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Marx and Singularity attempts to understand the development of Marx's thought as a search for individual realization. Drawing upon the concept of singularity in contemporary French theory—and mapping its own terminology onto Marx's vocabulary—this book challenges those who see no difference between the early and the “mature” Marx. The productivity of the notion of singularity is argued to be based on the fact that it allows us to highlight the element of individual realization, while stressing at the same time its distance from the modern conception of individuality so central to capitalist ideology. The “correlate” of singularity is reciprocity—moving and unstable between the “individual” and the “collective”—which occurs in the class struggle.
List of contents
1. The question of individuality
1.1. Individuals, determination and contingency
1.2. Gattungswesen and politics: from the Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State to The Holy Family
1.3. The individual separation between bourgeois and citoyen
1.4. A society without relations
1.5. The need for a change of perspective: The German Ideology
2. Beyond the ‘private – social’ dichotomy
2.1. Social power and randomness in The German Ideology
2.2. The ambivalence of the community
2.3. Singularity and practice: the realisation of ‘individuals as such’.
2.4. Common class-action
2.5. Towards 1848: thinking in the conjuncture
3. Social Nexus and Indifference
3.1. The genesis of individuality and capitalism in the Grundrisse: the breakthrough of the critique of political economy
3.2. Gemeinwesen in precapitalist social formations
3.3. Society as an ensemble not of individuals, but of relations
3.4. The subject between universality and emptiness
3.5. Isolation: a sentence or a potentiality
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Luca Basso Ph.D. University of Pisa, studied in Padua and in Berlin. He is Researcher of Political Philosophy at the University of Padua. He has published many articles and three monographs: Individuo e comunità nella filosofia politica di Leibniz (Rubbettino, 2005), Socialità e isolamento: la singolarità in Marx (Carocci, 2008) of which the current book is a revised edition, and Agire in comune. Antropologia e politica nell’ultimo Marx (Ombre Corte, 2012).
Summary
The productivity of the notion of singularity is argued to be based on the fact that it allows us to highlight the element of individual realisation, simultaneously stressing its distance from the modern conception of individuality. The “correlate” of singularity is the reciprocity, moving and unstable, between the “individual” and the “collective,” which occurs in class struggles.
Foreword
Title will be prominently featured at all of the academic conferences we attend
Promotion to coincide with the annual Historical Materialism conference, which has a growing academic audience (400 graduate students and professors in 2010)
Reviews will be sought from left leaning academic journals 
