Saul Newman

Saul Newman
Newman in 2009
Born	(1972-03-22) March 22, 1972 (age 49)
Alma mater	University of Sydney University of New South Wales
Occupation	Professor of Political Theory
Employer	Goldsmiths, University of London

Saul Newman (born 22 March 1972) is a British political theorist and central post-anarchist thinker.

Newman took up the term "post-anarchism" as a general term for political philosophies filtering 19th century anarchism through a post-structuralist lens, and later popularized it through his 2001 book From Bakunin to Lacan. Thus he rejects a number of concepts traditionally associated with anarchism, including essentialism, a "positive" human nature, and the concept of revolution. The links between poststructuralism and anarchism have also been developed by thinkers like Todd May and Lewis Call.

As of 2021 Newman is Professor of Political Theory at Goldsmiths College, University of London.^[1] He received his B.A. from the University of Sydney, and his Ph.D in political science from the University of New South Wales. His work has been translated into Turkish, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese and Serbo-Croatian, and has been the subject of a number of debates amongst anarchist theorists and activists as well as academics.^[I]

Thought[]

Some of Newman's publications in recent times deal with Max Stirner, a German philosopher of the mid-19th century, author of the famous book Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (1845) (English translation: The Ego and Its Own, 1907). Newman regards Stirner as a key figure in developing a new radical critique of Western society. He calls Stirner a proto-poststructuralist, who on the one hand basically anticipated modern poststructuralists such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Derrida, but on the other hand already transcended them, providing what they were unable to, namely paving the ground for a "non-essentialist" critique of present liberal capitalist society. Newman's interpretation of Stirner has received some degree of attention, including an endorsement by Ernesto Laclau, who provided a foreword to From Bakunin to Lacan.

Publications[]

Articles[]

• "Universalism/Particularism: Towards a Poststructuralist Politics of Universality", New Formations, 41: 2000.
• "Anarchism and the Politics of Ressentiment", Theory and Event, Vol. 4.3: 2000.
• "War on the State: Stirner's and Deleuze's Anarchism". Anarchist Studies. 9 (2): 147–64. Archived from the original on 12 January 2011.
• Newman, Saul (2001). "Spectres of Stirner: a Contemporary Critique of Ideology" (PDF). Journal of Political Ideologies. 6 (3): 309–330. doi:10.1080/13569310120083026. S2CID 143187982. 2001
• Newman, S. (2001). "Derrida and the Deconstruction of Authority". Philosophy and Social Criticism. 27 (3): 1–20. doi:10.1177/019145370102700301. S2CID 145739092. 2001.
• "Specters of the Uncanny". Telos 124 (Summer 2002). New York: Telos Press.
• Newman, Saul (2002). "Max Stirner and the Politics of Posthumanism" (PDF). Contemporary Political Theory. 1 (2): 221–238. doi:10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300038. S2CID 144268688. 2002.
• Newman, Saul (2002). "Politics of the ego: Stirner's critique of liberalism". Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. 5 (3): 1–26. doi:10.1080/13698230410001702632. S2CID 144506564. October 2002.
• "The Politics of Postanarchism". Institute for Anarchist Studies. 2003.
• Newman, Saul (14 April 2009). "Empiricism, pluralism, and politics in Deleuze and Stirner". Idealistic Studies. 33 (1): 9–24. doi:10.5840/idstudies20033312. ISSN 0046-8541. 2003.
• Newman, Saul (2003). "Stirner and Foucault: Toward a Post-Kantian Freedom". Postmodern Culture. 13 (2). doi:10.1353/pmc.2003.0007. S2CID 144968076. 2003.
• "Anarchism, Marxism and the Bonapartist State". Anarchist Studies. 12 (1). 2004.
• Newman, Saul (2004). "New Reflections on the Theory of Power: A Lacanian Perspective". Contemporary Political Theory. 3 (2): 148–167(20). doi:10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300105. S2CID 145136329. August 2004.
• Newman, Saul (2007). "Anarchism, Poststructuralism and the Future of Radical Politics" (PDF). SubStance. 113 (2): 3–19. 2007.

Books[]

• From Bakunin to Lacan. Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power. Lanham MD: Lexington Books 2001
• Power and Politics in Poststructuralist Thought: New Theories of the Political. London: Routledge 2005
• Unstable Universalities: Postmodernity and Radical Politics. Manchester: Manchester University Press 2007
• Politics Most Unusual: Violence, Sovereignty and Democracy in the 'War on Terror'. (Co-authored with Michael Levine and Damian Cox). New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2009
• The Politics of Post Anarchism. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press: 2010
• (ed.): Max Stirner. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2011 ISBN 978-0-230-28335-0
• . London: Polity 2018

Footnotes[]

External links[]

• Profile of Saul Newman at Goldsmiths College, University of London
• Interview by Sureyyya Evren, 12 April 2005^{[permanent dead link]}
• Video of conference by Saul Newman titled "Postanarchism: between Politics and Anti-Politics"