Warren Montag

Warren Montag is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California. He is known primarily for his work on twentieth century French theory, especially Althusser and his circle, as well as his studies of the philosopher Spinoza. His work has focused on the origins and internal contradictions of political liberalism and individualism, and has demonstrated, following the suggestions of Etienne Balibar, the existence of "a fear of the masses" or multitude in the classic texts of seventeenth century liberal thought. More recently, he has shifted to a study of the emergence of the concept of the market in the work of Adam Smith. He received his B.A. from University of California, Berkeley and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School. He has published three books and three edited collections. In addition, he has published more than forty essays. He resides in Los Angeles and is married with two children.

Publications

Books

*Louis Althusser (London: Palgrave, 2002)
* (Co-Editor) Masses, Classes and Counter-publics. (London: Verso, 2001).
* Bodies, Masses, Power: Spinoza and his Contemporaries, (London: Verso, Spring 1999).
* (Ed) In a Materialist Way: Selected Essays by Pierre Macherey (London: Verso, forthcoming, 1998).
* (Co-Editor) The New Spinoza (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).
* The Unthinkable Swift: The Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man, (London: Verso, 1994).

Essays

*"Tumultuous Combinations: Transindividuality in Adam Smith and Spinoza," Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal (forthcoming).
*"Necro-Economics: Adam Smith and Death in the Life of the Universal," Radical Philosophy (forthcoming), Youkali (Spanish translation, forthcoming).
*"Jonathan Swift," Encyclopedia of British Literary History, Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
*"Louis Althusser: the Intellectual and the Conjuncture" Marxism, Intellectuals and Politics, ed. David Bates and Paul Reynolds, London: Palgrave, forthcoming.
*"Foucault: the Immanence of Law in Power," Michel Foucault and Social Control, ed. Alain Beaulieu and David Gabbard, (English version, University of Toronto Press, forthcoming; French version Editions Harmattan, forthcoming).
*"Foucault and the Problematic of Origins: Althusser’s Reading of Folie et déraison" Actuel Marx (French trans. 2004); Theseis (Greek trans. 2004).
*"Who’s Afraid of the Multitude: Between the Individual and the State," South Atlantic Quarterly (forthcoming). Slagmark n. 39 2004 (Danish trans.); Quaderni Materialisti n. 2 2004 (Italian trans.); Theseis (Greek trans. 2004).
*"Spinoza’s Spirit: the Concept of the Trace in Levinas and Derrida" Specters of Derrida, ed. Julian Wolfreys (SUNY Press, forthcoming). Oltrecorrente (Italian trans. forthcoming).
*"On the Function of the Concept of Origin: Althusser’s Reading of Locke", Current Continental Theory and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Stephen Daniels (Northwestern U P: forthcoming).
*"Materiality, Singularity, Subject: Response to Callari, Hardt, Parker and Smith," Symposium on Louis Althusser, Rethinking Marxism (17:2, April 2005).
*"Politics: Transcendent or Immanent? A response to Miguel Vatter," Theory and Event (7:4, 2004).
*"Der neue Spinoza" Immaterielle Arbeit und imperiale Souveräinität ed. Thomas Atzert and Jost Müller (Munster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2004).
*"La dialectique à la cantonade: Althusser devant l’art" Sartre, Althusser, Lukacs ed. Eustache Kouvelakis (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004).
*"Towards a Conception of Racism without Race: Foucault and Contemporary Bio-politics," Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy (2002).
*Lenn Goodman and Heidi Ravven (Albany: SUNY Press, 2002).
*"From the Standpoint of the Masses: Antonio Negri’s Insurgencies" (review essay) Historical Materialism 9 2002).
*"Descartes and Spinoza" and "Althusser" The Edinburgh Encyclopedia of Literary Criticism and Theory 1945-2000, ed. Julian Wolfreys (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U P, 2002).
*"Vers une conception du racisme sans race: Foucault et la biopolitique contemporaine," Foucault et la médecine ed. Philippe Artières et Emmanuel da Silva (Paris: Kimé, 2001).
*"Gulliver’s Solitude: the Paradoxes of Swift’s Anti-Individualism,"Eighteenth-Century: Theory and Interpretation 42:1 2001.
*"The Pressure of the Street: Habermas’s Fear of the Masses", Masses, Classes, Counterpublics, ed. Mike Hill and Warren Montag (London: Verso, 2001)
*"Spinoza and the Concept of the Shekhinah" Spinoza and the Jewish Tradition, ed. Heidi Ravven (Albany: SUNY Press, forthcoming).
*Preface to Etienne Balibar, Spinoza and Politics (London: Verso, forthcoming 1998).
*"Althusser's Nominalism: Structure and Singularity 1962-1966". Rethinking Marxism (forthcoming).
*"Spirits Armed and Unarmed: Derrida's Specters", Ghostlier Demarcations ed. Michael Sprinker (London: Verso, forthcoming)(Spanish translation, 2002, Turkish translation 2004).
*"Response to Carole Fabricant" (on Swift), Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 9:1, 1996.
*"Second Response to Carole Fabricant", Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 9:3, 1997.
*"The Universalization of Whiteness: Racism and Enlightenment", Whiteness: A Critical Reader, ed. Mike Hill (New York: New York University Press, 1997).
*"The Soul is the Prison of the Body: Althusser and Foucault 1970-1975", Yale French Studies, Fall 1995.
*"Beyond Force and Consent: Hobbes, Spinoza, Althusser" in Marxism and Postmodernism: Essays in the Althusserian Tradition, eds. Antonio Callari and David Ruccio (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1995).
*"A Process without a Subject or Goal(s): How to Read Althusser's Autobiography", Marxism in the New World Order: Crises and Possibilities, ed. Antonio Callari (New York: Guilford Press, 1995) (Korean translation 1996; Greek translation forthcoming).
*"Althusser and Spinoza Against Hermeneutics: Interpretation or Intervention?", in The Althusserian Legacy, eds. E. Ann Kaplan and Michael Sprinker (London: Verso, 1993).
*"The Workshop of Filthy Creation: A Marxist Reading of Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism, eds. Ross C. Murfin and Johanna Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991).
*"The Emptiness of a Distance Taken: Freud, Lacan, Althusser" Rethinking Marxism, Spring, 1991 (Korean Translation, 1994).
*"Spinoza: Politics in a World Without Transcendence", Rethinking Marxism, Fall 1989.
*"What is at Stake in the Debate on Postmodernism", Postmodernism and Its Discontents, (London: Verso, 1988). (Korean Translation 1990)
*"Macherey and Literary Analysis", Minnesota Review, Spring 1986.
*"Lacan and Feminine Sexuality", Quarterly Review of Film Studies, Fall 1985.
*"Marxism and Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Encounter", Minnesota Review, Fall 1984 (Korean Translation 1992).
*"Michel Pêcheux: 1938-1983," Minnesota Review, Fall 1984.

Translations

*Louis Althusser, "On Marx and Freud." Rethinking Marxism, Spring, 1991.
*Louis Althusser, The Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists and Other Essays, (London: Verso, 1990).
*Michel Pêcheux, "Discourse: Structure or Event?" Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. (Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1988).
*Pierre Macherey, "History and Novel in Balzac's The Peasants." Minnesota Review, Spring 1986.