Soundings is a journal of political thought which has been published since 1995. It describes its aim as "contributing to the process of left renewal" and is published in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 by Lawrence & Wishart. Its founding editor was Michael Rustin (University of East London

University of East London

The University of East London is a university located in the London Borough of Newham, East London, England, based at two campuses in Stratford and Docklands areas...

) and its current editor is Jonathan Rutherford (Middlesex University

Middlesex University

Middlesex University is a university in north London, England. It is located in the historic county boundaries of Middlesex from which it takes its name. It is one of the post-1992 universities and is a member of Million+ working group...

).

Soundings has acted as a focus for post-Marxist

Post-Marxism

Post-Marxism has two related, but different uses: the socio-economic circumstances of Eastern Europe, especially in the ex-soviet republics after the Soviet Union's end; and the extrapolations of the philosophers and social theorists basing their postulations upon Karl Marx's writings and Marxism...

 thought since the Communist Party of Great Britain

Communist Party of Great Britain

The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...

 dissolved itself in the early 1990s. Most of its contributors are unaligned (though on the left) or are members of the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 (though often highly critical of it).

It was launched with a special issue edited by Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)

Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist and sociologist who has lived and worked in the United Kingdom since 1951. Hall, along with Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, was one of the founding figures of the school of thought that is now known as British Cultural Studies or The Birmingham School of...

 and can be seen as a continuation of the Gramscian Eurocommunism

Eurocommunism

Eurocommunism was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties to develop a theory and practice of social transformation that was more relevant in a Western European democracy and less aligned to the influence or control of the Communist Party of the Soviet...

 espoused by the defunct Marxism Today

Marxism Today

Marxism Today was the theoretical journal of the Communist Party of Great Britain and was disestablished in 1991. It was particularly important during the 1980s under the editorship of Martin Jacques...

. Contributors then and since have included Zygmunt Bauman

Zygmunt Bauman

Zygmunt Bauman is a Polish sociologist who, since 1971, has resided in England after being driven out of Poland by an anti-Semitic campaign, engineered by the Communist government which he had previously supported...

, Beatrix Campbell

Beatrix Campbell

Mary Lorimer Beatrix Campbell, OBE is a British campaigning journalist and author.Since the mid 1970s, she has published numerous articles and book reviews in such publications as Marxism Today, Red Rag, Time Out, Feminist Review, New Statesman, New Socialist, The Guardian, The Independent,...

, Chantal Mouffe

Chantal Mouffe

Chantal Mouffe is a Belgian political theorist.-Work:Chantal Mouffe studied at Louvain, Paris and Essex and has worked in many universities throughout the world . She has also held visiting positions at Harvard, Cornell, Princeton and the CNRS...

, Ernesto Laclau

Ernesto Laclau

Ernesto Laclau is an Argentine political theorist often described as post-Marxist.He studied History in Buenos Aires, graduating from the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires in 1964, and received a PhD from Essex University in 1977.Since the 1970s he has been Professor of Political Theory at the...

, Peter Singer

Peter Singer

Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...

, Madeleine Bunting

Madeleine Bunting

Madeleine Bunting is an English journalist and writer who is an Associate Editor and columnist on The Guardian.Born in Oswaldkirk, North Yorkshire, Bunting was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where she read History, and won a Knox postgraduate fellowship to study Politics and teach...

 and Neal Lawson

Neal Lawson

Neal Lawson is a political commentator in the United Kingdom.He was born on the 21st March 1963 in Lewisham and brought up in 1960s/70s in Bexleyheath . He got into politics through his father who was a printer in Fleet Street and joined the Labour Party at 16...

.

Having begun with a critical analysis of the Communitarian ideals then in the ascendant under Tony Blair

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

, most recently it has probed notions of identity, globalisation, and the so-called Respect agenda

Respect agenda

The Respect agenda was launched in September 2005 by Tony Blair in the United Kingdom. Tony Blair described it as being about "putting the law abiding majority back in charge of their communities"...

. Each issue also features reviews, poetry, and short fiction, with contributors including Barry Gifford

Barry Gifford

Barry Gifford is an American author, poet, and screenwriter known for his distinctive mix of American landscapes and film noir- and Beat Generation-influenced literary madness....

 and Joolz Denby

Joolz Denby

Joolz Denby is a poet, novelist and artist based in Bradford, UK.-Biography:...

.