Marx: Heterogenous Readings from the XXth Century, edited by Haralambi Panitsidis, Emilia Mineva and Stanimir Panayotov, Sofia: Anarres, 2012.

The book Marx: Heterogenous Readings from the XXth Century is among the year-long results of Social Center Haspel’s project New Left Perspectives supported by RLS – Southeast Europe. It has been a long awaited project in Bulgaria: after 1989, the literature has not seen one such project with so many and crucial texts, the majority of which are here translated and published for the first time. A diverse selection of XXth c. authors - largely unorthodox Marxist scholars from East and West - this book breaks the systemic public silence in Bulgaria on theorizing the new left and of re-reading Marx/Мarxism in new and creative ways. It covers central subject matters such as alienation, the historical limits of capitalism, surplus value theory, etc., with an emphasis on Marxist humanism and the young Marx.

The book is designed as a specimen of what has never been promoted in left theory in Bulgaria: Marxist philosophy banned as “ultra-leftism” or “revisionism” by the conservative party-led theoretical framework of the epoch up until the downfall of the communist regimes and their attending theoretical speculum. At the brink of 1989, left dissidents and theorist have been uncapacitated and silenced by the neocon political and ideological blizzards of the 1990s to speak up against the grain of time: the scandal that the transition was, namely, a password for “capitalism” and “neoliberalism”. Thus, the 1990s and afterwards left a theoretical abyss in left theory and philosophy that few have dared to anthologize and publish about. Among other bold titles these days in the Bulgarian theoretical scene, the book Marx: Heterogenous Readings from the XXth Centurysets a standard for the thinking of left and critical thinking today – a systematic attempt to re-make the spirit of time by bringing to life in Bulgarian language milestone articles and book chapters, as well as authors never translated before in Bulgaria, among them Kojève, Dunayevskaya, Avineri, Kangrga, Marković. 

The book includes 44 texts by Iring Fetscher, Louis Althusser, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Maritain, Raymond Aron, Michel Foucault, Henri Lefebvre, Mikhail Bakunin, AlexandreKojève, Jean Hyppolite, Georg Lukács, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Nikolai Lapin, Shlomo Avineri, Giovanni Sartori, Jürgen Habermas, Robert C. Tucker, Walther Brüning, Raya Dunayevskaya, Leszek Kołakowski, Milan Kangrga, Veljko Korać, Guy Debord, Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, Cornelius Castoriadis, Brian Magee, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Korsch, István Mészáros, Étienne Balibar, Mihailo Marković, Vladislav Inozemtsev, Terry Eagleton and Jacques Derrida, and features a short commentary on Marx’s “Theses on Feuerbach” by Stanimir Panayotov.

The book will be promoted by Prof. Dimiter Denkov (Sofia University) and Prof. Deyan Deyanov (Plovdiv University) who will present it to the audience. The launch will be then immediately followed by a panel discussion titled “The theoretical heritage of Marx: historical limitations and contemporary perspectives” with Prof. Denkov and Prof. Deyanov, as well as the three editors – Prof. Panitsids, Prof. Mineva and Stanimir Panayotov, PhD Candidate.

The book also marks the first edition of Anarres – the publishing leg of Social Center Haspel.