A defense of the radical imagination from a scholar of social movements.
Political theorist and philosopher Richard Gilman-Opalsky’s Imaginary Power, Real Horizons is a tribute to the imagination and to its necessity for liberatory struggle. “‘Impractical’ is the name given to anyone who imagines something radically other than what exists, ” he writes. However, many things—such as the abolition of slavery—were dismissed as impractical before they came to be.
In a warm, plainspoken manner, these essays chart the affects of creativity and utopianism through topics as varied as the cyclical nature of popular movements; the international history of May Day; the experience of teaching political theory and Marxism in contemporary China; and the revolutionary aspirations of Free Jazz. The human imagination is a real, world-creating power, and those who would declare otherwise have a poor understanding of history.
Imaginary Power, Real Horizons is a call to action for those who would dare to dream of a society organized by a different logic than capitalism.
Daftar Isi
Introduction: A Question of Imagination: What Can it Mean to Be a Communist Today?
Chapter 1: Theory as an Everyday Thing
Chapter 2: Inversion and Abolition
Chapter 3: Horizons of the George Floyd Rebellion
Chapter 4: Bad Imagination: Capitalism of “Communist” China
Chapter 5: How Dare We Speak of Love?
Chapter 6: Pandemic Gemeinwesen and the Communist Secret of Love
Chapter 7: Horizons of a Riotous Epistemology
Chapter 8: Free Jazz and Other Insurrections
Chapter 9: The Practicality of Utopianism
Chapter 10: Insurgent Thoughts for Future May Days
Conclusion: Dreaming Their Nightmares
Index