Ideology and Interpellation (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

Description

Bringing Althusser into dialogue with Laruelle, Rancière, and Baudrillard, Jonathan Fardy examines the ground-breaking Althusserian theory of ideological interpellation through a close reading of three of its critics.

With three chapters devoted to each French theorist's critique, this book first 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. The second chapter focuses on Rancière's historiographic work. Coming hot on the heels of his blistering critique of his teacher, Althusser, in Althusser's Lesson, Rancière argues that employers' 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. Finally, Fardy 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.

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.