Nietzsche and Critical Social Theory

Nietzsche and Critical Social Theory: Affirmation, Animosity and Ambiguity brings together scholars from a variety of disciplinary background to assess the salience of Nietzsche for critical social theory today. In the context of global economic crises and the rise of authoritarian regimes across the U.S. and Europe, the question asked by these scholars is: why Nietzsche now? Containing several innovative interventions in the areas of queer theory, political economy, critical race theory, labour history, hip-hop aesthetics, sociology, the Frankfurt School, social movements studies, science and technology studies, pedagogy, and ludic studies, this volume pushes Nietzsche studies in new directions, seeking to broaden the appeal of Nietzsche beyond philosophy and political theory.

ISBN: 9781642593631

Publication date: December 22, 2020

Acknowledgements

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: Situating this Volume

Part 1: Ressentiment and Redemption: Overcoming the Slave Revolt of Morals, Politics, and Aesthetics

1 Wounded Attachments?: Slave Morality, the Left, and the Future of Revolutionary Desire

  C. Heike Schotten

2 The Trump Horror Show through Nietzschean Perspectives

  Douglas Kellner

3 Nietzsche, Adorno, and the Musical Spirit of Ressentiment and Redemption

  Nancy S. Love

4 Hip-Hop as Critical Tragic Realism: Cultural Analysis beyond Irony and Conflict

  James Meeker and T.J. Berard

5 Nietzsche’s Economy: Revisiting the Slave Revolt in Morals

  Allison Merrick

Part 2: On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Nietzsche for Marxist Critique

6 Marx, Nietzsche, and the Contradictions of Capitalism

  Ishay Landa

7 Labor’s Will to Power: Nietzsche, American Syndicalism, and the Politics of Liberation

  Kristin Lawler

8 Marxism, Anarchism, and the Nietzschean Critique of Capitalism

  Gary Yeritsian

9 Between Nietzsche and Marx: “Great Politics and What They Cost”

  Babette Babich

Part 3: Beyond Truth and Relativism: Nietzsche and the Question of Knowledge

10 Toward a Gay Social Science: A Nietzschean-Marxist Alternative to Conventional Sociological Theory

  Michael Roberts

11 Resuscitating Sociological Theory: Nietzsche and Adorno on Error and Speculations

  Jeremiah Morelock

12 The Science of the Last Man: Nietzsche and the Early Frankfurt School

  Daniel Sullivan

13 The Death of Truth – Guilt, Anxiety, Dread, and Hope: Nietzschean Confessions

  Christine Payne

Part 4: All-Too-Human: The Question of the Human Condition in Light of Nietzsche

14 Nietzsche’s Genealogy as a Critique of Racial Narratives and the Loss of Solidarity

  Jung Min Choi and John W. Murphy

15 Nietzsche’s “Anti-Darwinism”: A Deflationary Critique

  Peter Atterton

16 Play as Watchword: Nietzsche and Foucault

  Dawn Helphand

17 Critique of Subjectivity and Affirmation of Pleasure in Adorno and Nietzsche

  Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi

18 Nietzsche and Happiness

  Bryan S. Turner

19 Beyond Good and Evil: Nietzschean Pedagogy in the History Classroom

  Eve Kornfeld

Index