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' (post-Marxism), 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.