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Gavin Walker

Gavin Walker
Contact Information
Address: 
Dr Gavin Walker
Department of History
McGill University
855, Sherbrooke West, 7th Floor
Montréal Québec H3A 2T7 
 
 
Phone: 
514-399-9428
Email address: 
gavin.walker [at] mcgill.ca
Position: 
Associate Professor
Office: 
Leacock 627
Degree(s): 

PhD (Cornell)
BA, MA (Penn)

Specialization: 

Critical theory; comparative literature; global thought

Specialization by geographical area: 
International
Office hours: 

By appointment

Link(s): 
www.gavinwalker.ca
Biography: 

Gavin Walker is a cultural critic and theorist of global thought, comparative literature, politics and aesthetics at McGill University, where he is Associate Professor of History and Graduate Program Director of East Asian Studies. He is the author of The Sublime Perversion of Capital (Duke, 2016) and Marx et la politique du dehors (Lux Éditeur, 2022), the editor of The End of Area (Duke, 2019, with Naoki Sakai), The Red Years: Theory, Politics, and Aesthetics in the Japanese ’68 (Verso, 2020), and Foucault’s Late Politics, a special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly, no. 121-4 (Duke, 2022). His new book, The Rarity of Politics: Passages from Structure to Subject, is forthcoming from Verso.

A member of the editorial board of the Historical Materialism Book Series (Brill/Haymarket) and the editorial collective of positions: asia critique (Duke), he is also the editor and translator of Kojin Karatani’s Marx: Towards the Centre of Possibility (Verso, 2020). His scholarship and teaching in the interdisciplinary critical humanities spans philosophy, literature, history, politics, and aesthetics in order to examine global debates on nationalism, capitalism, the postcolonial, psychoanalysis, and the status of difference after the critique of essentialism, alongside theories of translation, ideology, and subjectivity. His most recent scholarship deals particularly with questions of globality, historical time and peripheral modernity; Japanese and French thought of ’68 and after (especially Althusser, Badiou, Foucault, Lacan, and their students); the contemporaneity of the national question; the status of ‘area studies’, the theoretical humanities, and comparative literature after globalization; and the global intellectual history of Marxist theory.

For a full profile see www.gavinwalker.ca

 

Graduate supervision: 

Critical theory, comparative literature, modern global intellectual history, cultural criticism, nationalism and the national question, globalization and the postcolonial, continental philosophy, translation and aesthetics.

Selected publications: 

 

Books and volumes:

Marx et la politique du dehors (Montréal: Lux Éditeur, 2022).

The Sublime Perversion of Capital: Marxist Theory and the Politics of History in Modern Japan (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2016). 

Foucault’s Late Politics, edited by Gavin Walker, a special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 121, no. 4 (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2022).

The Red Years: Theory, Politics, and Aesthetics in the Japanese ’68, edited by Gavin Walker (Verso, 2020).

Marx: Towards the Centre of Possibility by Kojin Karatani, translated, edited and with an introduction by Gavin Walker (Verso, 2020).

The End of Area: Biopolitics, Geopolitics, History, a special issue of positions: asia critique, edited by Gavin Walker and Naoki Sakai, vol. 27, no. 1 (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2019).

 

Dossiers:

Uno Kozo’s Theory of Crisis: A Symposium, edited by Gavin Walker, a special issue of episteme, no. 9 (positions: politics), October 2022.

Uninvited Sexualities, a special issue of episteme, edited by Tani Barlow and Gavin Walker, no. 7 (positions: politics), November 2021.

Marx, Asia, and the History of the Present, a special issue of episteme, edited by Gavin Walker, no. 3 (positions: politics), October 2020. 

 

Articles and chapters:

“What Comes After ‘Area’? The Nomos of the Modern in Times of Crisis” in Knowledge Production and Epistemic Decolonization at the End of the Pax Americana, eds. Joyce CH Liu, Naoki Sakai and Jon Solomon (London: Routledge, forthcoming 2022).

“The Relapses of the Universal: Translation and the Language of the Political” in Translation, Theory, Universality, edited by Gavin Arnall and Katie Chenoweth (New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming 2022).

