Joshua Clover (December 30, 1962 – April 26, 2025) was an American poet, writer, professor of English and comparative literature at the
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...
, and revolutionary.
Clover was a published scholar, poet, critic, and journalist whose work has been translated into more than a dozen languages; his scholarship on the political economy of riots has been widely influential in political theory. He appeared in three editions of ''
The Best American Poetry'' and two times in ''
Best Music Writing'', and received an individual grant from the
NEA as well as fellowships from the Cornell Society for the Humanities, the
University of California Humanities Research Institute, and Institute of Advanced Study,
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...
. His first book of poetry, ''Madonna anno domini,'' received the
Walt Whitman Award from the
Academy of American Poets in 1996.
Background
Born in San Francisco California, a graduate of
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...
and the
Iowa Writers' Workshop
The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a graduate-level creative writing program. At 89 years, it is the oldest writing program offering a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in the United States. Its acceptance rate is between 2 ...
, Clover was a professor of
English Literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...
and
Comparative Literature
Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...
at the University of California, Davis, and was the distinguished Holloway poet-in-residence at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
in 2002–2003.
Clover's given name at birth was Joshua Miller Kaplan but via legal change he took his mother's maiden name. His mother,
Carol J. Clover, is the originator of the
final girl theory in a book on horror films and a professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley.
Clover died on April 26, 2025, at the age of 62. The Marxist Institute for Research announced his death.
Scholarship
Clover's scholarly books in addition to many articles and book chapters have all in various ways considered changes to daily life, work, politics, and social struggle since the Sixties. Originally studying poetry, music, and film, he focused since the 2008 economic crisis directly on political-economic matters. Basic concerns include the array of changes wrought by deindustrialization in the west, the decline of the United States empire and the future of global capitalism. Particular focuses run from the rise of office work to the nature of financialization, from the world after the end of the Soviet project to the transformations of social movements, all considered within the framework of Marxist value theory, with a particular interest in racialized regimes of power and struggle against state and capital. ''Riot.Strike.Riot: the New Era of Uprisings'', a widely cited study translated into five languages other than English, "offers a decidedly materialist theory of the riot and sketches a unique history of the return of the riot to the center of social struggles"; the ''Chicago Tribune'' called it "timely and audacious."
In addition to his scholarship he was a journalist since the Nineties. He contributed columns, often on popular culture and politics, to various journals, including the column "Pop and Circumstance" for ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
'' and "Marx and Coca-Cola" for ''
Film Quarterly
''Film Quarterly'' (FQ), published by University of California Press, is a journal devoted to the study of film, television, and visual media. When FQ was launched in 1945 (then called ''Hollywood Quarterly''), it was considered "the first serious ...
''. He was a senior writer and editor at ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...
'' and ''
Spin''. He contributed to ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', the ''
Los Angeles Review of Books
The ''Los Angeles Review of Books'' (''LARB'' is a literary review magazine covering the national and international book scenes. A preview version launched on Tumblr in April 2011, and the official website followed one year later in April 201 ...
'', and many other venues, sometimes under the name "Jane Dark."
Poetry
Clover published three volumes of poetry in addition to shorter works for which he won various prizes and fellowships; poems have been anthologized in multiple volumes and languages, including the ''Norton Introduction to Literature'' (10th edition, 2009). His poetry often concerns the life of great cities and the twilight character of late modernity, particularly the way it is entangled with the products of overdeveloped capitalism (especially the pleasures of popular music) and how we will have to forsake all of those pleasures for our freedom.
Judith Butler
Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American feminist philosopher and gender studies scholar whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory.
In ...
has written that " In this brilliant volume, the fragmented world of a late and lost modernity has its own moving and lucid affect, its forms of aliveness." Increasingly his work concerned direct political struggle; as one reviewer noted, "Few books, let alone books of poetry, arrive boasting a blurb from ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...
'' while simultaneously, and aggressively, declaring the attempt to establish a Marxist lyric praxis." Clover has also translated poetry from the Dutch and French, including the book ''Tarnac: A Preparatory Act,'' by Jean-Marie Gleize.
He was a co-founder, along with Jasper Bernes and
Juliana Spahr
Juliana Spahr (born 1966) is an Americans, American poet, literary criticism, critic, and editing, editor. She is the recipient of the 2009 O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize, Hardison Poetry Prize awarded by the Folger Shakespeare Library to honor ...
, of the poetry press Commune Editions. In 2020, the press was awarded the
American Book Award as the best publisher in the United States.
Political work
Clover wrote extensively about the campus movements against
tuition increases and
student debt, about the
Occupy movement
The Occupy movement was an international populist Social movement, socio-political movement that expressed opposition to Social equality, social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of real democracy around the world. It aimed primar ...
, and about
free speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognise ...
and policing both on and off the university campus. In January 2012, he and eleven students at the
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...
, engaged in a sit-in to protest the financial arrangements between U.S. Bank and the university, permanently closing the bank branch along with ending the university's particular arrangements with the bank. The protesters, who became known as the "Davis Dozen," were charged with "obstructing movement in a public place and conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor." One month before the trial was scheduled to begin, the Davis Dozen accepted a plea deal from the Yolo County District Attorney. Under the terms of that agreement, the protesters received an infraction notice ticket and agreed to perform 80 hours of community service.
Controversy
Nick Irvin, in a February 2019 opinion piece for ''
The California Aggie'', drew attention to published comments by Clover suggesting he was in favor of killing police.
Among them was the September 2015
''SFWeekly'' interview statement by Clover: "People think that cops need to be reformed. They need to be killed." Clover also was reported by
CBS Sacramento to have
tweeted in November 2014 "I am thankful that every living cop will one day be dead, some by their own hand, some by others, too many of old age", and in December of that year "it’s easier to shoot cops when their backs are turned".
In response to all media requests for comment, Clover said only, "On the day that police have as much to fear from literature professors as Black kids do from police, I will definitely have a statement. Until then, I have nothing further to add." In March 2019 California State Assemblyman
James Gallagher gathered over 10,000 signatures on a petition calling for Clover to be fired. UC Davis Chancellor
Gary May replied in a letter to Gallagher that "Professor Clover’s statements, although offensive and abhorrent, do not meet the legal requirement for 'true threats' that might exempt them from First Amendment protection. . . . Accordingly, the university will not proceed with review or investigation of concerns regarding Professor Clover’s public statements."
Books
*
*''The Matrix'' (British Film Institute, 2004), 128 pp.
*
*
*''Red Epic''. Commune Editions, Oakland 2015
*
Riot. Strike. Riot: The New Era of Uprisings'. Verso, London & Brooklyn 2016
*
Roadrunner'. Duke University Press, Durham 2021.
References
External links
UC Davis homepageAmerican Academy of Poets profileVideo of Clover reading at Bowery Poetry Club in New York, 2006Joshua Clover at Davis Wiki*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clover, Joshua
1962 births
2025 deaths
American male poets
Roberta C. Holloway Lecturer in the Practice of Poetry
Boston University alumni
Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
University of California, Davis faculty
Writers from Berkeley, California
Journalists from California
American male non-fiction writers
21st-century American poets
Criticism of law enforcement
21st-century American male writers