Eugene Victor Wolfenstein

Eugene Victor Wolfenstein (b. July 9, 1940) is a distinguished social theorist, practicing psychoanalyst and a professor of Political Science at University of California, Los Angeles.

Education and academic background

Eugene Victor Wolfenstein graduated with a B.A. from Columbia College in 1962. He graduated with Magna Cum Laude. He was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He completed his M.A. in Political Science in 1964 and Ph.D. in Political Science from Princeton University in 1965. Then, he became a Professor of Political Science at UCLA. He also completed a Ph.D. in Psychoanalysis, Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute in 1984 and he was the Member of the Faculty, Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute from 1988 to 2004.

Profile of Eugene Victor Wolfenstein

Victor Wolfenstein works in the Critical Theory Tradition, with a focus on African-American culture and social movements. In his book "The Victims of Democracy: Malcolm X and the Black Revolution", he used a theory of the interaction between social classes and psychological groups to analyze white racism and the black liberation struggle. He developed a more general version of this theory in "Psychoanalytic-Marxism: Groundwork" (1983) and refined it further through engagement with Nietzsche's philosophy in "Inside/Outside Nietzsche: Psychoanalytic Explorations" (2000). These later works add a concern with gender identity to the earlier agenda. His current research is in the area of African-American narrative. "A Gift of the Spirit: Reading THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK" (2007) offers a sustained reconstruction of W. E. B. Du Bois's canonical text. A further study, tentatively titled Beneath the Color-Line, extends this exploration into three works by Toni Morrison: Tar Baby, Beloved, and Jazz.

He is a professor at UCLA. At the undergraduate level, he teaches the lower division Introduction to Political Theory, along with Ancient Political Theory, African-American Freedom Narratives, Malcolm X and Black Liberation, Marxist Political Theory, and an occasional seminar on Platonic Dialectic and Spiritual Liberation. At the graduate level, he focuses on major works of Du Bois, Foucault, Freud, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche, along with the related critical literatures.

His main interests are History of Political Theory, Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice, Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory and Feminist Theory.

Recent Controversies

In January 2006, Wolfenstein was involuntarily ensnared in the Bruin Alumni Association's controversial "Dirty Thirty" project which purported to name UCLA's most politically extreme professors. Wolfenstein, named #26 on the list, was described thusly: "The original Beverly Hills Marxist, Wolfenstein’s passions for Malcolm X have burned strong, even as his dreams of a communist future crumbled. If Wolfenstein can regroup, his long resume will push him strongly up the list."

Books

Eugene Victor Wolfenstein has published several books. Names of his book are:

The Revolutionary Personality. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1967. [Portuguese edition, 1968: Paedos Press, Buenos Aires, Argentina.]

Personality and Politics. Los Angeles: Dickenson Press, 1969. The Victims of Democracy: Malcolm X and the Black Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981 [Paperback editions: Free Association Books, 1990; Guilford Publications, 1993] .

Psychoanalytic-Marxism: Groundwork. London & New York: Free Association Books and Guilford Publications, 1993.

Inside/Outside Nietzsche: Psychoanalytic Explorations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.

A Gift of the Spirit: Reading THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK. NY: Cornell University Press, 2007.

External links

* [http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/menu/people/faculty/victor_wolfenstein.php Eugene Victor Wolfenstein]
* [http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/wolfenstein/ Eugene Victor Wolfenstein, Professor of Political Science at UCLA]
* [http://www.uclaprofs.com/profs/wolfenstein.html The Bruin Alumni Association's critical profile of Wolfenstein]