In this lecture, Malcolm James lays the groundwork for thinking about the cultural politics of the alternative – historically and in the context of the contemporary world. Disparaged as the ‘mere’ alternative by the Resistance Through Rituals Collective, this lecture traces the ongoing persistence of the alternative in popular culture and cultural theory. The lecture demonstrates the various ways in which a mass cultural search is being undertaken for alternative forms of social, aesthetic, felt and political life in a moment of aggravated social, economic and ecological violence. Tracing fluctuating lines of inquiry on culture, aesthetics, and sensuality through critical theory, cultural studies, postcolonial studies and Black studies, James argues that the ‘mere’ alternative is a cultural concept well-suited to interrogating these utopian remains. The lecture adopts a political perspective on the study of the alternative. It is not a question, of “arriving at the scene of an area devastated by an earthquake” and laying out a moth-eaten Persian carpet “to display the somewhat tarnished gold and silver vessels”, as Walter Benjamin said of Ernst Bloch but rather in a time of fascist coalescence, to understand how, and with what quality, alternative cultural politics move through the materiality of the same moment.

Masterclass - The Cultural Location of Fascism and Counter-Fascism

Sadism, ressentiment, and reaction permeate contemporary politics and are given spectacular expression on the street and in popular culture. The far-right mobs and politicians that dominate daily news feeds channel an emergent energy and direct it at various outsiders held responsible for national decline. Public and academic debate is familiar with these right-wing or fascist politics and their presence in elections and on the street. Contemporary studies of far-right formations have developed rich sociological, political and psychoanalytic insights on their socio-economic conditions, electoral dynamics, and psychic fantasies.

This masterclass furthers this exploration by moving into the murkier location of culture, arguing that the broader structure of feeling of fascism is only beginning to receive adequate attention. Authoritarian politics thrive on everyday cruelty, humiliation and sadism, but these phenomena are not the unique preserve of the far-right. Rather, they curdle and diffuse in the micropolitics of culture, and are ubiquitous in the cultural objects in which we seek entertainment, pleasure, and enjoyment. The fatalistic programming of Netflix and HBO, or the stark moral designation of insiders and outsiders on social media, fold into a mood otherwise identified with Trumpian deportation videos and UFC. This calls into question the political designations we have for moderate and extreme, left and right, and demands that we get a grip on the mass cultural momentum of those forces.

Corresponding with the paired lecture on ‘The ‘Mere’ Alternative’, this masterclass also asks what counter-fascist energies exist in the same cultural moment, and potentially in the same objects of analysis. These are emergent questions requiring collective investigation. As such, participants in the masterclass will be asked to submit a 1-page intervention in advance of the session outlining questions, ideas or theses. Participants will share and read each other’s interventions before the masterclass takes place. In the masterclass itself, we will discuss and develop our collective sense of the cultural location of fascism and counter-fascism.

Contact person for ECTS

Aylin Kuryel, a.kuryel@uva.nl

Proposed no. of ECTS: 1, based on attendance, submitting a 1-page intervention in advance of the session outlining questions, ideas or theses. Participants will share and read each other’s interventions before the masterclass takes place.

Programme/schedule for the event

Masterclass, 23 October, 10-12 pm | OMHP C1.17
Lecture, 23 October, 3-5 pm | OMHP C2.17