“The Will to Strategy: Foucault’s Interregnum, 1976-79” in Foucault’s Late Politics, edited by Gavin Walker, a special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 121, no. 4 (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2022).

“The Late Foucault and the Allegories of Theory” in Foucault’s Late Politics, edited by Gavin Walker, a special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 121, no. 4 (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2022).

“The Wager and the Wage: Reading Kawashima Reading Uno” in Uno Kozo’s Theory of Crisis: A Symposium, edited by Gavin Walker, a special issue of episteme, no. 9 (positions: politics) (2022).

“Non-Capital and the Torsion of the Subject” in Accumulation and Subjectivity: Rethinking Marx in Latin America, ed. Karen Benezra (New York: SUNY Press, 2022), 295-313.

“Nationalism and the National Question” in The SAGE Handbook of Marxism, eds. Farris, Skeggs, Toscano (London: SAGE, 2022), 366-386.

“Uno Kōzō’s Theory of Crisis Today,” co-written with Ken Kawashima, Introduction to Uno Kōzō, Theory of Crisis, trans. Ken Kawashima (Leiden: Brill, Historical Materialism book series, 2021; paperback forthcoming from Haymarket, 2022), 177-202.

"Le marxisme et les années rouges au Japon. Entretien avec Gavin Walker" in Contretemps, 12 July 2021.

“Rethinking Japan’s Red Years: An Interview with Gavin Walker” in Spectre, 9 July 2021. 

“The Theory and Practice of Marxism in Japan” in Jacobin, 3 July 2021. 

“Fascism and the Metapolitics of Imperialism” in Historical Materialism, 8 May 2021. 

“The Political Afterlives of Yukio Mishima” in Jacobin, 25 November 2020. 

“The Red Years: An Interview with Gavin Walker on Japan’s 1968,” Verso Books, 20 November 2020.

“The Post-’68 Conjuncture” in The Red Years: Theory, Politics, and Aesthetics in the Japanese ’68, ed. Gavin Walker (London: Verso, 2020), 229-236.

“Revolution and Retrospection” in The Red Years: Theory, Politics, and Aesthetics in the Japanese ’68, ed. Gavin Walker (London: Verso, 2020), 1-11.

“Marxist Theory in Japan: A Critical Overview,” Historical Materialism, November 15, 2020.

“The World of the Outside” in Marx, Asia, and the History of the Present, episteme, no. 3 (positions: politics), edited by Gavin Walker, October 2020.

“The Discreet Charm of Coronavirus” in episteme, no. 2, positions: politics, May 2020.

“Karatani’s Marx” in Marx: Towards the Centre of Possibility by Kōjin Karatani, translated, edited, and with an introduction by Gavin Walker (London: Verso, 2020), xi-xxvii.

“The Homeland(s) of Marxism: Labour Power, Race, and Nation after Capital” in Capital in the East, eds. Anjan Chakrabarti et al (Springer Publishing, 2019), 47-67.

“The Accumulation of Difference and the Logic of Area” in The End of Area: Biopolitics, Geopolitics, History, a special issue of positions: asia critique, vol. 27, no. 1, edited by Gavin Walker and Naoki Sakai (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2019), 67-98.

“The End of Area” (co-written with Naoki Sakai) in The End of Area: Biopolitics, Geopolitics, History, a special issue of positions: asia critique, vol. 27, no. 1, edited by Gavin Walker and Naoki Sakai (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2019), 1-31.

“Le marxisme au Japon : Guide de lecture” in Période: révue de théorie marxiste (January 2019).

“The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: History, Politics, and Repetition” in The Bloomsbury Companion to Marx, ed. Imre Szeman et al(London: Bloomsbury, 2018).

“Marx in Japan” in The Bloomsbury Companion to Marx, ed. Imre Szeman et al(London: Bloomsbury, 2018).

“The Schema of the West and the Apparatus of Capture: Variations on Deleuze and Guattari” in Deleuze Studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), 210-235.

