Crowds and Party

(Paperback)

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Crowds and Party channels the energies of the riotous crowds who took to the streets in the past five years into an argument for the political party. Rejecting the emphasis on individuals and multitudes, Jodi Dean argues that we need to rethink the collective subject of politics. When crowds appear in spaces unauthorized by capital and the statesuch as in the Occupy movement in New York, London and across the worldthey create a gap of possibility. But too many on the Left remain stuck in this beautiful moment of promisethey argue for more of the same, further fragmenting issues and identities, rehearsing the last thirty years of left-wing defeat. In Crowds and Party, Dean argues that previous discussions of the party have missed its affective dimensions, the way it operates as a knot of unconscious processes and binds people together. Dean shows how we can see the party as an organization that can reinvigorate political practice.

Reviews

Jodi Deans new book isnt just a timely reminder that to change our thoroughly and deliberately atomized society demands collective action and militant organization; it is also a passionate analysis of the fractured passion of shared political commitment, linking the enthusiasm of group experience with the sustained and steady discipline of popular empowerment. -- Peter Hallward, author of Damming the Flood
Written clearly, forcefully, and passionately, Dean gives usthe Leftnot just a diagnosis of our defeat but, more importantly, a way out: the communist Party. -- Derek R. Ford * The Hampton Institute *
In this enthralling and exhilarating book, Jodi Dean shows that, contrary to neo-anarchist cliche, the party form and class struggle are very far from being outmoded. The revival of the party has produced a surge of enthusiasm in contemporary left politicsan enthusiasm that Crowds and Party both explains and stokes up. -- Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism
Dean has a powerful point to make: political movements have to move beyond immediate expressionthe crowdand embrace long-term organizationthe party. -- Matt Ray * Open Letters Monthly *
Dean has a powerful point to make: political movements have to move beyond immediate expressionthe crowdand embrace long-term organizationthe party.,Jodi Deans book rejects those who invest positively in the individual or the multiple per se and instead asks for a new and more subversive collective subject of politics. From real crowds like the Occupy Movement to the theoretical conceptions of crowds and mobs, Deans book interrogates the role of the crowd and the party in an attempt to provide a way forward politically. -- Alfie Brown * Hong Kong Review of Books *

Author Bio

Jodi Dean teaches political and media theory in Geneva, New York. She has written or edited eleven books, including The Communist Horizon and Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies.