Martin Evan Jay (born May 4, 1944) is an American
intellectual historian whose research interests connected history with the
critical theory of the Frankfurt School,
social theory,
cultural criticism, and
historiography.
He is currently the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History Emeritus at the
University of California, Berkeley. He was elected a Member of the
American Philosophical Society in 2019.
Career
Jay received his
Bachelor of Arts degree from
Union College in 1965. In 1971, he completed his
Doctor of Philosophy degree in history at
Harvard University under the tutelage of
H. Stuart Hughes
Henry Stuart Hughes (1916–1999) was an American historian, professor, and activist. He advocated the application of psychoanalysis to history.
Early life
Hughes was born on May 16, 1916, in New York City, the son of Marjory Bruce Stuart and C ...
. His dissertation was later revised into the book ''The Dialectical Imagination,'' which covers the history of the
Frankfurt School from 1923 to 1950. While he was conducting research for his dissertation, he established a correspondence and friendship with many Frankfurt School members.
Leo Löwenthal provided him access to personal letters and documents for his research. Jay's work since then has explored
Marxism,
socialism,
historiography,
cultural criticism,
visual culture, and the place of
post-structuralism and
post-modernism in European intellectual history. His current research is focused on nominalism and photography. He is a recipient of the 2010/2011 Berlin Prize Fellowship from the
American Academy in Berlin.
He also has a regular column in the quarterly journal ''
Salmagundi''.
Personal life
Jay was born on May 4, 1944, in
New York City.
He is Jewish.
He married English professor and literary critic
Catherine Gallagher Catherine Gallagher (born 16 February 1945) is an American historicist, literary critic, and Victorianist, and is Professor Emerita of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Gallagher is the author of ''Nobody's Story: The Vanishing Acts ...
circa 1973; they met in 1970 at Berkeley when she was an English graduate student and he was an assistant professor of history.
Published works
*1973
The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-50'
* “The Concept of Totality in Lukács and Adorno”
''Telos''32 (Summer 1977). New York: Telos Press.
*1984 ''Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukács to Habermas''
*1984 ''Adorno''.
Fontana Modern Masters.
*1985 ''Permanent Exiles: Essays on the Intellectual Migration from Germany to America''
*1988 ''Fin-de-Siècle Socialism and Other Essays''
*1993 ''Force Fields: Between Intellectual History and Cultural Criticism''
*1993 ''Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought''
*1998 ''Cultural Semantics: Keywords of the Age''
*2003 ''Refractions of Violence''
*2004 ''Songs of Experience: Modern American and European Variations on a Universal Theme''
*2010 ''The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics
*2011 ''Essays from the Edge: Parerga and Paralipomena''
*2016 ''Reason after Its Eclipse: On Late Critical Theory''
*2020 ''Splinters in Your Eye: Frankfurt School Provocations''
See also
*
American philosophy
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevert ...
*
List of American philosophers
References
External links
Martin Jay's Faculty PageAn Interview with Martin Jay on the topic of ConsumptionHistory, Experience, and Politics: An Interview with Martin Jay
*The Modernist Imagination:Intellectual History and Critical Theory: Essays in Honor of Martin Jay, eds. Warren Breckman, Peter E. Gordon, A. Dirk Moses, Samuel Moyn and Elliot Neaman (New York, Berghahn Books, 2009).
"Pants on Fire: The Straight Goods on Lying - A Conversation with Martin Jay"
''Ideas Roadshow'', 2015
An Interview with Martin Jay about his 2020 work ''Splinters in Your Eye'' with the New Books Network
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jay, Martin
1944 births
Jewish American academics
American philosophers
Jewish American historians
American male non-fiction writers
Harvard University alumni
Intellectual historians
Living people
Scholars of Marxism
Union College (New York) alumni
University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty
Members of the American Philosophical Society
The Bronx High School of Science alumni
Historians from New York (state)
Historians from California