Jason E. Smith teaches in the Graduate Art MFA program at Art Center College of Design. His writing and research are largely concerned with contemporary art and aesthetics, modern continental philosophy (Spinoza, Hegel, 20th century), and post-1968 political thought (primarily French and Italian). He has published in Artforum, Critical Inquiry, Parrhesia, Radical Philosophy, South Atlantic Quarterly and Theory&Event, among other places. With Jean-Luc Nancy and Philip Armstrong, he has published Politique et au-delà (Galilée, 2010). He recently edited and contributed to a special issue of Grey Room devoted to the films of Guy Debord, and is currently working on a monograph on the same subject. He was a Cornell Society for the Humanities Fellow in 2013-14.
Abolition After the George Floyd Rebellion: On Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti’s “States of I... more Abolition After the George Floyd Rebellion: On Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti’s “States of Incarceration”
Jason Smith. Review of Moseley, Fred. Marx’s Theory of Value in Chapter 1 of Capital: A Critique ... more Jason Smith. Review of Moseley, Fred. Marx’s Theory of Value in Chapter 1 of Capital: A Critique of Heinrich’s Value-Form Interpretation. H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews. March, 2024. https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=59858
Warum im digitalen Kapitalismus nicht alles neu ist und weshalb der derzeitige Technologieschub m... more Warum im digitalen Kapitalismus nicht alles neu ist und weshalb der derzeitige Technologieschub mehr Jobs schaffen als vernichten wird. Alle 30 Jahre das gleiche Lamento. Die Angst vor technologischen Innovationen und damit verbundene Entlassungswellen kehrte im vergangenen Jahrhundert regelmäßig zurück. Interessanterweise wurden solche Bedenken vor allem von den Gesandten der herrschenden Klasse vorgebracht und keineswegs von jenen, die dem Risiko der Arbeitslosigkeit tatsächlich ausgesetzt gewesen wären. Schon 1930 schrieb Lord Keynes von der " neuen Krankheit " der " technologischen Arbeitslosigkeit " , welche eine Gesellschaft heimsuchte, die ansonsten die Früchte des technologischen Fortschritts erntete: die allumfassende Elektrifizierung der Industrie, die breite Nutzung von Verbrennungsmotoren auf neu asphaltierten Straßennetzen, die Wunder häuslicher Sanitäranlagen sowie die massenhafte Verfügbarkeit von billigem Stahl als Baumaterial. Die nächsten Sorgenfalten wurden Mitte der 1950er Jahre sichtbar, als sich die technologischen Quantensprünge der 1930er nachhaltig bemerkbar zu machen begannen: Die Aussicht auf Atomstrom zeichnete sich ab und die ersten Computer wurden mit schwerer Produktionsmaschinerie verdrahtet. Aufsätze, Studien und Bücher über die Wunder der Kybernetik erschienen in Hülle und Fülle. Eine boomende Industrie der Populär-Soziologie spekulierte mit dem größten Optimismus über eine vor der Tür stehende " Freizeit-Gesellschaft ". Die für die Kapitalistenklasse so typische Faszination für die Kräfte der Technologie wurde nur durch das vermeintliche Schicksal jener Arbeiter_innen getrübt, die aus der Produktionssphäre hinausbefördert werden sollten. Sorgen bereitete vor allem die
Arithmetically, the problem is a combination of collapsing productivity and insufficient capital ... more Arithmetically, the problem is a combination of collapsing productivity and insufficient capital investment. On February 19, 2017, the New York Times ran a feature story on recent changes in the United States oil industry. 2 The focus was on the recent " embrace " of technological innovation in the industry after the 2014 plunge in the global oil market. This was just one of a rash of such pieces in the popular press, relying, as is typical of such writing, on a smattering of skewed, decontextualized data, a healthy serving of the anecdotal, and a host of the worst tech journalism clichés (" a few icons on a computer screen, " " a click of the mouse, " video game marathons as job training, a compulsory reference to drones). Zeroing in on the effects of these changes on workers in west Texas, the article's upshot is unobjectionable enough: as oil prices recover, output rises, and production becomes more capital-intensive, many workers who lost jobs in the downturn will be replaced by machines. These workers, often Latino, are sure to be forced out of these semiskilled , relatively well-paid jobs into other sectors of the labor market, where their skills and experience will serve little purpose. At first blush, the situation seems dire. We are told that some 30% of jobs in the industry were lost after the oil market crash of mid-2014, when employment in the industry was at its peak. But dating these losses from 2014, at the height of a boom in the industry, crops the picture too dramatically. Employment in the oil and gas sector exploded between the turn of the century and the oil market collapse—a historic one, by all measures—a few years ago: by some estimates, employment in the industry shot up by 150% during this period. 