Faculty

Profile

For me, history of philosophy and a critical theory of society are two sides of the same coin: our interest for the past always reflects the standpoint of the present, but one cannot understand the present without navigating our past. I see philosophy as a critical tool in a constant dialogue with other disciplines, as well as an endeavour entangled with other practices for sense making such as literature, art and psycoanalysis. I have written on the history of European philosophy (particularly early modern), critical theory, feminism, post- and decolonial studies.

For a general discussion of my philosophical work in the decades 2000-2020, see the volume Debating Imaginal Politics: Dialogues With Chiara Bottici.

Degrees Held

1999, Laurea di dottore in filosofia, University of Florence. Dissertation  title: "The Analogy between Men and States"

2004, PhD in Social And Political Science, European University Institute. Dissertation title: "A Philosophy of Political Myth"

Recent Publications

Books

• Manifiesto anarcafeminista (Ned Ediciones 2021, Italian translation 2022, French translation 2023).
• Anarchafeminism (Bloomsbury, 2021, Spanish translation 2022; Italian and Portuguese translation 2023).
• A Feminist Mythology (Bloomsbury, 2021, Italian edition Castelvecchi 2022; Spanish and Portuguese translations forthcoming 2023).
• Per tre miti, forse quattro (Manni Editore, 2016).
• Imaginal Politics: Images beyond the Imagination and beyond the Imaginary (Critical Theory Series, Columbia University Press, 2014, Italian translation 2023).
• Imagining Europe: Myth, Memory, and Identity, co-authored with Benoit Challand (Cambridge University Press, 2013, italian translation forthcoming 2023)
• The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations, co-authored with Benoit Challand (Routledge, 2010; italian translation forthcoming 2023)
• A Philosophy of Political Myth (Cambridge University Press, 2007; paperback, 2010, italian translation Bollati Boringhieri 2010)
• Uomini e stati. Percorsi di un'analogia (ETS, 2004); English trans. Men and States (Palgrave, 2009)

Edited Volumes

• Feminism, Capitalism, and Critique: Essays in Honor of Nancy Fraser, co-edited with Banu Bargu (Palgrave, 2017)
• The Anarchist Turn, co-edited with Jacob Blumenfeld and Simon Critchley (Pluto Press, 2013)
• The Politics of Imagination, co-edited with Benoit Challand (Routledge, 2011)

Articles (selection)

• "Towards an interstitial global critical theory", with Benoit Challand, in Globalizations, Nov 2021
• “Europe after Eurocentrism?”, with Benoit Challand, in Crisis and Critique, vol. 6, issue 1, (2020), pp. 57-87
   
• “Imagination, Imaginary, Imaginal: Towards a New Social Ontology?” in Social Epistemology, 33:5, (2019) 433-441
   
• “Anarchafeminism: Towards An Ontology of the Transindividual" Pubic Seminar, March 7 (2018)
  • Italian translation “Anarcofemminismo” in Progressive Politics, edited by Enrico Biale and Carlo Fumagalli, Fondazione Feltrinelli, Milano, pp. 32-50
  •  Spanish translation: “Anarcafeminismo”, in Arpillera. Revista de Estudios Feministas y Anarchistas, N. 8, August 202
  •  French translation (partial): “Pour un Anarchaféminisme”, Libération, 15 November (2018)
  • Romanian translation “Anarhafeminism: Către o ontologie a transindividualuluiin”, in Post/h/um. Jurnal de studii postumaniste, n. 6, Fall 2021.

• “Who is afraid of The Myth of the State? Remarks on Cassirer’s Forgotten Manuscript” Social Imaginaries, 3.2 (2017) 213-227
  • German translation: 'Wer hat Angst vor Cassirers "The Myth of the State",' Mythos und Tabula rasa. Absoluter Anfang und totale Auslöschung als Denkform, ed. Yves Bizeul and Stephanie Wodianka (Munich: Bielefeld, 2017), 59-76.
     
• “Bodies in plural: Towards an Anarchafeminist Manifesto.” Thesis Eleven, Vol 142, 2017, pp.99-111
  • Spanish translation: „Cuerpos en plural: hacia un manifiesto anarca-feminista”, in FEMERIS: Revista Multidisciplinar de Estudios de Género, no. 3 (2019): 224-245,
  • French translation: "Anarcha-féminisme et l'ontologie du transinidividuel," La Deleuziana, no. 8, (2018): 88-104.
  • Portoguese: “Corpos no plural: rumo à um manifesto anarcofeminista” in Psicologia em Revista (2020) v. 26, n. 1, p. 299-324.
     
