Jason Read with Michael Hardt
Join us for a special Saturday afternoon event as we partner with Red May Seattle to celebrate Verso Books. We'll host two readings that day: At 1:00 pm, we'll welcome Beverley Best, author of The Automatic Fetish, to the Readings Room, and following an intermission, we'll host Jason Read, author of The Double Shift, at 3:00 pm for a second book talk. Author Michael Hardt will join Jason onstage.
The Double Shift turns towards the intersection of Marx and Spinoza in order to examine the nature of our affective, ideological, and strategic attachment to work. Through an examination of contemporary capitalism and popular culture it argues that the current moment can be defined as one of "negative solidarity."
The hardship and difficulty of work is seen not as the basis for alienation and calls for its transformation but rather an identification with the difficulties and hardships of work. This distortion of the work ethic leads to a celebration of capitalists as job creators and suspicion towards anyone who is not seen as a "real worker."
The book is grounded in philosophy, specifically Marx and Spinoza, and is in dialogue with Plato, Smith, Hegel, and Arendt, but, at the same time, in examining contemporary ideologies and ideas about work it discusses motivational meetings at Apple Stores, the culture of Silicon Valley, and films and television from Office Space to Better Call Saul
The Double Shift argues for a transformation of our collective imagination and attachment to work.
Jason Read is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern Maine. His favorite philosopher is Spinoza. He is the author of The Micro-Politics of Capital: Marx and the Prehistory of the Present which re-reads Marx in light of the contemporary critical interrogation of subjectivity. His newest book is The Double Shift: Spinoza and Marx on the Politics of Work from Verso. He's also the author of The Politics of Transindividuality and The Production of Subjectivity, both available from Haymarket Books.
Michael Hardt teaches political theory in the Literature Program at Duke University. He is co-author, with Antonio Negri, of the Empire trilogy and, most recently, The Subversive Seventies. He is co-director with Sandro Mezzadra of The Social Movements Lab.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2422330-0