3 What is more, while the paper of record warns of " jobs left behind " as prices rise and output picks up again, other reports anticipate another surge in employment in the field, and even a dearth of qualified workers (" oil and gas industry could hire 100,000 workers—if it can find them, " warned one headline late last year). 4 My intention is not to adjudicate these matters, but only to make the following points: first, the effects of automation on employment are never straightforward, but depend on the relationship between output and job replacement. If output rises more quickly than jobs are replaced, the rising ratio of capital-to-labor will nevertheless result in a growing demand for jobs, rather than their scarcity. More important, for my purposes, is the atypical character of the oil sector, with respect to the relation between automation and the larger labor market. Whereas the Times insinuates there is something exemplary about the situation it
Abolition After the George Floyd Rebellion: On Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti’s “States of I... more Abolition After the George Floyd Rebellion: On Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti’s “States of Incarceration”
Jason Smith. Review of Moseley, Fred. Marx’s Theory of Value in Chapter 1 of Capital: A Critique ... more Jason Smith. Review of Moseley, Fred. Marx’s Theory of Value in Chapter 1 of Capital: A Critique of Heinrich’s Value-Form Interpretation. H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews. March, 2024. https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=59858
Warum im digitalen Kapitalismus nicht alles neu ist und weshalb der derzeitige Technologieschub m... more Warum im digitalen Kapitalismus nicht alles neu ist und weshalb der derzeitige Technologieschub mehr Jobs schaffen als vernichten wird. Alle 30 Jahre das gleiche Lamento. Die Angst vor technologischen Innovationen und damit verbundene Entlassungswellen kehrte im vergangenen Jahrhundert regelmäßig zurück. Interessanterweise wurden solche Bedenken vor allem von den Gesandten der herrschenden Klasse vorgebracht und keineswegs von jenen, die dem Risiko der Arbeitslosigkeit tatsächlich ausgesetzt gewesen wären. Schon 1930 schrieb Lord Keynes von der " neuen Krankheit " der " technologischen Arbeitslosigkeit " , welche eine Gesellschaft heimsuchte, die ansonsten die Früchte des technologischen Fortschritts erntete: die allumfassende Elektrifizierung der Industrie, die breite Nutzung von Verbrennungsmotoren auf neu asphaltierten Straßennetzen, die Wunder häuslicher Sanitäranlagen sowie die massenhafte Verfügbarkeit von billigem Stahl als Baumaterial. Die nächsten Sorgenfalten wurden Mitte der 1950er Jahre sichtbar, als sich die technologischen Quantensprünge der 1930er nachhaltig bemerkbar zu machen begannen: Die Aussicht auf Atomstrom zeichnete sich ab und die ersten Computer wurden mit schwerer Produktionsmaschinerie verdrahtet. Aufsätze, Studien und Bücher über die Wunder der Kybernetik erschienen in Hülle und Fülle. Eine boomende Industrie der Populär-Soziologie spekulierte mit dem größten Optimismus über eine vor der Tür stehende " Freizeit-Gesellschaft ". Die für die Kapitalistenklasse so typische Faszination für die Kräfte der Technologie wurde nur durch das vermeintliche Schicksal jener Arbeiter_innen getrübt, die aus der Produktionssphäre hinausbefördert werden sollten. Sorgen bereitete vor allem die
Arithmetically, the problem is a combination of collapsing productivity and insufficient capital ... more Arithmetically, the problem is a combination of collapsing productivity and insufficient capital investment. On February 19, 2017, the New York Times ran a feature story on recent changes in the United States oil industry. 2 The focus was on the recent " embrace " of technological innovation in the industry after the 2014 plunge in the global oil market. This was just one of a rash of such pieces in the popular press, relying, as is typical of such writing, on a smattering of skewed, decontextualized data, a healthy serving of the anecdotal, and a host of the worst tech journalism clichés (" a few icons on a computer screen, " " a click of the mouse, " video game marathons as job training, a compulsory reference to drones). Zeroing in on the effects of these changes on workers in west Texas, the article's upshot is unobjectionable enough: as oil prices recover, output rises, and production becomes more capital-intensive, many workers who lost jobs in the downturn will be replaced by machines. These workers, often Latino, are sure to be forced out of these semiskilled , relatively well-paid jobs into other sectors of the labor market, where their skills and experience will serve little purpose. At first blush, the situation seems dire. We are told that some 30% of jobs in the industry were lost after the oil market crash of mid-2014, when employment in the industry was at its peak. But dating these losses from 2014, at the height of a boom in the industry, crops the picture too dramatically. Employment in the oil and gas sector exploded between the turn of the century and the oil market collapse—a historic one, by all measures—a few years ago: by some estimates, employment in the industry shot up by 150% during this period. 