Overview

Ideology and Interpellation examines the relation between ideology, the humanist subject, interpellation, and the role of theory. Placing the work of Althusser, Rancière, Baudrillard, and Laruelle into dialogue, this book offers a useful starting point for understanding the demands and possibilities for ideological critique after the deconstruction of the subject. With chapters devoted to each French theorist’s critique, the book first examines the historical and political roots of Althusser's theory of ideology, then placing focus on Rancière's historiographic work in the following chapter. Coming hot on the heels of his blistering critique of his teacher, Althusser, in Althusser's Lesson, Rancière argues that reformers' failure to “interpellate” or recruit workers was due to their work-centric attitude and failure to understand the workers' dreams of lives devoted to unwaged aesthetic and philosophical labour. The fifth chapter shows how Baudrillard disrupts Althusser's fundamental belief that ideology can be unmasked to reveal true structures, by exposing how a society of simulation realizes the untrue by integrating it into the fabric of experience. Finally, Fardy explores how Laruelle calls into question Althusser's presumption that “standard philosophy” is sufficiently guarded against the lures of ideology. On the contrary, Laruelle suggests that this view is in fact that of the ideology of standard philosophy. Shedding light on the continuing relevance of post-Althusserian Marxist thought, Ideology and Interpellation further demonstrates the need today for a rigorous theory of ideology, traces of which can be found in Althusser's legacy.

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9781350358911

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With an eye out for aesthetic analogy and a tumultuous political context, both a history of the concepts of ideology and interpellation and a critique of them, Fardy’s study will be an indispensable resource for reflection on Althusser’s concepts and their mutation and challenging by some major thinkers in Althusser’s wake: Rancière, Baudrillard and Laruelle. * Philip Beitchman, Professor, Department of English, Medgar Evers College of The City University of New York, USA *

Author Information

Jonathan Fardy is Associate Professor of Art History and History at Idaho State University, USA. He is author of Laruelle and Art: The Aesthetics of Non-Philosophy (Bloomsbury, 2020) and The Real Is Radical: Marx after Laruelle (Bloomsbury, 2022).

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