Marxism after postmodernism: Rethinking the emancipatory political subject

The concept of a historical-social and political emancipatory subject, central in Marxism, has been rebuked by postmodern theories. Authors examine the encounter between Marxist and postmodernist theories pondering how to conceive of an emancipatory-political subject. The article outlines a typology of the different responses of Marxist thinkers to the postmodernist challenge. The authors distinguish between 'total rejection' (anti-postmodern Marxism) and 'total acceptance' (postMarxism), and between 'rejection in part' (Marxist postmodernism) and 'acceptance in-part' (synthetic Marxist postmodernism). Based on this typology, the authors discuss the different approaches to the question of the emancipatory subject.