Bradley J. Macdonald

While William Morris (1834-1896) is generally considered one of the most important cultural and political figures of late Victorian England, there is avid disagreement on the way in which we can understand the interconnections between his aesthetic commitments (as a celebrated poet and decorative artist influenced by Pre-Raphaelitism and Aestheticism) and his later revolutionary socialist advocacy. As opposed to dominant interpretations within Morris scholarship, Bradley J. Macdonald argues for the importance of understanding the role a “critical notion of beauty” had in moving Morris toward a theory of socialism that took seriously the way in which desire, pleasure, and “beauty” (as applied to all externals of human life, not just art works) could be regenerated only through radical transformations in socioeconomic life. Consequently , William Morris's development represents an interesting example of cultural politics. Given this genealogy, Macdonald clarifies, Morris’s mature political theory incorporated a very important commitment to not just economic justice, but also, among other distinctive applications ; ecological sustainability, making him one of the first eco-socialist theorists within the Western tradition, and also an early proponent of what is today known as “degrowth communism.”

Draws upon Marx, Western Marxism, and poststructuralist theory to constructively engage contemporary issues.Performing Marx looks at what it means to be a Marxist dealing with contemporary political and theoretical developments in the twenty-first century. Drawing upon Marx's work, Western Marxism, and poststructuralist theory, Bradley J. Macdonald explores how a living tradition of Marx's ideas can constructively engage a politics of desire and pleasure, ecological sustainability, a politics of everyday life that takes seriously popular culture, and the nature of globalization and of the radical forces being arrayed against the logics of global capitalism. By engaging such crucial issues, Macdonald also provides important clarifications of the work of William Morris, Guy Debord and the situationists, Michel Foucault, Antonio Negri, Ernesto Laclau, and Chantal Mouffe, as they relate to Marx.

This book collects the most important essays of the late James B. Macdonald, educational theorist and cultural critic. Given the rise of importance of educational thinkers within the current move toward interdisciplinary theory dialogue. Macdonald's work stands as an important link between earlier technical discussions associated with curriculum development and contemporary moves toward viewing the central role of educational institutions and discourses in social and cultural life. Macdonald's essays - spanning from the early '60s to the early '80s - argue for the necessity of curriculum theorizing in the attempt to create a more humane schooling environment, a process that he consistently linked to larger cultural and social transformations.