Nathaniel Barron offers the first book length account in English of Ernst Bloch’s contribution to a Marxist philosophy of language. It is ambitious both in situating Bloch’s ideas in the broader Marxist engagement with language as it currently exists, and in using Bloch’s utopian categories to challenge that engagement. In particular, Barron reads Voloshinov’s insights into language through Bloch’s categories, and argues that Bloch advances on Voloshinov by offering an understanding of the social materiality of language which is more useful for challenging fascist forms of utterance.
2 Bloch’s Anacoluthon
1 The Anacoluthon
2 The Anacoluthon as Trace
3 The Anacoluthon as Linguistic Tendency
4 The Anacoluthon as Linguistic Latency
3 Bloch and Marxist Philosohpy of Language
1 Voloshinov and Relationality
2 Refraction
3 Neo-Kantianism
4 Freudianism
4 Bloch and Fascism
1 Marx’s Incipit
2 The Eighteenth Brumaire
3 The Expressionism Debate
4 Fascism and Language, Then and Now: Postscript
References Index
This book is of interest to (Marxist) philosophers of language; critical theorists interested in Ernst Bloch; and scholars working in utopian and future studies more generally.