3 What is more, while the paper of record warns of " jobs left behind " as prices rise and output picks up again, other reports anticipate another surge in employment in the field, and even a dearth of qualified workers (" oil and gas industry could hire 100,000 workers—if it can find them, " warned one headline late last year). 4 My intention is not to adjudicate these matters, but only to make the following points: first, the effects of automation on employment are never straightforward, but depend on the relationship between output and job replacement. If output rises more quickly than jobs are replaced, the rising ratio of capital-to-labor will nevertheless result in a growing demand for jobs, rather than their scarcity. More important, for my purposes, is the atypical character of the oil sector, with respect to the relation between automation and the larger labor market. Whereas the Times insinuates there is something exemplary about the situation it
This article examines an often-mentioned but largely undeveloped concept in the work of Giorgio A... more This article examines an often-mentioned but largely undeveloped concept in the work of Giorgio Agamben and in particular his Homo Sacer project: form-of-life. What is at stake in this concept is, I attempt to show, a way of thinking “politics” outside of the space of sovereignty. By examining a short text on this notion published just before the opening installment of the Homo Sacer sequence, this article demonstrates the way this early formulation of the concept is indebted to certain strains of Italian workerist and post-workerist thought. The fundamental question this analysis poses, however, is whether the concept of form-of-life, being to some extent “beyond” the classical space of politics, should in fact be understood as fundamentally aesthetic in nature.
Tony Smith : D’abord, felicitations pour Smart Machines and Service Work. C’est l’un des meilleur... more Tony Smith : D’abord, felicitations pour Smart Machines and Service Work. C’est l’un des meilleurs livres que j’ai lus sur les consequences sociales du changement technologique. Il est beaucoup plus penetrant que les nombreux livres sur le sujet qui drainent l’attention de la grande presse. Beaucoup d’entre eux defendent un techno-utopisme, affirmant que si nous patientons un peu, et elaborons des politiques justes, les technologies avancees declencheront une nouvelle ere de croissance et de ...
Keynote Address, New Encounters In French and Italian Thought
Villanova University, March 13-14, ... more Keynote Address, New Encounters In French and Italian Thought Villanova University, March 13-14, 2015
The following interview was conducted in Los Angeles on December 4, 2013. It took place two days after a lecture given by Alain Badiou in Pasadena, at Art Center College of Design. The lecture’s title was originally announced as “Are We Really in an Age of Riots?” The impetus to speak on this theme was, presumably, spurred by a recent visit to Istanbul, in October of that year. I imagine the intention was to revisit the core thesis of his recent and remarkable book, The Reawakening of History — “I therefore propose to say that we find ourselves in an age of riots wherein a reawakening of History . . . is signaled and takes shape”— in the light of discussions he’d recently had with Turkish militants about the occupation of Gezi Park and Taksim Square in May and June of 2013. Badiou ended up giving a slightly different talk, or at least, one with a different title — “The Structure of the Contemporary World” — that was based on the diagram that is here published as an appendix. The diagram in question maps the way a vast array of contemporary phenomena (among them: fascisms, world war, and “new political truth[s]”) are generated by a cruciform structure produced by the intersection of two elementary axes: one opposing capitalism and communism, the other, modernity and tradition.
Echoes of that lecture can be heard in the interview published here, in particular Badiou’s contention that analysis of contemporary struggles and émeutes should center on the class composition of the rioters involved, specifically on the convergences and missed encounters between four different strata: educated and popular youth, the international or nomadic proletariat, and ordinary wage-earners. Nevertheless, the interview for the most part circles back through some of propositions Badiou found in The Reawakening of History, in the interest of clarifying and developing them: the relation between recent revolts and the ongoing economic crisis, and the way relatively recent changes in capitalism have shaped contemporary struggles, in particular the decreasing role of the classical strike, and the emergence of the blockade and the “strike by proxy” as key tactical innovations. Attention is also given to the place and importance of the anti-police and anti-State riots of November 2005 (in France) and August 2011 (in the UK) in this landscape. In this sense, the discussion that follows can be seen as an attempt to answer the question posed by Badiou’s proposed title — “Are We Really in an Age of Riots?” — and as an appendix or afterward to his short book, written in the wake of the mass movements of Tunisia and Egypt, on the reawakening of “History.”
