Alberto Toscano (born 1 January 1977) is an Italian
cultural critic
A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole. Cultural criticism has significant overlap with social and cultural theory. While such criticism is simply part of the self-consciousness of the culture, the social positions of ...
,
social theorist
Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena.Seidman, S., 2016. Contested knowledge: Social theory today. John Wiley & Sons. A tool used by social scientists, social theories relat ...
,
philosopher, and
translator
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...
. He has translated the work of
Alain Badiou
Alain Badiou (; ; born 17 January 1937) is a French philosopher, formerly chair of Philosophy at the École normale supérieure (ENS) and founder of the faculty of Philosophy of the Université de Paris VIII with Gilles Deleuze, Michel Fouca ...
, including Badiou's ''The Century'' and ''Logics of Worlds''. He served as both editor and translator of Badiou's ''Theoretical Writings'' and ''On Beckett''.
Work
Toscano's own work has been described both as an investigation of the persistence of the idea of communism in contemporary thought and a genealogical inquiry into the concept of fanaticism. He is the author of ''The Theatre of Production'' (2006), and his book ''Fanaticism: The Uses of an Idea'' was published in 2010. Toscano has published on contemporary philosophy, politics and social theory. In an article on the
Tarnac 9 case, written for ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' in December 2009, Toscano argues that society is losing its ability to distinguish between vandalism and terrorism.
A reader in
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
at
Goldsmiths, University of London
Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wo ...
, Toscano is a member of the editorial board of the journal ''
Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory''. According to
Alex Callinicos
Alexander Theodore Callinicos (born 24 July 1950) is a Rhodesian-born British political theorist and activist. An adherent of Trotskyism, he is a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and serves as its Internati ...
this journal "has been one of the main drivers of the academic revival of
Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
"
since the mid-1990s.
Selected bibliography
;Translated books
*Alain Badiou, ''Logics of Worlds'', London: Continuum, 2009.
*Alain Badiou, ''The Century'', London: Polity, 2007.
*(with M. Mandarini) Antonio Negri, ''Political Descartes: Reason, Ideology and the Bourgeois Project'', London: Verso, 2007.
*Alain Badiou, ''Handbook of Inaesthetics'', Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.
*(with
Ray Brassier
Raymond Brassier (born 1965) is a British philosopher. He is member of the philosophy faculty at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, known for his work in philosophical realism. He was formerly Research Fellow at the Centre for Resear ...
), Alain Badiou, ''Theoretical Writings'', London: Continuum, 2004.
*(with E.R. Albert), Éric Alliez, ''The Signature of the World, Or, What is Deleuze and Guattari's Philosophy?'', London: Continuum, 2004.
*(with
Nina Power), Alain Badiou, ''On Beckett'', London: Clinamen Press, 2003.
;Authored books
*''Theatre of Production: Philosophy and Individuation between Kant and Deleuze'', Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006.
*''Fanaticism: The Uses of an Idea'', New York: Verso, 2010. ''Le Fanatisme. Modes d'emploi''
La fabrique 2011 (FR).
*''Cartographies of the Absolute'', with Jeff Kinkle, Winchester, UK: Zero Books, 2015.
Film appearances
* ''
Marx Reloaded'',
ZDF/
Arte
Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture.
It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plu ...
, April 2011.
See also
*
Speculative realism
Speculative realism is a movement in contemporary Continental-inspired philosophy (also known as post-Continental philosophy) that defines itself loosely in its stance of metaphysical realism against its interpretation of the dominant forms of p ...
References
External links
Toscano's Faculty Homepageat Goldsmiths, University of London website
Rethinking Marxism and Religion an essay Toscano published at the website: ''Bienvenue sur le site du séminaire Marx au XXIe siècle''
Toscano's Author Page at Institute for the Unstable MediaCommunist knowledge/Communist power
– transcript of Toscano's paper delivered on day two of the Birkbeck Communism conference in London, March 2009
Dual Power Revisited: From Civil War to Biopolitical Islam
essay which appeared in the journal Soft Target; this is the on-line version
an on-line reprint of an essay by Toscano first published in ''Cosmos and History'' 5.1 (2009)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Toscano, Alberto
Living people
British philosophers
Social philosophers
British sociologists
French–English translators
Marxist theorists
1977 births