Bruno Gulli | Kingsborough Community College, CUNY (original) (raw)
Books by Bruno Gulli
Lexington Books, 2020
In Singularities at the Threshold: The Ontology of Unrest, Bruno Gullì calls into question the c... more In Singularities at the Threshold: The Ontology of Unrest, Bruno Gullì calls into question the concept of the independent and sovereign individual of the liberal (and neoliberal) tradition from the standpoint of the ontology of singularity, that is, the plural constitution of what appears to be an individual. Singularity is not the result of a process of individuation, but the process itself. He argues that the process of individuation—whereby at each stage everything appears to be individuated as such, to be an individual thing—is in reality always already plural, a process of transindividuation, or better, trans-dividuation. Gullì further examines why singularity is usually confused with individuality; what comes after the sovereign and independent individual, after the subject; and what the role of subversive and liberated singularities is in bringing about a new ethos and a better world.
Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination, 2019
Humanity and the Enemy attempts to show the limits and problems of the current and dominant idea ... more Humanity and the Enemy attempts to show the limits and problems of the current and dominant idea of politics based on the friend-and-enemy logic, typical of the thought of Carl Schmitt. It proposes an alternative view in which politics and ethics are inextricably intertwined. This view entails the overcoming of the Enemy thought, namely, of the notion that there must always be an enemy. This overcoming can only be accomplished through resistance on the basis of radical changes in the material and cultural conditions of social life. These changes include the dismantling of the inherently violent system of capital and its law, the elimination of poverty and fear, the abandonment of the logic of total and permanent war, and the establishment of structures for the flowering of human dignity and freedom. Humanity itself must become a political subject in order to deactivate and reject the conditions of inhumanity characterizing and crippling our present world.
Papers by Bruno Gulli
Socialism and Democracy, 2012
In this paper we review some recent ideas of synchronization theory. We apply this theory to stud... more In this paper we review some recent ideas of synchronization theory. We apply this theory to study the different synchronization aspects of uni-directionally coupled pair of chaotic one-dimensional Gaussian maps.
Parse journal, 2019
This essay intends to call into question the relationship between art and labor in the present ag... more This essay intends to call into question the relationship between art and labor in the present age of precarity and disposability while, at the same time, recognizing their common ontological provenance. It describes the political and ontological rupture whereby both art and labor return to themselves, to their radix, which is itself a poetic and practical vortex. This can unleash new powers for a reshaping of singularities and a grounding of the common. Transfiguration and transformation become possible, while the stability of number (especially ‘the one’), which is neither of poiesis nor praxis, becomes likely to vacillate and fall.
In this essay, I will consider, through Gramsci, some philosophical and political concepts of the... more In this essay, I will consider, through Gramsci, some philosophical and political concepts of the Marxist tradition which, because of their linguistic form, are today controversial or unpopular. I will deal particularly with the concepts of orthodoxy, production and totality. The main purpose of my study is to show how, in Gramsci's vision, Marxism, or the philosophy of praxis, is a new and total, but dynamic, conception of the world whose interest cannot be limited to one or the other sphere of the totality of life. Culture itself, which for Gramsci is wider than philosophy, is the totality of forms that go from production to artistic and poetic creation, from manual labor to philosophical activity. At the end of the present essay, I will propose a new interpretation of today's cursed concept of totality: totality as plenitude. It is not a question of finding a new and better word for an old concept. Rather, what I would like to do is contribute to an understanding of this central and profound concept of the philosophy of praxis while avoiding falling into easy
Labour is the living, form-giving fire; it is the transitoriness of things, their temporality, as... more Labour is the living, form-giving fire; it is the transitoriness of things, their temporality, as their formation by living time.-Marx
This paper is part of a larger, book-length study on two apparently unrelated concepts, sovereign... more This paper is part of a larger, book-length study on two apparently unrelated concepts, sovereignty and labor, whose link must be temporarily, that is, analytically, established and then dissolved in a new synthesis, the reduction of the former to the latter. To be sure, a proper understanding of the problem investing sovereignty and labor can only be acquired through an analysis which includes a history, cursory though it might be, of the concept of sovereignty from Jean Bodin to Carl Schmitt, as well as aspects of the juridical critique of the concept of sovereignty. This I will endeavor to provide in the larger study I mentioned above. In the present paper, I will limit myself to the philosophical critique of the concept of sovereignty made by Jacques Maritain, but I will include several references to Schmitt. I will also deal with the special use that Georges Bataille makes of the concept of sovereignty. This is important because it is here that the link between sovereignty and labor becomes visible. My critique of Bataille, which in part relies on Maritain's conceptual framework, seeks to show that the concept of sovereignty is untenable even in the unorthodox form presented by Bataille himself and to establish the ontology of labor as the only criterion, the only site, for an alternative way of thinking, not simply about democracy, but about common life.