My partial translation into Italian of Jason E. Smith's essay, "Missed Encounters", a piece on Gu... more My partial translation into Italian of Jason E. Smith's essay, "Missed Encounters", a piece on Guy Debord's short film, "Critique of Separation (1961), and appeared in Grey Room 52, monograph devoted to the films of the French 'strategist'.
This essay situates recent calls for a return to the organizational form of the party by Bruno Bo... more This essay situates recent calls for a return to the organizational form of the party by Bruno Bosteels and Jodi Dean in the current historical conjuncture. This conjuncture is described as an “age of riots”; this age, in turn, is defined both by a global capitalist crisis and an emergent “politics of the street.” The limits of this form of politics, I argue, give real urgency to the felt need for a new type of party form. My exploration of this question has recourse to a little-known text by Louis Althusser on the innovations of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, in particular the development of organs of power external to the Party. I conclude with a consideration of the way in which the notion of the commune poses a countermodel for thinking political organization that any current reconsideration of the party form must address.
Introduction to Vittorio Morfino, Plural Temporality: Transindividuality and the Aleatory, ed. Ja... more Introduction to Vittorio Morfino, Plural Temporality: Transindividuality and the Aleatory, ed. Jason E. Smith (Brill Academic Publishers, 2014)
Introduction to Alain Badiou and Élisabeth Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan, Past and Present, tr. Jason... more Introduction to Alain Badiou and Élisabeth Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan, Past and Present, tr. Jason E. Smith (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2014).
The negotiation between French and Italian activists and intellectuals in the mid-twentieth centu... more The negotiation between French and Italian activists and intellectuals in the mid-twentieth century opened a field of theoretical experimentation, the effects of which pose a challenge for contemporary politics. This encounter materialized through various collectives, traversing the neat intellectual and practical boundaries of the academy. Whether through the images of intellectuals in the streets, or through radical activist groups extending from the Situationist International to Tiqqun, the laboratory of French and Italian thought poses a constellation of conceptual weapons that remain vital for any contestation with the state of things. These implements have been successful in intervening within contemporary struggles on the level of theory, practice, and the construction of history in the present.
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Current Project by Jason E. Smith
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2015/11/field-notes/all-tomorrows-parties
Books by Jason E. Smith
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2015/11/field-notes/all-tomorrows-parties
Published on the blog of Franco Senia on August 17, 2018:
http://francosenia.blogspot.com/2018/08/passacarte-salariati.html
Villanova University, March 13-14, 2015
The following interview was conducted in Los Angeles on December 4, 2013. It took place two days after a lecture given by Alain Badiou in Pasadena, at Art Center College of Design. The lecture’s title was originally announced as “Are We Really in an Age of Riots?” The impetus to speak on this theme was, presumably, spurred by a recent visit to Istanbul, in October of that year. I imagine the intention was to revisit the core thesis of his recent and remarkable book, The Reawakening of History — “I therefore propose to say that we find ourselves in an age of riots wherein a reawakening of History . . . is signaled and takes shape”— in the light of discussions he’d recently had with Turkish militants about the occupation of Gezi Park and Taksim Square in May and June of 2013. Badiou ended up giving a slightly different talk, or at least, one with a different title — “The Structure of the Contemporary World” — that was based on the diagram that is here published as an appendix. The diagram in question maps the way a vast array of contemporary phenomena (among them: fascisms, world war, and “new political truth[s]”) are generated by a cruciform structure produced by the intersection of two elementary axes: one opposing capitalism and communism, the other, modernity and tradition.
Echoes of that lecture can be heard in the interview published here, in particular Badiou’s contention that analysis of contemporary struggles and émeutes should center on the class composition of the rioters involved, specifically on the convergences and missed encounters between four different strata: educated and popular youth, the international or nomadic proletariat, and ordinary wage-earners. Nevertheless, the interview for the most part circles back through some of propositions Badiou found in The Reawakening of History, in the interest of clarifying and developing them: the relation between recent revolts and the ongoing economic crisis, and the way relatively recent changes in capitalism have shaped contemporary struggles, in particular the decreasing role of the classical strike, and the emergence of the blockade and the “strike by proxy” as key tactical innovations. Attention is also given to the place and importance of the anti-police and anti-State riots of November 2005 (in France) and August 2011 (in the UK) in this landscape. In this sense, the discussion that follows can be seen as an attempt to answer the question posed by Badiou’s proposed title — “Are We Really in an Age of Riots?” — and as an appendix or afterward to his short book, written in the wake of the mass movements of Tunisia and Egypt, on the reawakening of “History.”
Columbia University Press, 2014).