BRUNO GULLI
THE BOOKS
A project in political ontology.
Labor of Fire: The Ontology of Labor between Economy and Culture
ISBN-13: 978-1592131136
In "Labor of Fire", Bruno Gulli offers a timely and much-needed re-examination of the concept of labour. Distinguishing between "productive labour (working for money or subsistence)" and "living labour (working for artistic creation)," Gulli convincingly argues for a definition of work - and a definition of leisure that is not subsumed by work - which realizes the significant importance of artistic and social creativity that belongs at the centre of our definition of labour and the self. Gulli first lays the groundwork for his book by offering a critique of productive labour. Next, Gulli maps out his productive/living labour distinction in detail, reviewing the work of Marx and others. Gulli then examines, through the work of other social and philosophical critics of labour, how productive labour has been institutionalised and how the nature of labour can be liberated from a purely productive definition.
Earthly Plenitudes: A Study on Sovereignty and Labor
ISBN-13: 978-1592139798
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A fierce critique of productivity and sovereignty in the world of labor and everyday life, Bruno Gulli's "Earthly Plenitudes" asks, Can labor exist without sovereignty and without capitalism? He introduces the concept of dignity of individuation to prompt a rethinking of categories of political ontology. Dignity of individuation stresses the notion that the dignity of each and any individual being lies in its being individuated as such; dignity is the irreducible and most essential character of any being. Singularity is a more universal quality. Gulli first reviews approaches to sovereignty by philosophers as varied as Gottfried Leibniz and Georges Bataille, and then looks at concrete examples where the alliance of sovereignty and capital cracks under the potency of living labor. He examines contingent academic labor as an example of the super-exploitation of labor, which has become a global phenomenon, and as such, a clear threat to the sovereign logic of capital. Gulli also looks at disability to assert that a new measure of humanity can only be found outside the schemes of sovereignty, productivity, efficiency, and independence, through care and caring for others, in solidarity and interdependence.
Humanity and the Enemy: How Ethics Can Rid Politics of Violence
ISBN-13: 978-1137456472
Humanity and the Enemy attempts to show the limits and problems of the current and dominant idea of politics based on the friend-and-enemy logic, typical of the thought of Carl Schmitt. It proposes an alternative view in which politics and ethics are inextricably intertwined. This view entails the overcoming of the Enemy thought, namely, of the notion that there must always be an enemy. This overcoming can only be accomplished through resistance on the basis of radical changes in the material and cultural conditions of social life. These changes include the dismantling of the inherently violent system of capital and its law, the elimination of poverty and fear, the abandonment of the logic of total and permanent war, and the establishment of structures for the flowering of human dignity and freedom. Humanity itself must become a political subject in order to deactivate and reject the conditions of inhumanity characterizing and crippling our present world.
