Kevin B. Anderson (born 1948) is an American sociologist,
Marxist humanist
Marxist humanism is a philosophical and political movement that interprets Karl Marx's works through a humanist lens, focusing on human nature and the social conditions that best support human flourishing. Marxist humanists argue that Marx him ...
, author, and professor. Anderson is Professor of
Sociology
Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...
,
Political Science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...
and
Feminist studies
''Feminist Studies'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering women's studies that was established in 1972. It is an independent nonprofit publication housed at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. Besides scholarly artic ...
at
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...
, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He was previously Professor of Sociology at
Northern Illinois University
Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois, United States. It was founded as "Northern Illinois State Normal School" in 1895 by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld, initially to provide the state with c ...
, in DeKalb and Professor of Political Science, Sociology and Women's Studies at
Purdue University
Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...
.
Early life and education
Anderson attended
Tenafly High School
Tenafly High School is a four-year comprehensive community public high school in Tenafly in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, serving students in ninth through twelfth grades as the lone secondary school of the Tenafly Public Sc ...
in
Tenafly, New Jersey
Tenafly () is a borough in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 15,409, an increase of 921 (+6.4%) from the 2010 census count of 14,488, which in turn reflected an ...
and attained a BA degree in history from
Trinity College (Connecticut)
Trinity College is a private liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut, United States. Founded as Washington College in 1823, it is the second-oldest college in the state of Connecticut. Coeducational since 1969, the college enrolls 2,2 ...
and an MA degree and a PhD in sociology from the
City University of New York Graduate Center
The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public university, public research institution and post-graduate university, postgraduate university in New York City. Formed in 1961 as Divi ...
. His dissertation was on
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
's reception of
Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...
's
dialectics
Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the ...
, which was later published as ''Lenin, Hegel and Western Marxism'' from the
University of Illinois Press
The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois System. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, thirty-three scholarly journals, and several electroni ...
.
Career
He was involved in the international project of the complete works of
Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe
''Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe'' (''MEGA'') is the largest collection of the writing of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in any language. It is an ongoing project intended to produce a critical edition of the complete works of Marx and Engels that r ...
'') and working especially on Volume IV/27, which contains a significant amount of the late Marx's notebooks on non-Western and precapitalist societies.
He has also written widely on Marxist theory,
Michel Foucault
Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...
, the
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School is a school of thought in sociology and critical theory. It is associated with the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Institute for Social Research founded in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt am Main ...
, and contemporary developments in the U.S. and Europe. Anderson obtained
American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is a private, nonprofit federation of 75 scholarly organizations in the humanities and related social sciences founded in 1919. It is best known for its fellowship competitions which provide a ra ...
and International Erich Fromm Prize in 1996 and 2000 respectively, and
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
Collaborative Research Grant in 2001. He again received an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship in 2019.
His ''Erich Fromm and Critical Criminology'' (coedited with Richard Quinney) won the International Erich Fromm Prize from the International Erich Fromm Society in
Tübingen
Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
in 2000. More recently, his book ''Marx at the Margins'' won Paul Sweezy Book Award from the Marxist Section of the American Sociological Association in 2011. In addition, his ''Foucault and the Iranian Revolution'' co-authored with Janet Afary was awarded with the Latifeh Yarshater Award for the Best Book in Iranian Women's Studies in 2006.
In the American Sociological Association, he has also served as Chair of the Section on Marxist Sociology and of the Section on the History of Sociology and Social Thought, as a Council Member of the Sections on Theory and on the History of Sociology, and as a member of the
W. E. B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist.
Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relativel ...
Janet Afary
Janet Afary is an author, feminist activist and researcher of history, religious studies and women studies. She is a professor and the Mellichamp Chair in Global Religion and Modernity at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
Ca ...
, a fellow professor at UCSB.
Works
Monographs
*''Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism: A Critical Study.'' University of Illinois Press, 1995-07-01, . (translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Turkish)
*''Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies.'' University of Chicago Press, 2010, . (translated into Persian, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Turkish, and Japanese)
Book of Essays
* ''Dialectics of Revolution: Hegel, Marxism, and Its Critics Through a Lens of Race, Gender, and Colonialism''. Daraja Press, 2020, .
Co-authored books
* (translated into Turkish and Portuguese)
Books edited
*with Eric A. Plaut: ''Marx on Suicide.'' Northwestern University Press, 1999, .
*with Richard Quinney: ''Erich Fromm and Critical Criminology: Beyond the Punitive Society.'' University of Illinois Press, 1999, .
*with Peter Hudis: ''Raya Dunayevskaya: The Power of Negativity: Selected Writings on the Dialectic in Hegel and Marx.'' Lexington Books, 2002, .
*with Peter Hudis: ''The Rosa Luxemburg Reader.'' Monthly Review Press, 2004, .
*with Russell Rockwell: ''The Dunayevskaya-Marcuse-Fromm Correspondence, 1954–1978: Dialogues on Hegel, Marx, and Critical Theory.'' Lexington Books, 2012, .
*with Bertell Ollman: ''Karl Marx.'' Ashgate Pub Co, 2012, .
* with Kieran Durkin and Heather A. Brown: ''Raya Dunayevskaya's Intersectional Marxism: Race, Gender, Class, and the Dialectics of Liberation''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, .
See also
*
Marxist Humanism
Marxist humanism is a philosophical and political movement that interprets Karl Marx's works through a humanist lens, focusing on human nature and the social conditions that best support Eudaimonia, human flourishing. Marxist humanists argue th ...
*
Raya Dunayevskaya
Raya Dunayevskaya (born Raya Shpigel, ; May 1, 1910 – June 9, 1987), later Rae Spiegel, also known by the pseudonym Freddie Forest, was the American founder of the philosophy of Marxist humanism in the United States. At one time Leon Trotsky's ...