In the Theater of Politics: Althusser’s Aleatory Materialism and Aesthetics

The Void of the Forms of Historicity as Such

“…Warren Montag (2013, 173-89), in an essay that draws a firm line of demarcation between the role of the "vide" in "The Piccolo Teatro" and the sentence I am here glossing, perhaps symptomatically mistakes this early occurrence of the concept of the "take" for bad translation (184,189). To the best of my knowledge, the only study of Althusser's essay that pays due attention to its consonance with his late work is Bargu (2012), to which I am indebted. of their intertwaining in an encounter in which the twain never meet because they always already have, but like ignorant armies clashing by night, amid an absence of relations that is their true relation.…”

Algorithmic interpellation

“…In an effort to locate a space for political transformation in Althusser, many scholars have turned to his later work on aleatory materialism, in which the “hard determinism” of his earlier structuralism is reconfigured as the “soft determinism of radical contingency” (Marasco, 2019, p. 356; see also Bargu, 2012; Goshgarian, 2019; Li, 2017). Althusser's aleatory materialism posits our political and economic conditions as the product of unforeseen, chance encounters that are, accordingly, always vulnerable to new, unpredictable events capable of changing the configurations of these conditions (Bargu, 2012, pp. 87‐ 88).…”

“…Althusser's emphasis on the contingency of necessity presents for some an opportunity for political action. As Bargu pointedly argues, “precisely by the recognition that there is no necessity that undergirds history, it opens greater space for the intervention of agency to change the course of history” (Bargu, 2012, p. 90). The terrain of the conjuncture becomes a site of political struggle, “itself determined by a complex of historical, economic, geographical, and cultural forces,” but nonetheless one that could be otherwise (Marasco, 2019, p. 356).…”

Strange Warmings and other Close (Althusserian) Encounters: John Wesley’s Change of Heart at Aldersgate

“…Instead of the focus on encountering objects in terms of use or their basic existence in themselves, as with Heidegger, Althusser's encounter centers on the possibilities for change from that moment. Bargu (2012) says, "the encounter triangulates structure, conjuncture, and the event, opening up a new surface of possibilities for political theory and practice alike. As such, the encounter constitutes the link between stability and change, determinacy and contingency, theory and practice" (88).…”