Retrieval or Deconstruction? Re-reading Marx Biographically
Abstract
Some authors take to their pens occasionally, allowing their thoughts to develop before committing them to written form. Others write through their developing thought processes, working out their conclusions in the process of revision. To be sure, all writers draft but not all writers redraft equally. Along the continuum of constant revision versus occasionalism we must understand Marx as one of the most active practitioners of critical intellectual development in the daily act of written self-expression. His body of work represents over four decades of this practice and as such in approaching the study of Marx’s writings it is crucial to recognize the tentative quality of much of it, the conjectural dimension inherent in his method, and pay close attention to when the work achieves a certain completeness, when it does not, and even when it is later abandoned. This includes paying attention to what Marx himself chose to publish, what he “abandoned to the gnawing criticism of the mice” and indeed what he emphasized by way of later comment on his writings. When approached in this biographically grounded manner, the Marx who emerges is quite different from the images produced by present day academic philosophy and party orthodoxies of the past, a Marx above all engaged in the class struggles of nineteenth century Europe (primarily) and who produced analyses thereof that arguably remain valuable and incisive today.
Presentation Description
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Location
Stream A
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Skidmore-Hess, Daniel, "Retrieval or Deconstruction? Re-reading Marx Biographically" (2021). Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative. 2.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cssc/2021/2021/2
Retrieval or Deconstruction? Re-reading Marx Biographically
Stream A
Some authors take to their pens occasionally, allowing their thoughts to develop before committing them to written form. Others write through their developing thought processes, working out their conclusions in the process of revision. To be sure, all writers draft but not all writers redraft equally. Along the continuum of constant revision versus occasionalism we must understand Marx as one of the most active practitioners of critical intellectual development in the daily act of written self-expression. His body of work represents over four decades of this practice and as such in approaching the study of Marx’s writings it is crucial to recognize the tentative quality of much of it, the conjectural dimension inherent in his method, and pay close attention to when the work achieves a certain completeness, when it does not, and even when it is later abandoned. This includes paying attention to what Marx himself chose to publish, what he “abandoned to the gnawing criticism of the mice” and indeed what he emphasized by way of later comment on his writings. When approached in this biographically grounded manner, the Marx who emerges is quite different from the images produced by present day academic philosophy and party orthodoxies of the past, a Marx above all engaged in the class struggles of nineteenth century Europe (primarily) and who produced analyses thereof that arguably remain valuable and incisive today.
