Raya Dunayevskaya is hailed as the founder of Marxist-Humanism in the United States. In this new collection of her essays co-editors Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson have crafted a work in which the true power and originality of Dunayevskaya’s ideas are displayed. This extensive collection of writings on Hegel, Marx, and dialectics captures Dunayevskaya’s central dictum that, contrary to the established views of Hegelians and Marxists, Hegel was of signal importance to the theory and practice of Marxism. The Power of Negativity sheds light not only on Marxist-Humanism and the rooting of Dunayevskaya’s Marxist-Humanist theories in Hegel, but also on the life of one of America’s most penetrating and provocative critical thinkers.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Raya Dunayevskaya’s Concept of Dialectic
PART I: THE PHILOSOPHIC MOMENT OF MARXIST-HUMANISM
1. Presentation on the Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy (June 1, 1987)
2. Letters on Hegel’s Absolutes of May 12 and 20, 1953
PART II: STUDIES IN HEGELIAN AND MARXIAN DIALECTICS, 1956—63
3. Notes on Hegel’s Phenomenology
4. Rough Notes on Hegel’s Science of Logic
5. Notes on the Smaller Logic from the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences
6. Dialogue on the Dialectic
PART III: THEORY AND PRACTICE AT A TURNING POINT, 1964—71
7. Letter of October 27, 1964, to Herbert Marcuse
8. Hegel’s Dialectic and the Freedom Struggles of the 1960s
9. Toward Philosophy and Revolution, from Hegel to Sartre and from Marx to Mao
PART IV: AFTER PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION: HEGEL’S ABSOLUTES AND MARX’S HUMANISM, 1972—81
10. Hegel’s Absolute as New Beginning
11. Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Fanon, and the Dialectics of Liberation Today
12. On Lukács’ Marxism
13. The Hegel-Marx Relation Revisited
PART V: THE CHANGED WORLD AND THE NEED FOR PHILOSOPHIC NEW BEGINNINGS, 1982—87
14. Marxist-Humanism and the Battle of Ideas
15. Forces of Revolt as Reason, Philosophy as Force of Revolt
16. Another Look at Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind
17. Reconsidering the Dialectic: Critiquing Lenin… and the Dialectics of Philosophy and Organization
Appendix: Excerpts from 1949-51 Philosophic Correspondence with C. L. R. James and Grace Lee Boggs
“Dunayevskaya writes, particularly in the letters and talks, like a person “drunk” on Hegel. But rather than causing her to lose control, this drunkeness is a measure of her intellectual excitement, an infectious one that gets transferred to her readers. She is especially good in linking Hegel, Marx, and Lenin. Her varied attempts to explain the importance of Hegel’s absolute idea and theory of negation for the traditions that followed, but also for the hoped-for revolution, are as clear and convincing as any I ‘ve seen from her pen. It’s a truly impressive display, and one that will delight as well as instruct most readers.“
—Bertell Ollman
“With the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya, the continent of revolutionary thought underwent a seismic shift, the world-historical reverberations of which we are still feeling today and which continue to grow stronger in this new millennium as the crisis of world capitalism intensifies. Dunayevskaya is one of the great revolutionary thinkers of the last century and her work on the dialectics of philosophy is unsurpassed in the development of Marxist humanism. Expertly edited by Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson, this volume is destined to become a classic. History bequeathes us few gifts, and it is up to the present generation of revolutionaries to take advantage of this opportunity to engage with Dunaveyskaya’s most important ideas, condensed in this exceptional edited edition.“
—Peter McLaren
“Brilliant theorist, committed activist, and passionate scholar, Raya Dunayevskaya was a role-model for my generation. We are fortunate to have her back in this wonderfully edited work that conveys the excitement of a time when, for Raya and her interlocutors (C.L.R James and Herbert Marcuse among others), philosophy and the struggle against social injustice were two sides of the same urgent endeavor. Her understanding of dialectics as a method whereby each generation has to discover its own revolutionary task, her insistence that Marxism means humanism in the most inclusive sense and that socialism means the social actualization of individual freedom ― these are ideas that appear young and fresh against the weary and sophistic pessimism that dominates much theory in the academy today. And more: in contrast to the boring pap of commodified culture and political sound bites, Raya’s interpretation makes the logic of Hegel’s absolute idea a fascinating and compelling read.“
—Susan Buck-Morss
Simon Gros 
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