David Macey (5 October 1949 – 7 October 2011) was an English translator and intellectual historian of the French left. He translated around sixty books from French to English, and wrote biographical studies of

Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and pu ...

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...

and

Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have be ...

.Neil Belton
David Macey: His historical studies of philosophers won over French readers
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the G ...

'', 2 November 2011Neil Belton and Peter Osborne
David Macey, 1949–2011: Biographer of the French intellectual Left
''Radical Philosophy'' 171 (Jan/Feb 2012)John G. Taylor and Elaine Capizzi

''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

'', 12 November 2011.

Life

David Macey was born in

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the historic county of Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on the River Wear's mouth to the North Sea. The ri ...

and grew up in

Houghton-le-Spring Houghton-le-Spring ( ) is a town in the City of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, North East England which has its recorded origins in Norman times. Historically in County Durham, it is now administered as part of the Tyne and Wear county. It is ...

. His father was a miner who had been sent down the pit aged fourteen, and his mother a woman whose family had been unable to afford for her to take up a

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary sch ...

place. He was educated at Durham Johnston Grammar School and went on to read French at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

, where he wrote a PhD on Paul Nizan.David Macey, ''The work of Paul Nizan: a study in the influence of a political viewpoint on literary themes and structures'', PhD thesis, University College London, 1982. Interested in trying to link

Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectica ...

and

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...

, Macey became a prolific contributor to ''

Radical Philosophy ''Radical Philosophy'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal of critical theory and philosophy. It was established in 1972 with the purpose of providing a forum for the theoretical work which was emerging in the wake of the radical movement ...

''. From 1974 he taught part-time at

North London Polytechnic The University of North London (UNL) was a university in London, England, formed from the Polytechnic of North London (PNL) in 1992 when that institution was granted university status. PNL, in turn, had been formed by the amalgamation of the No ...

, UCL and

City University London City, University of London, is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, and a member institution of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1894 as the Northampton Institute, and became a university when The City Univ ...

. In 1975 he was a founding member of the British Campaign for an Independent

East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-wester ...

. After his partner Margaret Atack took a permanent post at

Leeds University , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , t ...

in 1981, Macey left academia to become a full-time writer and translator. Later, in 1995, he was appointed research associate in the French department of Leeds University; in 2010 he became special professor in translation at the

University of Nottingham , mottoeng = A city is built on wisdom , established = 1798 – teacher training college1881 – University College Nottingham1948 – university status , type = Public , chancellor ...

. Macey married Margaret Atack in 1988, and they adopted three children.

Selected works

Translations

* ''Jacques Lacan'' by Anika Lemaire, 1979. * ''Réponses: the autobiography of

Françoise Sagan Françoise Sagan (born Françoise Delphine Quoirez; 21 June 1935 – 24 September 2004) was a French playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. Sagan was known for works with strong romantic themes involving wealthy and disillusioned bourgeois chara ...

'', 1979. * ''The little mermaids: a novel'' by Yves Dangerfield, 1979. * ''Teachers, writers, celebrities: the intellectuals of modern France'' by

Régis Debray Jules Régis Debray (; born 2 September 1940) is a French philosopher, journalist, former government official and academic. He is known for his theorization of mediology, a critical theory of the long-term transmission of cultural meaning in h ...

, 1981. * ''Matisse: paper cutouts'', ext by Jean Guichard-Meili, 1983. * ''The sculpture of Henri Matisse'' by Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, 1984. * ''Colette: a passion for life'' by Geneviève Dormann, 1985. * ''From Taylorism to Fordism: a rational madness'' by Bernard Doray, 1988. * ''Democracy and political theory'' by

Claude Lefort Claude Lefort (; ; 21 April 1924 – 3 October 2010) was a French philosopher and activist. He was politically active by 1942 under the influence of his tutor, the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (whose posthumous publications Lefort lat ...

, 1988. * (tr. and ed.) ''New essays on narcissism'' by Béla Grunberger, 1989. * ''New foundations for psychoanalysis'' by

Jean Laplanche Jean Laplanche (; 21 June 1924 – 6 May 2012) was a French author, psychoanalyst and winemaker. Laplanche is best known for his work on psychosexual development and Sigmund Freud's seduction theory, and wrote more than a dozen books on p ...

, 1989. * ''The Soviet military system'' by Jacques Sapir, 1990 * '' Critique of Modernity'' by Alain Touraine, 1995. * ''Automatic discourse analysis'' by Michel Pêcheux, ed. Tony Hak and Niels Helsloot, 1995. * ''The object of literature'' by

Pierre Macherey Pierre Macherey (; born 17 February 1938, Belfort) is a French Marxist philosopher and literary critic at the University of Lille Nord de France. A former student of Louis Althusser and collaborator on the influential volume '' Reading Capital'' ...

, 1995 * (tr. and ed.) ''Lacan: a critical reader'' by

, 1995. * ''What is democracy?'' by Alain Touraine, 1997. * ''Can we live together? Equality and difference'' by Alain Touraine, 2000. * ''Society must be defended: lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–76'' by

, ed. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana, New York: Picador, 2003 * ''Suicide bombers: Allah's new martyrs'' by Farhad Khosrokhavar, 2005 * ''The suffering of the immigrant'' by Abdelmalek Sayad, with a preface by

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence i ...

, 2007. * ''Psychoanalysis: its image and its public'' by

Serge Moscovici Serge Moscovici (June 14, 1925 in Brăila, Romania as ''Srul Herş Moscovici'' – November 15, 2014 in Paris) was a Romanian-born French social psychologist, director of the '' Laboratoire Européen de Psychologie Sociale'' ("European Laborator ...

, ed. with an introduction by Gerard Duveen, 2008. * ''Suicide: the hidden side of modernity'' by Christian Baudelot and Roger Establet, 2008. * ''The Single Woman and the Fairy-Tale Prince'' by Jean-Claude Kauffmann, 2008. * ''Resilience'' by

Boris Cyrulnik Boris Cyrulnik (birth 26 July 1937 in Bordeaux) is a French doctor, ethologist, neurologist, and psychiatrist. As a Jewish child during World War II, he was entrusted to a foster family for his own protection. In 1943 he was taken with adults i ...

, 2009. * ''Violence'' by

Michel Wieviorka Michel Wieviorka (born 23 August 1946, Paris) is a French sociologist, noted for his work on violence, terrorism, racism, social movements and the theory of social change. He was the 16th president of International Sociological Association (20 ...

, 2009. * (tr. with Steve Corcoran) ''The communist hypothesis'', 2010 * ''The meaning of cooking'' by Jean-Claude Kaufmann, 2010. * ''The curious history of love'' by Jean-Claude Kaufmann, 2011 * ''Love online'' by Jean-Claude Kaufmann, 2012 * ''Emile Durkheim: a biography'' by Marcel Fournier, 2013

Other works

* ''Lacan in Contexts'', London: Verso, 1988. * ''The Lives of Michel Foucault'', London: Hutchinson, 1993; NY: Pantheon, 1993. * Introduction to ''The four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis'' by

, tr.

Alan Sheridan Alan Sheridan (1934 - 2015) was an English author and translator. Life Born Alan Mark Sheridan-Smith, Sheridan studied English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge before spending 5 years in Paris as English assistant at Lycée Henri IV and Lyc ...

, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994. * ''Frantz Fanon: A Life'', London: Granta, 2000. * ''The Penguin dictionary of critical theory'', London: Penguin, 2000.

References

External links

Interview with David Macey on Fanon, Foucault and Race
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macey, David 1949 births 2011 deaths French–English translators English translators French historians of philosophy Translators of Jacques Lacan English biographers