A revolutionary compilation of speeches which produced a political groundwork for many of the radical movements in the following decades The now legendary Dialectics of Liberation congress, held in London in 1967, was a unique expression of the politics of dissent. Existential psychiatrists, Marxist intellectuals, anarchists, and political leaders met to discuss key social issues. Edited by David Cooper, The Dialectics of Liberation compiles interventions from congress contributors Stokely Carmichael, Herbert Marcuse, R. D. Laing, Paul Sweezy, and others, to explore the roots of social violence. Against a backdrop of rising student frustration, racism, class inequality, and environmental degradation—a setting familiar to readers today—the conference aimed to create genuine revolutionary momentum by fusing ideology and action on the levels of the individual and of mass society. The Dialectics of Liberation captures the rise of a forceful style of political activity that came to characterize the following years.

This book develops Marcuse’s critique of advanced industrial society and deploys it as a lens to critically analyze contemporary neoliberalism and its structural failures. In the chapters, Marcuse scholars explore three related topics: First, Marcuse’s theory as it applies to the relationship between neoliberalism and authoritarianism, including both the historical relationship between the two and the modern re-emergence of authoritarianism and nationalism in neoliberal states today. Second, a re-examination of the relationship between neoliberal subjectivity and technological rationality that seeks to understand the stabilizing forces of neoliberal society and the way these forces register at the level of thought. Third and finally, Marcuse’s conception of socialism in conversation with contemporary neoliberal rationality, and ways in which alternatives to the status quo remain possible. Together, this volume contributes to recent discussions of neoliberalism and contribute to the development of Marcuse scholarship.

"The Dialectics of Black Liberation: The African Liberation Support Committee is a study that analyses the important ideological debates (Marxism and Nationalism), anti-imperialist social movements, and support for African liberation. Over four key years grass roots organizing was the basis for a vibrant national movement"--

Special 2018 Edition From the new Introduction by Michelle Fine, Graduate Center, CUNY : "Why now, you may ask, should I return to a book written in 1988? Because, in Maxine's words: 'When freedom is the question, it is always time to begin.'" In The Dialectic of Freedom, Maxine Greene argues that freedom must be achieved through continuing resistance to the forces that limit, condition, determine, and—too frequently—oppress. Examining the interrelationship between freedom, possibility, and imagination in American education, Greene taps the fields of philosophy, history, educational theory, and literature in order to discuss the many struggles that have characterized Americans’ quests for freedom in the midst of what is conceived to be a free society. Accounts of the lives of women, immigrants, and minority groups highlight the ways in which Americans have gone in search of openings in their lived situations, learned to look at things as if they could be otherwise, and taken action on what they found. Greene presents a unique overview of American concepts and images of freedom from Jefferson’s time to the present. She examines the ways in which the disenfranchised have historically understood and acted on their freedom—or lack of it—in dealing with perceived and real obstacles to expression and empowerment. Strong emphasis is placed on the focal role of the arts and art experience in releasing human imagination and enabling the young to reach toward their vision of the possible. The author concludes with suggestions for approaches to teaching and learning that can provoke both educators and students to take initiatives, to transcend limits, and to pursue freedom—not in solitude, but in reciprocity with others, not in privacy, but in a public space.

This collection of essays explores the ways in which the defense of liberty can be bolstered by use of a dialectical method—that is, a mode of analysis devoted to grasping the full context of philosophical, cultural, and social factors requisite to the sustenance of human freedom. Its strength lies in the variety of disciplines and perspectives represented by contributors who apply explicitly dialectical tools to a classical liberal / libertarian analysis of social and cultural issues. In its conjoining of a dialectical method, typically associated with the socialist left, to a defense of individual liberty, typically associated with the libertarian right, this anthology challenges contemporary attitudes on both ends of the political spectrum. Though this conjunction of dialectics and liberty has been explored before in several works, including a trilogy of books written by one of our coeditors (Chris Matthew Sciabarra), this volume will be the first one of its kind to bring together accomplished scholars in political science, economics, philosophy, aesthetics, psychology, law, history, education, and rhetoric.