Postcapitalist Desire

Mark Fisher — 2021

A collection of transcripts from Mark Fisher's final series of lectures at Goldsmiths, University of London, in late 2016. Edited and with an introduction by Matt Colquhoun, this collection of lecture notes and transcriptions reveals acclaimed writer and blogger Mark Fisher in his element -- the classroom -- outlining a project that Fisher's death left so bittersweetly unfinished. Beginning with that most fundamental of questions -- "Do we really want what we say we want?" -- Fisher explores the relationship between desire and capitalism, and wonders what new forms of desire we might still excavate from the past, present, and future. From the emergence and failure of the counterculture in the 1970s to the continued development of his left-accelerationist line of thinking, this volume charts a tragically interrupted course for thinking about the raising of a new kind of consciousness, and the cultural and political implications of doing so. For Fisher, this process of consciousness raising was always, fundamentally, psychedelic -- just not in the way that we might think...

Reviews

Lily@variouslilies

Mar 30, 2022

Finished, in the haste of catching trains and flights, trapped in the liminal space of stations and airports, even more eerie in the dismal light of pandemic regulations. That Fisher is as captivating a teacher as he was a brilliant writer, did come as a surprise, but not his transparent ability to blend theories and ideas with real life. Mark Fisher was a believer in a way out of the nightmarish spiral of capitalism right until the very end, and this comes across in his brilliant lectures. As with his writings, the air of sympathy, of kindness, of caring for something greater and beyond, is always present. I was instantly fascinated by his proposed syllabus and plans for the entire course, but of course we were denied the pleasure of watching how Fisher would conclude his intimate exploration of libidinal desire and how we can reclaim and reshape it to set the world free. This book is immensely precious. It is a worthy companion to Fisher's published work as one of the influential cultural critics and thinkers in our time, and for the countless people he has inspired, a bittersweet trail of his ideas and theoretical aspirations, before he left us.

Elena Kuran@elenakatherine

Feb 7, 2024

Jack Hartgrave@cyberbullydad

Sep 22, 2022

Highlights

Tao Oat@tao

These [left-wing projects] are all inadequate and all for the same reason, over and over again, in that they don't take the desire of the capitalized seriously. They reject it and therefore keep re-inscribing moralism.

Page 204