In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor shoul... more In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor should not be seen as an aberration, a scandalous (but perhaps temporary) anomaly that could be solved within and by the very system that produces it. Rather, the ever-increasing number of contingent academic workers, and the consequent reduction in the number and power of full-timers, is the norm. Not only is it the norm, but it is the coherent, logical consequence of the corporatization process. That is, there could be no corporatization without the logic of sovereignty and domination whereby contingent labor in the first place, and all other labor in the second, must be, as is, superexploited. The originary idea of the university as a place for learning (perhaps even disinterested learning) is gone. 1 To have faith in that idea at this point in time would be having faith in a romantic past, it would be a useless, if not politically dangerous, nostalgia. Yet, if the past is barred, the futu...
In "Labor of Fire", Bruno Gulli offers a timely and much-needed re-examination of the c... more In "Labor of Fire", Bruno Gulli offers a timely and much-needed re-examination of the concept of labour. Distinguishing between "productive labour (working for money or subsistence)" and "living labour (working for artistic creation)," Gulli convincingly argues for a definition of work - and a definition of leisure that is not subsumed by work - which realizes the significant importance of artistic and social creativity that belongs at the centre of our definition of labour and the self. Gulli first lays the groundwork for his book by offering a critique of productive labour. Next, Gulli maps out his productive/living labour distinction in detail, reviewing the work of Marx and others. Gulli then examines, through the work of other social and philosophical critics of labour, how productive labour has been institutionalised and how the nature of labour can be liberated from a purely productive definition.
THE SENTENCE ABOVE is from William Burroughs’ novel The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead (Burroughs,... more THE SENTENCE ABOVE is from William Burroughs’ novel The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead (Burroughs, 1969, 142). The whole book is highly political, though of course not in the mainstream sense of politics: who, for instance, will be the next president of this or that country. In fact, this latter sense of ‘political’ is a miserable caricature of what it should be, though a caricature with often nefarious consequences. The nefarious nature of such consequences clearly showed itself on a worldwide scale during the last four years of American governance, and it will become even more resonant and clear after the recent US presidential elections, for we are now advancing into a zone and a time of great danger, into the dark of the sleep of reason, where the secular and enlightened endeavors by means of which we grew out of barbarism (as Leopardi says) will be completely annihilated and monstrous forms of thought, or more poignantly of non-thought, will emerge instead. The recent events in ...
In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor shoul... more In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor should not be seen as an aberration, a scandalous (but perhaps temporary) anomaly that could be solved within and by the very system that produces it. Rather, the ever-increasing number of contingent academic workers, and the consequent reduction in the number and power of full-timers, is the norm. Not only is it the norm, but it is the coherent, logical consequence of the corporatization process. That is, there could be no corporatization without the logic of sovereignty and domination whereby contingent labor in the first place, and all other labor in the second, must be, as is, superexploited. The originary idea of the university as a place for learning (perhaps even disinterested learning) is gone. To have faith in that idea at this point in time would be having faith in a romantic past, it would be a useless, if not politically dangerous, nostalgia. Yet, if the past is barred, the futur...
Workplace a Journal For Academic Labor, Jun 11, 2009
In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor shoul... more In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor should not be seen as an aberration, a scandalous (but perhaps temporary) anomaly that could be solved within and by the very system that produces it. Rather, the ever-increasing number of ...
Lexington Books, 2020
In Singularities at the Threshold: The Ontology of Unrest, Bruno Gullì calls into question the c... more In Singularities at the Threshold: The Ontology of Unrest, Bruno Gullì calls into question the concept of the independent and sovereign individual of the liberal (and neoliberal) tradition from the standpoint of the ontology of singularity, that is, the plural constitution of what appears to be an individual. Singularity is not the result of a process of individuation, but the process itself. He argues that the process of individuation—whereby at each stage everything appears to be individuated as such, to be an individual thing—is in reality always already plural, a process of transindividuation, or better, trans-dividuation. Gullì further examines why singularity is usually confused with individuality; what comes after the sovereign and independent individual, after the subject; and what the role of subversive and liberated singularities is in bringing about a new ethos and a better world.
Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination, 2019
Humanity and the Enemy attempts to show the limits and problems of the current and dominant idea ... more Humanity and the Enemy attempts to show the limits and problems of the current and dominant idea of politics based on the friend-and-enemy logic, typical of the thought of Carl Schmitt. It proposes an alternative view in which politics and ethics are inextricably intertwined. This view entails the overcoming of the Enemy thought, namely, of the notion that there must always be an enemy. This overcoming can only be accomplished through resistance on the basis of radical changes in the material and cultural conditions of social life. These changes include the dismantling of the inherently violent system of capital and its law, the elimination of poverty and fear, the abandonment of the logic of total and permanent war, and the establishment of structures for the flowering of human dignity and freedom. Humanity itself must become a political subject in order to deactivate and reject the conditions of inhumanity characterizing and crippling our present world.
Socialism and Democracy, 2012
In this paper we review some recent ideas of synchronization theory. We apply this theory to stud... more In this paper we review some recent ideas of synchronization theory. We apply this theory to study the different synchronization aspects of uni-directionally coupled pair of chaotic one-dimensional Gaussian maps.
Parse journal, 2019
This essay intends to call into question the relationship between art and labor in the present ag... more This essay intends to call into question the relationship between art and labor in the present age of precarity and disposability while, at the same time, recognizing their common ontological provenance. It describes the political and ontological rupture whereby both art and labor return to themselves, to their radix, which is itself a poetic and practical vortex. This can unleash new powers for a reshaping of singularities and a grounding of the common. Transfiguration and transformation become possible, while the stability of number (especially ‘the one’), which is neither of poiesis nor praxis, becomes likely to vacillate and fall.
In this essay, I will consider, through Gramsci, some philosophical and political concepts of the... more In this essay, I will consider, through Gramsci, some philosophical and political concepts of the Marxist tradition which, because of their linguistic form, are today controversial or unpopular. I will deal particularly with the concepts of orthodoxy, production and totality. The main purpose of my study is to show how, in Gramsci's vision, Marxism, or the philosophy of praxis, is a new and total, but dynamic, conception of the world whose interest cannot be limited to one or the other sphere of the totality of life. Culture itself, which for Gramsci is wider than philosophy, is the totality of forms that go from production to artistic and poetic creation, from manual labor to philosophical activity. At the end of the present essay, I will propose a new interpretation of today's cursed concept of totality: totality as plenitude. It is not a question of finding a new and better word for an old concept. Rather, what I would like to do is contribute to an understanding of this central and profound concept of the philosophy of praxis while avoiding falling into easy
Labour is the living, form-giving fire; it is the transitoriness of things, their temporality, as... more Labour is the living, form-giving fire; it is the transitoriness of things, their temporality, as their formation by living time.-Marx
This paper is part of a larger, book-length study on two apparently unrelated concepts, sovereign... more This paper is part of a larger, book-length study on two apparently unrelated concepts, sovereignty and labor, whose link must be temporarily, that is, analytically, established and then dissolved in a new synthesis, the reduction of the former to the latter. To be sure, a proper understanding of the problem investing sovereignty and labor can only be acquired through an analysis which includes a history, cursory though it might be, of the concept of sovereignty from Jean Bodin to Carl Schmitt, as well as aspects of the juridical critique of the concept of sovereignty. This I will endeavor to provide in the larger study I mentioned above. In the present paper, I will limit myself to the philosophical critique of the concept of sovereignty made by Jacques Maritain, but I will include several references to Schmitt. I will also deal with the special use that Georges Bataille makes of the concept of sovereignty. This is important because it is here that the link between sovereignty and labor becomes visible. My critique of Bataille, which in part relies on Maritain's conceptual framework, seeks to show that the concept of sovereignty is untenable even in the unorthodox form presented by Bataille himself and to establish the ontology of labor as the only criterion, the only site, for an alternative way of thinking, not simply about democracy, but about common life.
In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor shoul... more In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor should not be seen as an aberration, a scandalous (but perhaps temporary) anomaly that could be solved within and by the very system that produces it. Rather, the ever-increasing number of contingent academic workers, and the consequent reduction in the number and power of full-timers, is the norm. Not only is it the norm, but it is the coherent, logical consequence of the corporatization process. That is, there could be no corporatization without the logic of sovereignty and domination whereby contingent labor in the first place, and all other labor in the second, must be, as is, superexploited. The originary idea of the university as a place for learning (perhaps even disinterested learning) is gone. 1 To have faith in that idea at this point in time would be having faith in a romantic past, it would be a useless, if not politically dangerous, nostalgia. Yet, if the past is barred, the futu...
