Todd May

Todd Gifford May^[1] (born 1955) is a political philosopher who writes on topics of anarchism, poststructuralism, and post-structuralist anarchism. More recently he has published books on existentialism and moral philosophy. He is currently Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of Philosophy at Clemson University.^[2]

Career[]

In 1989, May received a doctorate at Pennsylvania State University in continental philosophy.^[3] For the first part of his career, he focused on French philosophy, before turning to moral and political philosophy. May has been teaching moral and political philosophy for over thirty years, beginning as a graduate instructor at Penn State before becoming a visiting assistant professor at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.^[1] May has been teaching at Clemson since 1991, and he currently teaches as the Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of Philosophy.^[2] May also teaches philosophy to incarcerated people.^[4]

Art academic Allan Antliff described May's 1994 The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism as "seminal", and credited the book with introducing "post-structuralist anarchism", later abbreviated as "post-anarchism".^[5] May has published works on major poststructuralist philosophers, including Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault.^[6][7] He also wrote books on more general topics accessible to the general reader, including Death,^[8] Our Practices, Our Selves, or, What It Means to Be Human,^[9] Friendship in an Age of Economics: Resisting the Forces of Neoliberalism,^[10] A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe,^[11] A Fragile Life: Accepting Our Vulnerability.^[12]

May, along with Pamela Hieronymi, was a philosophical advisor to the NBC television show The Good Place.^[13] Together they appeared as cameos in the final episode.^[14]

Personal Life[]

May is the father of three kids, the youngest of which majored in philosophy at university.^[4]

Bibliography[]

• Between Genealogy and Epistemology (1993). University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-00905-6.
• The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism (1994). University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-01046-5.^[15]
• Reconsidering Difference (1997). University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-01658-0.
• Our Practices, Our Selves, or, What It Means to Be Human (2001). University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-02086-0.
• Operation Defensive Shield (2003). Sydney: Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-7453-2063-2. Written in collaboration with Muna Hamzeh.
• The Moral Theory of Poststructuralism (2004). University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-02585-8.
• Gilles Deleuze (2005). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-84309-6.
• Philosophy of Foucault (2006). Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-3169-7.
• The Political Thought of Jacques Ranciere: Creating Equality (2008). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-3586-3.
• Death (2008). Acumen Publishing. ISBN 1-84465-164-9.
• Friendship in an Age of Economics: Resisting the Forces of Neoliberalism (2014). New York: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-739-19284-9.
• A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe (2015). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-23567-7.
• Nonviolent Resistance: A Philosophical Introduction (2015). Cambridge: Polity Books. ISBN 978-0-745-67118-5.
• A Fragile Life: Accepting Our Vulnerability (2017). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-43995-2.
• A Decent Life: Morality for the Rest of Us (2019). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-60974-4.
• Exploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives, Chapter 21: Death, Mortality, and Meaning (December 31, 2020, 1st Edition). Publisher: Routledge. ASIN B08NWDSPZW. ^[16]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Marshall, Richard (July 12, 2013). "The poststructural anarchist". 3:AM Magazine.

External links[]

• "Gay Rights Outlook Improves in South", a letter to the editor by May published in The New York Times on 1998-07-07
• "Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear". CounterPunch. Archived from the original on November 22, 2004.
• "Poststructuralist Anarchism:An Interview with Todd May" (PDF). Perspectives on Anarchist Theory. 4 (2). 2000.
• "Interview with Todd May by Jason Adams, discussing the impact of The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism". June 2012. Archived from the original on July 12, 2006.
• "May, Todd G." Clemson University.
• "Opinion How Should An Atheist Think About Death?".

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