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COMPETITION: Win our Althusser Bookshelf!

Verso Books22 July 2016

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All this week we're celebrating the first complete English language publication of Reading Capital, the collectively written by Louis Althusser and a group of his students - including future philosophical superstars Jacques Ranciere and Etienne Balibar. Not only do we have 50% off all of Althusser books (click here to activate the 50% discount) until Monday 25th July, but we're also giving away our entire Althusser bookshelf to two lucky winners (plus a further 10 copies of Reading Capital!)




All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning maximum-Althusser-interpolation is to correctly answer each of our six Althusser-related questions. We'll then choose one winner from each side of the Atlantic to win our entire Althusser bookshelf, alongside a futher 10 who will receive a copy of Reading Capital: The Complete Edition. Three questions will be put online now, and three more will be going up tomorrow (Friday). You'll have until 5pm UK time/12pm EST on Monday 25th July to email us your answers to all six questions. We will put all correct entires into a hat, and pick the winners at random! Full details on where to enter will be released tomorrow.

Good luck!

*PLEASE NOTE: the competition is now over and the answers are below. The winners have been contacted.

Thursday's Competition Questions:

1. Which of Althusser’s pupils spent some of their formative years in Tunisia, conspiring with Palestinian Trotskyists? Michel Foucault

2. Where was Althusser first exposed to communist politics? In a German prisoner of war camp

3. On three occasions Althusser offered a different line of demarcation between the young, "ideological" Marx and his later scientific developments. With each new periodization, the moment of transition was pushed further back. In one of his final texts, Althusser concedes that there are only three texts by Marx and Engels completely free from a latent Hegelianism, and could be declared materialist works without reservation. Which were they? Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marginal Notes on Wagner's 'Lehrbuch der Politischen Okonomie,' Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. (Of all the questions, this was subject to the most controversy. We drew our answers from this Althusser essay and the accompanying commentary by Asad Haider and Salar Mohandesi.)


Friday's Competition Questions:

1.Which translator, philosopher and fellow student of Althusser and Foucault at the Ecole Normale Supérieure was to have a profound impact on the life and work of Althusser before his suicide under the influence of schizophrenia in 1964? Jacques Martin

2. In an effort to move away from the Hegelian idea of a central, animating contradiction being the essential cause of all other phenomena, Althusser argued that every element in a social process is determined by all the others. What was the name of this concept? Overdetermination

3. About which thinker did Althusser say - “He is, without a doubt, much more so than Marx, the author who has most fascinated me”? Niccolo Machiavelli

T&Cs and How to Enter:

- Those in North America email verso@versobooks.com. 
- For the rest of the world, including the UK, email enquiries@verso.co.uk. 
- Please put ALTHUSSER BOOKSHELF in the subject line and also tell us your location
- 3 questions will be released on Thursday, July 21st

- 3 questions will be released on Friday, July 22nd (by 2pm GMT, 9AM EST).
- you have until 5pm UK time/12pm EST on Monday 25th July to email us your answers to all six questions
- the winners will be picked completely at random (it us not a race to email us all correct answers first!)
- two super winners (one in North America, one outside of North America) will be picked to win all the books on our Althusser Bookshelf, subject to availability in your region.
- a further 10 people (five in North America, five outside of North America) will be selected, at random, to win a copy of Reading Capital: The Complete Edition.

Good luck!

Filed under: althusser, readingcapital