Speaker: Peter Thomas
The paper that this podcast is based on explores the different formulations of the notion of Permanent Revolution in the work of Antonio Gramsci and Leon Trotsky. Although Gramsci himself explicitly rejected Trotskys notion of permanent revolution as a reversion to a strategy of war of movement, he also claimed that his development of the theory of hegemony could be regarded as a contemporary form of Marx and Engelss notion of the Revolution in Permanence. The paper will analyse the similarities and differences of the two seemingly divergent claims to inherit a central perspective of the classical Marxist tradition, and will argue that thinking the concepts of permanent and passive revolution together enables us to clarify and to make explicit dimensions that remain underdeveloped in each theorists respective work.
Peter Thomas is Lecturer in the History of Political Thought at Brunel University, London.He is the author of The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism (Brill, 2009), and (with Juha Koivisto) Mapping Communication and Media Research: Conjunctures, Institutions, Challenges (Tampere University Press, 2010) and co-editor (with Riccardo Bellofiore and Guido Starosta) of In Marxs Laboratory: Critical Interpretations of the Grundrisse (Brill, 2010). He has published widely on Marxist political theory and philosophy, the history of political thought and the history of philosophy.
This series of podcasts is taken from the Historical Materialism and International Relations seminar series convened by Alexander Anievas. The seminars are given at 5 pm on Thursdays in Seminar Room C, Department of Politics and International Relations.
The Historical Materialism and International Relations seminar series seeks to explore and develop the multiple points of contact between Marxist theory and international relations, most broadly defined. It does so with the double aim of investigating the critical and explanatory potentials of Marxism in the domain of international relations, as well as to probe what an engagement with ‘the international’ might contribute to Marxist theory. The seminar series is associated with the journal of Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory and its forthcoming ‘Historical Materialism and International Relations’ book series.
For more information, please see the Centre for International Studies website.