“Surplus alongside Excess: Uno Kōzō, Imperialism, and the Theory of Crisis,” co-written with Ken Kawashima, in Viewpoint 6: Imperialism, February 2018.

“On the Politics of Postcoloniality: Return(s) of the National Question in Marxist Theory” in Viewpoint 6: Imperialism, February 2018.

Roundtable on “Art, Society/Text: A Few Remarks on the Current Relations of the Class Struggle in the Fields of Literary Production and Literary Ideologies” (with Karen Benezra, Bruno Bosteels, Tom Eyers, Sami Khatib, and Samo Tomšič) in ARTMargins, vol. 6, no. 3 (Boston: MIT Press, October 2017), 70-75.

“The Subjective Drive of Capital: Kakehashi Akihide’s Phenomenology of Matter” in Confronting Capital and Empire: Rethinking Kyoto School Philosophy, ed. Murthy, Schaefer, and Ward (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 229-262.

“Tanigawa Gan and the Poetics of the Origin” in positions: asia critique, vol. 25, no. 2 (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2017), 351-387.

“The ‘Ideal Total Capitalist’: On the State-Form in the Critique of Political Economy” in Crisis & Critique, special issue on The Critique of Political Economy, November 2016, 434-455.

“Challenging Abe’s Japan” in Jacobin, 13 November 2015. 

“Žižek with Marx: Outside in the Critique of Political Economy” in Repeating Žižek (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2015), 195-212.

“The Regime of Translation and the Figure of Politics” in Translation: A Transdisciplinary Journal, no. 4, special issue on “Politics” edited by Sandro Mezzadra and Naoki Sakai (Rimini: Raffaelli Editore, 2014), 30-52.

“Primitive Accumulation and the State-Form: National Debt as an Apparatus of Capture” in Viewpoint 4: The State, October 2014.

“The Reinvention of Communism: Politics, History, Globality” in South Atlantic Quarterly (113.4), special issue on Communist Currents, eds. Bruno Bosteels and Jodi Dean (Duke University Press, 2014), 671-685. 

“Filmic Materiality and Historical Materialism: Tosaka Jun and the Prosthetics of Sensation,” in Tosaka Jun: A Critical Reader, eds. Ken Kawashima, Fabian Schaefer, and Robert Stolz (Ithaca: Cornell East Asia Series, 2013), 218-254.

“The Absent Body of Labour Power: Uno Kōzō’s Logic of Capital” in Historical Materialism, vol. 21, no. 4, Autumn 2013 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 1-34. 

“Limits and Openings of the Party: A Reply to Jason E. Smith” in Theory and Event 16.4 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). 

“The Body of Politics: On the Concept of the Party” in Theory & Event 16.4 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013).

「政治経済（学）批判と国家形態―〈福祉〉と資本の慾動」『情況』思想理論編第二号（東京：情況出版、2013年６月別冊). “Seijikeizai(gaku) hihan to kokka keitai: <Fukushi> to shihon no yokudō” (The Critique of Political Economy and the State-Form: ‘Welfare’ and the Drive of Capital) in Jōkyō, supplemental volume no. 2 (Tokyo: Jōkyō Shuppan, June 2013), 119-140.

“Citizen-Subject and the National Question: On the Logic of Capital in Balibar” in Postmodern Culture, (22.3) special issue on the work of Étienne Balibar (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, May 2013).

“On Marxism’s Field of Operation: Badiou and the Critique of Political Economy” in Historical Materialism, vol. 20, no. 2, Summer 2012 (Leiden: Brill), 39-74.

「現代資本主義における「民族問題」の回帰―ポストコロニアル研究の新らたな政治的動向」『思想』（1059号）7月号2012年（東京：岩波書店）122－147頁. “Gendai shihonshugi ni okeru ‘minzoku mondai’ no kaiki: Posutokoroniaru kenkyū no aratana seijiteki dōkō” (“The Return of the National Question in Contemporary Capitalism: New Political Directions in Postcolonial Studies”) in Shisō, no. 1059, July 2012 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten), 122-147.

