Jason Barker (born 1971) is a British scholar of contemporary French philosophy, a novelist, film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is Honorable Professor at Kyung Hee University in the College of Foreign Language and Literature,[ ] where he teaches a masters course on Marxism and Literature with the British philosopher Ray Brassier.
Most notable for his translation and introductions to the philosophy of Alain Badiou, Barker draws on an eclectic range of influences including neoplatonism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and Marxism.[See Barker, "Topography and Structure".] Writing in both the English and French languages, Barker has also contributed to debates in post-Marxism.[See Barker, "De L'État au Maître: Badiou et le post-marxisme".]
Early life
Barker was born in London, England.
He studied at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College, and graduated with a degree in media studies in 1995.
He then studied philosophy at Cardiff University, obtaining a PhD in 2003.
Karl Marx
In an article published in
The Guardian in February 2012, Barker criticised the selective interpretation of
Karl Marx's writings by economists such as
Nouriel Roubini (who declared: "Karl Marx was right") when responding to the
Great Recession. According to Barker, such interpretations water down the revolutionary aspects of Marx's ideas and focus unduly on their reformist tendencies.
Writing in The New York Times on the occasion of the Marx bicentennial anniversary, Barker argued: "The key factor in Marx’s intellectual legacy in our present-day society is not 'philosophy' but 'critique,' or what he described in 1843 as 'the ruthless criticism of all that exists: ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be'".
Marx Returns
Barker is the author of the novel
Marx Returns. The story focuses on the life of Karl Marx and his struggle to write his major work on political economy,
Das Kapital.
Philosopher Ray Brassier described it as "curious, funny, perplexing, and irreverent".
According to
Nina Power, reviewing the work in the
Los Angeles Review of Books,
Marx Returns is "an imaginative, uplifting, and sometimes disturbing alternative history".
Marx Reloaded
Barker is the writer, director and producer of the 2011 partly animated documentary film
Marx Reloaded,
which considers the relevance of Marx's ideas after the 2008 financial crisis.
The film includes interviews with several distinguished
philosophers including
Michael Hardt,
Antonio Negri, John N. Gray,
Alberto Toscano,
Peter Sloterdijk and Slavoj Žižek.
The London Evening Standard cited the film alongside the 2012 re-edition of The Communist Manifesto and Owen Jones' best-selling book as evidence of a resurgence of left-wing ideas.
British philosopher Simon Critchley has described Marx Reloaded as "a great introduction to Marx for a new generation"
Select bibliography
Fiction
Novels
Short stories
-
"Justine & Jacquie and their adventures on the other side (an excerpt)" (with Justin Clemens) in Meanjin Winter 2023 (Melbourne University Press), .
Nonfiction
Authored books
-
Alain Badiou: A Critical Introduction, London: Pluto Press, 2002, .
Edited collections
-
맑스 재장전: 자본주의와 코뮤니즘에 관한 대담 ''Marx, Seoul: Nanjang Publishing House, 2013. .
-
"Other Althussers", Special issue of diacritics, with G. M. Goshgarian (Vol. 43.2, 2015), .
-
"Marginal Thinking: A Forum on Louis Althusser", Los Angeles Review of Books, May 15, 2016 online.
-
"Fail Better: Politics and the Arts of Tragedy", Special issue of Filozofski Vestnik 39, 2018, No. 2. .
-
"Karl Marx Bicentennial Forum", Los Angeles Review of Books, March 16, 2018 online.
Translations
-
Alain Badiou, Metapolitics, trans. and with an introduction by Jason Barker, London: Verso Books, 2005, .
Articles
-
"The Topology of Revolution" in Communication and Cognition (Vol. 36, no. 1/2, 2003), .
-
"Principles of Equality: on Alain Badiou's Manifesto for Philosophy, Deleuze: The Clamor of Being, and Ethics. An Essay on the Understanding of Evil" in Historical Materialism (No. 12.1, 2004), .
-
"Topography and Structure" in Polygraph (no. 17, 2005), .
-
"Nous, Les Sans-Marxisme" in Gilles Grelet (ed.), Théorie-rébellion: Un Ultimatum, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005, .
-
"Nothing Personal: From the State to the Master" in Prelom (no. 8, 2006), .
-
"De L'État au Maître: Badiou et le post-marxisme" in Bruno Besana et Oliver Feltham (eds.) Ecrits Autour de la Pensée d’Alain Badiou, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006, .
-
“Wherefore Art Thou Philosophy? Badiou without Badiou” in Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy (Vol. 8.1, 2012), .
-
"Master Signifier: A Brief Genealogy of Lacano-Maoism" in Filozofia (Vol. 69, no. 9, 2014), .
-
"Epic or Tragedy? Karl Marx and Poetic Form in The Communist Manifesto" in Filozofia 71, 2016, No. 4, pp. 316–327.
-
"First as farce, then as tragedy: Louis Rossel and the Civil War in France" in Filozofski Vestnik 39, 2018, No. 2. .
-
"Socialism's Encore" (with Justin Clemens) in Filozofski Vestnik 40, 2019, No. 3. .
-
"Quentin Tarantino’s Cartoon Violence" in Animation 16, 2021, Issue 1-2. .
-
"Disney’s Wagner Aesthetic: Music Drama in Pursuit of the Total Artwork" in Animation 19, 2024, Issue 1. .
-
"Can Leninism Be Thought?" in Crisis and Critique 11, 2024, Issue 2. .
Filmography
See also
External links