• “From imagination to the imaginal: Politics, spectacle and post-Fordist capitalism.” Social Imaginaries 3.1: 61-81 (2017)
   
• “Rethinking the biopolitical turn: from the thanatopolitical to the geneapolitical paradigm.” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 35(1):175-197 (2015)
  • Spanish translation: Dorsal. Revista de Estudios Foucaultianos. N. 8, 2020, pp. 323-348
     
• “Democracy and the spectacle: On Rousseau’s homeopathic strategy.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 41(3):235-248 (2015)
   
• “Another Enlightenment: Spinoza on myth and imagination.” Constellations 19 (4):1-19 (2012)
  • Italian translation: “Oltre la dialettica dell’illuminismo: Spinoza su mito ed immaginazione.” In Ordo et Connexio. Spinoza e le scienze sociali, ed. N. Marcucci (Ghibli: Collana Spinoziana, pp. 109-139 (2012)
  • Expanded and revised Italian translation: “Un altro Illuminismo: Immaginazione e mito in Spinoza.” Etica e politica. Rivista di filosofia. online
  • Spanish translation: “Más allá dialéctica de la llustración: Spinoza, sobre el mito y la imaginación.” Signos filosóficos XII:137-172 (2012)
  • Turkish translation: “BAŞKA BİR AYDINLANMA: SPİNOZA’DA MİT VE İMGELEM” in ViraVerita E-dergi, Sayı 2, 2015, pp. 130-154
• “Imaginal politics.” Thesis Eleven 106:56-72 (2011)
  • German translation: “Imaginal Politik.” kultuRRevolution - Zeitschrift für angewandte Diskurstheorie 71: issue 2 (2016)
  • Spanish translation: “De la política de la imaginación a la política imaginal” in Revista temas y debates: revista universitaria de ciencias sociales, edited by Gastón Souroujon y Hernán Fair (2018), n. 36, pp. 21-39
     
• “Frankfurt School.” In The Encyclopedia of Political Science, ed. G.T. Kurian, vol. 2, pp. 614-616 (Washington, DC: CQ Press [Sage], 2011)
   
• “Imagining human rights: Utopia or ideology?” Law and Critique 21(2):111-130 (2010)
   
• “The politics of imagination and the public role of religion.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 35(8):985-1005 (2009)
  • Italian translation: “La politica dell’immaginazione ed il nuovo ruolo pubblico della religione.” Iride 55:617-640 (2009)
     
• “Philosophies of political myth. A comparative look backward: Cassirer, Sorel and Spinoza.” European Journal of Political Theory 8(3):365-382 (2009)
   
• “Rethinking political myth. The clash of civilisations as a self-fulfilling prophecy,” co-authored with Benoit Challand. European Journal of Social Theory 9(4):315-336 (2006)
   
• “The domestic analogy and the Kantian project of perpetual peace.” Journal of Political Philosophy 11(4):392-410 (2003)
  • German translation: “Kant und das Problem der domestic analogy.” In Globale Gerechtigkeit, ed. J.C. Merle (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog), pp. 475-487 (2005)

Opinion pieces / newspapers (selection)

• “Philosophy, the Greeks, and U.S. Settler-Colonialism: The Myth of an American Arcadia.” Public Seminar, Feb. 26 (2020).
• “The Weinstein Trial and the #MeToo Movement,” Interview for ARD TV channel with Britta Reuther, Feb. 26 (2020).
• “The family is sick,” with Jamieson Webster, Spike Art Magazine, 50: Winter (2017) (English and German translation)
• “The mass psychology of Trumpism: Old and new myths.” Public Seminar, Nov. 17 (2016) [Re-printed in Rendering The Unconscious, edited by Vanessa Sinclair, Stockholm, Trapart Books, 2019, pp. 93-100]
• “Pour un Anarchaféminisme”, Libération, 15 November (2018)
• “The death of opera: a funeral eulogy.” Al-Jazeera International, Mar. 3 (2013)
• Civil society in revolt: From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street,” with Benoit Challand, in Jaddalya, Oct 30 (2012).

Short Stories/Anthologies/ Opera librettos

• " An Ongoing Libretto" for The Art Of Change Opera, and experimental and multimedia opera by Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Commissioned by COPA (The New School) on occasion of the The New School Centennial.
• “Stabat Matter Tryptic”, in Fence. Literary Magazine (Fall 2020)
• “L’eslcuso”, in L’immaginazione, n. 313, Sep. Oct 2019, pp. 8-11.
  • English translation: The Excluded, in Rendering Unconscious, edited by Vanessa Sinclair, Stockholm, Sweden, Trapart Books, 2019, pp. 359-364
  • Revised English translation: “In Nomine Patris”, in The Cabinet of Imaginary Laws, edited by Peter Goodrich andThanos Zartaloudis (in English)
• “La lingua della signora P,” in Il Caffe Illustrato, n. 68-69 (2013)

Research Interests

Early modern philosophy, social and political philosophy, feminism, LGBTQI+ issues, capitalism studies, critical race theory, psychoanalysis, aesthetics.