Semiotext(e)'s book Autonomia: Post-Political Politics about the Autonomia movement, which contains first-hand documents and contemporaneous analysis from it's most influential theorists.

'Most of the writers who contributed to the issue were locked up at the time in Italian jails.... I was trying to draw the attention of the American Left, which still believed in Eurocommunism, to the fate of Autonomia. The survival of the last politically creative movement in the West was at stake, but no one in the United States seemed to realize that, or be willing to listen. Put together as events in Italy were unfolding, the Autonomia issue—which has no equivalent in Italy, or anywhere for that matter—arrived too late, but it remains an energizing account of a movement that disappeared without bearing a trace, but with a big future still ahead of it.'

—Sylvère Lotringer

Semiotext(e) is reissuing in book form its legendary magazine issue Autonomia: Post-Political Politics, originally published in New York in 1980. Edited by Sylvère Lotringer and Christian Marazzi with the direct participation of the main leaders and theorists of the Autonomist movement (including Antonio Negri, Mario Tronti, Franco Piperno, Oreste Scalzone, Paolo Virno, Sergio Bologna, and Franco Berardi), this volume is the only first-hand document and contemporaneous analysis that exists of the most innovative post-'68 radical movement in the West. The movement itself was broken when Autonomia members were falsely accused of (and prosecuted for) being the intellectual masterminds of the Red Brigades; but even after the end of Autonomia, this book remains a crucial testimony of the way this creative, futuristic, neo-anarchistic, post-ideological, and non-representative political movement of young workers and intellectuals anticipated issues that are now confronting us in the wake of Empire.

Contents:

In the Shadow of the Red Brigades by Sylvere Lotringer

1. INTRODUCTION

The Return of Politics by Sylvere Lotringer and Christian Marazzi

2. THE IMPOSSIBLE CLASS

Fiat Has Branded Me by Giampaolo Pansa

The Strategy of Refusal by Mario Tronti

The Tribe of Moles by Sergio Bologna

Domination and Sabotage by Toni Negri

Autoreduction Movements in Turin by Eddy Cherki and Michel Wieviorka

From Guaranteeism to Armed Politics by Oreste Scalzone

In the Beginning was Gramsci by Henri Weber

What the Communists Really Are by Censor

The State of Spectacle by Guy Debord

Lama Sabachtani?

Painted Politics by Maurizio Torealta

The Proliferation of Margins by Felix Guattari

Dreamers of a Successful Life by Paolo Virno

Hegel and the Wobblies by Eric Alliez

Let's do Justice to our Comrade P.38

Nonviolence in Bologna by Judith Malina

Radio Alice-Free Radio by Collective A and Traverso

The City in the Female Gender by Lia Magale

3. APRIL 7 ARRESTS

Anatomy of Autonomy by Bifo

April 7: Repression in Italy by CARI

Workerist Publications and Bios

Open Letter to Negri's Judges by Gilles Deleuze

The ANSA Story by Ferrucio Gambino and Seth Tilet

Negri's Interrogation

Memorial from Prison

The Naked Truth about Moro's Detention by Franco Piperno

Piperno's Counteroffensive

Violence of the State by I Volsci

The Sandstorm Method by Dario Fo

4. BEYOND TERRORISM

From Terrorism to Guerrilla Warfare by Franco Piperno

Living with Guerilla Warfare by Lucio Castellano

Why Italy? by Felix Guattari

On Armed Struggle by Paolo Virno

On the Recognition of Armed Struggle by Lanfranco Pace and Franco Piperno

Sorry, It's Exactly the Opposite by Massimo Cacciari

The Red Harvest by Leonardo Sciascia

Beyond Terrorism by Oreste Scalzone

I, Toni Negri by Eugene Scalfari

Unpublished Interview with Piperno

Popular Defense and Popular Assault by Paul Virilio

A Bridadist Speaks by Valerio Morucci

Dissenting Brigadists

Who is the Traitor? by Renato Curcio

J'Accuse by Toni Negri

5. FIVE

March 16, 1978: The Aldo Moro Kidnapping by B. Madaudo Melville