Post-anarchism has been of considerable importance in the discussions of radical intellectuals across the globe in the last decade. In its most popular form, it demonstrates a desire to blend the most promising aspects of traditional anarchist theory with developments in post-structuralist and post-modernist thought. Post-Anarchism: A Reader includes the most comprehensive collection of essays about this emergent body of thought, making it an essential and accessible resource for academics, intellectuals, activists and anarchists interested in radical philosophy. Many of the chapters have been formative to the development of a distinctly "post-anarchist" approach to politics, aesthetics, and philosophy. Others respond to the so-called "post-anarchist turn" with caution and skepticism. The book also includes original contributions from several of today's "post-anarchists," inviting further debate and new ways of conceiving post-anarchism across a number of disciplines.

What is the relevance of anarchist thought for politics and political theory today? While many have dismissed anarchism in the past, Saul Newman contends that anarchism's heretical critique of authority, and its insistence on full equality and liberty, places it at the forefront of the radical political imagination today. With the unprecedented expansion of state power in the name of security, the current 'crisis of capitalism' and the terminal decline of Marxist and social democratic projects, it is time to reconsider anarchism as a form of politics. This book seeks to renew anarchist thought through the concept of postanarchism.

What shape can radical politics take today in a time abandoned by the great revolutionary projects of the past? In light of recent uprisings around the world against the neoliberal capitalist order, Saul Newman argues that anarchism - or as he calls it postanarchism - forms our contemporary political horizon. In this book, Newman develops an original political theory of postanarchism; a form of anti-authoritarian politics which starts, rather than finishes, with anarchy. He does this by asking four central questions: who are we as subjects; how do we resist; what is our relationship to violence; and, why do we obey? By drawing on a range of heterodox thinkers including La Boétie, Sorel, Benjamin, Stirner and Foucault, the author not only investigates the current conditions for radical political thought and action, but proposes a new form of politics based on what he calls ontological anarchy and the desire for autonomous life. Rather than seeking revolutionary emancipation or political hegemony, we should affirm instead the non-existence of power and the ever-present possibilities of freedom. As the tectonic plates of our time are shifting, revealing the nihilism and emptiness of our political and economic order, postanarchisms disdain for power in all its forms offers us genuine emancipatory potential.

In his recent writings on religion and secularization, Habermas has challenged reason to clarify its relation to religious experience and to engage religions in a constructive dialogue. Given the global challenges facing humanity, nothing is more dangerous than the refusal to communicate that we encounter today in different forms of religious and ideological fundamentalism. Habermas argues that in order to engage in this dialogue, two conditions must be met: religion must accept the authority of secular reason as the fallible results of the sciences and the universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality; and conversely, secular reason must not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith. This argument was developed in part as a reaction to the conception of the relation between faith and reason formulated by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2006 Regensburg address. In 2007 Habermas conducted a debate, under the title ‘An Awareness of What Is Missing', with philosophers from the Jesuit School for Philosophy in Munich. This volume includes Habermas's essay, the contributions of his interlocutors and Habermas's reply to them. It will be indispensable reading for anyone who wishes to understand one of the most urgent and intractable issues of our time.

The political writings of the French poststructuralists have eluded articulation in the broader framework of general political philosophy primarily because of the pervasive tendency to define politics along a single parameter: the balance between state power and individual rights in liberalism and the focus on economic justice as a goal in Marxism. What poststructuralists like Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-François Lyotard offer instead is a political philosophy that can be called tactical: it emphasizes that power emerges from many different sources and operates along many different registers. This approach has roots in traditional anarchist thought, which sees the social and political field as a network of intertwined practices with overlapping political effects. The poststructuralist approach, however, eschews two questionable assumptions of anarchism, that human beings have an (essentially benign) essence and that power is always repressive, never productive. After positioning poststructuralist political thought against the background of Marxism and the traditional anarchism of Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Proudhon, Todd May shows what a tactical political philosophy like anarchism looks like shorn of its humanist commitments—namely, a poststructuralist anarchism. The book concludes with a defense, contra Habermas and Critical Theory, of poststructuralist political thought as having a metaethical structure allowing for positive ethical commitments.

Articulates the intersection of anarchism and poststructuralism in order to frame a new approach to politics: 'postanarchism'.

Engaging with contemporary debates about the political role of art in an era of total market subsumption, this book shows how artists respond to the challenges of political authoritarianism, police violence, right-wing populism, 'post-truth' discourse, economic inequality, pandemics, and the environmental crisis, transforming the public sphere in new and unexpected ways. Going beyond sterile debates about identity politics, diversity and representation that beset the mainstream media, university campuses and other cultural domains, the volume illustrates the ways in which artists are opening up alternative sites of contestation, occupation, and autonomous political thought and action. Newman and Topuzovski examine here the artistic practices of multiple collectives and individuals deeply engaged with social and political activities such as Grupo de Arte Callejero (GAC) and Voina, arguing that the best way to understand these new critical discourses and practices is through an updated political theory of anarchism - or what we call postanarchism - where the insurrection against power and the politics of singularity are central. Featuring, for instance, an examination of significant movements such as Black Lives Matter, as well as its use of artistic tactics such as graffiti, graphic design and movement art, the book launches itself into a vibrant discussion of the extent to which art can produce a multiplicity of practices through the deconstruction of existing legal, political, and cultural identities. By developing an alternative way of exploring the nexus between art and politics through the idea of postanarchism, this book bridges the gap between the two, promoting an understanding of the political role that art can play today and introduces a theory of postanarchism to a non-specialist audience of artists, activists and those generally interested in new sites and directions for radical politics.