In "Labor of Fire", Bruno Gulli offers a timely and much-needed re-examination of the c... more In "Labor of Fire", Bruno Gulli offers a timely and much-needed re-examination of the concept of labour. Distinguishing between "productive labour (working for money or subsistence)" and "living labour (working for artistic creation)," Gulli convincingly argues for a definition of work - and a definition of leisure that is not subsumed by work - which realizes the significant importance of artistic and social creativity that belongs at the centre of our definition of labour and the self. Gulli first lays the groundwork for his book by offering a critique of productive labour. Next, Gulli maps out his productive/living labour distinction in detail, reviewing the work of Marx and others. Gulli then examines, through the work of other social and philosophical critics of labour, how productive labour has been institutionalised and how the nature of labour can be liberated from a purely productive definition.
THE SENTENCE ABOVE is from William Burroughs’ novel The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead (Burroughs,... more THE SENTENCE ABOVE is from William Burroughs’ novel The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead (Burroughs, 1969, 142). The whole book is highly political, though of course not in the mainstream sense of politics: who, for instance, will be the next president of this or that country. In fact, this latter sense of ‘political’ is a miserable caricature of what it should be, though a caricature with often nefarious consequences. The nefarious nature of such consequences clearly showed itself on a worldwide scale during the last four years of American governance, and it will become even more resonant and clear after the recent US presidential elections, for we are now advancing into a zone and a time of great danger, into the dark of the sleep of reason, where the secular and enlightened endeavors by means of which we grew out of barbarism (as Leopardi says) will be completely annihilated and monstrous forms of thought, or more poignantly of non-thought, will emerge instead. The recent events in ...
In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor shoul... more In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor should not be seen as an aberration, a scandalous (but perhaps temporary) anomaly that could be solved within and by the very system that produces it. Rather, the ever-increasing number of contingent academic workers, and the consequent reduction in the number and power of full-timers, is the norm. Not only is it the norm, but it is the coherent, logical consequence of the corporatization process. That is, there could be no corporatization without the logic of sovereignty and domination whereby contingent labor in the first place, and all other labor in the second, must be, as is, superexploited. The originary idea of the university as a place for learning (perhaps even disinterested learning) is gone. To have faith in that idea at this point in time would be having faith in a romantic past, it would be a useless, if not politically dangerous, nostalgia. Yet, if the past is barred, the futur...
Workplace a Journal For Academic Labor, Jun 11, 2009
In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor shoul... more In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor should not be seen as an aberration, a scandalous (but perhaps temporary) anomaly that could be solved within and by the very system that produces it. Rather, the ever-increasing number of ...
Page 1. ab F-OF ire or THE ONTOLOGY OF LABOR BETWEEN ECONOMY AND CULTUREBRUNO GULLI Page 2. Page ... more Page 1. ab F-OF ire or THE ONTOLOGY OF LABOR BETWEEN ECONOMY AND CULTUREBRUNO GULLI Page 2. Page 3. ... Page 5. Labor of Fire The Ontology of Labor between Economy and Culture BRUNO GULLI TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia Page 6. ...
Institute for the Radical Imagination, 2020
COVID-19 and the emergent virocene has made insurgency explicit in the real State of emergency. ... more COVID-19 and the emergent virocene has made insurgency explicit in the real State of emergency. We have been awakened from our collective ahistorical and apolitical slumbers. In an instant, the mantra of there is no alterna- tive has been replaced by whatever happens, nothing will ever be the same. The ideology that says radical trans- formation is unrealistic has been irrevocably discredited. The bonds and rituals of everyday life have been loos- ened, fragmented and disjointed. What seemed inevitable and iron clad now feels flimsy as nation states globally scramble to find solutions that don’t exist. This opens up a space for thinking, and for politics. This new situation underscores a critical need for both practical intervention and an attempt at building a convergent philosophy that anticipates the praxis of the future.
Situations: Project for the Radical Imagination, 2020
Institute for the Radical Imagination, 2020
Manifesto co-authored by the editorial collective of the Institute for the Radical Imagination: M... more Manifesto co-authored by the editorial collective of the Institute for the Radical Imagination: Michael Pelias, Peter Bratsis, Bruno Gullì, Josh Kolbo, Kristin Lawler, Jeremy Glick, Arto Artinian, Tony Iantosca, Dominic Wetzel.
Institute for the Radical Imagination, 2020
For the Situations collective, Michael Pelias Peter Bratsis Bruno Gullì Josh Kolbo Kristin Lawler... more For the Situations collective,
Michael Pelias
Peter Bratsis
Bruno Gullì
Josh Kolbo
Kristin Lawler
Jeremy Glick
Arto Artinian
Tony Iantosca
Dominic Wetzel
The Graduate Center-CUNY. Liberal Studies, 2018
