A defense of the radical imagination from a scholar of social movements.
Political theorist and philosopher Richard Gilman-Opalsky’s Imaginary Power, Real Horizons is a tribute to the imagination and to its necessity for liberatory struggle. “‘Impractical’ is the name given to anyone who imagines something radically other than what exists, ” he writes. However, many things—such as the abolition of slavery—were dismissed as impractical before they came to be.
In a warm, plainspoken manner, these essays chart the affects of creativity and utopianism through topics as varied as the cyclical nature of popular movements; the international history of May Day; the experience of teaching political theory and Marxism in contemporary China; and the revolutionary aspirations of Free Jazz. The human imagination is a real, world-creating power, and those who would declare otherwise have a poor understanding of history.
Imaginary Power, Real Horizons is a call to action for those who would dare to dream of a society organized by a different logic than capitalism.
Table of Content
Introduction: A Question of Imagination: What Can it Mean to Be a Communist Today?
Chapter 1: Theory as an Everyday Thing
Chapter 2: Inversion and Abolition
Chapter 3: Horizons of the George Floyd Rebellion
Chapter 4: Bad Imagination: Capitalism of “Communist” China
Chapter 5: How Dare We Speak of Love?
Chapter 6: Pandemic Gemeinwesen and the Communist Secret of Love
Chapter 7: Horizons of a Riotous Epistemology
Chapter 8: Free Jazz and Other Insurrections
Chapter 9: The Practicality of Utopianism
Chapter 10: Insurgent Thoughts for Future May Days
Conclusion: Dreaming Their Nightmares
Index
About the author
Richard Gilman-Opalsky is professor of political theory and philosophy in the School of Politics and International Affairs at the University of Illinois. He is author of seven books, including The Communism of Love, Specters of Revolt, and Precarious Communism. Gilman-Opalsky has lectured widely throughout the world, and his work has been translated and published in Greek, Spanish, French, and German.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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