Fellows


Moishe Postone (1942-2018)
Stadt Wien ifk_Fellow


Duration of fellowship
01. March 2016 bis 30. June 2016

Capital—A Reading



PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Postone’s book argues that, contrary to traditional Marxist readings, Marx’s critical theory is not, most fundamentally, a critique of class exploitation and an affirmation of labor. More basically, it uncovers a historically specific form of social interdependence that structures modernity itself as a form of social life. This form of interdependence gives rise to peculiar, abstract forms of domination that cannot fully be understood in terms of the domination of a class or of any concrete social or political entity. These forms of domination are not static, but temporal. They generate a historical dynamic that is at the very heart of capitalist modernity.

This reading of Marx’s analysis provides the basis for a critical approach that could point beyond the increasingly manifest inadequacies of poststructuralism, deconstruction, and traditional Marxist approaches in ways that could contribute fruitfully to a more adequate understanding of our social universe.



CV

Moishe Postone is the Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of Modern History at the College at the University of Chicago, where he also is Co-Director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory and Co-Editor of Critical Historical Studies. He received his Dr. Phil. (summa cum laude) in political science/sociology from the J.-W.-Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt a.M. in 1983, was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Psychosocial Studies in Chicago (1983—1987) and, since 1987, has been teaching social theory and intellectual history at the University of Chicago. He has written extensively on Marx, Critical Theory, recent global transformations, and modern anti-Semitism.



Publications

History and Heteronomy: Critical Essays, Tokyo 2009; with Eric Santner (eds.), Catastrophe and Meaning: The Holocaust and the Twentieth Century, Chicago 2003; Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory, New York and Cambridge 1993.

Moishe Postone (1942-2018)

Moishe Postone, der große Marxismus-Forscher, ist am 19. März 2018 verstorben. Moishe war von 1. März bis 30. Juni 2016 Senior Fellow am IFK. Wir alle, das IFK_Team, die IFK_Fellows haben die Zeit mit ihm ungemein genossen: Er war uns Lehrer, Freund und Berater in vielen Dingen. Danke Moishe, dass du in unseren Reihen warst! Seinen Lieben aufrichtiges Beileid.

Nachruf auf science.orf.at

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06 April 2016
  • Lecture
IFK
Moishe Postone

HISTORY, TEMPORALITY, AND THE DUAL CRISIS OF CAPITALISM

Responding to the far-reaching transformations of recent decades, Moishe Postone will outline an approach that seeks to place consideration of the historical dynamics of modernity at the center of critical social analysis.

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11 June 2018
14:00 - 16:00
  • Specials
IFK

Remembering Moishe Postone

The IWM and the IFK are jointly organizing a memorial meting for Prof. Moishe Postone, who was a Visiting Fellow at the IWM for the 2017-18 academic year until his stay was tragically cut short by terminal illness in March of this year. He was also in Vienna at the invitation of the IFK | Kunstuniversität Linz in Spring 2016 as Stadt Wien/IFK_Fellow. 

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