Ernesto Laclau

Infobox Philosopher
region = Western Philosophy
era = 20th / 21st-century philosophy
color = #B0C4DE


name = Ernesto Laclau
birth = October 6, 1935
flagicon|Argentina|size=20px Buenos Aires, Argentina
death =
school_tradition = Post-Marxism
main_interests = Hegemony·Identity Politics
notable_ideas =
influences = Hobbes·Machiavelli·Hegel·Marx·Sorel·Gramsci·Ramos·Althusser·Hobsbawn·de Saussure·Wittgenstein·Lacan·Miller·Lefort·Foucault·Derrida
influenced = Žižek·Butler·Zerilli·Critchley·Marchart

Ernesto Laclau (b.1935 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine political theorist often described as post-Marxist. He is a professor at the University of Essex where he holds a chair in Political Theory and was for many years director of the doctoral Programme in Ideology and Discourse Analysis.He has lectured extensively in many universities in North America, South America, Western Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Currently, he is a professor of political theory at Northwestern University.

Biography

He was a member of the PSIN (Socialist Party of the National Left) until 1969, when the British historian Eric Hobsbawm supported his entrance to Oxford [http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/radar/9-2286-2005-06-09.html Las manos en la masa - Ernesto Laclau contra Negri, Hardt y Zizek] , "Pagina/12", June 5, 2005 es icon ] . He had close links with Jorge Abelardo Ramos, the founder of the PSIN, although he declared in 2005 that the latter then evolved in a direction he did not appreciate . In the same interview, he stated that he came from a Yrigoyenista family, and that the Socialist politician Arturo Jauretche, a strong opponent of Justo's dictatorship during the Infamous Decade of the 1930s, was a close friend of his father .

Works

Laclau's most important book is "Hegemony and Socialist Strategy", which he co-authored with Chantal Mouffe. Their thought is usually described as post-Marxist as they were both politically active in the social and student movements of the 1960s and thus tried to join working class and new social movements. They rejected Marxist economic determinism and the notion of class struggle being the crucial antagonism in society. Instead they urged for radical democracy of agonistic pluralism where all antagonisms could be expressed.

Books

*"Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory" (NLB, 1977)
*"Hegemony and Socialist Strategy" (with Chantal Mouffe) (Verso, 1985)
*"New Reflections on the Revolution of our Time" (Verso, 1990)
*"The Making of Political Identities" (editor) (Verso, 1994)
*"Emancipation(s)" (Verso, 1996)
*"Contingency, Hegemony, Universality" (with Judith Butler and Slavoj Žižek) (Verso, 2000)
*"On Populist Reason " (Verso, 2005)
*"Elusive Universality" (Routledge, forthcoming 2007)

References

See also

*list of deconstructionists
*Richard JF Day
*Louis Althusser
*Antonio Gramsci
*Ideology
*Marxism
*Slavoj Žižek

External links

* [http://www.essex.ac.uk/centres/TheoStud/ Centre for Theoretical Studies, University of Essex] Includes Laclau papers on populism and the philosophical roots of discourse theory
* [http://www.essex.ac.uk/idaworld/ Ideology and Discourse Analysis network]
* [http://www.redpepper.org.uk/natarch/XRADDEM.HTML Hearts, Minds and Radical Democracy] Interview with Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe
* [http://www.revistateina.com/teina/web/teina5/dos7.htm Entrevista a Ernesto Laclau sobre el juego de la política]
* [http://www.change.univ.gda.pl/laclau.htm Curriculum Vitae]
* [http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/91_12_56.pdf God Only Knows] 1991 article in Marxism Today
* [http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/81_01_17.pdf Socialist strategy: where next?] 1981 article in Marxism Today