorite local columnist with this witch who used to write a weekly essay about weed and mythology that I really enjoyed. But the witch’s paper, The Seattle Weekly, folded, the city is worse and Mudede is the undisputed champion. Irregardless, Mudede has referenced this book, THE LEFT HEMISPHERE, a few times in his columns. It’s been a while since I read any theory/philosophy, looking back on this list I think the previous one was CALIBAN AND THE WITCH, from September, so it seemed like as good a time as any to try to dip my toes into some of this stuff. I read this book very out of order, an experience I’d recommend. The book starts with sections that attempt to outline the history and develop a typography for current (post 1975) philosophers and theorists. I don’t really care about that aspect of this stuff, people’s career trajectories and who studied under whom and all that. Therefore, I skipped to the second half of the book, Theories, which is broken into two sections, “Systems” and “Subjects”. This part of the book was great. I had to read a bunch of this stuff in college and a lot of it is (I think on purpose) mystifying. This book was very clear on people I do know (Spivak, Zizek, Butler, Foucault, Jameson, etc) I made me want to look more into people I did not know (Mbembe, Balibar, Wright, etc.) which surely is the goal of such an undertaking. I was so pleased with these last to sections I went back and finished the first part of the book. This section ended with a line of inquiry about how modern intellectuals are divorced from actual social movements (with the exception of Subcomandante Marcos and Linera, the book points out) which I found interesting and I wish Keucheyan had spent more time on. Perhaps because modern Marxism seems really divorced for actual real life. The book touches on this briefly but a USA professorial teaching job, not as an adjunct but the types of jobs the people in this book could get, is one of the few jobs left that does seem largely protected from the endless terror-cyclone of neo-liberal capitalism. And I say all of that as the child of a professor. Perhaps that’s where this disconnect comes from. I found the section on Subjects much more engaging and useful when I think about the world since it tends to not tow the standard Marxist line about how everything is the economy. That, to me, is a very inadequate answer when you look at something like Trump. Also, and this is very self-serving, I was disappointed to see a few figures left out who I like and who I think have interesting ideas I would have liked to see Keucheyan summarize and explain. Graeber, Mike Davis and Guattari  (who gets some shine but, like always, only with Delueze, which has always bothered me since I think I’m more interested in his solo thought, or at least, I’d like to know more about it.) and Federici. Perhaps they’re too minor of figures? I don’t think I know enough about this world to judge that. But still, I was much more engaged with this than I though I’d be. It really did clarify my thinking on a few issues and sent me back to a few essays I haven’t read since college that I’d like to revisit. They seem easier to understand now but I swear I’m dumber than when I was in college. A mystery. Anyway, thank you Mudede good rec. 75 glorious people’s revolutions.