“The World of Principle, or Pure Capitalism: Exteriority and Suspension in Uno Kōzō” in The Journal of International Economic Studies, no. 26 (Tokyo: Hōsei University, Institute for Comparative Economic Studies, 2012), 15-37.

「資本の世界における〈街頭の事実〉―恐慌・国家・国債」『現代思想』2012年2月号、96－109頁. “Shihon no sekai ni okeru ‘gaitō no jijitsu’: Kyōkō, kokka, kokusai”(“The ‘Facts of the Streets’ in the World of Capital: Crisis, State, and the National Debt”) in Gendai shisō: Revue de la pensée d’aujourd’hui, no. 40-2 (Tokyo: Seidosha, February 2012), 96-109.

“The Dignity of Communism: Badiou’s Communist Hypothesis,” in Socialism and Democracy, vol. 25, no. 3 (London: Routledge, 2011), 130-139.

“Primitive Accumulation and the Formation of Difference: On Marx and Schmitt,” in Rethinking Marxism, vol. 23, no. 3 (London: Taylor & Francis, 2011), 384-404.

“Postcoloniality and the National Question in Marxist Historiography: Elements of the Debate on Japanese Capitalism,” in Interventions, vol. 13, no. 1 (London: Taylor & Francis, 2011), 120-137.

「資本のプロレタリア的零度―外部の政治的物理学」『政治経済学の政治哲学的復権―理論の理論的〈臨界‐外部〉にむけて』長原豊編（東京：法政大学出版局、2011年）351－390頁. “Shihon no puroretariateki reido: gaibu no seijiteki butsurigaku” (“Capital’s Proletarian Degree Zero: The Political Physics of the Outside”) in Seiji keizaigaku no seiji tetsugakuteki fukken: Riron no rironteki ‘rinkai-gaibu’ ni mukete (Political-Philosophical Resurrections of Political Economy: Towards the Theoretical Limit/Outside of Theory), ed. Nagahara Yutaka (Tokyo: Hōsei University Press, 2011), 351-390.

“Postcoloniality in Translation: Historicities of the Present,” in Postcolonial Studies, vol. 14, no. 1 (London: Taylor & Francis, 2011), 111-126.

「権力としての資本―政治的賭けと〈共〉の稀少性」『無理という閾と〈共〉の生産』〔下〕『情況』2010年10月号、185－203頁. “Kenryoku toshite no shihon: Seijiteki kake to kyō no kishōsei” (“Capital as Power: The Political Wager and the Rarity of the Commons”), Muri to iu iki to kyō no seisan (The Threshold of Excess [muri] and the Production of the Commons) Part 2, in Jōkyō, October 2010 (Tokyo: Jōkyō Shuppan, 2010), 185-203.

「資本の起源的閾―襞としての労働力」『無理という閾と〈共〉の生産』〔上〕『情況』2010年5月号、120-134頁. “Shihon no kigenteki iki: hida toshite no rōdōryoku” (“Capital’s Originary Threshold: Labor Power as Fold”), Muri to iu iki to kyō no seisan (The Threshold of Excess [muri] and the Production of the Commons) Part 1, in Jōkyō, May 2010 (Tokyo: Jōkyō Shuppan, 2010), 120-134.         

“The Double Scission of Mishima Yukio: Limits and Anxieties in the Autofictional Machine” in positions: east asia cultures critique 18: 1, Spring 2010 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 145-169.

------. “The Double Scission of Mishima Yukio: Limits and Anxieties in the Autofictional Machine,” reprinted in Perversion and Modern Japan: Psychoanalysis, Literature, Culture, eds. Nina Cornyetz and J. Keith Vincent (London: Routledge, 2010), 164-185.

“The Filmic Time of Coloniality: On Shinkai Makoto's The Place Promised in our Early Days,” in Mechademia 4: War/Time (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 3-18.

“On ‘the End’: Mishima Yukio and the Double Dislocation of Literature,” in Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies, vol. 9: Literature and Literary Theory, eds. Atsuko Ueda and Richard H. Okada (Summer 2008), 240-246.

 

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